June 1, 1994

To: George Galloway and past & present employees of Precision Aerodynamics, Inc.
From: Larry Shumard, Owner/Operator of Snake River Skydiving, Star, Utah

I am fortunate that I had been able to make 129 jumps in the past year, so I was relatively current when this mishap occurred. I had transitioned from an RW jumpsuit to a camera suit about 10 jumps ago, and I was enjoying the new versatility afforded by the extra wing area.

I was in the middle of my second camera dive of the day with a tandem pair, and everything had gone smoothly, but I was not aware that the right wing of my new camera suit had worked loose at the hip buckle.

After the tandem folks pulled, I turned 180 degrees and reached for my pilot chute. I pulled the pilot chute right back through the wing hole, where I promptly released it! Not Good!!

I immediately knew what had happened when I ended up on my side, tumbling and spinning in an extreme manner! I saw the pilot chute dangling above me about four feet, and I caught a glimpse of my still-closed deployment bag whip passed my right side. Because it was a tandem dive, I was still much higher than I would have been on a regular RW dive. It's good I had a little extra altitude, because I was still on my side, spinning heavily as I reached for the handles.

Cutaway and reserve pulls were remarkably clean, though I fully expected to see my main entangle with my deploying reserve. I watched every moment of my reserve deployment, and I got the whole thing on video! The drag of the deployment bag after the cutaway pulled the pilot chute back through the wing hole of the camera suit. I absolutely knew I was going to have my main stuck in my reserve! Not so!

The Raven reserve opened so fast, the main didn't have a chance to give me any trouble. Needless to say, I was astonished! I was in the saddle by 1900'. I made a wrap on each brake line and did a beautiful stand-up 20' from the peas.

I am enclosing the video, but be forewarned, sit down before you watch it! It's ugly!!

Thanks for making a great reserve, and rest assured, when any of our students ask me about reserves, "Super Raven from Precision Aerodynamics" will be the first words out of my mouth!

Larry Shumard
Snake River Skydiving