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I have a story along these lines from when I worked at Para-Flite. Someone took a Strato-Star to Dave Dewolf to have some work done on it. Dave deemed it not airworthy when the owner didn't want to spend the money on it to fix it. Dave returned it with not airworthy tags on it.. The person jumped it unrepaired and broke his femur he sued Dave and Para-Flite. There was no doubt we would win the case the insurance company decided to settle as the case was picking jurors. Shortly there after insurance disappeared. The insurance company caused immense damage to all manufacturers.

Look in the left or right end cell for a stamp with the serial number and date of manufacture.

Dick Morgan at ParaFlite. He Built a bag for my Strato Cloud several years earlier with a stow pocket shortly before free packing.

If I remember correctly the Safety Flyer was released to the public in 1978 and the Swift 5 cell reserve was early 1980s maybe April 1981. It was when the first Space Shuttle was launched as I was in Deland putting the finishing touches on the Harness and container and I got to see the shuttle from 10,000 feet and couple of days later the Swift System was introduced at the Easter boogie at Z-Hillz! The Handbury rig I had a problem with was one of the first one he built for square reserves and I carried it back from the 1979 Nationals at Richmond IN.

It had 4 risers and was setup by Jim for the safety Flyer reserve. The loop did not come from the bottom of the container.

It was a Safety Flyer packed per Para-Flite instructions as I worked at PFI. The malfunction was Handbury used a bridge for the PC bridle of I believe was made of 1" Type 4 instead of running the on the horizontal backstrap. The handle somehow got between the bridge and backstrap. So it was a terminal opening.

The riser covers had velcro on the underside of the harness and this was with a square reserve. With the the main in the container the harness was tight and pinched the covers closed.

The fact that Mr. Fradet is not objective and he has not recused himself from investigating, his bosses need to know he is using his position to Slander one of the most knowledgeable trustworthy people on parachute equipment in public for private gain. I in fact had an issue with riser covers on a Handbury rig years ago that did not release on a totaled main it did not cause any injuries and was just a nuisance easily felt with. Mr. Fradet you have no credibility in this issue!

This needs to be taken with a grain of salt as he has an axe to grind with R.I. If someone else had spotted an issue it would have more merit. Just my 2 cents!

This is so sad! A great guy!

There are many things, some have been mentioned here. A few others are airfoil, the area of trailing edge being controlled and any preload on the steering lines.

Just remember a drogue will not stop an out of sequence opening and infact may cause them. I believe out of sequence opening are the real problem!

We did it at Para-Flite in the 1980s I did the testing on several canopies I don't remember the results any more.

What troubles me is canopy opening distances today are hundreds of feet longer than in the past and some are killing people. The shape of the deceleration is important. At Para-Flite we had firm but consistent openings. I don't believe any reserve currently manufactured really meet the opening requirement of the TSO! I believe every manufacturer fudges the numbers. The reason most likely is the canopy cannot with stand the openings without destruction on the high speed test thus slowing deployments on cutaways the most common type of malfunction. Some of the requirements for militaries of various countries mandated documented drop tests with openings from 400' with zero airspeed. I don't think there are many current canopies if any that can meet that spec. Also we drop tested and TSO'd every size canopy in a family as opening characteristics are different and I'll guarentee most manufacturers only test one size and claim it is a minor modification (it is not) some even are using a TSO from an earlier canopy and saying it is a small modification. If the FAA ever looked into it most reserves would be grounded (it was a dirty little secret)! We made zero P canopies and didn't have a problem. There quite a number of proprietary design concepts to control the openings that I can tell a lot of manufacturers have no Idea what is going on. Let me throw this out there. A major manufacturer swore that the nose angle is what made hard opening canopies. The nose angle has very little to do with it. At Para-Flite we did so much R&D work to understand what happens.

We used to roll pack the canopy and there was a strap sewn to the canopy on one of the Vee tapes for the B lines on the rib. You would roll the canopy then fold the lower portion and close the strap with one line stow and the rest of the lines were coiled in the container. It was important that the fold would open the strap after the line stow was released or you would have a streamer. I no longer have the instructions or I would post them. This was discontinued after a few people had lines grab one of the flaps. Using it with a d-bag would eliminate that problem. Dick Morgan invented the strap in the mid to late 1970's.