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Last week’s “Rant” on Vectran/HMA lines received the most response of any article in the last year. At the bottom of this page is last week’s article that focused on the need of manufacturers to develop a stronger and more durable brake line. Many jumpers felt that the solution resides on the individual skydiver’s responsibility to inspect canopies with Vectran/HMA more closely for wear. “It is a choice we make to jump these high(er) performance canopies, and unfortunately I witness many jumpers not taking the responsibility for monitoring the wear and tear their gear takes,” wrote J.P. Furnari, manager of Action Air Parachutes. “Paying a rigger to replace lower control lines every 200-400 jumps is cheap insurance. If any jumper thinks that this is a task that they should not have to deal with, I would be happy to order them a 7-cell canopy of their choice with a Dacron lineset. Not all of the responsibility should be shouldered by the manufactures in this case.” One jumper spoke of a fatality in Australia due to a Vectran steering line that broke. “The instructor had his canopy relined several months before the incident and the failure of the Vectran steering lines due to the rapid wear was THE cause of his death,” the jumper wrote. “The investigating area safety officer made the usual fatality report but basically blamed it on the instructor and his lack of maintenance.” Martin Evans of Sky-Eye Skydiving Services responded, “I, as one who has Vectran lines on my canopies am grateful for your post, it's one more piece of information to remind me to remain ever vigilant (even so that may not be enough, we are playing dangerous games)!” One thing we want to make clear is that replacing just the lowers does not solve the problem. Make sure your rigger replaces the middle and lower portions. The cateye, which takes the brunt of the wear, is connected to the middle portion of the brake line and must be replaced too.

One of the most interesting responses to last week’s “Rant” on Vectran/HMA brake lines came from Atair Aerodynamics engineer Dan Preston. Atair manufacturers the Cobalt line of canopies as well as the Onyx, Ruby, Indigo and Troll. “As a manufacturer I choose not to provide Vectran and HMA lines on our sport canopies,” Dan wrote. “Reasons being: most jumpers unfortunately do not inspect and care for their lines suitably; [Vectran/HMA] line materials are more difficult to inspect as you are looking for microfilament fracturing; most jumpers will not change their lines at 300 or 400 jumps (what ever specified by the manufacturer); and they will simply say it will be fine for a couple more jumps, or I'll send it back after the Nationals...etc.” What is further interesting about Atair’s manufacturing process is that the company says it builds its canopies actually out of trim (due to Spectra’s shrinkage), so the canopy actually comes into trim during normal wear and jumping between 40 and 100 jumps. “Like any other material Spectra has its pros and cons,” says Dan. “The job of a good designer is to design on the strengths and around the weakness of a material. Our solution: design a canopy that is relatively insensitive to lines being out of trim, one not being prone to collapsing or becoming twitchy. Additionally, we manufacture our Cobalts with the lines slightly out of trim. A brand new Cobalt is actually slightly out of trim. We count on the predictable dimensional change of the Spectra to put the canopy into better trim after about 40-100 jumps. In this way the canopy remains in a more consistent trim for the life of the lines.” Cobalts have recently become more popular at Atlanta Skydiving Center as 3 jumpers have ordered or purchased Cobalts in the last two months even though it’s a canopy we have not promoted in the past. That will likely change as we continue to evaluate the performance and Atair’s claims.