Larry Haftl.com
PRODUCT REVIEW: FS-14 Parachute
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The spotter gives the signal and you stand up, tighten your leg straps, make sure your harness is tight, hook your static line to the jump cable, and step to the door of the airplane.
You take a quick look at the fire 1,500 feet below as the spotter gives you the wind drift, shows you the landing zone and points out possible hazards. You talk to your partner about which side of the landing zone each of you is heading for, and then wait for the plane to make its final approach. The spotter finally gives you the slap and out you go. Four seconds later the canopy of your parachute pops fully open. You look up to make sure your canopy is clear, check to see that your partner is OK, check your parachute again to make sure there are no malfunctions, check your partner again, and then you spend the next 60 to 70 seconds maneuvering to a safe landing.
Thanks to a new parachute design those maneuvers will be quicker and more stable than ever before. The new parachute also gives you a little more time to turn, adjust for wind shifts, or make avoidance moves if you get too close to hazards or your partner. This year all USDA Forest Service smokejumpers will be using the new FS-14 parachute exclusively.
Work on the new design began in 1992 when the Forest Service's Washington Office of Fire & Aviation Management asked the Missoula Technology & Development Center (MTDC) to develop an improved smokejumper parachute canopy. MTDC selected Quantum Parachutes, Inc., of Woodland, California, to do a "concept study," and eventually awarded Quantum a development and test contract.
In the past, the smokejumper program was limited to substituting new materials in existing military or commercial canopy designs and then applying "cut-and-try" methods to find workable steering modifications. Quantum's chief design engineer. Bill Gargano, used state-of-the-art computer-aided engineering for design work, and sophisticated electronic instrumentation for testing. This enabled him to develop an entirely new and optimum canopy, and to accurately measure canopy performance during testing.
A limited number of prototype canopies were evaluated during the 1994 season, and an intensive evaluation was done in January, 1995, at Silver City, New Mexico. Smokejumpers representing all Forest Service smokejumping units made approximately 120 evaluation jumps, and in the end all agreed that the FS-14 canopy should replace the FS-12 model then in use.
When the first of the FS-14s were put into service in early 1996, a malfunction occurred on one of the jumps. It corrected itself before the jumper got to the ground, and might have gone unnoticed except that one of the smokejumpers captured it on videotape. The USFS halted further use of the FS-14 until the MTDC could find out what caused the malfunction and how it could be prevented. A series of tests that summer using dummies dropped from 500 feet and filmed with a high-speed 200-frames-per-second camera finally captured the malfunction on film. But even with the videotape and film it was difficult to identify the cause of the problem.
"We sent it out to the Army and Air Force, to a lot of companies that build parachutes," said Jim Kautz, audio-visual production specialist at MTDC, "and nobody had seen it before. Nobody had an idea of what was going on." The film showed that on opening, part of the edge of the canopy wallowed back and forth for a bit and then it snapped and finished opening. Steering lines were broken and fabric torn, but it was still difficult to identify what was going on. Finally, MTDC realized that there had to be a line strangulating part of the canopy like a line around a garbage bag. When pressure on the line got high enough the line broke or tore out of the canopy and then the canopy finished opening. It only took a second or two. MTDC recognized that sometimes some of the canopy fabric was going between the suspension lines and the steering lines, and it was a steering line that got looped over and held the fabric.
Round chutes today have 18 inches of volleyball netting around the lower skirt of the canopy to prevent the fabric from going between the suspension lines. "When the netting was put around the chutes years ago our malfunction rate went to zero," said Kautz. "To fix this new problem we added two diagonal lines from the steering lines to the suspension lines and the effect was the same. No more malfunctions."
When the cause of the malfunction was finally identified, some of the jumpers said, "You know, over the years on the FS-12 we would get one in and all the steering lines were just ripped out and guys complained about slow openings. We could never figure that out." It's possible that the same problem occurred on the FS-12 but nobody ever identified it - nobody ever saw it as it was happening. It's not a catastrophic problem. You still get down, but you may lose your steering or get a slow opening. All FS-14s now have the additional lines, and further tests proved that the problem is solved.
The average smokejumper weighs approximately 170 pounds and carries 70 pounds of gear. Heavier jumpers will benefit the most from the FS-14 because, unlike previous parachutes, it comes with three different canopy sizes: 28-foot, 30-foot, and 32-foot diameter. The larger canopies will give heavier jumpers a slower descent, and the smaller canopies will give lighter jumpers more forward speed.
All jumpers will benefit from the FS-14's faster turns, better braking system, 10 percent slower descent rate, and better stability. "On the FS-12 you got fairly unstable when you made a turn," said Mike Brick, loft foreman at the Redmond, Ore., smokejumper base. "You'd swing out from underneath the canopy. The FS-14 doesn't. You stay in the same position and it turns flat circular. When you make a turn you don't get disoriented." Unlike the FS-12, which had three different materials in the canopy, the FS-14 uses only one material and has a lower profile. This combination pushes the air out along the canopy skirt evenly and makes the parachute more stable.
The FS-14 is the first model to have a cascaded dynamic braking system. You slow the forward speed of a parachute by pressing down on both steering lines, or toggles, at the same time. "On the FS-12 you could only pull down to about your lower chest or bellybutton," said Brick. "If you pulled down any lower than that you just distorted the canopy and increased your descent rate. On the FS-14 you can pull down farther and bleed off more forward speed." Paul Pieldhouse, a squad leader at the Missoula, Mont., smokejumper base, noted that hands must be held much lower on the FS-14 than the FS-12 to get the same braking effect. "This raises some concern," said Fieldhouse, "because the lowered arm positions might increase the possibility of wrist or arm injuries."
Brick acknowledged that concern, but noted that most injuries are to lower legs and ankles. "The lowered arm position is a concern, but we haven't jumped this parachute enough to really know. Not many jumpers have used it a lot, so they have all sorts of concerns. It's going to take a couple of years for everybody to get dialed in on this new chute and what its braking mode does. There's no doubt that the PS-14 has proven itself just in the minimal number of jumps we've gotten. We jumped just last week in eight- to twelve-mile winds, and we weren't going backwards. We were coming straight down, and most people had softer than normal landings, where on the FS-12 you would have been going backwards and slamming your head. I've jumped for 22 years, and this is by far the best canopy I've ever jumped as far as descent rates and turning and stability and the stuff you like."
Fieldhouse agreed when he said, "I'd go with the FS-14 even if I didn't have to."
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The following was a letter to the editor about this product review that appeared in the September, 1997 issue of Wildland Firefighter Magazine. To the Editor: As a former smoke jumper I applaud the excellent article "A New Parachute for Smokejumpers," June, 1997. Larry Haftl brings to life the leap from an airplane and the seconds a jumper devotes to checking his canopy and orienting himself to the jump spot. His description of the process required to perfect the new FS-14s is informative and confidence-building. His anecdotal accounts of jumps with both old and new 'chutes makes us old jumpers understand how safety and comfort rule the lives of today's jumpers. Mostly his article makes me want to jump one more time, on a hot, turbulent afternoon following a lightning storm, into unfamiliar territory at high elevation. That is the definitive experience for smokejumping! John Blackwell, President World Forestry Center Portland, Oregon
Copyright © 2003 Larry Haftl |