PD Sabre2 Pro Pack by Nick Grillet - Part 1 of 3

Nick Grillet of Performance Designs pro-packing a Sabre2 135. If you have any questions about the content in this video, please contact PD via email at [e-mail]

I'm Nick Grillet. I'm going to show you guys how I pack a Sabre 2.

Pretty much the same pack job whether it's the Sabre 2, Stiletto...

anything made by Precision, Icarus, PD, Aerodyne...you name it. Pretty much pack everything the same.

First thing that I do, I like to weight down the rig.

One of the important things is to have proper line tension during the pack job.

I've got my weight here on the risers.

Whether you're packing in a hanger, or on grass, tarp...

figure out a way that you can secure the rig so that you can get some good tension on those lines

to keep 'em straight.

Start by picking the steering lines up and laying them on my index finger.

And then grabbing those rear risers in between my index finger and my middle finger.

And in between my middle finger and my ring finger I pick up those front risers,

and I walk up the lines. It's basically a continuity check.

It allows me to make sure that the jumper - if it wasn't me -

didn't flip through the lines or anything on landing.

So I give it a quick check, make sure the steering lines are clear - which they are.

The C's and D's - which they are - and the A's and B's.

Then I throw it over my shoulder.

It's comfortable for me to throw it over my shoulder as opposed to just holding with my hand.

It's all personal preference.

First thing that I do is grab the C's and D's and A's and B's and give the canopy a good shake left to right.

It's essentially the same thing as if you were to start on the ground and do a flat pack.

What it allows for is the canopy to lay flat instead of being bunched up...

from any air that might be in the canopy, or any wind that may be out there...

that this jumper was struggling with while he was picking up his canopy.

So, once I do that, I'm just going to go...I'm going to start and do a normal flake job just like anything else.

Sabre 2 happens to be a nine-cell, so there should be nine of these cells that I'm going to count out.

Not too concerned about where the cell's gonna place when I'm actually flaking.

I'm more concerned about the line attachment points here.

Up here by the slider. Those are what I really want to have equal.

So, I'm just going to go through...one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine.

Flatten those out a little bit, get some air out.

I can see that all these line attachment points look good. They're in place,

so that I know that the canopy is going to be easy for me to pack.

I secure it between my legs - again personal preference.

Some people don't even secure the nose.

I find especially starting packing up. So, starting packing...

Uh, it's easier to keep stuff under control that way.

I'm just going to lift up this slider, and I'm going to...

There's a pocket that's kind of created, between the A line and the B lines.

I think everybody has learned from any packing class that they've taken...

that the canopy goes - the canopy material goes to the outside, the lines go to the centre.

I'm looking through here and seeing that my line attachment points are pretty much lining up,

and that's what I'm trying to achieve.

So I work my way through the pack job, pushing the material to the outside,

keeping those lines to the inside.

Helps because I have longer arms. Move down to the stabiliser and these steering lines.

I'm not going to mess with them right now. I'm basically just going to clear them out of the way.

Get every last one of them in line.

Because it's a nine-cell there's five lines here.

Line attachment points that I need to deal with.

Stow that there for now.

This just gives you a better idea of what it looks like from the packer's point of view.

So, as I reach my hand down in there you can see there's all these line attachment points.

Are pretty much in line. I'm just going to reach my hand into that open fabric here.

Push the canopy fabric to the outside while trying to keep these line attachment points to the centre.

I'd really like to have these line up as best as possible.

I just put my hand on the outside to lay those nice and flat.

We look into the next one here.

And we can see where all that material is. We know exactly where we're going to put our hand.

We can see the line attachment points. Gonna put my hand in there.

This is why I put my hand on the top side on the outside of the pack job.

It helps me keep those line attachment points in place.

And if we just pull that stabiliser off to the side a bit, you can see that everything's nice and neat in there.

Once we go further on it gets a little more challenging,

because the...any taper that may occur. Any elliptical ...

These are the steering lines. I'm not worried about them; I'm just getting them out of the way.

Here's four. Those are the really easy ones to find.

This fifth one is over here, hidden, on the stabiliser itself.

Want to make sure that we find that every time.

Grab all of those together. I like to just keep my hand on the five line attachment points while I do this.

And I go back. Material's to the outside. All these line attachment points are towards the centre of the canopy.

Then I straighten out those steering lines.

Everything is good here. These are all in line.

I'm just going to lay the stabiliser on top. If you have snaps on your canopy this is where you'd connect those.

And then I just allow that slider to go back into position.

As I work the other side.

That's basically one side. I'm going to do the exact same thing to the other side now.

Kind of pull up that slider grommet so that I can see in there.

Material goes to the outside of the canopy. I keep my hand on here to keep those line attachment points to the centre.

And again I work my way through the canopy. Like so.

You notice I'm kind of leaning away from the rig. I'm keeping the line tension.

I want to make sure that there's not any slack in my lines.

It's very important.

These are the steering lines. Just gonna take those out to the side.

So, basically I've done the flaking that I need to do.

Doesn't take too long. Fabric to the outside. Line attachment points to the centre.

Now, a couple of very important things that need to take place.

I need to make sure that my slider grommets are all the way down on the stops.

If they're up here and I'm starting to roll the tail up, there's a good chance that

I'm going to experience a hard opening becaues the sliders aren't in position.

You see a lot of people pull a slider out here and make a pocket in the lip.

All that does is when you pull the slider that direction - whether it's toward the tail of the canopy...

or towards the nose of the canopy - you end up taking some of the slider away from the sides here,

and whichever direction you're pulling it from.

So if I'm pulling it towards the nose, I'm pulling it away from the tail and from each side.

The best thing that you could do is take your index finger and push it straight down in between that slider...

until you feel some tension on that. That ensures that your grommets are down all the way,

and that your slider's pretty much in position.

After that I just kind of clean it up a bit, and make sure that there's equal parts left to right, nose to tail.

Also, while I'm here, I can see if my risers are straight. If my grommets are lined up, I know my risers are straight.

If my grommets are offset, I know there's something going on behind me.

I don't need to turn around and look to fix it.

I can just do whatever I need to do to straighten it right here at the slider.

Once everything's in position, I'm going to go through one more time,

and just make sure that this nose hasn't got tucked awry, or pushed in or anything.

I don't do anything to the nose. I leave it just like that.

Some people push it in. That's fine if that's the opening that you desire.

Some people roll it. For starting out - for teaching people how to pack - I don't do anything.

Once you have your canopy, and you're making the jumps on your canopy

if you wanna experiment with your pack job, see what makes a difference...

and try to find an opening that you like the best, go for it...

but know that we've done a lot of testing as well - individual skydivers, and everything else,

and we've found that keeping the nose straight gives us the most consistent opening.