The Secret to Pilot Chute Packing

Brian Germain shares a better way to pack your parachute's pilot chute.

Hey, I'm Brian Germain, and I wanted to share with everybody

a pilot-chute packing method that might actually

change the way you think about packing your pilot chute.

I know what you're thinking. What's the difference, right?

I wad it up. As long as it fits in there, and it extracts nicely enough

that I don't hurt my shoulder when I clear the pilot chute,

you know or get a hard pull. What's the difference?

Well, here's the difference.

We can on occasion, get an out-of-sequence deployment,

in which the deployment pin gets extracted

or the closing loop breaks during a freefall,

or maybe as we're climbing out of the airplane

and now we've got ourselves what's called a "horseshoe malfunction." Right?

The idea is that the parachute goes, but

we did not put the pilot chute out there, and so therefore

it may get stuck in the pouch,

in which case I would now cut away, dump my reserve,

and my stuff would still be attached to it

my main would still be attached to me and my pouch.

So there's a pretty good chance of actually having an entanglement,

a main-and-reserve entanglement.

So to help prevent that, we need to pack the pilot chute

in a manner that allows us to extract it by the handle,

and by the bridle itself,

in the event that things leave in an order that we didn't originally plan on.

So this particular method allows the bridle to extract very nicely

and then the bridle can pull the pilot chute out

So now I don't actually have to reach back and throw the pilot chute in those cases.

And if I do, it's still going to be extractable.

But there are many methods that actually prevent this from happening.

One method involves -- and I'm going to do kind of a very quick and rough job here to get the idea across--

The bridle exiting the bottom of the pilot chute.

If I put the bridle in this way, what happens then is

this will turn sideways in the event that the bridle tries to extract the pilot chute.

And it may jam up in there.

And especially if I've got a very strong spandex pouch,

or a Cordora pouch as some of the manufacturers use,

there's a pretty good chance of a lock in there indefinitely.

And by indefinitely I mean the rest of the way. All right?

So we have to make sure that first of all

this bridle extracts in a manner that allows it to all

leave without turning things sideways.

But we also have to make sure that the bridle reaches the end here

and does not bunch the pilot chute up.

So this particular method--and it's not the only method that accomplishes this goal--

it's the one I use because I know it works.

And I've been using it for over 20 years

and I've had numerous people come to me and say

"Brian, thank you. That's totally saved my life."

I love that feeling.

So here's the drill.

A little bit of space.

If I lay the pilot chute on its back

If I lift from the bridle attachment, and

then I bring the edge of the pilot chute down

to where the skirt meets the mesh

and then I cut it in half, so I've created a half-moon shape.

So let's do that one more time.

I going to lift the bridle, and I'm going to

close it up, and everything else can be pretty standard.

This is a very common method, to cut it in thirds first

and then bring the bottom up.

So from here, if I was to just roll this thing up,

just from here, what happens then is that this extracts

Freaky (?)

So let's do it again.

I'm going to lay it on its back.

And now I'm going to lift, close, cut it in thirds,

cut it in half by lifting the bottom up.

And you'll see why I bring the bottom up and not the top down.

Here's another wonderful trick.

If you place the pilot chute itself on the rig,

right where it's going to be ultimately,

that way when you pull the bridle,

and I like to do it inside

you can do this inside or outside.

Back and forth inside here.

And then I'll roll it up,

very neatly.

And then place this whole thing into here.

In the event that I've got an out-of-sequence deployment,

I remove that away

Very little effort. Give it a try, it's not that hard.

Here's the alternative.

If I was to have the bridle exiting the bottom of the pilot chute,

and then tuck it in, there's a high probability that there will not be --oh, look at that--

wadded up inside there.

You may not extract in the event of a horseshoe

And then I've got my main trailing behind me from here

even though I've cut away. I can grab this handle.

and maybe extract it.

It may be very difficult to get it out of there. Hopefully I will.

But if I use this pilot-chute packing method, I don't have to worry about that.

So I can if I choose to, put the bridle on the outside

of the pilot chute, roll it on up that way

instead of putting it inside the mesh.

Some people worry about the mesh wearing out or something.

I've been doing it that way for a long time.

Haven't had a problem, but it's up to you

And you tuck it in. And the beauty of packing the pilot chute the last phase of it

right here when you do the bridle on the rig

is that I don't have to deal with stuffing any

extra bridle inside after the pilot chute's in the pouch.

How cool is that?

So you don't necessarily have to change everything about the way you do it,

but if you switch to this method, there's a chance that

you will survive a horseshoe, and I'm in favor of that.

Well, I'm Brian Germain, and happy jumping! Thanks for joining us.

[Music playing]