fall factor for wide bodies

I hope I have not broken any rules by asking this question since the only climbing I am doing is on my brothers house.

I am trying to help him but the 34 ft max fall to ground off of a 9/12 pitch has me a bit worried. Also weighing in at an all time high of 240 lb makes falling a even bigger bit of a worry.

So to try to help him out and protect my soft squishy body, I bought a book on climbing, a harness, dynamic rope, sling, ect. Can I scale the fall factor of 2 to 1.4 in my calculations and still be protected? Since all the calcs seem to be based on 80Kg and I am doing 115 Kg, I think a correction is required.

I have piloted an aircraft a time or two by my self before my money ran out and I got married, been way up on a high lift, sat tied into a tree stand during deer season but the idea of crawling along a 9/12 pitch roof scares the fecal mater out of me. My fear of heights is closely dependant on my fear of falling, having a leg that cramps when kneeling makes going high a scary thing for me.

I figure if I trust the support + the rope / harness system in the case of a fall, I will be able to crawl along his scaffolding to help him.

Oh, the scaffolding. He is doing this on the cheap so along the sides of the house, we have put poplars ( a fast growing tree ) that we have cut on the propert y into a 3 - 4 feet hole and nailed it off to top of house. From this we nailed some 14' 2 x 10's on each side and one across the top. This is stable enough but you need a good sense of balance to use this which I don't have. I did real well flying on instruments since I trust machines more than I trust my sense of ballance.

The other day when I kneeled down and my right leg cramped 18 ft off of the ground really killed my enthusiasm for this. I didn't have a plan two that day. Thankfully, the tree extended beyond walking surface. We bonded that day as I held on for dear life until my leg unlocked.

Now I have the harness and rope and want to put it to good effect. Got a bunch of places to tie to since this is a timber frame house. I figure a 7 x 11 inch timber is sturdy enough.

Any constructive comments will be apreciated. My brother is a bit over his head on this so family sweat equity is the tool that will pull this off.

Thanks,

Wes

- if ignorance is bliss, why don't I work with happy - people.

Wes,

yer crackin' me up! I'll bet somebody else here will have a better solution. Lawdy knows I'm no expert, but the first thing that occurred to me was how much similar to a via ferrata you have on your roof. Petzl makes a special rig thingy that you use to clamp onto a steel cable while climbing in places like Italy (other places in Europe have these as well, I think). The idea is that the 'rope' is a fixed line attached to the wall along the way. You latch onto the fixed line with a little short rope of your own. If you fall, the rope catches you when you hit the next place the line is attached. PROBLEM IS, if you try this with a very short rope, or worse, static line, you will snap your spine, therefore, you need to introduce something a little more dynamic into the system. Check this website: http://www.petzl.com/FRENG/tech/canyonframe.html

They also have a section on work-related rigging (I think this Y-via ferrata thingy is listed there as well).

You will have to decide for yourself if this is a good idea (pro'ly not, but then neither is crawliing around on wobbly poplar poles). Good luck, boy. And send us a TR on your results!

Dave Knorr

If you do this, get all the keys to the truck and keep them in your pocket while you're up there. ( I think I saw this scenario in a bad movie once)

Gotta disagree with ya here. A lot of the Technology that has come to the forefront in climbing gear today was stuff we were developing 10 or 12 years ago and back in the Skydiving and parachuting world. I was a Rigger in the Army and a lot of stuff I see on Climbing harnesses, like the double back buckles, the new stitching patterns, and pattern cut weebing was stuff that was already old hat in the Prarachuting world then,

Also on a final note. I have done over 800 Parachute drops, with about 300 of them HALO ( high altitude, Low Opening) and never had a parachute or harness or rigging failure. Been doing rock off and on for same ammount of years and fallen more times than I like.

Parachuting is way safer than Climbing. But when a failure does occur, its usually though not always fatal. I have seen a guy drop from 550 feet and bounce onthe NC sand and get up and walk away with no problems. ut on the other hand I saw a General bounce from the same height and get up and walk away only to die 3 hours later at the hospital from internal injuries.

Later

Woody

(Just my 2 Cents. saw somethin I actually knew something about)

Hmmm... another interpretation could be that when parachuting you actually fell 100% of the time. When climbing you have fell less than 100% of time (hopefully a lot less). The real comparison is whether or not your gear saved you when you fell climbing.

-saint.

PS Good luck Wes. Remember what Irishman said - if you use a bumber make sure you have *all* the keys.