Comfort/Fit
The Racer Tandem system was made to fit your body, not a rig rack. The yoke is rounded and form fitting, so you feel contained and comfortably cocooned in the harness and container. It fits well, especially around the shoulders. Each front reserve riser, main lift web and leg strap is one continuous piece of webbing as is the diagonal backstrap to reserve riser. The wearer is wrapped in a truly fail-safe harness. The Racer is known for having the strongest harness in the industry.

Intelligent harness/container design
The Racer Tandem harness is essentially the same smart, simple design as the sport Racer. This contributes to both the comfort/fit and the weight savings. The passenger harness is quite comfortable as well, and you only adjust it once. It does not move or loosen in the plane, so there are no last minute harness adjustments, only a quick verification. It features magnetic riser covers, and total reserve pin protection with the reserve pins being against the Instructor’s back and not exposed on the outside of the rig.

The drogue attachment point
Some older tandem systems hung the drogue at the bottom of the container, and this made for a head-low body position during freefall. Attempts have been made to move the attachment point up to the middle of the main container, making the freefall position a little better, but still the other tandem rigs leave you in a slightly head-low body position. On the Racer Tandem, the drogue is attached inbetween the main and reserve container, in the middle of the Instructors’ back, making for a perfectly balanced and horizontal freefall position. It is attached using a drogue-riser (an inverted T-bridle) that goes all the way through the container, in a compartment between the main and reserve, and becomes the lower attachment points for the student’s harness. This has 2 main advantages, the first is obvious the first time you jump the system: as soon as the drogue is tossed, the student is pulled into you as the drogue is directly attached to the student’s harness. The second advantage is that there is no stress on the container due to the force of the drogue. On those other tandem rigs, all the load and stress of the drogue is passed through the container’s flaps and sidewalls, and ends up pulling the tandem rig off the Instructors’ back. This stress to the fabric causes a deformation of the rig both in the air and on the ground. The Racer Tandem drogue bridle is made of webbing, not Kevlar, which makes it easy to cut with a hook knife. Not so with a Kevlar bridle.

Double main container protection
A secondary main container pin keeps the main container closed until the drogue is released. This prevents an out of sequence main deployment.

 Positive extraction of main bag at drogue release
A staged deployment of the main canopy is the safest way to deploy a parachute. All sport rigs do it this way, so why don’t all Tandem rigs? The Racer Tandem has a measured drag of 90 lbs. At pull-time, this 90 lbs of force becomes the system’s pilot chute and pulls the main bag out of the container and gets the main parachute to full line-stretch. This makes for positive extraction of the main bag, just like a regular pilot chute on every other sport system on the market.
A drogue that is designed to collapse as soon as a drogue release handle is pulled is not a great idea. This design “feature” is a band-aid for a problem drogue that produces too much drag. The problem with this design feature is that once collapsed it doesn't always produce enough drag to positively extract the bag at pull time. Keep in mind a bagged tandem main weighs about 18 lbs. The tandem pair falls through the “trap door” as they accelerate because the drogue has just collapsed, and the bag is lazily lifted off the instructors’ back, with the main parachute lines lazily zig-zagging from side to side, not “stretched” straight to line-stretch. It works most of the time. However, it also contributes to all kinds of possible scenarios: off-heading openings, linetwists and bag-locks (the heavy bag spinning around a tight line-stow due to insufficient drogue drag). To summarize, those other rigs have too much drag in freefall and too little drag at pull time… The Racer Tandem has just the right amount in drogue fall and at bag extraction time. The Racer Tandem drogue collapses after the canopy has left the bag.

Tandem Video made easy
We have already talked about the balanced freefall position offered by the position of the drogue attachment point, where the freefall position of the tandem pair is horizontal; as opposed to other systems that put the tandem pair in a head-low position. This balanced freefall position makes the external cameraperson’s job easy, getting the paying customer’s face in the shot, as opposed to the top of their head... Secondly, the amount of drogue drag offered in freefall is just right. Even heavy external camera people can keep “up” with light instructors/passengers in freefall without the use of massive wings; freefall speed is a comfortable 115-120 mph.

Easy to pack
The smaller of the two Racer Tandem container sizes, is big enough for mains up to 400 sq ft. The main goes in the bag easily, and you pack it almost exactly like a sport rig, except for the drogue attachment. There is no “grunting” required to pack the system. Everything goes in just so, and without effort. There is also a 1000 cu. in. Racer Tandem for canopies in the 500 sq. ft. range.

Price
The price is very competitive. Call us for a quote.Comfort/Fit
The Racer Tandem system was made to fit your body, not a rig rack. The yoke is rounded and form fitting, so you feel contained and comfortably cocooned in the harness and container. It fits well, especially around the shoulders. Each front reserve riser, main lift web and leg strap is one continuous piece of webbing as is the diagonal backstrap to reserve riser. The wearer is wrapped in a truly fail-safe harness. The Racer is known for having the strongest harness in the industry.

Weight
The Racer Tandem (with a FireBolt 350 main), weighs in at a lofty 38 lbs. That is over 30% lighter than other manufacturers tandem rigs! Yet, the harness is stronger due to our unique harness geometry and the use of Type 13 webbing. We offer the smallest and narrowest Tandem Rig, so it's perfect for Cessna drop zones. Wearing a Racer Tandem feels like having a student rig your back, not a heavy Tandem Rig… These two first factors, weight and comfort/fit are beneficial on a busy tandem day.

Intelligent harness/container design
The Racer Tandem harness is essentially the same smart, simple design as the sport Racer. This contributes to both the comfort/fit and the weight savings. The passenger harness is quite comfortable as well, and you only adjust it once. It does not move or loosen in the plane, so there are no last minute harness adjustments, only a quick verification. It features magnetic riser covers, and total reserve pin protection with the reserve pins being against the Instructor’s back and not exposed on the outside of the rig.

The drogue attachment point
Some older tandem systems hung the drogue at the bottom of the container, and this made for a head-low body position during freefall. Attempts have been made to move the attachment point up to the middle of the main container, making the freefall position a little better, but still the other tandem rigs leave you in a slightly head-low body position. On the Racer Tandem, the drogue is attached inbetween the main and reserve container, in the middle of the Instructors’ back, making for a perfectly balanced and horizontal freefall position. It is attached using a drogue-riser (an inverted T-bridle) that goes all the way through the container, in a compartment between the main and reserve, and becomes the lower attachment points for the student’s harness. This has 2 main advantages, the first is obvious the first time you jump the system: as soon as the drogue is tossed, the student is pulled into you as the drogue is directly attached to the student’s harness. The second advantage is that there is no stress on the container due to the force of the drogue. On those other tandem rigs, all the load and stress of the drogue is passed through the container’s flaps and sidewalls, and ends up pulling the tandem rig off the Instructors’ back. This stress to the fabric causes a deformation of the rig both in the air and on the ground. The Racer Tandem drogue bridle is made of webbing, not Kevlar, which makes it easy to cut with a hook knife. Not so with a Kevlar bridle.

Double main container protection
A secondary main container pin keeps the main container closed until the drogue is released. This prevents an out of sequence main deployment.

Positive extraction of main bag at drogue release
A staged deployment of the main canopy is the safest way to deploy a parachute. All sport rigs do it this way, so why don’t all Tandem rigs? The Racer Tandem has a measured drag of 90 lbs. At pull-time, this 90 lbs of force becomes the system’s pilot chute and pulls the main bag out of the container and gets the main parachute to full line-stretch. This makes for positive extraction of the main bag, just like a regular pilot chute on every other sport system on the market.
A drogue that is designed to collapse as soon as a drogue release handle is pulled is not a great idea. This design “feature” is a band-aid for a problem drogue that produces too much drag. The problem with this design feature is that once collapsed it doesn't always produce enough drag to positively extract the bag at pull time. Keep in mind a bagged tandem main weighs about 18 lbs. The tandem pair falls through the “trap door” as they accelerate because the drogue has just collapsed, and the bag is lazily lifted off the instructors’ back, with the main parachute lines lazily zig-zagging from side to side, not “stretched” straight to line-stretch. It works most of the time. However, it also contributes to all kinds of possible scenarios: off-heading openings, linetwists and bag-locks (the heavy bag spinning around a tight line-stow due to insufficient drogue drag). To summarize, those other rigs have too much drag in freefall and too little drag at pull time… The Racer Tandem has just the right amount in drogue fall and at bag extraction time. The Racer Tandem drogue collapses after the canopy has left the bag.

Tandem Video made easy
We have already talked about the balanced freefall position offered by the position of the drogue attachment point, where the freefall position of the tandem pair is horizontal; as opposed to other systems that put the tandem pair in a head-low position. This balanced freefall position makes the external cameraperson’s job easy, getting the paying customer’s face in the shot, as opposed to the top of their head... Secondly, the amount of drogue drag offered in freefall is just right. Even heavy external camera people can keep “up” with light instructors/passengers in freefall without the use of massive wings; freefall speed is a comfortable 115-120 mph.

Easy to pack
The smaller of the two Racer Tandem container sizes, is big enough for mains up to 400 sq ft. The main goes in the bag easily, and you pack it almost exactly like a sport rig, except for the drogue attachment. There is no “grunting” required to pack the system. Everything goes in just so, and without effort. There is also a 1000 cu. in. Racer Tandem for canopies in the 500 sq. ft. range.

Price
The price is very competitive. Call us for a quote.

A perfectly balanced parachute... can be loaded very lightly and still be within the optimum performance envelope.
A perfectly scaled parachute in various sizes can have the same flight characteristics given the same wing loading.
Parachute Labs has acheived just that with the elliptical, 9-cell FireBolt series A perfectly balanced parachute can be loaded very lightly and still be within the optimum performance envelope.
A perfectly scaled parachute in various sizes can have the same flight characteristics given the same wing loading.
Parachute Labs has acheived just that with the elliptical, 9-cell FireBolt series