The stunt created an unusual equipment problem: Pack needed a harness that could accept a parachute connection made under freefall conditions rather than a conventional parachute assembly secured before leaving the airplane.
Cameron’s contemporary description attributes three important features to Schmoll’s work.
Load acceptance from either side
The harness was specially made to accept a load on either side.2
This gave greater tolerance for the orientation in which Pack was able to connect the parachute. In terminal freefall, the geometry of the transfer could not be treated like a controlled fitting operation on the ground.
Easily located D-rings
The D-rings were made to stand out.2
This addressed an important human-factors problem. Pack needed to find and manipulate the correct attachment hardware quickly despite relative wind, body movement, clothing, restricted vision, and rapidly diminishing altitude.
Some later descriptions characterize these as “flared D-rings” or assign a particular outward angle. The contemporary source does not provide that level of engineering detail. The safer description is simply that the rings were made to stand out for rapid attachment.
Backup attachment
An additional snap was fitted to a riser so that Pack could make a connection to one of the camera jumpers if Allen became separated from him.2
This introduced a contingency for one foreseeable failure mode in the planned sequence.
References
- 2 Lyle Cameron Jr., contemporary account of Rod Pack’s “chuteless” jump, later reproduced in historical skydiving collections. Cameron explicitly identifies “Harry Schmoll of Para-Systems” as the harness maker and describes the bilateral-load capability, prominent D-rings, and additional riser snap. A surviving reproduction is available through Star Crest Skydiving Awards / Crazy Skydiver Stories: www.starcrestskydivingawards.com/crazy-skydiver-stories ↩