I don’t know what that stuff is, but I see things in movies that sure looks a lot safer than cutting 8 feet of rope and wrapping your swiss seat and hooking your carabiner to it and taking off while hovering from a 100 feet.
On the other hand, it is cheap and light.
I was once disturbed to see a jumbled pile of old ropes laying on a floor in an Army office that we hadn’t used for STABO for many months but would be using again soon, guys just walking around it, it wasn’t coiled or protected, I asked if it was inspected before we did STABOs and the guy said he didn’t know, that bothered me.
K. So, a Super 8 is a ring that attaches to whatever you have around your waist, usually a harness. You loop the rope a specific way through the ring, depending on if you are left handed or right handed(makes a deadly difference) and you control your descent through friction against the tie in, on the ring, friction through your legs/round your waist and your descending hand, which acts as your brake.
With an ATC you control descent through two holes or four. Anway, you have a descending hand, which controls the brake, which is located in the ATC.
Braking is acheived by pulling down on your braking hand and forcing the rope, into the cleats or teeth of the downside of the ATC.
You can two ropes through the same cleat, to force the rope faster and more secure through over stuffing of the area.
that method is usually used if you are in a particularly windy, icy area and if you want to retrieve your rope at the bottom of your ascent.
Hooking into a carabiner at 100 feet is safe and the same concept at using a Super 8 but, it moves around a bit and has less features.
No way I’d use rope without inspecting it. I’ve used rope that had been sitting around under my bed for a few years, as I had forgot I put there.
I did, however, inspect it before putting my life on the end of it. That rope had two pieces of rubber hose thrown in with it.
I made the rubber hoses as slip mechanisms, so as I descended the rope would slide easily and not get caught up or cut on rocks.