AA62, in my 11 years the AD fraternity were always resistant to any alternate harness. VX will know when we were developing 02 Boscombe proposed a cut down jacket to carry the regulator. The chopper lot had got the Mk60/61 with a rather nice harness that could be cut away on a three ring had they needed to run away following a crash. It had modular body armour and survival aid pockets. Leg straps were standard for the crewman.
When Irvin were still at Letchworth and separate to GQ they had developed a 5 point harness with D rings to snap on a standard reserve chute.
There had been incidents on the K where the floor fitting had come out. Brought about by a certain twisting condition with the big double gate hook on the end of the strap. This issue went away with the J
The argument was always, if the strap had been adjusted correctly so the operator could not get to the ramp or open doors there was never a problem.
I should have picked up on your comment the other day about TROC retrieval. If you want to retrieve another I have one in my garage I can send you. Probably one I quarantined when we found a batch with English sleeves on metric cable crimped with unknown tooling.
Sad to hear from VX that there has been little progress with AD kit. Must have the longest gestation period of any capability area. So underfunded.
I found the current AP for abseiling from helicopters on the MoD web site the other week. The harness and kit is not a patch on the Petzel stuff I currently use for climbing and abseiling down Telecoms towers. VX would be proud. Still employs the tear ply webbing bock as developed at Old Sarum!