Mar 12, 2012, 10:57 AM
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Blind tandem
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A lady I know wants to do a tandem, she is can not see well enough to drive but has some limited vision. Looking for ideas to make it more enjoyable for her. thanks
I've filmed a couple of tandempassengers with limited or no vision (for the charity Flying Blind). I didn't give them the tandem briefing myself, but it needs to be very touch-oriented. They all had a blast
BTW you post this in the instructor's forum, but have you taken a look in the Skydivers with Disabilities' forum yet?
A lady I know wants to do a tandem, she is can not see well enough to drive but has some limited vision. Looking for ideas to make it more enjoyable for her. thanks
Set her up with an audible altimeter and train her to pull. (She might have enough vision to read a visible altimeter though.)
Teach her about the landing pattern and then while she flies the pattern, tell her where in the pattern she is.
The first time I got to chase a tandem, it was with a blind passenger. It was fun and I even docked. The next day I told a friend who was a TI what I did and his response was priceless:
"What did you even take em up for? Put them in a harness and stand em up in front of a powerful air conditioner...Weeee, we're having fun now."
I took one totally blind passenger. Describe everything that is going on. Let them touch and feel you as you demonstrate proper body position. Guide their hands over the different parts of the rig and harness. Sit near the door so they can put a hand or foot out into the breeze. Expect it to take a little longer to prepare them for it.
I like the idea of giving them an audible. I signaled by grabbing his wrists and waving his arms. Then he pulled.
we once had a group of people from seeing impaired to completly blind. for the briefing we took loads of extra time "showing"! them around the place and to get their hands on everyting - rig, canopies, plane, even our faces and hands. most of them had excellent body awareness, so training freefallposition was easy. do not forget to train the actual exit in the plane while still on the ground - that will save a lot of trouble on your side.
when explaing stuff: don't forget they are blind, so its no use describing visuals the way you would to a seeing person. what helped me was the desciption of the wind on the body, what you hear in freefall what an opening feels like whatthe wind sounds like when under canopy - I guess you can come up with some stuff yourself. anyway: have fun and make it a really special jump for you and your passenger
In my 3000 plus tandems I think I only had one completely blind person. He loved it, I agree with all the previous posts. Also let her steer and flair. I felt kinda bad cause it was a windy day and the DZO was berating a fellow TI for not letting his student have the toggles. Saying look ant Van he's jumping a blind guy and letting him flair. Maybe not thinking it thru that it was really safer for me. A blind person is not going to flair early or lock up cause they can't see the ground coming up. One of my most rewarding jumps.
Blind people can't jump! It freaks the dogs out too much.
Seriously though, there usually one (or more) TIs that simply won't shut up. They talk from the moment they meet the student to after the landing. They give a full tour on the airplane and continuously ask the student how they are doing.
Other TIs are more of the "strong, silent" type.
Make sure the blind person gets one of the first type.
Jasper Carrott on bungee jumping: "One of the bungee jumpers was blind! A blind bungee jumper! You need a bit of bottle to do that don'tcha? It was amazing.... listening to a labrador scream at three hundred feet! pause At least the bloke knew when he was getting near the water cause the lead went slack!"
My 19yr old son is sight limited (he can't drive) but he can see enough to do many things.
We did a tandem last summer. The only special thing they did was allow him to wear sunglasses under his goggles. They nomrally don't want the tandem studnet to do that at the DZ we jumped at, but the sun light makes him almost completely blind.
Even without anything special, he LOVED IT. He has been asking when we can go again (now that the weather is good again).
He would really like to jump solo, but understands why he can't.
Today in our drop zone, Canelones, Uruguay, jumped in tandem two brothers, one blind and the other almost totally blind. It was really emotive to witness how they enjoyed their experience.
Train him for static line. Back in the eighties we trained and static lined a Marine that had lost both eyes in Vietnam. He wanted to jump in and do the Death Valley Marathon. Have a large landing area, radio, and light winds with a large canopy. We did it during the week, so no other jumpers to worry about, and no air traffic. Don did great! Maybe your son would like to try that first. Best of luck.
Thanks for the advice. I have read that there are examples where blind folks have learned to jump (the DZ has to be very well equipped and willing to allow it).
I do tell my son he can do ANYTHING (but some things take MUCH more effort and do boarder on unrealistic...but achievable if you're willing to work out the issues).
I have a hard time understanding how a blind or sight impaired person could safely judge the condition of their canopy after opening to know if they need to take action (could radio help them with that as well?).
I have almost no experience (student) so I can't judge that sort of thing.
For now tandem is still a big thrill for him. Thanks.
That was our major concern, Don not being able to visually check his canopy. We discussed this at length with him, but he wanted to do it anyway. He had a radio, but the quality then was very inferior to what we have now. Luck was with us and we had no problems. You said your son had some sight. Would it be enough to check his canopy? It can be done. It just takes a lot of planning, training, and being willing to accept the extra risk. Best of luck with whatever you decide. And spending the rest of your life doing tandems isn't such a bad deal either.
I had a friend in the 70's who was partially sighted in the only eye with any sight; this was in the days of rounds, so we just put her out under a T-10 (much bigger round). She made 3-4 static line jumps I think. She said that a couple of flights over the DZ to identify landmarks (i.e. big blobs of different colors) really helped.
Jumping out at 3000' probably was better for her than higher, simply because everything was close enough that she could make out some stuff.
Her big goal was to avoid anything with straight lines (roads, runway, buildings). Radio for steering was fine.
Did several of them. With 20/20 hindsight: When you are completely blind you either develop excellent 'spatial' muscle memory or you keep bumping into things / spill drinks etcetera. No exceptions - they all did excellent (we are talking about climbing and jumping out of a C182)
So 'don't worry, be happy'
One of them had a state-of-the-art stereo sound recorder that recorded exactly all the audio just as he heard it. It involved a headset with very sensitive microphones located at his ears. Cool gadget I suppose, when you are completely blind...
Be talkative!
Next: Completely deaf tandem. (NEVER spontaneously tell them to stand-up on landing when you briefed them on sliding it in ROFLMAO... )
I have a hard time understanding how a blind or sight impaired person could safely judge the condition of their canopy after opening to know if they need to take action (could radio help them with that as well?).
Just because YOU can't understand how a sight impaired person can do something, doesn't mean it can't be done. I am a low vision rehab optometrist and AFF instructor. I have taught an AFF FJC for a legally blind student (Retinitis Pigmentosa, extremely limited visual fields). He did a great job.
I have a hard time understanding how a blind or sight impaired person could safely judge the condition of their canopy after opening to know if they need to take action (could radio help them with that as well?).
That is a problem, but with radios you can build a system to make it workable.
Of course a student type radio is a given, but put two of them on the student and have two transmitters on the ground in case one fails.
In terms of spotting the canopy, first off a spotter (or two) with binoculars can do a fair job when the jump is from 3500ft. These are seperate from the radio operator, but standing right next to them.
Another idea is having the plane do a climbing 180 after the jumper leaves, and then do a 'fly-by' with the JM having a look at the canopy as they pass.
In any case, you also want to have a ground to aircraft radio available in case the ground needs info from the plane. If the jumper is having a problem, or is going to land off, the pilot/JM can relay info from the plane down to the ground radio operator, and help to talk the student down off-field. Again, you need a dedicatd person on the ground manning that radio, who can then advise the student radio operator.
It takes a team of people and a bit of coordination, but nothing to tough. All of the gear should already be on the DZ, and you can recruit jumpers to fill the various roles.
It can be done, and more. I've jumped with Dan Rossi before, and then was amazed to see him packing his own rig. Once you have the basics down of what a good canopy should feel like and how it works, you could do your own canopy check and use dual radios for landing. As I recall, Dan tried to keep a couple fo AFF Is on every freefall jump 'just in case', but otherwise he just jumped and had a blast.
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