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General

    Jumping with Weights

    This article applies to FS belly flying, not Freefly or Canopy piloting.
    Safety first
    Wingload: Before considering jumping with weights please consider if you are comfortable with the higher wingload of your canopy. You will fly faster with the weights and if you are already pushing your limits then it may be unsafe or unnecessarily stressful. When choosing your canopies it may be a good idea to choose one size larger to allow for wearing weights.

    Water landings: You cannot swim with weights on! So please consider this if you are jumping near water. A weight belt is a clear advantage in case you have to dump the weights to allow you to swim. A tight jumpsuit and a weight vest are not good when landing in water, you cannot swim with the vest and it is nearly impossible to get off in the water.

    Health: Please consider if your body can handle the extra stress of jumping with the weights. If you have a bad back, a hard opening while wearing a heavy weight belt could be really bad for you!

    Comfort: Not exactly a safety aspect but weights can be really uncomfortable.

    Safety of others: Please make sure your weighs are firmly attached to your body. Losing or deliberately dropping weights can kill people on the ground, destroy houses and sink boats!
    Then why would anyone choose to jump with weights?
    Considering the safety and comfort issues why would anyone consider jumping with weights? Because it makes you a much better FS skydiver! Unless of course you naturally fall fast. When you see top performing skydivers, you will see that more than half of them wear weights. They do it because it is a clear performance advantage.
    Weights is a personal thing
    Just like your body shape and flying style are unique, so is your need for weights. The big or dense people don't need weights at all, and could do the rest of us a favor by choosing a jumpsuit that will slow them down. Smaller or skinny people often need weights, but the amount varies significantly.
    Definitions
    Just to make sure everyone is one the same page, two definitions;

    The Ideal fall rate is your fall rate when you are in freefall alone in a neutral comfortable body position without trying to go either fast or slow. (Mine is 187 km/h - 116 MPH)
    The Fall rate range is the range of speeds at which you are able to fall when trying to go faster or slower. (Mine is 160 - 220 km/h or 99 - 137 MPH).
    The purpose of weights
    The purpose of jumping with weights is to increase your Ideal fall rate and shift your Fall rate range upwards. In other words, to make it easier to fall faster and keep up with your team.
    The fall rate range of most skydivers is +- 30 km/h (+-20 MPH) from the ideal fall rate. The heaviest weights people are comfortable jumping with will give an increase in ideal fall rate of 20 km/h. The body is therefore much stronger at controlling the fall rate than by wearing weights.
    What a lot of people don't understand is that the weights will not actually make you fall faster! With the weights you will fall at the rate of the team, and without the weights you will fall at the rate of the team, you will just struggle more to do it! This of course assumes that you have a reasonable range, if you don't then you should work on improving it.

    Avoiding struggling to maintain a higher than ideal fall rate is the real propose of jumping with weights. What happens is that it requires attention to fall faster than the ideal fall rate, attention unnoticed taken away from flying your slot, turning points etc. Less attention on what you are supposed to do will make you perform at less than your potential.

    Wearing the right amount of weight, so you don't need attention on falling fast, will free your mind to be a better skydiver. With the right amount of weight you will notice that you are stronger, can move and turn faster, be more aware of what is going on around you, and you will make fewer mistakes and brainlocks.
    How to know if you need more weight
    If you need much more weight (5+ kg) then it is easy to feel because you are struggling a lot to fall fast, or you may not be able to keep up with your team. If you don't need that much then it is very likely you will not notice you are struggling. Things to look for indicating you (or others) need more weight;

    1. You pop up a little during challenging moves or if unexpected things happen

    2. You feel unable to move as fast as you normally can

    3. You feel slightly unstable

    4. You fly with your hands above your head

    Video of your jumps can be great for seeing these things since you may not notice during the jump.



    How much do I need?
    How much weight you need for a given jump is surprisingly complicated! Obviously, it depends on your ideal fall rate and the fall rate of the team you will be jumping with. For the first jump with a team it is a guess, and then you adjust the amount of weight to match your ideal fall rate to that of the team. It may take several jumps to get it right.

    As I wrote earlier the body is much stronger than the weights at controlling the fall rate, so don't be afraid of taking more weight, it takes a lot before it makes a real difference. Actually, I doubt anyone will be able to feel any difference if 1 kg (2 pounds) is added.



    How fast will it make me fall?
    Assuming everything remains the same, then adding 1 kg will increase your ideal fall rate by 1 km/h (1 pound gives 0.3 MPH). This is true for all but the most extreme body shapes.

    However, everything does not remain the same! The weight will change but so will the balance and the forces on the body. If your body is very flexible then a weight belt will pull your hip down and effectively make you arch more and thus make you fall even faster. There are several other smaller effects that also change the fall rate, so it is quite complicated and not possible to calculate exactly how much weight you need.
    A rough guide is;

    Inflexible body: 1 km/h per kg added (0.3 MPH per pound added)

    Very flexible body: up to 2 km/h per kg added (0.6 MPH per pound added)
    Please be conservative when adding weight and keep you increments at maximum 2 kg (4 pounds). Never make big changes in the amount of weight, the result may surprise you!



    Seeking advice
    When you are in doubt about how much weight you need (and you will be in doubt), seek advice from an experienced FS skydiver with a body shape, size and weight similar to you. Don't ask the big guys who have never jumped with weights, they may be highly experienced skydivers but they haven't got a clue about your needs. Often they will give useless advice like "You just need to arch more!" or my favorite "Take off your booties!”.
    Have fun, improve on every skydive and be safe!
    Jacques Jonsman is an engineer, serial entrepreneur and product & business innovator. He is an FS instructor and has been skydiving for 21 years.

    By admin, in General,

    Learn to Skydive Online

    When we first posted that we were launching a live online canopy course, the beginning of
    many online adventure safety courses, a number of people asked me if I was joking. In the adventure community, actions have always spoken louder than words, and the internet is for surfing entertaining videos, not training. Although I fully understand the irreplaceable value of on-site instruction, there is a lot of work to do in a short time to get it done. People are dying out there.
    USPA has wisely issued a mandate to help promote participation in canopy courses in
    order to expedite the proliferation of the information that saves lives. This is a wonderful step, however the limited number of highly skilled canopy flight teachers causes a bottle-neck of resources. We need the information to get out there faster than we have the ability to spread it. Hence we find ourselves in the place that inspires innovation like no other, need.
    Live online “e-learning” programs have been fully embraced by the corporate world in
    recent years, and increasingly by universities and colleges as well. The choice to go with these high tech teaching systems has been partly financial, as it is far cheaper to implement than in-person training in the long run. It is also far greener because instructors no longer need to travel as much to accomplish the same goals. Lastly, corporations and learning institutions all
    over the world have chosen to use the internet for education because of the vastly increased scope of potential students, as distance can be taken out of the equation. These compelling reasons have caused significant advancement in the technology that makes remote teaching possible, and huge breakthroughs have been made which allow interactions to be surprisingly
    natural. Further, online testing can be utilized to allow instructors to get a feel for how well they are conveying the information, and what they need to focus on in the next sessions.
    The implementation of this new model of instruction is still very much in its infancy,
    however we are already finding that this futuristic method of information proliferation actually has several benefits over in-person training. When you take a canopy flight course, for instance,
    you cannot control the weather. In most cases, the instructor is flown in from far away and is only on site for one weekend. If the weather does not cooperate, you are in for an all-theory course. With online courses, we are able to teach the group over the course of a month.

    Chances are, the students will get the opportunity to jump in that time to practice what they have learned, and even get someone to video their landings to upload for the next course. Even if the participants do not get to jump, the longer duration of the course allows for deeper information association and transfer to long-term memory, as well as giving the students the opportunity to formulate better questions to help them get exactly what they want out of
    the experience. If they don’t remember something from the class, they can even log onto the website and watch the course all over again. This is not possible in the traditional instruction paradigm.
    Some will say, “But there is no substitute for being able to ask questions of your
    instructor in the flow of the session. The new live online training systems allow participants to “raise their hand”, so-to-speak, and get the answer they need when they need it. If the students have a webcam as well, the interaction between the student and teacher is nearly as intimate as an in person discussion once the participants grow accustom to the new medium. For some people, this online format actually allows them to come out of their shells a bit more since they are not actually in a room full of strangers.

    There is no doubt that on-site, hands-on instruction will remain the backbone of all
    adventure training. There is a great deal that can only happen in a purely organic environment, which is why people like me will continue to pound the pavement and travel to a new dropzone almost every weekend. It is essential. However, the vast majority of skydivers do not have access to such camps but once or twice per year, and by then many of them will have already gotten hurt or even killed. If we are to truly strive to improve the safety of our sport in every way possible, embracing eLearning is an indispensable step toward getting the information out there in a reasonable time frame. The internet transcends time and space like nothing else known to mankind, and if we are serious about safety, than we must cast aside our reservations, and like the first pilots of ram-air canopies, we must give it a whirl. The fear of change is understandable. When we change, we risk things getting worse. However, if we do not try to improve and evolve, in the context of a changing environment, we are essentially moving backwards.
    The technology passed down to us from wartime allowed our sport to come into
    existence, and now the corporate world, sometimes equally sinister, has created a technology that will allow great students to connect to great teachers, anywhere in the world. The precious information that was once held by only a few mentors with a limited number of weekends in the year can now be disseminated at an exponential rate, and the possibilities for improvement of our sport and other adventure pursuits are endless. This is a truly incredible time. So when someone asks me if adventure training through eLearning is a joke, I have to ask them to
    consider the possibility that any initial resistance to change is merely the inertia of habit and a little bit of fear. The future is being born right now in the present, and all we need to do to move forward into the vast potential of this new era of instruction is an open mind and a sense of adventure.
    Brian Germain is a parachute designer and test pilot, and runs canopy flight skills and safety courses all over the world. Brian has made over 14,000 jumps in his 25 years in the sport. He is also the host of the “Safety First” segment on SkydiveRadio.com, and the creator of many educational videos. Brian is the author of the widely popular canopy flight text The Parachute and its Pilot, as well as Transcending Fear, Greenlight Your Life, and Vertical Journey. His websites are
    www.BIGAIRSportZ.com , www.Transcendingfear.com and his online training programs can be found at www.AdventureWisdom.com. Brian’s highly aclaimed YouTube channel is: www.youtube.com/bsgermain

    By admin, in General,

    Power-Pitching

    This little article is about the art and science of skilfully and quickly pulling out of a dangerously low dive. You can apply this skill to many aspects of parachute flight, but the scope of this article will hone in on keeping you above ground if you turn too low, in more ways than one.
    When you turn close to the ground, the likelihood of your survival has a great deal to do with suspension line tension. If you are not currently connected to your canopy, you can't pull out of a dive all that quickly. Maintaining positive "g's" requires a smooth reduction of the angle of attack when performing a turn or dive, and graceful coordinated turns throughout your approach. If you feel the parachute pulling away from you in a balanced manner, you are prepared to nose her up whenever you want to.
    The process of pulling out of a dive clearly has something to do with bank angle, but it has much more to do with pitch. This is the fore-aft pendulum axis, like on a swing-set. If you begin increasing your pitch as soon as you get that funny feeling, and leave the rolling out for after you feel the load increase, you will recover far sooner than if you went straight to fixing the roll problem. Fly the pitch first, then progressively reduce the roll angle when you feel heavier. In doing so, you are literally creating time to fix your problems. In short, nose her up wherever you are, and then deal with the rest of your flight.
    The pitch responds to a variety of inputs. A tap in the rear risers will nose you up a bit, as will releasing application of the front risers. Such inputs may even level you off to zero descent, provided that you have the altitude. Rears are, however, a terrible way to pull up from a dive executed dangerously low. When you get down and dirty, brakes simply have more bite.
    Knowing that different inputs have different recovery times, this leads us to the exploration of what kind of brake input moves the pitch fastest. So it turns out, a short, sharp, powerful burst-and-hold of six to twelve inches will move your pitch more, sooner and more effectively than twice the quantity of control input when applied with a slower control motion. Fast works quicker. This is what I refer to as "Power Pitching", and it is an essential skill for all canopy pilots who would like to join the ranks of the old fart club.
    It is all a matter of airspeed. When the angle of attack is increased swiftly, while the airspeed is still quite high, there is more effect to the direction of flight. When you are in half brakes, for example, you have a slower pitch response, and the resulting level-off is weak at best. Watch scared students land and you will get to see this principle over and over.
    When a canopy is traveling at high speed, on the other hand, in the first one third of the control range, the bang-for-your-buck is far higher when it comes to maneuvering capability than the lower end of the range will ever hope to offer. This is because the wing is traveling faster, and drag increases as we go faster. That is why a patient pilot who waits for the correct time to flare and then gives one smooth, decisive motion from zero brakes to quarter brakes usually ends up with a glorious level off. The top of the control stroke is the heart of your power to change the direction of flight.
    Consequently, if you fly smooth coordinated harness-led turns with your toggles mostly up and your tail out, your first pulse of brake application will pop you up out of a steep dive surprisingly quickly. It is true that some parachutes recover more powerfully from a dive than others due to good design, but every parachute recovers far sooner when good technique is used.
    There are, however, limits to every technique. There is a point when a PLF is just not enough to prevent pain, and there is such a thing as a sloppy turn thrown too low. Don't do this if you want to get old. Fly consistent patterns that work for your landing area and parachute specifics, and relax into having more fun. Most of the time this stuff is not necessary at all. Once in a while, on the other hand, the one with the most Jedi skills wins.
    In the end it is a calm heart combined with skilful execution that ultimately leads us to glorious recoveries and beautiful landings. As we grow into what it means to us to become a better skydiver, we reach for expansion of the diverse skill-set that will allow us to skydive with our grandchildren. Wonderfully, skill is more fun, and skill is safety.
    Brian Germain is a parachute designer and test pilot, and runs canopy flight skills and safety courses all over the world. Brian has made over 14,000 jumps in his 25 years in the sport. He is also the host of the “Safety First” segment on SkydiveRadio.com, and the creator of many educational You Tube videos. Brian is the author of the widely popular canopy flight text The Parachute and its Pilot, as well as Transcending Fear, Greenlight Your Life, and Vertical Journey. His websites are www.BIGAIRSportZ.com and www.Transcendingfear.com and his YouTube channel is: www.youtube.com/bsgermain

    By admin, in General,

    The Skydiving Handbook

    Welcome to skydiving, perhaps the most exciting and unusual sport in the world! You are at the beginning of a path thousands of people have safely followed for over thirty years. In that time, experience has shown that some approaches to skydiving work better than others.
    This handbook is designed to supplement the practical instruction you will be receiving from our instructors, all of whom are certified by the United States Parachute Association. During the course of your training we will cover the basic principles around which skydiving is built. While actual dive sequences and hands-on training will be given to you by our instructors, this handbook will explain the concepts behind the activities and allow you to study important principles at home. Skydiving terms are clickable the first time they appear, which takes you to the glossary.
    Be sure to have your jumpmasters explain any concepts that remain unclear. Although underlying principles will not change, they may be easier to understand through a different explanation, drawing, or analogy than the ones offered here. I encourage your questions; some of the principles covered are not immediately obvious. As the author, I also invite your comments and criticism - this first edition is sure to have many oversights and flaws.
    In the Aircraft
    Exits
    Flying Your Body
    The Skydiving Universe
    After the Freefall
    Canopy Performance
    Landings
    After the Landing


    Blue skies and safe skydiving;

    Bryan Burke






    By admin, in General,

    The Skydiving Handbook - Chapter 3 (Flying Your Body)

    The principles of freefall flight are quite simple; after all, you are dealing with just two things: your airfoil (body) and the wind. In a perfect, relaxed arch, or box man, you will fall straight down at a constant rate. To an observer falling along side, you appear stationary. You only seem to be falling relative to someone not in freefall, such as an observer in the airplane or on the ground.
    The box man is the neutral freefall position from which all maneuvers are carried out. Relative to a stationary observer, by altering your body position you can turn in place, move up and down, backwards and forwards, or sideways. You can even turn upside down or fly standing up. In fact, no one really knows the limits of body flying yet!
    From the box position you can easily initiate turns, forward, backward, and sideways movement, and changes in fall rate. From the side, the body presents a continuous smooth curve to the wind. The head is up, the arms higher thanthe body, and the legs are bent at a 45-degree angle, leaving the lower leg slightly extended into the wind.
    From above, the elbows are straight out from the shoulders and the hands are at least as far out as the elbows. The knees are slightly spead so that the feet are as wide apart as the elbows.
    Seen from the front, there is a smooth curve from side to side with the hips at the lowest point. Note that head, shoulders, and knees are all held high relative to the hips and chest.
    The basic moves are well understood. The most commonly used maneuvers are turns, forward and backward movement, and faster or slower falling. All are accomplished by changing the flow of air around your body. If you think of your box man as being balanced on his center in a neutral position, all he has to do to turn left is deflect more air off his right arm than his left. This is done by simply banking like an airplane - left arm down slightly, right arm up in proportion. The turn will continue until he resumes the neutral position. Lowering one knee relative to the other accomplishes the same thing. That's why an unintentional turn can often be stopped by assuming a neutral position and then giving a little "legs out" to increase awareness and balance the legs.
    Turns are also based on deflection of air. In the neutral position, equal amounts of air spill off both sides of the body. To turn right, our box man banks his arms, just as an airplane does in a turn. More air flows off the left side, creating a right turn. Note that the position of the arms relative to each other does not change; both arms tilt as a unit. The rest of the body remains neutral. To stop the turn, simply return to neutral.
    Forward motion works on the same principle of deflection. To deflect more air to the rear, resulting in forward motion, bring your arms back a few inches and extend your legs. This tips your body slightly head down, air rushes back off your torso and legs, and you slide forward. The two elements combine to create forward movement. Naturally the opposite motion - arms out and legs in - will make you backslide.
    Now think about how to go up and down. Everyone knows that given the same power, a streamlined vehicle can go faster than one that isn't. It slips through the air easier, just as a canoe knifes through the water more easily than a barge. So to speed up, you simply arch more, letting air slip off easily. Flatten out, or lower your knees and elbows, and you will fall slower. Incidentally, the faster you fall the more stable you are because your center of gravity is further below your control surfaces (arms and legs.)



    Test yourself:
    1. If you reverse your arch, what will happen? Is this position stable?
    2. Think about forward and backward motion. What would you do to fly sideways?
    Proceed to Chapter 4 (The Skydiving Universe)

    By admin, in General,

    The Skydiving Handbook - Chapter 1 (In the Aircraft)

    Every skydive starts before you board the airplane. Before you get on the airplane, you should be totally prepared for the jump ahead. This means that you know exactly what you are going to do on the jump and have had your equipment inspected. Make sure you have your helmet and goggles, remove jewelry and take sharp objects out of your pockets, tie your shoes tightly, and so on. Each jumper is responsible for their gear, and you should always check to be sure you have everything necessary for the skydive.
    Another part of the ground preparation is being ready to board the aircraft on time. Jump planes are just like airliners: they can't hold up twenty people because one wasn't ready. At the start of your skydiving progression, your jumpmaster will usually take care of reserving your slot on an airplane after you are completely trained and outfitted with the necessary equipment. It is then your responsibility to stay in the area and gear up at the appropriate time with your jumpmasters.
    Before you Board:
    1) It's too late to ask questions once you are in the airplane, so before you board know exactly what you will do on the skydive and review your emergency procedures. On the ride to altitude you should review the dive mentally, imagining a perfect performance. Keep in mind, however, that you are not compelled to jump from the airplane just because you happen to be on it! If you realize on the aircraft that you are not ready to jump, you may ride down with the airplane.
    2) Check your gear. Your jumpmasters will help you to be sure everything is correctly routed. Be sure your altimeter is set to zero, your goggles are clean, etc. If you will be boarding an airplane when its engines are running, keep a good grip on your goggles and gloves!
    3) Stay close to your jumpmaster and away from the propellers, other aircraft, and any other hazardous objects. Remember that the pilot may not be able to see you when he is taxiing the airplane; he always has the right of way.
    Once you are in the airplane, sit where instructed. Be sure to wear your seat belt until you are high enough for an emergency exit. It is also a good idea to put your helmet on for the take off. Your two responsibilities in the airplane are to minimize movement and to protect your deployment handles. Avoid snagging not only your equipment but that of other jumpers. Until we are on jump run you should stay seated. Then, at the jumpmaster's command you can get to your feet and move carefully to the door. As you move about in the airplane, watch out for door handles, emergency exit releases, seat belt buckles, etc. While inside the airplane your job is to protect your parachute!
    Most of your jumps will be done from our larger, twin engine airplanes. Exactly which airplane depends on how many people are jumping and the aircraft maintenance schedule. You should have familiarized yourself with the aircraft door, handles, and steps before boarding. Most of the time the more experienced jumpers will exit first for a simple reason: students open their parachutes higher than experienced jumpers. To preclude the possibility of jumpers from different groups colliding, exits are staged several seconds apart and planned with the opening altitudes in mind. That way we get both horizontal and vertical separation between groups. If you are leaving first because of unusual circumstances, have your jumpmaster fill you in on what to expect.
    The jump run itself is flown into the direction of the wind. This gives the airplane the slowest possible ground speed . In other words, it is over the drop zone (DZ) longer than it would be if it was running down wind. The pilot uses GPS (Global Positioning System satellites) to tell him exactly where he is, and when he is over the spot , or correct exit point, he turns on a green light back by the door, telling the skydivers to exit. Should the exit sequence take so long that the last to leave might not make it back to the airport, the light will go off, indicating that the remaining jumpers should stay in the airplane for a second pass over the drop zone. Incidentally, since you will usually be getting out late in the line up, and since the jump run is into the wind, you have a way of knowing which way the wind is blowing as soon as your parachute opens. Imagine a line from the landing area to a point directly below you. That is the wind line - if the pilot was right about the spot.


    Test Yourself:
    1.Why do we take our seatbelts off once we are above 2,000 feet instead of wearing them all the way to altitude?
    Continue to Chapter 2 (Exits)

    By admin, in General,

    The Skydiving Handbook - Chapter 2 (Exits)

    Imagine holding your arm out of a car window as you drive down the highway. The wind you feel is caused by your speed through the air rather than by weather. Skydivers call this apparent wind the relative wind, and it is the single most important element of the freefall environment. In fact, it is the only thing you have to work with in freefall, and from the moment of exit until your parachute opens you must think of yourself as a body pilot instead of a regular person, just as when you go swimming you have to leave your land habits behind. Your adventure in the relative wind begins at the moment of exit.
    There is nothing particularly complicated about exits and the techniques you use on your first freefall will be the same as those used by skydivers with thousands of jumps. Your exit makes or breaks the skydive, so we spend a lot of time practicing this part of the jump. A weak exit consumes valuable freefall time and puts you in a mental position of having to catch up, adding unwanted stress to your skydive. With a good exit you can get on with your learning and enjoyment at once, finishing the freefall tasks with plenty of time to spare. The two essentials of an exit are presentation and timing. Presentation refers to how you relate to the relative wind. Timing refers to your relationship with the other skydivers. Let's take a detailed look at these aspects of the exit.
    The body position we use to maintain a comfortable, neutral position on the wind (the equivalent of floating on water) is an arch. We'll learn more about body position soon, but for now you need to think simply about arching into the relative wind. This means that your hips are pushed forward into the wind, your arms and legs are spread out evenly and pulled back, and your chin is up, creating a smooth curve from head to toe. If you imagine lying face down in a shallow bowl with your arms and legs spread out evenly, you are thinking of an arch. In this position you will naturally face into the wind.
    To achieve a good exit, all you have to do is present your arch to the relative wind. Remember, we're on an airplane flying nearly one hundred miles per hour, so the relative wind is from the direction of flight. (When you see photos of skydivers they are usually presenting their arch towards the ground, but that's because they have fallen long enough to be going straight down so the relative wind comes straight up from the ground.) Once you are poised outside of the airplane, start your arch before you let go. Then it is a simple matter to open your hands, pivot into the wind, and you're flying! As you will soon learn, a relaxed arch is much more smooth, stable, and comfortable than a tense one so try not to think of yourself as falling off of an airplane. You're not; you're flying free. A mental image that might help would be learning to swim. You would be more relaxed and alert if you lowered yourself slowly down a ladder into warm water and let yourself float comfortably before letting go than if you jumped off a cliff into cold, dark surf. Think of the air as a friendly environment, slip into it smoothly as you climb out of the airplane, arch, take a deep breath, open your hands, and float off on the wind!
    You will note that I didn't say "push off." Until your parachute opens, your last contact with the world of solid objects is the airplane. If you push off, you will have some momentum that will tend to make you go over on your back, just as if you stood with your back to a pool and pushed off of something solid. Just arch and face the wind.
    As you leave the aircraft, the relative wind (arrow) is parallel to the ground. In a good arch with your head up, you should see only the airplane and sky rather than the ground during the first second or two of freefall.
    Losing forward speed and accelerating downward, the relative wind gradually shifts from parallel to the ground to perpendicular. This transition takes several seconds. You will not be facing the ground until about eight seconds after the exit.
    At no time do you look directly down at the ground. Even after the transition is over and you are falling straight down, in a good arch your head is up and your eyes are on the horizon.
    The aircraft's speed is about 100 miles an hour. When you leave, you lose some of that horizontal speed and actually slow down for the first few seconds. Then gravity takes over and you gradually accelerate to 110 miles per hour. That's why there is no sensation of sudden acceleration - you only gain ten miles per hour in ten seconds!
    Relax, arch, and face the wind is all you really need to do to achieve a stable exit. But remember that you are jumping with other people. For everyone to have a good exit, you also need group timing. Just as a band starts playing to a count, we'll start skydiving to a count. That count, used all over the country, is "ready, set, go!" It should be done with a smooth, even cadence. Because it's noisy outside an airplane, the count should be loud. Finally (think of a conductor with his baton giving a visual count to the orchestra) you, the conductor, need to give the other jumpers a visible count. We have you bring up your left knee on "set" and turn into the wind on go.
    Combining these two elements of presentation and timing will almost always result in a smooth exit. Leave out either one, and the exit may funnel, the term skydivers use to describe an unstable formation. Leave both out and a funnel is almost a certainty. But if that happens, don't panic. An arch will fix the problem.
    Incidentally, it doesn't affect your stability to dive out of the airplane. As long as you are presenting an arch to the relative wind, you will be stable. Unfortunately it takes most people a while to get used to the idea that the relative wind starts right outside the door. If you walk through an airplane door like you would a house door, you'll present your side or back to the wind and lose stability. In the water, walking doesn't work; you have to swim. Air is the same way - you have to fly through the door, not walk through.



    Test Yourself
    1. Skydivers on the outside of an aircraft as they prepare to exit are called floaters. The ones inside the airplane who will dive through the door are called divers. Floaters are further divided into front, rear, and center, depending on their position in the door. On an ASP level one jump, the student is the center floater, the reserve side JM is front floater, and the main side JM is rear. Why is the front floater more likely to have a problem than the rear floater if he cannot hear or see the exit count given by the center floater?
    2. Novices diving out of an airplane frequently do a half roll and then recover stability facing the aircraft. What could cause this common problem?
    Proceed to Chapter 3 (Flying Your Body)

    By admin, in General,

    The Skydiving Handbook - Chapter 7 (Landings)

    There are two goals when landing your parachute: the first is to land safely and the second is to land where you want to. Clearly, the first goal is much more important than the second one, yet a surprising number of skydivers have had the opportunity to consider their values at leisure while recuperating from landing injuries. A parachute is only as safe as the person operating it.
    As soon as you have determined that your parachute is functioning properly, it is time to start thinking about the landing. Look for potential landing sites - any level area free of obstacles will do but we try to land at an established point, our student landing area, if we can. Usually you can get back over this landing area with at least a thousand feet of altitude left. If this is not the case check the area below you and between you and your target for possible hazards; if you are not positive you can make it safely to the planned landing area, you must select an alternate site. Do not go below the thousand foot mark without making a firm decision about where you will land!
    Assuming you have made it over the target above one thousand feet, you should turn into the wind and check your ground speed. This is especially important on windy days. Remember the higher the wind speed is, the less ground speed you have when holding, and while running with the wind your ground speed will be higher. Keep this in mind and avoid getting too far down wind of your target area. (Helpful hint: if you can find your canopy's shadow on the ground it will show you exactly how fast you are going!)
    As you hold into the wind you can make a rough guess as to how far you could fly in, say, 250 feet of vertical descent. Take that estimated distance and lay out an imaginary line of that length from the target to a point downwind. Now just work your way to that point and stay near it until you are about three hundred feet up. Turn towards the target. If your original guess was good, you would slightly overshoot the target. A small "S" turn - ninety degrees one way, then 180 back to the approach, and ninety degrees back into the wind - will line you up on a good final approach. As long as you start your final approach a little high, you can continue these "S" turns to adjust until you are on approach at the right altitude.
    Remember that your first priority is to land safely, not necessarily in the target. You may have to share the landing area with another canopy, in which case you need to avoid flying in front of or near them. For example, if you are on one side of the target and another student is near the other side, stick to your side rather than aiming at the middle. Be careful to always look before you make a turn and assume the other canopy pilots may not see you. Whoever is lowest has the right of way. Also look for dust devils. They can turn or even collapse your canopy and should be avoided.
    Most skydivers like to set up their final approach by using a pattern similar to the kind airplanes use approaching an airport. After your ground speed check at one thousand feet, work your way down wind until five hundred feet. Then turn cross wind (90 degrees to the wind direction) until you are over that imaginary point where your final approach begins. This type of pattern lets you observe wind indicators as you refine your estimate of where to turn onto final. Another useful tip: the more turns you do, the harder it is to tell where you are going, because your descent rate and forward speed change in a turn. A few smooth, slow turns will set you up better than lots of radical ones. At an altitude of about one hundred feet you are committed; just let the parachute fly straight ahead and limit any corrections to turns of ten degrees or less.
    The last part of the approach is the flare. This procedure is simple: pull down both toggles simultaneously to slow down your parachute to a comfortable landing speed. To get the most out of flaring, you must be flying full speed on your final approach, so keep your toggles all the way up until it is time to flare. (An exception is if you have poor depth perception, when the lighting is bad, or when the surface is uncertain such as water or corn. Then you may be better off approaching in partial brakes to slow your approach, giving you a little more time to assess the situation.) The flare should be done when your feet are about two to three body heights above the ground. A smooth flare over about three to four seconds will work better than a fast, hard flare, but the main thing is to have both hands all the way down when your feet are three or four feet off the ground. If you realize you started the flare low, speed up; if you started high, slow down. Do not, however, let your toggles back up once you have started to flare. This will cause your canopy to dive forward and result in a hard landing. The illustration showing a canopy's flight during a flare will show the consequences of a badly timed flare. Too low, and you have a lot of forward speed even though your descent is slow. Too high, and you will have a lot of downward speed even though your forward speed is low. That is why you should flare a little high and slow on a calm day, a little low and fast on a windy one.
    Let's quickly review the three most important points for a safe landing. First, always pick a safe place. Be sure of your landing site before you reach 1,000 feet! People who hit hazardous things such as cars, buildings, or power lines almost always do so because they did not choose a safe landing site high enough and were forced to land in a bad location when they realized, too late, that they could not make the target.
    Second, never land in a turn. We know that a parachute's descent rate increases dramatically in a turn, and that speed remains for a few seconds after the turn is stopped. Landing in turns is by far the biggest cause of skydiving injuries. These low turns are usually made by people who did not pick a safe area and turned at the last moment to avoid an obstacle, or by people who thought landing on the target was a higher priority than landing safely.No low turns!
    Third, land into the wind. This one is too obvious to need elaboration; the slower you are going, the softer you land. However, landing down wind or cross wind is less likely to cause injury than landing in a turn or on obstacles! On a breezy day, turn towards your parachute after you touch down and pull in one line to collapse the canopy. You may need to run around down wind of the canopy.



    Test yourself:
    1. The United States Parachute Association limits student and novice jumpers to wind conditions of fourteen miles per hour or less. Why are winds over fifteen miles per hour considered dangerous?
    2.Turbulence that can make steering difficult or even collapse your canopy can be caused by three things. Hot, rising air such as dust devils is one and high winds passing over obstacles are another. What else could cause dangerous turbulence on landing? Where would you expect to find turbulence on a windy day?
    Proceed to Chapter 8 (After the Landing)

    By admin, in General,

    The Skydiving Handbook - Chapter 5 (After the Freefall)

    There are only two ways to end a freefall. One is to open your parachute, and the other is not to. No one wants it to end the second way. Statistics show that the overwhelming cause of skydiving fatalities are due to the jumper not using a perfectly functional parachute in time. Why does it happen?
    In order to open your parachute safely, you need to know two things: when and how. The when was discussed in the previous chapter. Altitude awareness is critical and the loss of it is a life threatening situation. The problem can be compounded if the skydiver, running out of altitude, is unfamiliar with his equipment and has trouble deploying his parachute. Add the possibility of a malfunction to low altitude and unfamiliar equipment and you have a perfect recipe for disaster. Therefor you must always watch your altitude and before you ever get on an airplane you should be totally familiar with your equipment.
    The sport parachute, called a rig in skydiving jargon, is a very simple machine. It must include two canopies, a main and a reserve. The components must be TSO'd, meaning they meet government technical standard orders that require high manufacturing and testing standards. All rigs are worn on the back and consist of similar components. A look at the diagram will show that a rig consists of the deployment system (pilot chute, bridle, and bag), canopy, suspension lines, steering lines, toggles, risers, and harness/container. Deployment is initiated when the container opens and the pilot chute enters the relative wind. The pilot chute may be packed inside the container (all reserves and student mains) or kept in a pouch outside of the container and pulled out by hand, which most experienced jumpers prefer. The pilot chute acts as an anchor in the air, while the jumper continues to fall. As the two separate, the bag in which the canopy is folded is pulled from the container. The parachute's suspension lines, carefully stowed on the outside of the bag, are drawn out until they are fully extended. The bag is then pulled open and the canopy comes out. It immediately begins to inflate as the cells fill with air. Inflation is slowed by the slider which prevents the canopy from expanding too fast. It usually takes three to five seconds from deployment of the pilot chute to full inflation of the canopy.
    Over the years, parachute design has been refined to a remarkable degree. In fact, square parachutes have no known inherent design malfunctions. Theoretically, given proper packing, a stable deployment, and barring material flaws, a square parachute will never malfunction. However, we don't live in a perfect world, and malfunctions are common enough that no sensible person would intentionally jump without a reserve. The malfunction rate for sport parachutes is about one in every thousand deployments. Nearly all are preventable.
    The catalogue of possible malfunctions is long, but all you really need to know is that any parachute must have two characteristics. It must be open, and it must be safe to land. Otherwise it is a malfunction. The first characteristic is determined at a glance. The second one, if there is any doubt, is determined by a control check. Should you have a malfunction, the response is simple - pull your reserve. On student parachutes pulling the reserve handle combines two functions. The main parachute is released from the harness, then the reserve container is opened, starting the reserve deployment sequence. For all practical purposes, main and reserve deployments are identical except that the canopies may be of different sizes.
    Most parachutes used by experienced jumpers have a separate handle for each function of the emergency procedures so you will need some special training when you progress to your own gear. Also, at Skydive Arizona we use only square reserves. If you travel to another drop zone be sure you receive training on their equipment, and find out if the reserve is round or square. Round reserves mean you will need special training.
    The first factor in preventing malfunctions is a simple one: don't leave the airplane with an existing malfunction. This means that you should always have your equipment checked by a knowledgeable second party to be sure nothing is misrouted or damaged. Prevention extends to packing. When you learn to pack you will learn to inspect the canopy. In the student phase, you have to trust your jumpmasters and packers to be responsible for the condition of your parachute, but you will eventually assume all responsibility. Because of the possibility of a jumper making a mistake, our reserves are inspected and packed by a specialist who holds a Rigger's Certificate issued by the U.S. government, thus ensuring that at least one parachute on every skydiver is technically sound.
    The second factor in malfunction prevention is one you control: body position. If you think back to the deployment sequence described earlier, the importance of a stable opening becomes apparent. Since the parachute is on your back, if you are facing the relative wind in a good arch it will deploy straight out behind you. If you are unstable, it must find its way past you - between your legs or around an arm, for example. In this situation, the pilot chute could entangle with you, stopping the deployment sequence. Another possibility during an unstable opening is that the lines will feed out unevenly, creating the potential for a line knot that could keep the slider from coming down or deform the canopy to the point that it cannot fly properly. Don't forget, however, that stability is not as important as opening in the first place. Pulling at the correct altitude always takes precedence over pulling stable. An unstable opening does not always result in a malfunction; parachutes are so reliable that the worst that usually happens is a few line twists. Not opening has far worse consequences.



    Test yourself:
    1. While you are a student, your decision altitude, sometimes called your hard deck, is 2,500 feet. If you initiate main deployment at 4,500 feet and nothing happens, how many seconds will pass before you reach the decision altitude? How many will you have used counting and checking before you realize you have a problem?
    2. If you know you have a malfunction, why should you pull your reserve at once instead of waiting until the decision altitude is reached?
    3. In the old days, skydivers wore their reserve mounted on the front of their harness. If you had a chest mounted reserve, what body position would you want to be in for reserve deployment?
    4. How often should you practice your emergency procedures?
    Proceed to Chapter 6 (Canopy Performance)

    By admin, in General,

    The Skydiving Handbook - Chapter 8 (After the Landing)

    No matter how many skydives you make, you'll always feel a moment of great satisfaction as your parachute settles to the ground. But the skydive isn't over yet! You need to carefully gather up your gear and bring it safely back to the hangar. You should daisy chain the lines (ask!) and be sure not to snag anything. One easy way to keep track of your stuff is to put things like your goggles, gloves, and ripcord in your helmet and fasten that to your chest strap. Back in the packing area, set the rig down carefully and be sure not to drop or lose any of the paraphernalia such as the altimeter, radios, goggles, and ripcord. Keep in mind that all the equipment is very expensive and you are responsible for keeping it safe; a moment's carelessness with an altimeter, for example, could cost $150.
    Once all of your gear is safely off, there is one last thing to do. Review your dive thoroughly, noting areas where you would like to get suggestions and advice and thinking about which techniques worked well, and why. Freefall only lasts a minute, the canopy ride about three. That isn't a lot of time to learn, so to be a good skydiver you have to develop your ability to learn on the ground before and after a jump. A few minutes of careful review with your jumpmaster (or yourself, when you are doing solo jumps) will save you many expensive mistakes in the future. Finally, log all of your jumps. Any jumps you plan to use towards a license requirement must be logged and signed by another jumper.
    Around the Drop Zone
    Although our sport has a two hundred year heritage of air show jumps and military parachuting, sport parachuting as we know it began in the late '50s when civilians began jumping strictly for fun and combined to form sport parachuting groups. Eventually skydivers began to design their own gear instead of modifying military surplus parachutes, and the combination of civilian organization and improvements in equipment has led to a steady growth that continues today.
    The national organization that has overseen skydiving in the Unites States is called the United States Parachute Association, or USPA. USPA is a non-profit membership organization in which each member may vote for the board of directors. We will ask you to join USPA by the time you make your Level 4 ASP jump; the first year's dues are $39.50 (more for overseas memberships.)
    Besides certifying instructors and administering the license system, USPA publishes a monthly magazine that is included with your membership. Membership also provides you with some liability insurance. But perhaps the most important reason for joining USPA is that the organization has been instrumental in keeping the government, at all levels, out of the sport. In fact, skydiving is one of the safest aviation sports and is also the least regulated. To keep it this way, it is important that we police ourselves. The USPA has established safety guidelines that all skydivers at this drop zone are expected to adhere to. The USPA's representative on the drop zone is the Safety and Training Advisor, or S&TA.; He or your instructor can answer questions about license requirements, skydiver ratings, and most other skydiving matters.
    The USPA categorizes skydivers into six experience levels:

    students - under direct supervision in a formal training program
    novices - graduated from a student program but not yet licensed
    A license - minimum of 20 freefalls
    B license - minimum of 50 freefalls
    C license - minimum of 100 freefalls
    D license - minimum of 200 freefalls In addition to the freefall experience, each license level requires demonstration of skill appropriate to that level. A license is important to you as a proof of your ability level, especially if you intend to travel to other drop zones. Each level also has currency requirements. Staying current (jumping regularly) is one of the most important things you can do to enhance safety. For this reason if you are away from skydiving for several weeks you will have to do some reviewing and get back into the sport with a simple, safe, skydive. Until you are licensed, if more than 30 days passes without jumping you will be required to make a Level 4 ASP jump with one of the school's jumpmasters before jumping on your own again.
    USPA also issues instructional ratings to qualified applicants. A person holding a jumpmaster rating has attended a training program and demonstrated the necessary skill and experience to safely guide novices through a student program. Instructors have more experience and have also attended further training courses. Either one will be able to answer most of your questions. You will meet plenty of people willing to offer suggestions to you. Bear in mind that someone with one or two hundred jumps will seem very experienced to you but is actually a relative newcomer to the sport. Rely on rated instructors for guidance until you have your A license! Occasionally you may hear experienced jumpers discussing techniques or procedures that differ from what you have learned; be aware that some things which may be safe for experienced jumpers could be inappropriate for novices. If you have any questions be sure and get an opinion from one of your instructors.
    Skydive Arizona is a business incorporated for the purpose of providing skydiving facilities. While you are on student status, your jump price pays for all aircraft and site expenses as well as instruction and equipment. The operators of the drop zone, Larry and Liliane Hill, are proud that they have built the finest skydiving center in the world, operate the finest fleet of aircraft available, and have some of the best skydivers anywhere on their staff. To help keep this facility safe and pleasant and to control costs, customers are asked to avoid littering (smokers, please put your butts in the yellow or orange cans) and to be on time for their aircraft. Feel free to bring non-skydiving guests out to share the fun, but be sure that children are under constant supervision: drop zones abound with expensive and dangerous objects! Dogs are not permitted in the grassy central grounds or in the buildings.
    Drop zone etiquette is casual, but when you are in an area where people are packing, be sure to walk around the parachutes rather than step over them, and never smoke or leave drinks around parachutes. Do not borrow or examine other people's gear without permission. Drinking alcohol on the drop zone is forbidden until the last load of jumpers is up. This rule extends to non-skydiving guests for a simple reason: we try hard to maintain a good image, and an uninformed observer might not be able to distinguish between a skydiver and a non jumper.
    Where do you go from here?
    The ASP program has eight levels that cover all the skills discussed in this handbook. At each level you will receive detailed instructions from the school staff. After graduating from our student program you will make several more jumps to hone your basic flying skills. At the same time, you'll be trying more advanced things and looking at buying gear. For this stage of your progression we have written a second handbook, geared for jumpers off student status and working towards their A license. The Skydiver's Handbook will fit right in with this one, and goes into details on license requirements, relative work, the coach program, buying gear, and other neat stuff. Keep the two together for reference and rainy day study. You can also keep notes and sketches, packing manuals, license applications, etc. in this folder.
    All of these materials are designed to be flexible and are subject to continuous updates. Please let Bryan Burke, the Safety and Training Advisor, know if any of the information was unclear or if you felt more detail was needed. We very much appreciate your comments and suggestions, as well as your questions. Welcome to skydiving!

    By admin, in General,

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