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jclalor

Too close for comfort.

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On Friday at the boogie in Davis, may be twenty seconds after opening and at about 2300 ft, I looked behind me to see a canopy spiraling down at me. For a split second I thought of dissconecting my RSL and cutting away. She cut away pretty much as I was going for my RSL, I'm a bad judge of distance but she seemed pretty damm close.

Edited to add that I did not shoot this video, I was pretty close to right below her as she starts spiraling.

Nothing she did wrong and I was glad to see she was fine.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psFzvr-YMxU



In the video she looks pretty damn close. If I'm understanding you correctly she was spiraling down over you and you lost sight of her because your canopy was blocking your view. That would scare the hell out of me. If I'm understanding correctly you were considering chopping your main to avoid what you perceived as soon to be an imminent collision. I assume you wanted to release your RSL so you could get some distance between her and you before deploying your reserve. Sounds like a reasonable consideration to me. If I saw a canopy spiraling toward me and thought I was about to be clocked, circumstances being the same as yours, I'd consider chopping as an option.
There are a lot of what ifs being offered by others here and they are valid. Here are some what ifs I think are just as valid. What if you had not seen her or you balked and she did crash into you. What if your canopies wrapped up. What if you both were injured badly enough or unconscious so as not to be able to cutaway. Just some food for thought and I'm very glad everything turned out ok for both of you.



Thanks for the response, nice to know that I am not the only one who would consider trying to get away from the situation the fastest way I could think of.

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You've got nth on this guy! probably 20ish ft away!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASW8c1AlVD8&feature=related



At 0:17 do I see another group tracking right below the group in the video?




Your eyes do not deceive you!
For info regarding lift ticket prices all around the world check out
http://www.jumpticketprices.com/dropzones.asp

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Hey Dudes,

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most mistakes are not made at the point the happening is ... they are made long before.

Always Blue Sky
Holger




We left the skyvan first and the cutaway group second, we were all on our bellies. on opening, at 3000 ft, I saw all of my group in view and then headed straight back to land. the cutaway did open high, may be 4000 ft. I did not see her until she started the spin because she was straight above me.



So you are saying upon opening you headed straight back up Jump run??
You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

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Hey Dudes,

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most mistakes are not made at the point the happening is ... they are made long before.

Always Blue Sky
Holger




We left the skyvan first and the cutaway group second, we were all on our bellies. on opening, at 3000 ft, I saw all of my group in view and then headed straight back to land. the cutaway did open high, may be 4000 ft. I did not see her until she started the spin because she was straight above me.


So you are saying upon opening you headed straight back up Jump run??



... as I wrote ... mistake are made (long) before ... >:(

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So you are saying upon opening you headed straight back up Jump run??




... as I wrote ... mistake are made (long) before ... >:(


I believe he was saying that he headed straight for the dropzone, not straight back up the jumprun. That could be the same thing, but not necessarily

jcalor, I might have considered cutting away as well. Once you lose sight of it, and the last thing you did see was it heading your way, I think I'd be fairly worried about collision, especially if I was flying a giant, slow canopy
__

My mighty steed

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jcalor, I might have considered cutting away as well. Once you lose sight of it, and the last thing you did see was it heading your way, I think I'd be fairly worried about collision, especially if I was flying a giant, slow canopy.



Which movie was it again now? ...The one with Wesley Snipes - "Dropzone" maybe, I think? ...I can see it now... "GIFT-WRAP"!! :ph34r:
coitus non circum - Moab Stone

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I believe he was saying that he headed straight for the dropzone, not straight back up the jumprun. That could be the same thing, but not necessarily



From the perspective I'm seeing in the video, it looks like he's running east to west. The runway you see runs north to south (from the perspective of the video guy, who is to the north). Jump run also runs along that north/south line (I don't recall whether we were doing north-south or south-north at that point in the boogie). Appears to me that the OP was flying in an appropriate direction given jump run direction. (I was on the ground when this cutaway occurred, not on that load, so I'm just basing my statements on the normal jump run patterns that were used, but since the winds were light-to-moderate all weekend and never came out of any "odd" directions, I think it's a pretty safe assumption jump run was along that north/south line).
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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We left the skyvan first and the cutaway group second, we were all on our bellies. on opening, at 3000 ft, I had all of my group in view and then headed straight back to land. the cutaway did open high, may be 4000 ft. I did not see her until she started the spin because she was straight above me.



So you are saying upon opening you headed straight back up Jump run??



I was heading back to the LZ, but not parallel with the jump run, I was flying at about a 75 degree angle to the jump run at the time she spiraled. Jump run, which was a north to south direction and was also parallel with the runway.

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hate to say this but in 95% of the tandem videos I have seen the video guys dump right below the tandem........... with no horizontal separation. Maybe we have just been lucky on this.



If you're a tandem vidiot and you pull close (horizontally I mean) to a tandem, you better make sure the opening looks good.

If I'm not sure, I'll backslide away from the tandem some more before pulling.

Don't be fooled a tandem vidiot "just" pulls straight after and close to the tandem pair. Or if they are, they should get talking to :|

ciel bleu,
Saskia

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We left the skyvan first and the cutaway group second, we were all on our bellies. on opening, at 3000 ft, I saw all of my group in view and then headed straight back to land. the cutaway did open high, may be 4000 ft. I did not see her until she started the spin because she was straight above me.



Your exit separation between the groups may not have been sufficient.
You stated that you looked around for 'your' group after opening.
You also need to look for the groups before and after you open.
After you see those folks and they all have good canopies, then you can arrange yourself for approaching the target. (the field S of the gun range)

There are two issues to look at:
1. exit separation
2. flying back towards the landing area under canopy before the next group is open

There was a recent fatality in Australia that this may have been an issue.
There was a fatality, also in Australia, several years ago where this was also suspected to be an issue.
Both of those accidents had people from different groups colliding shortly or during opening.
FMI Search Fiona McEachern and Lee Loncasty.

As for the idea of 'cutting away because you think someone from above and behind is about to hit you' --- that's one of those you'd have to be there in order to decide.

.
.
Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

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We left the skyvan first and the cutaway group second, we were all on our bellies. on opening, at 3000 ft, I saw all of my group in view and then headed straight back to land. the cutaway did open high, may be 4000 ft. I did not see her until she started the spin because she was straight above me.



Your exit separation between the groups may not have been sufficient.
You stated that you looked around for 'your' group after opening.
You also need to look for the groups before and after you open.
After you see those folks and they all have good canopies, then you can arrange yourself for approaching the target. (the field S of the gun range)

There are two issues to look at:
1. exit separation
2. flying back towards the landing area under canopy before the next group is open

There was a recent fatality in Australia that this may have been an issue.
There was a fatality, also in Australia, several years ago where this was also suspected to be an issue.
Both of those accidents had people from different groups colliding shortly or during opening.
FMI Search Fiona McEachern and Lee Loncasty.

As for the idea of 'cutting away because you think someone from above and behind is about to hit you' --- that's one of those you'd have to be there in order to decide.

.



Our three way was first out of the van, not sure how I have control over the next groups separation time. I even tracked opposite of jump run.

Her canopy was open as I was flying back, this is clearly visible. If her canopy did not go into a spin with her burning off fast altitude, there was no separation issue.

Being first out, i'm not sure if I can scan over a mile ahead of me and account for over twenty canopies in the air and then land in every time. I can scan the air space that I will be going through and make sure it is safe to travel, like I was doing. I was looking 360, up and down, and I did see her above and behind me.

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After you see those folks and they all have good canopies, then you can arrange yourself for approaching the target. (the field S of the gun range)


There are two issues to look at:
1. exit separation
2. flying back towards the landing area under canopy before the next group is open



Our three way was first out of the van, not sure how I have control over the next groups separation time. I even tracked opposite of jump run.

Her canopy was open as I was flying back, this is clearly visible. If her canopy did not go into a spin with her burning off fast altitude, there was no separation issue.

Being first out, i'm not sure if I can scan over a mile ahead of me and account for over twenty canopies in the air and then land in every time. I can scan the air space that I will be going through and make sure it is safe to travel, like I was doing. I was looking 360, up and down, and I did see her above and behind me.



I understand that you were in the first group out and your group cannot fix the exit separation.
What I wanted to impress is that once you open, you need to look up & down the jumprun line and make sure that the groups before or after you are open AND HAVE GOOD CANOPIES. Once that is a check ok-good to go, then you can start flying to get back to the landing area.

You also said that this happened about 20 seconds after you opened and that you tracked opposite jump run (which would mean your track was to the north).
The photographer usually takes the center area of the formation at break off and his POV is N of the barn and N of you.

I find those things to be inconsistent.

IOW, I find it difficult to believe that you were tracking to the N of the photographer and then 20 seconds later finding yourself S of the photographer.
Perhaps, your timeline is off or the photographer was not in the center of your group or you thought jumprun was S to N?
The video and my 10 years of jumping at Skydance would lay odds that jumprun was N to S.

I want to stress upon you and others that making a beeline back to the landing area right after you open is not always a good thing to do, especially if you are short of the target and first out.

.
.
Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

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After you see those folks and they all have good canopies, then you can arrange yourself for approaching the target. (the field S of the gun range)


There are two issues to look at:
1. exit separation
2. flying back towards the landing area under canopy before the next group is open



Our three way was first out of the van, not sure how I have control over the next groups separation time. I even tracked opposite of jump run.

Her canopy was open as I was flying back, this is clearly visible. If her canopy did not go into a spin with her burning off fast altitude, there was no separation issue.

Being first out, i'm not sure if I can scan over a mile ahead of me and account for over twenty canopies in the air and then land in every time. I can scan the air space that I will be going through and make sure it is safe to travel, like I was doing. I was looking 360, up and down, and I did see her above and behind me.



I understand that you were in the first group out and your group cannot fix the exit separation.
What I wanted to impress is that once you open, you need to look up & down the jumprun line and make sure that the groups before or after you are open AND HAVE GOOD CANOPIES. Once that is a check ok-good to go, then you can start flying to get back to the landing area.

You also said that this happened about 20 seconds after you opened and that you tracked opposite jump run (which would mean your track was to the north).
The photographer usually takes the center area of the formation at break off and his POV is N of the barn and N of you.

I find those things to be inconsistent.

IOW, I find it difficult to believe that you were tracking to the N of the photographer and then 20 seconds later finding yourself S of the photographer.
Perhaps, your timeline is off or the photographer was not in the center of your group or you thought jumprun was S to N?
The video and my 10 years of jumping at Skydance would lay odds that jumprun was N to S.

I want to stress upon you and others that making a beeline back to the landing area right after you open is not always a good thing to do, especially if you are short of the target and first out.

.



I did look up and down the jump run, her canopy was flying straight and level in the beginning and did not start diving until I was passing by her, have a look yourself.

I have already stated jump run was N to S. nothing new there, twenty seconds? thirty seconds? I forgot my stopwatch on this jump. I did track N. How long under canopy would it take to fly three or for hundred feet? Video went W. I went N and our third went E so I guess video was not in the middle.

I was flying SW back to the LZ, not exactly a beeline line.

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Hi All,

I was shooting the video on this one, actually my 2nd ever video jump ..The jump run was N to S, this much i can see after watching the whole thing again. Not much to add, after we split, i tracked West and if Chris says he went N i beleve that .. Can it be that good exit separation and tracking the right way only covers you for opening in the clear and first few seconds under canopy ? After half a minute or more of flying, especially with a spinning mal at the end, that distance can be reduced fast, and there's not much that can be done to prepare .. As for me i dont think i could force myself to cut away in the amount ot time left before a possible collision - but it sure was SCARY to watch ..

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Hi All,

I was shooting the video on this one, actually my 2nd ever video jump ..The jump run was N to S, this much i can see after watching the whole thing again. Not much to add, after we split, i tracked West and if Chris says he went N i beleve that .. Can it be that good exit separation and tracking the right way only covers you for opening in the clear and first few seconds under canopy ? After half a minute or more of flying, especially with a spinning mal at the end, that distance can be reduced fast, and there's not much that can be done to prepare .. As for me i dont think i could force myself to cut away in the amount ot time left before a possible collision - but it sure was SCARY to watch ..



I'll summ up ;-)

Jumrum: N - S
OP had seperation slot to N and flying a 75° to jumprun
"She" eventualy had seperation slot to S
______________________________________
You then are just going towards each other.

There will have been not enough time between the Exits! Another point for "the mistake was made a long time prior" the danger occurs ...

Work on that with your jumpmates on the ground and take the good things out of this happening - learn ;-). Just make a little drawing in top an horizontal view with jumprun / eixit piont / some drift in freefal / seperation ... just the std. exit planing things!

have fun ;-)

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hate to say this but in 95% of the tandem videos I have seen the video guys dump right below the tandem........... with no horizontal separation. Maybe we have just been lucky on this.



What??? Are you serious? >:(
Life is all about ass....either you're kicking it, kissing it, working it off, or trying to get a piece of it.
Muff Brother #4382 Dudeist Skydiver #000
www.fundraiseadventure.com

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Never, I repeat, never cutaway a good canopy. If there is a collision and a wrap that good canopy may be the only canopy out for the rest of your trip.
Do some research; more than one jumper has died behind a low reserve pull after clearing a wrap without an RSL.

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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