Awareness during Malfunctions

[skydude2000 3]

Hi guys,

Not sure if this question has been addressed before, but I didn't quite know how to search for it.

When you are having a partial mal that you believe is fixable, how worried should you be about traffic/ other canopies, etc?

I ask because I've had several partial mals, from spinning line twists, to a toggle wrapped around my slider. I was always looking from my canopy/problem, to my altimeter and back. I had a really hard time trying to scan for traffic when I'm dealing with what might end up being a cutaway.

Is that something you learn eventually, to split your focus like that? Or do we try to count on other jumpers staying away from us in that case, a la 'reserve canopy has right of way'?

I was doing my best to stay calm and fix the problem, without having to worry about spinning into someone who didn't see me. Especially since I might not have full control of my canopy.

Any suggestions as to how to stay more aware in an emergency like that?

Thanks!!

PULL!! or DIE!!

[DSE 3]

Your first priority is to get a good canopy above your head.
Everything else comes secondary.

[NWFlyer 2]

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Your first priority is to get a good canopy above your head.
Everything else comes secondary.

What he said, plus, in many malfunction situations, there's not a lot you can actually do to control the canopy to get it out of the way of another person, even if you have awareness of other people near you. So spend your mental energy on something you can do something about - attempting to get a good canopy over your head.

"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

[billvon 2,380]

>When you are having a partial mal that you believe is fixable, how worried
>should you be about traffic/ other canopies, etc?

Not worried at all.

1) You will usually not have much control anyway, so you can't do much.

2) The thing most likely to kill you in that situation is the malfunction, not a collision.

3) That's why other people look around - to avoid the guy heading at them with line twist.

I've had six mals (all low speed) and the only time I've ever looked around was the last one, where I had a stuck toggle/trapped slider (but the canopy was otherwise flying fine.) I knew I had to cut away but I was at 2000 feet, so I took a few seconds to get the canopy flying straight and verify that there was no one below me before cutting away.

[skydude2000 3]

Thanks guys, that makes me feel a bit better. I figured that was the right thing to do, but after having 'head on a swivel' beat into your brain, it's a hard habit to get out of.

I probably shouldn't have landed the last one with the toggle flipped through the slider grommet, but I'm still walkin', so I guess I did ok
Good to know I did the right thing.

PULL!! or DIE!!

[JohnRich 4]

If you think you might have to cut-away, the only traffic you need to be concerned about is what's underneath you. I actually had to delay my last cut-away because of that. After the lower jumper flew out of the way, I pulled my cut-away handle.

This is also a good reason not to get underneath anyone else. Not only does that put them in a blind spot where you can't see them, it also gives them the opportunity, if they are not paying attention, to spiral down into you.

[Amazon 7]

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Hi guys,

Not sure if this question has been addressed before, but I didn't quite know how to search for it.

When you are having a partial mal that you believe is fixable, how worried should you be about traffic/ other canopies, etc?

I ask because I've had several partial mals, from spinning line twists, to a toggle wrapped around my slider. I was always looking from my canopy/problem, to my altimeter and back. I had a really hard time trying to scan for traffic when I'm dealing with what might end up being a cutaway.

Is that something you learn eventually, to split your focus like that? Or do we try to count on other jumpers staying away from us in that case, a la 'reserve canopy has right of way'?

I was doing my best to stay calm and fix the problem, without having to worry about spinning into someone who didn't see me. Especially since I might not have full control of my canopy.

Any suggestions as to how to stay more aware in an emergency like that?

Thanks!!

What you do not see is what can kill you while you are trying to do that "airborne rigging".

I am a firm believer in doing all rigging on the ground.

[Scrumpot 1]

This is what also - GOOD SEPARATION is there (or should be, in the 1st place) for!

Good question. Good responses. Just thought I'd also add this one.

Carry on.

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[Glitch 0]

'In-air-rigging' has killed more than a hand full of skydivers...

Randomly f'n thingies up since before I was born...

[DSE 3]

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I probably shouldn't have landed the last one with the toggle flipped through the slider grommet, but I'm still walkin', so I guess I did ok
Good to know I did the right thing.

You may or may not have done the right thing; hopefully you checked controllability high up so you knew how it would react when flared at landing. Watched one guy with a broken brake line land on one rear and one toggle. He burned it in hard and turned the canopy on its side during landing. He only sprained his ankle.
When asked about it, he admitted that he hadn't tested the canopy for riser/toggle control. He merely remembered that he *could* land on a riser/toggle combination (which is fine, but he would likely have had a more successful landing had he done a controllability check prior to landing).

I understand your worry. My first 1000 jumps were filled with "what will I do if...." and then when the first cutaway came, it was quite easy to manage. It was high speed.
My second mal was a diving spin, low speed mal. It too, was easy. Third one was also a diving spin, and it was all automatic.
Not once was I worrying about traffic. I needed to worry after myself.

[skydude2000 3]

Yeah, once I figured out how to stop the turn, that was the first thing I checked. The line was caught, I could get about a half-flare out of the left toggle, from what I remember. I think by the time I fixed it to the point where I knew it was landable, I was too low to chop anyway.

The trouble is, even if I tested the flare, I couldn't really tell how hard the landing would be. It's just nice to know I had concentration enough to fix the problem.

I trust my reserve, and my rigger, but riggers are still human, and reserves can, do and have failed.

I'm confident now, I made the right call.

PULL!! or DIE!!

[freeflyer58D 1]

obviously in a perfect world, everyone will track away to give proper horizontal and sometimes vertical spacing, and the more space the better, but... its never a perfect world. the jumper with a problem needs to focus on the problem and thats it. if your on a load and see another jumper struggling with a mal, give them space, keep an eye on them, but keep the airspace around them clear. i've followed a jumper with a mal(cutaway) and went to rear risers to make sure i could see where his gear went. but i was far enough away and knew the location of every other jumper from that load. if you have a mal, work your problem and have the trust that your fellow jumpers will stay clear, this is the way the rest of aviation works, broke airplane gets airspace priority, and priority handling in order to let them "just fly the wing" and make it back to earth. it should be the same here! this might even be something you can bring up between loads sometime. very good topics can be covered in the down time between jumps.

[davelepka 4]

Is this what you're thinking about?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dTFDqXe90s

[skydude2000 3]

Yeah, like that. But I really don't know how much you could do in that situation as the guy with the mal.

Would you try and yell out to at least warn him what's happening? If you're above him, I guess he might not be able to see you.

PULL!! or DIE!!

[Baksteen 84]

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I trust my reserve, and my rigger, but riggers are still human, and reserves can, do and have failed.

I never understood this line of thinking. Why take your chances with a canopy you know isn't good while you have a second canopy which is packed by a professional and which probably will be perfectly fine?

This isn't directed at the OP personally - they walked away so they made the right choice. It's just that I'm a firm believer in the saying "when in doubt, whip it out".

"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

[Para5-0 0]

Great vid, I never saw that one. If he were in the actual path of the skydiver with mal there is not much that could have been done.

[davelepka 4]

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Would you try and yell out to at least warn him what's happening? If you're above him, I guess he might not be able to see you

No, he couldn't see you, but you really think he would be able to hear you?

It sounds like you're starting to worry about things you cannot help. You won't have much control over anything in the event of a malfunction, that's what it's called a malfunction, things are not functioning properly. Any sort of safe-guards that are typically in place may just have gone out the window. You won't have directional control, and in the case of an RSl or Skyhook, you have no control over when you reserve will deploy after a cutraway (which is for the best).

Dsiconnecting an RSL is not an option. Once you are under a malfunctioning main, do not attempt to clear the airspace below you, or disconnect an RSl or Skyhook to allow for a delay. Simply follow through with your EPs and hope for the best. Your time is very limited in these cases, and there is no gurantee that things will go as you hope with reagrds to your EPs, or your RSl, Skyhook or AAD working properly. Let's face it, your plan for opening your main has already gone to shit, so there's no reason to expect the rest to work out as planned. Get to your EPs ASAP, to give yourself the most possible time to deal with any further problems, or at best, more time under your reserve to do some practice flares.

The video I posted is a very specific example. In that case, the lower jumper made a critical error by not tracking far enough, and then flying back under the center of the formation.

It is common in RW video for the camera guy to dump right at break off altitude, and right in place. That's what it means when they say, 'The video guy gets the center'. The idea is that if everyone tracks away from the center of the formation, that space is now clear for the camera guy to dump in. Most camera guys will pull right at break off, while the jumpers in the formation are still tracking, creating vertical seperation from these jumpers. However, for reasons we see in this video, the center should remain clear well beneath the break off alititude, to allow the camera guy to suck it down, or have a mal.

In this instance, the camera guy had several advatages, the biggest being that he did pull right at break off, which was probably 4000ft or higher. Due to this, he had the altitude to delay the reserve pull until he went by the lower jumper. As with most camera flyers, he was probably not jumping an RSL, so no disconnection was needed.

I am willing to bet that he did not even see the lower canopy until after he had cutaway, and that canopy played no role in his plans while he was spinning under his main. Once free of the main, he could see that he was going to fall clear of the lower canopy, so that's what he did. If he had dumped his reserve immediately, he might have sniveled into the lower canopy, as you have no directional control over your canopy during the snivel.

The key point to remember is that the guy pulled high, and had the altitude to pass the lower canopy, and still get his reseve out at or around 2k. The situation here was the result of using vertical seperation, not something most jumpers do outside of video flyers. In a regular skydive, if you pul at a normal altitude, and cutaway with a canopy below you, that canopy would have to be from another group and would most likely much lower than the canopy in the video. if you attempt to fall clear of that canopy, you would be under 1000ft by the time you went for your reserve. Not good.

The video I posted was just an example of something close to what you were asking about, and not intended to be an example of how you should react in a malfunction situation. I was posted more as an interesting video to share.

[JohnRich 4]

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Once you are under a malfunctioning main, do not attempt to clear the airspace below you...

Whoa there! When you look down to see your hands grip your handles, your eyeballs are already pointing in the correct direction to do that. One only has to have the mental presence of mind to make a note of whether or not that airspace underneath you is clear. And for a low-speed minor malfunction, sacrificing a few seconds to wait for a lower jumper to clear the air under you can be well worth the increase in safety. No one wants to have a canopy collision on their last chute and their last chance for life. They only circumstances in which I could agree with your statement is for a high speed malfunction where you're burning up precious altitude very fast, and in that case, preserving altitude may be more important than clearing airspace.

[BrianM 1]

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I never understood this line of thinking. Why take your chances with a canopy you know isn't good while you have a second canopy which is packed by a professional and which probably will be perfectly fine?

It depends on what the problem is. If I have something minor that I know I can land safely, then why would I trade that for a canopy that may or may not function properly? However, if I have any doubts at all about landing what I have, I won't hesitate to get rid of it and try a different one!

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they walked away so they made the right choice.

I knew somebody was going to pull out that line. It's repeated often, but it just isn't true. I can do everything wrong and get away with it. I can do everything right and still die. (I'm not making any judgment of the OP's actions, just on that particular reasoning).

"It's amazing what you can learn while you're not talking." - Skydivesg

[billvon 2,380]

> When you look down to see your hands grip your handles, your
>eyeballs are already pointing in the correct direction to do that.

Usually not. If your main is spinning at all (which is the case in most low speed mals) you'll be looking at the horizon.

> And for a low-speed minor malfunction, sacrificing a few seconds to wait
> for a lower jumper to clear the air under way can be well worth the increase
> in safety.

Absolutely not. A great many people have died from cutting away too low. No one has died from cutting away, falling away from their main and then hitting someone flying below them. Doing something that has killed a lot of people to avoid a problem that has never occurred doesn't make sense.

[JohnRich 4]

>> When you look down to see your hands grip your handles, your
>> eyeballs are already pointing in the correct direction to do that.

> Usually not. If your main is spinning at all (which is the case in most low speed mals) you'll be
> looking at the horizon.

You're assuming that spinning malfunctions constitute a majority of malfunctions. And many spinning malfunctions under today's popular high-wingload canopies I would not call low-speed, as they lose altitude very fast when they're spiraling.

>> And for a low-speed minor malfunction, sacrificing a few seconds to wait
>> for a lower jumper to clear the air under way can be well worth the increase
>> in safety.

> Absolutely not. A great many people have died from cutting away too low. No one has died from
> cutting away, falling away from their main and then hitting someone flying below them. Doing
> something that has killed a lot of people to avoid a problem that has never occurred doesn't make
> sense.

Yes, cutting away too low is a bad thing. That's why I limited that "look first" option to only low speed malfunctions, where time is not critical, and you have a few seconds to think first.

And people HAVE died from canopy collisions on their reserves. I recall one that was talked about in this forum, where two canopies wrapped together, both jumpers cut-away, and then they had another entanglement with their reserves - because they were still occupying the same air space.

To look or not to look - a personal choice, and something for people to consider. If I have the time, I'm going to look.

[billvon 2,380]

>You're assuming that spinning malfunctions constitute a majority of malfunctions.

Right - which in my experience, they do.

>And people HAVE died from canopy collisions on their reserves. I recall
>one that was talked about in this forum, where two canopies wrapped
>together, both jumpers cut-away, and then they had another entanglement
>with their reserves - because they were still occupying the same air space.

Yes. However, no one has ever cut away, fallen away from their main and then hit someone flying below them. So in a normal cutaway situation, don't waste time looking.

(Wraps, whether CRW or not, are a separate case, and have to be handled quite differently; communication is essential there.)

[davelepka 4]

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To look or not to look - a personal choice, and something for people to consider. If I have the time, I'm going to look.

That's fair, but let's put your statement into the proper perspective - you have 31 years in the sport and 5000 jumps. According to your profile, you jump a canopy much larger than the average jumper, and if I'm not mistaken you still jump a ripcord and a spring loaded PC.

You are far from the average jumper in that you have more time and jumps than most, and to add to that your canopy choice will limit your altitude loss in the case of a partial malfunction. I'm not sayng that a Tri 260 cannot spin and dive, but it certainly cannot do it as quickly as a Pilot or Sabre2 170 (which is about as average as I can imagine).

So if you are a long-time, highly expereinced jumper flying a larger than average canopy, taking the time to have a look might be OK.

If you are a more average jumper in terms of experience and equipment, time is of the essence, and you should move through your EPs in short order.

Let's face it, you tried to deploy your main because you wanted the jump to be over. In the case of a malfunction, you failed to stop the skydive and stopping the skydive is job one. If you have conducted yourself properly and tracked to a clear area while scanning the area ahead and below as you tracked, you should be assured that nobody is below you. In the case of any 'higher' speed malfucntions, including spinning mals, you are not covering much ground horizontally, so if the area below you when you tracked was clear, it's still going to be clear for your cutaway. Pull your handles without delay.

[skydude2000 3]

Thanks again for all the input guys. You've given me a lot to think about.

As you mentioned about checking below you before cutting away, in theory, that makes sense, and in my case, that would have been a good idea. I think I would have had time.

However, if you're cutting away from a spinning/turning mal, how likely is it that you will fall straight down anyway? Would you not at least get some directional throw from the momentum of the spin? Depending of course, on the speed of the mal?

I don't think it's too likely that you could time the chop, if you're spinning, such that you would be thrown in a direction away from any traffic below you. But maybe that's a false assumption on my part?

PULL!! or DIE!!

[Amazon 7]

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Thanks again for all the input guys. You've given me a lot to think about.

As you mentioned about checking below you before cutting away, in theory, that makes sense, and in my case, that would have been a good idea. I think I would have had time.

However, if you're cutting away from a spinning/turning mal, how likely is it that you will fall straight down anyway? Would you not at least get some directional throw from the momentum of the spin? Depending of course, on the speed of the mal?

I don't think it's too likely that you could time the chop, if you're spinning, such that you would be thrown in a direction away from any traffic below you. But maybe that's a false assumption on my part?

You may get a little throw.. as I did in my case.... BUT... it could just as easily throw over and out and into someone else anyway.

My spinups were under a full on eliptical.. and trust me... you do NOT want to be hanging around in the harness as you start to pull G's, that shit starts to hurt in a big hurry. I would lay odds that there has been more than one person who died from being incapacitated from a G lock when a canopy spun up