Downwind landings...

[billvon 2,406]

>What is the appropriate procedure for making a safe downwind
>landing, and what are the wind speeds we are talking here.

You mean an intentional one? Good question. I'm not the best person to answer (I'm not a canopy coach and I limit myself to 180's most of the time) but I'll give it a shot:

First off, an intentional downwind landing is to prepare you for what happened to you - an unintentional downwind landing. If you landed without hurting yourself, you've achieved the goal, and presumably you'll do it as well or better in the future.

Second, it's not a skill in and of itself; it's the combination of a great many other skills. These include:

-very good control of the timing and degree of the flare; you have to be able to get your feet to just touch the ground as your vertical speed gets to zero

-ability to ignore 'false' cues (like a high groundspeed making you flare too early)

-ability to keep the canopy over your head even as you touch down

-ability to slide

Combine all these and you have the ingredients for a safe downwind landing. The ideal one starts with a flare that gets your feet on the ground. If the ground is smooth and a little slippery (grass or smooth dirt) that can happen with your feet slightly in front of you with your knees bent. Once that happens, your feet start to slide while you keep the canopy over your head. The sliding lets you start slowing down before you have to start running, but it absolutely requires you keep flying the canopy, because at that point that's what's keeping you on your feet.

Then once you slow a little more you start running, with the expectation that it's going to be fast. If it's too fast to run, the next move is to move your weight _backwards_ so you go down onto a thigh. Now you're sliding with your feet in front of you, which is a good position to be in; you take any additional impacts with your feet/thighs.

So if you are planning an intentional, a grass or at least packed smooth dirt landing area is probably a very good idea.

If the ground is rough it's not going to be as pretty. Generally you want to get your feet farther in front of you so you can go down onto your side (thigh ideally) to slide. If it's a very grabby area, like plowed dirt, you may elect to try to run it out, but you're probably going to go down; if that happens it's critical to be able to roll _forward_ while protecting your head and neck. If it's tall grass you can get your legs out in front of you but you'll probably get spun around anyway.*

If it's a less grabby area then getting your legs far in front and taking as much impact as possible on your feet/legs is probably the way to go.

I think the biggest risk overall is letting your weight get too far forward too early. That launches you forward early, which means now you're going to hit chest/head first with a _lot_ of energy. The longer you can delay that the better.

All in all I'd think that being able to land downwind in light winds is a pretty good goal and a good place to stop. Most of the time people land downwind, it's because they can't read the wind indicators (or someone _else_ can't read the wind indicators) and that most often happens in light and variable wind conditions.

But if you really want to try landing in stronger downwinds:

1) Practice on your regular canopy until you can slide it in for no-wind landings

2) Go up two canopy sizes; practice on _that_ until you can slide it on in no-wind

3) Choose the perfect day (steady winds) the perfect load (make sure you'll have that landing area to yourself) and the perfect LZ (damp grass is ideal; make sure you have more room than you usually do.)

Then give it a shot if you want to.

A few other points:

>You all seem to want to make this type of training mandatory . . .

I definitely don't. I think it's a VERY good idea to do it before you downsize, but if it sounds too dangerous, sticking to your current canopy and being very careful about wind direction is probably a better call.

>on the other hand, 10-20, yes and I have no idea what I would do
>different besides what I did and that is flare and hope I don't break
>myself on landing.

Well, that's basically it. For the purposes of this discussion we're talking about an emergency maneuver to get you on the ground safely after several other mistakes (like choosing the wrong landing direction, or someone setting the pattern the wrong way.) If you can land without injury you've achieved that, even if it's not pretty.

> The only thing I can think of doing is lengthing my flare, but if the
>winds are 15mph I am going to hit at 15, that is neither safe, nor fun.

A lot faster than that actually! You still have the stall speed of your canopy to contend with.

(* - this happened to me a while back when I was following someone's freebag down and didn't realize I was landing downwind until I was about 20 feet above the weeds. I PLF'ed, the weeds caught my feet, and I spun twice before coming to a stop, with seeds in every single part of my rig and jumpsuit.)

[AndyMan 7]

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You all seem to want to make this type of training mandatory, but unless you are training in swooping, what kind of experience can one get when the training required needs to be done in moderate winds? I don't know, maybe I am missing something here, but I don't consider landing with the wind in 5mph winds a big deal or a true downwind landing..on the other hand, 10-20, yes and I have no idea what I would do different besides what I did and that is flare and hope I don't break myself on landing.

The point of the training is to teach you something - something that I think you've noticed, but haven't figured out yet.

You can land down-wind, in 5, 10, 20, or even 30 MPH. As long as you flare at the normal height, and keep your legs infront of you, or do a PLF and roll with it - as long as you do this, you'll get up, and dust yourself off, and walk away, just like you did.

That's the point of the training. It's an important lesson to learn, and it's not intuitive, and it doesn't come naturally. Many skydivers never figure this out.

_Am

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You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[ridestrong 1]

Maybe we should start intentionally spinning the d-bag a few times before packing it in the container to practice for line twists too..

*I am not afraid of dying... I am afraid of missing life.*
----Disclaimer: I don't know shit about skydiving.----

[AndyMan 7]

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Maybe we should start intentionally spinning the d-bag a few times before packing it in the container to practice for line twists too..

There is SO little value in being obtuse.

How many skydivers die every year because they're afraid to cut away line twists? Generally I find the opposite is true - people are more than happy to get rid of a malfunction.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[Will_Evo 0]

Thanks for that

After reading that post, I completely see where I was confused. When I was reading this thread, it sounded like the people for downwind landings were not only doing them for fun, but were landing them on their feet like they would a normal jump. I did not instinctively assume they were sliding it in, getting dirty, and like I did, hoping they don't break themselves.

Now it all makes much more sense, and I understand the concept behind the downwind landing this thread it talking about and how to make it down safely...it won't be pretty, but hopefully you walk away.

As far as making downwind landings a requirement, I am all against it. If training for a downwind landing means potentially breaking yourself, ruining gear, and being scared shitless(all of which either happened or nearly happened to me), count me out. This is something I feel like you learn as you go, because no matter the size of the canopy you are flying, if the winds are 15mph, you will land at 15mph with the wind, no if's and's or but's about it.

To clarify why I landed downwind, both times were bad spots. First one I followed the first guy in, and he chose a downwind approach(there were no wind indicators, winter time, no leaves on trees and in the middle of a plowed field), of course I rolled, bounced, slid my way to a stop with no injury.

The second time I knew the direction of wind and started my pattern to land into it, unfortunately I had not considered the large puddles(50 ft across) of water that has built up over the past week's large amount of rain in the fields. The end of my crosswind leg took me right over one of these puddles and I immediately felt a HUGE thermal that partially collasped my canopy.(This part was all my fault) In response, I turned to the fastest way away from the thermal, which put me at 150-200 ft up landing downwind. I sucked it up, flared, rolled bounced, slip doing again 15-20mph. Not fun, or exciting. Lesson here? don't set up over huge puddles, keep calm in an emergency, and do your best for a downwind landing lol

-Evo

Zoo Crew

[billvon 2,406]

>If training for a downwind landing means potentially breaking yourself,
>ruining gear, and being scared shitless(all of which either happened or
>nearly happened to me), count me out.

Right. But your case was an emergency case; you did not get to choose your conditions.

Now imagine the same downwind landing, but in a wide open space, on damp grass, with you expecting it and knowing what to do. _That_ jump probably won't be a ruining-gear, scared-shitless event - which is why I think it's better to plan one than to just have it happen accidentally for the first time.

Once a jumper has the experience needed to safely pull off a downwind landing, that emergency landing is generally going to go a lot better. Hence the recommendation.

(BTW thermals don't generally form over puddles/ponds/lakes, although there indeed may be thermal activity near them. The one exception might be at night when the puddle is warmer than the surrounding ground.)

[bluetwo 0]

So... to clarify, and for curiousity, do swoopers intentionally do downwind landings for more speed or do they tend to avoid it too?

If its a dumb question, hey, I'm new here!

_______________________________________

[DocPop 1]

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So... to clarify, and for curiousity, do swoopers intentionally do downwind landings for more speed or do they tend to avoid it too?

If its a dumb question, hey, I'm new here!

Not a dumb question and the answer is yes, sometimes swoopers (and wanna-be swoopers, like me!) will intentionally do down-winders for more ground speed.

It can be quite a rush!

"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

[billvon 2,406]

>So... to clarify, and for curiousity, do swoopers intentionally do
>downwind landings for more speed or do they tend to avoid it too?

I like them, although since I am usually jumping with groups the only time I get to do them is when the pattern gets set the wrong way (or is set into the wind, but it's downwind by the time I get there.)

More serious swoopers often do downwinders to increase their apparent speed along the ground and to increase the distance they travel before landing.