Flat turn landings......really soft!

[virgin-burner 1]

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I think the OP referring to using beepy-things, was meant to dissuade you from becoming Pavlovian.

Whether thinking that you are relying on it, or just (even just temporarily) "using it as a crutch" does not matter. Until you have at least 1st learned, and internalized independently with your own eyes, how to fly (and adjust if/when/as necessary) your pattern(s) - using a beepy thing to queue you is, IMHO - bad "training".

One day, the beeper will either not go off (batteries die, forgot to turn on or set correctly etc. as has already been mentioned) - or, even the opposite - it does go off, and you JUST REACT - because that is what you have now trained yourself to do. ...And if that reaction would be inappropriate due to other factors or considerations you should be making or taking... ...Oh well.

FWIW.

hence, you better use TWO altimeters, or better yet, THREE; two audibles and a digital one! after all, HIM, the allmighty BG has said IT..

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[virgin-burner 1]

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"Use your altimeter for se-up. Despite what many experienced skydivers believe, visual acuity isn't all that relaiable. Airplane pilots use their instruments to aid in the approach, why do skydivers think they are so special? Maintain your altimeter, and use it!"

lesson number six from HIS book

I believe you are taking BG's quote, and reference here - out of context. And therefore you are misapplying it, where it does not (here, for a beginner/student who does not even have BASIC PATTERN skills) apply. I believe you also need to take into account the context of the lesson (chapter) you are referring to, is (IIRC) in reference to set-ups for HP Landings! This is very specific, and I do not believe applies to the OP's situation.

Visual analog altimeters, as are what are USUALLY issued to students, just are not accurate enough below 1k to be RELIABLY used effectively for this purpose. If he has one of the latest, specific to the application digitals, okay then - MAYBE.

Otherwise though VB - IMHO, you are mixing apples and oranges, and providing advise that is designed for a specific purpose, then taking that advice and applying it to another purpose entirely - for which it was not intended, nor Germane (yes, bad pun intentional ).

while you are right, and while you're not - i think pretty much everyone being able to read and comprehend, can take any chapter of said book and use it to their best - or worst - and get away with it; be it as a reasonable skydiver or a cripple on his crouches..

i was thaught a certain way, and while i'm still listening to the "approach" my instructors told me, i may vary WAYS off what you think may be "apples / applicable" (check my profile if u're interested).. and yea, having some sort of "reliable" alti, be it accustic or visual, has helped in certain ways.. if nothing else, it told me not to do some sort of "panic maneuvre" after a certain signal.. and yes, i'm used to a VERY congested landing-area, and lots of crosswinds- and even some downwind-landings as well.. sometimes painfully, most of the times well deserved.. and, teaching a good lesson as well!

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[davelepka 4]

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what BG has said in his book.. here goes:

"Use your altimeter for se-up. Despite what many experienced skydivers believe, visual acuity isn't all that relaiable. Airplane pilots use their instruments to aid in the approach, why do skydivers think they are so special? Maintain your altimeter, and use it!"

I agree, but how you use it has a lot to do with how much you learn from it.

An audible in the pattern will tell you your altitude at preset intervals only, and in between you have no idea where you are.

A visual altimeter, on the other hand is always available for your reference. If, for example, the winds or your pattern entry height was differernt than you had planned for, you would need to adjust your pattern to suit. An audible will still beep at the preset intervals, but the visual will allow you to identify other altitudes than those you expected to be working with (like when you programmed your audible).

As to how you use the visual altimeter, the trick is to first use your eyes and guess your altittude, THEN look at the altimeter to check your accuracy. Adjust as needed for the next time.

While your eyes may not be as accurate as the mechanical altimeter, they are a lot more reliable as they'll always be available to you. The lower you get, the more accurate your eyes will get, and you should be able to eyeball your altitiude under 500 or 600 ft to within 100ft in a matter of a couple dozen jumps.

Being able to accurately eyeball your turns onto base and final is key to landing off safely. Pattern entry altitude on an off-field landing is not much of a concern as you're not trying to 'fly nice' with others, and given the unusual circumstances surrounding an off-field landing you may or may not have a traditional downwind leg anyway. But the turns onto base and final are how you make an accurate approach which can be key to safely landing off. Being able to put together the bottom half of a pattern with just your eyes can make the difference between setting down in that backyard, or the trees surrounding it.

Yes, use an altimeter in the pattern. Make it a visual one, and only use it to 'check your work' after eyeballing the altitutde on your own.

[virgin-burner 1]

i REALLY dont want to disagree with you dave, you have a lot of good stuff to say on these boards, and while i'm only a low-timer, maybe with a more "modern" background.. i still wouldnt want to disagree with you..

sure, learning a pattern you should be able to do so in your first - i dont know - 1-200 jumps maybe!? like, nailing it on the spot, within 10ft..

then you may downsize, like i may have done, then the speed is all different, heights are all different, you got to watch out with the other traffic and so on..

i dont really know how to put this accurately in feet, but for the metric guys out there, my N3 beeps at me at like 600 meters or thereabouts, telling me ok, you're getting low, may be time to find out about your spot in the pattern and get there..

after the optima and the solo told me first at 1800 meters, ok, dive's about to end, next thing is find a nice way out to actually separate, then another horn comes on at 1500 meters, ok, that is separation, NOW! at 1200 meters it tells me, ok my little friend, if you havent figured shit out, it may be time to do so and actually deploy your "chute"; that means i'm open by 900 meters!

of course, i got all of those alarms set on both my audibles, so if one should stop working, and the "big picture" doesnt look right, i still got an alti on my wrist to double- and three-times check!

after i've checked for traffic and if my "chute" was alive and well, and most of all, it was working, i may should look for my intended landing area; still got plenty of altitude to work with..

i may do a couple s-turns or even "spiral" a little, until the alarm on my wrist goes off; ok, 600- meters, better get in gears, AND, into business.. who's around, what size of canopies and approaches the guys i share my air with are flying.. ok, go a little faster, or a little slower, find my spot, and, go from there..

i may end up entering my "pattern" at the exact spot, and i didnt even have to look at my alti once, by that time.. and since the audibles in my helmet will go off at 300, 200 and 100 meters above ground, i may never have to take my concentration of my "visuals" only once.. i have lots of ressources for looking around, do my "home-work" regarding spot and what alterations i have to do and so on..

sure, it's flying by "beeps", and if a NEMP didnt happen, it's very unlikely for my (three) alarms intermediating with each other, to completely fail me.. yet, i only LOOK at what's actually around me!

dave, as much as i respect you, PLEASE dont tell me that is wrong..

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[riggerpaul 1]

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i REALLY dont want to disagree with you dave, you have a lot of good stuff to say on these boards, and while i'm only a low-timer, maybe with a more "modern" background.. i still wouldnt want to disagree with you..

sure, learning a pattern you should be able to do so in your first - i dont know - 1-200 jumps maybe!? like, nailing it on the spot, within 10ft..

then you may downsize, like i may have done, then the speed is all different, heights are all different, you got to watch out with the other traffic and so on..

i dont really know how to put this accurately in feet, but for the metric guys out there, my N3 beeps at me at like 600 meters or thereabouts, telling me ok, you're getting low, may be time to find out about your spot in the pattern and get there..

after the optima and the solo told me first at 1800 meters, ok, dive's about to end, next thing is find a nice way out to actually separate, then another horn comes on at 1500 meters, ok, that is separation, NOW! at 1200 meters it tells me, ok my little friend, if you havent figured shit out, it may be time to do so and actually deploy your "chute"; that means i'm open by 900 meters!

of course, i got all of those alarms set on both my audibles, so if one should stop working, and the "big picture" doesnt look right, i still got an alti on my wrist to double- and three-times check!

after i've checked for traffic and if my "chute" was alive and well, and most of all, it was working, i may should look for my intended landing area; still got plenty of altitude to work with..

i may do a couple s-turns or even "spiral" a little, until the alarm on my wrist goes off; ok, 600- meters, better get in gears, AND, into business.. who's around, what size of canopies and approaches the guys i share my air with are flying.. ok, go a little faster, or a little slower, find my spot, and, go from there..

i may end up entering my "pattern" at the exact spot, and i didnt even have to look at my alti once, by that time.. and since the audibles in my helmet will go off at 300, 200 and 100 meters above ground, i may never have to take my concentration of my "visuals" only once.. i have lots of ressources for looking around, do my "home-work" regarding spot and what alterations i have to do and so on..

sure, it's flying by "beeps", and if a NEMP didnt happen, it's very unlikely for my (three) alarms intermediating with each other, to completely fail me.. yet, i only LOOK at what's actually around me!

dave, as much as i respect you, PLEASE dont tell me that is wrong..

Sorry to quote the whole thing.

Now let's change things a bit.

What do you do when your landing area is not the dropzone? You had a bad spot, and you are landing out, and the terrain and elevation are different from the main landing area. You need to be able to rely on different skills to handle this situation. And the skills you need are the ones that let you land with the input from your eyes alone.

Of course, you need different sorts of input for different situation. If you plan to swoop, you need different input, or at least a different accuracy or something like that, than if you are just doing a standard pattern into the main landing area.

But if you are doing demos into different places, or if you are landing out and the elevation is different, you cannot rely on anything but your eyes. You couldn't zero your fancy audible or digital altimeter for the place you are actually going to land. So those devices are useless. Or worse, they will give you incorrect information for your actual scenario and lead you to make incorrect decisions.

When it comes right down to it, you need to be able to rely on your eyes to get you down safely.

[Titanman2789 0]

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Good work on flat turning... it's a skill that will probably save your life one day.

Saved my life once. Practice it enough so that you can do it without thinking about it. After being cut off on final once i had to scoot over to one side a bit. Moved over 20 feet to the left with barely changing my canopy's direction of flight. Almost just like sliding over. Not sure how I did it, but practicing flat turns sure helped

[billvon 2,402]

>Use your altimeter for setup.

Good advice for someone learning to land (or swoop.) Eventually, though, you have to train your eyes to be your primary tool. People have died because they swooped into someone else; planning to look away from where you are going is not a good long term plan.

[virgin-burner 1]

i wont quote the whole thing.. please excuse my ignorance!
mhm, good question, for sure! i did quite a couple of jumps that requested me taking off from some place, and land into some other sort of place, not knowing any altitude and stuff.. i'd leave my altimeter, my audibles, and even my AAD home alone, or, just shut off!

that was with the old gear i nearly did 200 jumps on.. so, i knew it quite well!

with the new gear, however, tough i've had the opportunity, i'd be a little hesitant.. maybe today i would; but only 5 jumps less with that, i wouldnt, and if it was the balloon taking off right near my house!

but, now we're taking it a little closer, and it's not so much an issue of "knowing your exact altitude to the ground, and planning your (my, err, "ballistic surf" over the ground, would it!?)"

so yea.. even with the new ("fast" gear for me), even in unknown terrain, it's still doable..

i'm not saying "eyes" is bad, but relying on "fancy-pansy electronic shit" is bad either; but if your targeted, and reachable, object of passion (landing area) is your main-goal, and so it should be for every student, unless its unsafe to reach for whatever reason, then i'm not saying, electronics is bad! quite the opposite in fact! it MAY help you gain confidence in your overall abilities! and if you can gain confidence from that, it may help you gain confidence in landing "off" as well!

i really live in a hilly area; actually all of my country is rather in a "hilly" area.. and for balloon-jumps, as i stated above, i dont even bother to either switch my electronics on (AAD, audibles, the fancy electronic altimeter), but, i may have my "old-fashioned" altimeter with me.. and if its just for telling it to me the difference to the "presumed" altitude between 800 or/and 1000 meters above ground; i really cant tell the difference while in freefall.. can you!?

the landing-part of it, sure, it comes down to your experience, not knowing "i'm 386ft above the ground now", but, ok, there's the road, i'm here, still a little far, a slight s-turn, ok, getting there, STILL a little far, so better take that s-turn a little longer, then, BOOOM, turn to final, and actually standing up that "off-landing" right next to the road, only having to walk the stretch of your lines until you're next to "people" again..
but yea, to LEARN an accurate pattern and landing, i think all that fancy electronic-shit has helped me quite a bit; sure, for the last 300ft or so, you should be able to "eyeball" it; but until you get there, learning with aids, and yes, relying on them for a good stretch, is kinda essential! at least, that is MY experience..

and for all i know, all the "seasoned" CP-guys do it just the same; why should it be all wrong to the novices then!?

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[virgin-burner 1]

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>Use your altimeter for setup.

Good advice for someone learning to land (or swoop.) Eventually, though, you have to train your eyes to be your primary tool. People have died because they swooped into someone else; planning to look away from where you are going is not a good long term plan.

thanks for making my point; if you dont have to look away, in your day-to-day operations (jumping at your dz and intending to land there), and having a device to tell you accustically, is not a bad thing; it will not only clear your head from looking at your analogue altimeter and having to guess how high you are, but it will afford you more time by beeping/telling you, ok, you may think about this or that NOW if you havent before.. i believe that's a pretty good thing for a "newer" jumper, isnt it!?

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[davelepka 4]

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i'm only a low-timer, maybe with a more "modern" background..

What does that mean? My profile states I've been jumping for 15 years. The ZP square has been around for 20. I've got about 20 jumps on an F-111 main between my student days, and a handful of odd jumps here and there. The other 4900+ were on a ZP sqaure (or eliptical) just like you're jumping. You're reaching for some justification, and the 'modern era' defense is not applicable here.

Your beeper is taking care of something you should be spending your time developing, situational awareness. The more you jump, the smaller your canopies get and the faster you go, the more you will need a highly developed sense of situational awareness to keep yourself in one piece. You will reach a point where a device can no longer keep up with what you're doing, and when you reach the limits of the device's usefulness, you'll be shit out of luck if you can't fly 'manually'.

I've been in your shoes, and I've been in my shoes, and it looks to me like a beeper to keep you in line under canopy is taking it a bit too far. A beeper in freefall is another story as that's a different environment where things are happening a lot faster, and you're trypically interacting directly with others which can distract you from the situation. In fact, if you wanted to use a beeper to call break off from a CReW formation, I'd be all for it because, again, other people are there distracting you from the matter.

Once you're under canopy, moving at a relative snails pace, all by your lonesome, it's time to put on your big-boy pants and shut off the electronic babytsitter. Your description of your under-canopy procedures relies way too much on your beeper beeping, and less on your brain actaully thinking, and that needs to change.

[davelepka 4]

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i REALLY dont want to disagree with you dave, you have a lot of good stuff to say on these boards

I do think it's neat how I have a lot of good stuff to say, right up until I disagree with you at which point I'm an old-timer who doesn't get the 'new style'.


It never occurs to you to think that maybe I continue to have good things to say, and that I did already take my time to write several lengthy posts in this thread so I must think that this is an important topic? Really?

[virgin-burner 1]

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It never occurs to you to think that maybe I continue to have good things to say, and that I did already take my time to write several lengthy posts in this thread so I must think that this is an important topic? Really?

you really dont need to! that's the great thing about having a discussion; you dont NEED to participate, but you can, if you want to!

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[riggerpaul 1]

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and for all i know, all the "seasoned" CP-guys do it just the same; why should it be all wrong to the novices then!?

The seasoned CP-guys have already developed the eye-based skills, and are now working at the extremes of the sport. For them the difference of a few feet can be significant, spelling the difference between a successful swoop and a vert or an accident.

The novice has yet to develop the eye-based skills, and developing those skills should be a primary goal.

The difference of a few feet of altitude should not be critical at this stage of the game. Use the altimeter to get an idea of the situation while you train your eyes and brain to understand what they are seeing. While pinpoint accuracy in touchdown is a longer term goal, it is not essential at the start. A few feet high or low will have an effect on how long or short you might land, but you should still be able to land in a general area. Wind conditions will, to a great extent, be the dominant factor to determine your accuracy in the long run, and the exact altitude of your turns will be less important than the horizontal positioning of your pattern points. Choosing those points correctly is what you must learn to do, and while the altimeter can help you determine if you did what you planned to do, it does not really create the success - it only helps to verify it.

Using an altimeter to assist to develop skills is fine.

Depending on an altimeter to substitute for those skills is not so fine.

This is a lot like other discussions revolving around the issue of undue dependence on certain bits of our gear.

Taking advantage of the gear is fine; becoming unduly dependent upon it is not so fine.

[Scrumpot 1]

Just look. Oh yeah, I can see this one salivating. All over the place. For sure.

Nothing more to see here, peeps.
Move along now.

coitus non circum - Moab Stone