Close Calls

[OrangeJumper 0]

Just wanted to see if any of you have had close calls during freefall...

I guess you could say I had one this past weekend.

I made my eighth sit fly last Saturday during a three way. I had one of our vidiots go along and luckily the jump went really well. Anyway, to make a long story short, at our planned break off altitude I thought I had the other two jumpers accounted for. When I turned to track away, one of the jumpers was right in front of me. Luckily I tracked right over the top of her without colliding into her. Needless to say it scared the shit out of me!

When I got on the ground, I apologized left and right and of course, like most jumpers, she was cool about it. I'm cool with it now but it really bothered me for a couple of days. I just kept thinking of how close I came to colliding with her.

Anyone else have any similar situations?

The Original Cabana Boy!

[mnealtx 0]

Back 10 years ago, when I first started jumping (long story), I was doing my second 10 second delay, with another jumper behind me doing his first 10 second delay.

I leave the plane, get oriented, finish my count, wave off and pull.... I'm first out at this alti, so there's nobody around, right?

WRONG!!! The second jumper had fixed on me as his reference - he passed me, still in freefall and about 50 feet off to my right....

Instructors pulled him off to the side and had a LOOONG talk with him....

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[BETO74 0]

is it 2 ft close enough? Skydiver freefalled thru my canopy while I was deploying....got video

http://web.mac.com/ac057a/iWeb/AC057A/H0M3.html

[BillyVance 34]

I was on a raft jump at Quincy 8 years ago. The raft floated really bad and whoever dove after it could not stay up with it. After trying my best to hang up with it, getting as close as 20 feet vertically, it was time to get out of there. Well, at pull time I'd just pulled my pilot chute out when I saw a tiny speck below me. That speck was one of the other jumpers on the raft load under a full canopy. I passed by him within 10 feet still holding my pilot chute... [Crazy]

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[OrangeJumper 0]

Quote

is it 2 ft close enough? Skydiver freefalled thru my canopy while I was deploying....got video

Holy shit, I bet that was freaking scary!

The Original Cabana Boy!

[Dougiefresh 0]

I was doing a freefly jump with a couple of buddies -- one on camera, the other headdown. I was in a sit, when the headdown guy decided to backfly under and pop up behind me. His toe caught my toe as he went by. We both were able to stay stable and continue the jump, but there was a serious discussion when we landed. He's quite a bit more experienced than me, so it was cool that he approached me to apologize and take responsibility.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. --Douglas Adams

[cbain 0]

I was on a jump once with 2 other people. One guy was wearing a still camera. He neglected to tell me that he was going to follow my track and try to get my opening on camera. So, he tracked behind me and I never saw him. He also didn't account for the differences in opening rates of our canopies, mine opened slow, his fast. When I opened we were heading right at each other. We both turned and avoided the collision but we were really close. I was wearing video camera with a wide angle lens and he still looked really close on the video.

I was freaked and started dry heaving under canopy. Needless to say he got talked to on the ground by a lot of people. We can joke around about it now.

Christina