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Ether

Advice on landing skills please (video)

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Here's the video: http://froods.org/videos/ether_jump_37.wmv (about 3 megs)

This was my 37th jump overall, and the 7th this season, and the 2nd this season with a rented Skymaster 230. Last season I did several jumps on the 230 (which went pretty well - not fantastic but no mishaps), then this season I went back to a Solo 270 while regaining currency. My 270 landings have all been good - tiptoe landings, within 20-30m of the target. I think I'm having difficulty adjusting to the greater forward penetration on the 230, but I don't recall it being so hard last year.

I'm not sure if I'm flaring too late or if I'm doing something else wrong... Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Looking for newbie rig, all components...

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I have about 15 fewer jumps than you, but I had several landings that looked like that and then it was discovered that the brake lines were too long, so no matter how I tried to flare, NOTHING happened. Could that be it?

+1

I'm only a student but I had that problem also on the FJC 270, once I moved onto the intermediate student canopy 230 I would actually pop up and stall it significantly above the ground because I wasn't used to the more responsive flare.

The flare just isn't making it to the sweet spot where vertical speed is zero IMO... the flare is basically just slowing you down a bit, but you're still landing with vertical speed... try flaring up high really hard and see if you can feel it provide lift and "pop up" under your straps?

Then again, I'm a noob :)
Question: Is it advisable to wrap the toggle lines around your hand to get a stronger flare?

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I'm hoping you have already shared this with your instructors and gathered their feedback but I noticed one thing and that was at 16 seconds into the movie as you touch the ground you aren't completely flaring your canopy. Your hands are by your waist at 15 seconds and then they back up by your shoulders at 16 seconds.

Do discuss with some experienced jumpers / instructors on the correct flaring technique.

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Few issues I see:

At the start of :16 you are at almost your full flare position and the canopy is not near its stall point. This is usually because the steering lines are to long for you and need shortened. You should be able to stall the canopy at altitude. Have you tried stalling it at altitude yet? Its a good skill to try on all your jumps, talk to your instructors about how to stall the canopy if you are unable to currently.

At the middle of :16 you start to move your hands back up and you are looking to the left. As you are looking to the left your entire body tilts to the left. Look at the pants/shirt line. Having it be black/white it is easy to see that you are leaning slightly to the left. As you are moving your hands up it is allowing the canopy to surge forward again and pick up speed just when you want to to be bleeding speed off.

At the end of :16 seconds your arms are now half way back up and you are reaching heavily with your left foot to land. This is transfering all of your weight to the left and is causing an accelerating turn to the left. If you look just before :17 you will see your left arm is all the way down but the right is only half way down, that is just leading to a faster turn while you are 2 feet off the ground. Be prepared to PLF with the feet and knees together and you avoind the weight shift issue.

It also appears you are landing slightly crosswind and that is only helping to throw off your visual sight picture and leading to reaching and the weight shift turn at the end. I did see you grabbing at your risers to turn at :03 seconds into the video and there was a slight fumble on them as you were trying to strighten out your course. That is fairly low to be grabbing the risers, expecially with low experience and currency. It might be better to use the toggles until you are more current and take that additional stress off the skydive. I know you are jumping to get into BASE so those skills are going to be needed down the road but for now they can wait.

Don't feel bad about the landing though, you were in control of the canopy and it appeared that you flew it to a safe landing area so you are better then Scott Lutz at least ;)

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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Large canopies have long lines, and this means that you often will not be able to flare them as completely as with smaller canopy, because your flare stroke is not long enough. And there is little you can do about it.

"Taking wraps" can cause problems of its own, so talk to instructors about this before even thinking of doing it.

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The flare just isn't making it to the sweet spot where vertical speed is zero IMO... the flare is basically just slowing you down a bit, but you're still landing with vertical speed



See my response to [jellob]

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you are at almost your full flare position and the canopy is not near its stall point.



So? A good flare doesn't end in a stall. The control lines *may* be too long, but you do not need to stall a canopy to land it. In fact a stall on landing is exactly what you don't want to happen. There's a point where the canopy is still flying and generating lift to where you have overcome the forward speed in which you put your feet down. That point depends on a lot of things, including wingloading and canopy size.

For the video, starting the flare at the appropriate flare height and then finishing and holding that finished position in the flare would help.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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Responding to various points:

I've tried taking wraps of the lines at altitude, and didn't like what I got -- when my arms were fully up, I was in what felt like half brakes, so the flare wasn't very satisfying at all. I suppose one could grab fistfuls of brake line at the last minute -- but not very safe.

Good call on coming off the windline - indeed I was veering to the left, and about 30 feet short the edge of the field, which is a deep ditch filled with water, so I was trying to pull back to the right where I would have a much longer line before hitting the edge. (The wind at the time was SW with variable gusts from the west, and the field is E-W.)

Something else I noticed, which is more obvious in the earlier (edited) portions of my landing pattern, is that I am doing my leg straps up way too tight, which is causing me to sit assymmetrically in the harness and also making it harder to straighten out completely..
Looking for newbie rig, all components...

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There's a point where the canopy is still flying and generating lift to where you have overcome the forward speed in which you put your feet down.

So in regards to a very light student on a large canopy where would this apply? No wind, crosswind/downwind?

So the idea is to generate just enough lift through the flare so you're flying horizontally bleeding off the speed? THEN you stall/pop it up when you're running out of speed? Is that right? Is that a dynamic flare/2 stage flare?

Really curious, I've never experienced this so I never asked. I'm 150lbs exit, so under a 230 with wind I basically float directly downwards, I even remember going BACKWARDS under a 270.

Good thread, hope the OP doesn't mind me asking Q's.

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You really need to talk to your instructors about this and not worry about the internet people.

Talk to your instructors about completing a toggle stall with your canopy, then you'll see how a stall has nothing to do with a good/safe landing.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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For the video, starting the flare at the appropriate flare height and then finishing and holding that finished position in the flare would help.



"Can I finish? Can I finish, can I finish, can I finish?" ;)

For the OP: Are your intructors/DZO willing to film/debrief your landings? They're really your best source of info.
Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

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The main thing I'm seeing is that you don't appear to be confident in exactly where you're going to touch down, or where to begin final approach.

You also appear to be looking straight down during final - the horizon works better, and you can see obstacles more clearly if you're not looking straight down.

If it were me on that video, I'd tell me to look out at the horizon, keep your hands up at full flight until the flare (so you don't bleed off landing speed), and lean forward in the harness before the flare. IF it was me.

I'm a noob, as well, so take everything with 200 grains of salt. ;)

T.I.N.S.

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Just for my own curiosity, what kind of canopy is this, how big is it, how much do you weigh, how many jumps on it?

It looks to me like you were not landing into the wind, as other people have already pointed out. Why not? A good landing starts with a good landing pattern and setup. If you are not doing that part right you are just giving yourself more things to overcome when it comes time to fly your final and actually land. Work that part out so you can do it right and it will make landing easier.

Next, if the gear is your gear. You need to work with a local instructor and/or rigger to get the brake lines set right. Watching the video at the end of your final, it looks like you have your hands down all the way by your head already and it doesn't appear to be deflecting the tail of the canopy at all. Like others have said, that might mean your brake lines are set too long. You should not just change them on your own at your experience level. Work with an instructor to make sure they are set up right. For a large canopy like that you ideally want them to start pulling the tail down after the first inch or so.

That brings me to my next point, on your final you are not flying with your hands all the way up. That will slow you down some which will cut down on your available lift when it comes time to land. So other than minor corrections you need to keep your hands up until it is time to flare. Something I have seen is that when people have landing problems, they start to get nervous as they get close to the ground. The hands creep down and that slows things down a little bit. Makes them a little less scared, but it doesn't help the landings.

Phree already mentioned it, you're reaching down to land. That comes from the "OMG MUST GET ON GROUND RIGHT NOW I'M SCARED" thing. Ok, maybe it's not that dramatic, but beginning skydivers have a tendency to reach down with one foot or a hand to land. This is a natural habit that you have to break. It comes from how we were taught to fall down and how we take steps down from high places.

Don't lift your hands up till you are on the ground, also, remember to keep your hands nice and close in to your body. It will let you reach down farther and will protect them if you do fall over (PLF!)


I bolded the most important parts and want to remind you that you need to work on these things with a local instructor. At your experience level they are going to be able to do a whole lot more for you than a post on the internet. If you don't have faith in them, you might want to find another DZ where you can work with people you do trust.




One other thing, for some of the other posters in this thread. If you are still a skydiving student, giving advice to other people with very little experience can be very dangerous. Not that anything I read in this thread is specifically that bad, but damn wouldn't you feel bad if you gave the poster advice and they went out and did it and got hurt because you didn't know what gear or other stuff they were doing or capable of?
~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

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The biggest thing I saw was that you stop flying your canopy and went into "human falling from a small drop" mode. It's a mental problem. Even when your feet are touching the ground your mind should be focused on flying the canopy.

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Lots of good comments from Fast. My comments would be

Get your head up and look at the horizon. See the ground with your periferal vision. That will help a lot. You go where you look. Try and pick a wide open spot for landing so that you don't need to make corrections close to the ground.

Start your flair from full fight. Bring both toggles smoothly and evenly down and keep them there until your feet are on the ground. Keep looking at the horizon and be prepared to PLF.

You were looking at the ground a lot. Your flair did not start from full flight and was uneven and not held. The flair was started a bit early. I think looking at the horizon will help a lot.

I would practice these skill under canopy above 2000 feet. Setting up as if on final, looking at the horizon, then go from full flight and smoothly flare and hold it.

You are jumping a big forgiving canopy. You're on that canopy because it gives you room to make small mistake while you're learning this stuff. It probably won't stall when you have the toggles all the way donw, but you don't need it to stall for a good landing.

Good luck, and it looked like you walked away from that landing just fine, but there's room for improvement.

Janna

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Dirty dozen o' jumps, blablabla etc.

All this advice from the pro's may be spot on (I wouldn't know), but the fact is that for that brief moment where you actually had your hands down (as in: you flared), the canopy didn't slow down all that much. You seemed to flare pretty high. Little flarepower on the canopy so you let go at the very last moment.

If you had kept it in flare, I think your landing would have been a tad bit softer. Nevertheless...doesn't seem like the right canopy for you.

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Just for my own curiosity, what kind of canopy is this, how big is it, how much do you weigh, how many jumps on it?


It's a Skymaster (PISA) 230, rented from the DZ. I weigh about 165 lb in this rig (checked last week); as of the video I had done about 8 jumps on it (2 this season).

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That brings me to my next point, on your final you are not flying with your hands all the way up.


I think it appears so much more than in actuality; I checked this out in the air again and the toggles hit the keeper rings when my hands are just above my head (so definitely not at full arm extension). I think in the video I may have had the brakes applied a bit, but not so much as it seems. Would this be another indication that the brake lines and possibly the risers are just not sized right?

So, I got back out this weekend (it looks like summer weather is finally here to stay), and for the first jump of the day went up with an IAD student and friendly instructor (hi riggerrob!) for a hop and pop, then another from full altitude. Much better! I'm still looking down too much (this is a bad habit that just started this season, so I'm hoping I can shake it quickly), which resulted both times in starting to flare too early, going "oops, too high", backing off on the brakes a little bit, then getting too low to get a good solid flare.. but it was much less so the second time. I'm no longer flaring assymmetrically, and was able to hold the toggles down right through to the canopy losing air.

Thank you all for all the advice and especially the encouragement! :)
Looking for newbie rig, all components...

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backing off on the brakes a little bit



This isn't a good habit to get into - better to 'hold what you've got', then finish the flare at the correct height (or at least that's what was emphasized in the canopy control course I took).
Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

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***
Question: Is it advisable to wrap the toggle lines around your hand to get a stronger flare?





The short answer is no. Until you have the experience under canopy you do not want to induce a stall for any reason. A canopy collapse at 3 feet will hurt if you flare too deeply on final. If you mis-calculate and flare to high, you can fall from 30-50 feet and kill yourself.

Student canopies are designed not to hit the stall point in order to avoid this situation.

If you are unsure of your landing speed, flare like you normally do and PLF. the landing are all about getting used to your equipment and its flare characteristics.
Downsizing is not the way to prove your manhood.

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Seems like you have done a few jumps since and progressing. Please consult first with the instructors before attempting.

at 11-13sec, you can clearly see you are moving from into wind to cross wind. Just before that, you corrected with a backriser. When this happens, you can see your own direction change when looking more onto the horizon. All the way from 11 sec thru till about landing you were drifting to the left. What made it worse, your left hand was lower than your right, and also grabbing at the ground when flaring.
So, try a VERY slight right hand toggle, I am saying left all up, and right to about the top of your head. This way you sort of counter steer for the drifting. when you are straight into wind, you can up the right hand. if not, then when you start flaring, flare together. So start with your left hand, and once the same headhigh distance as the right hand, let both hands come down evenly.

no low turns!!! just compensating for that little drift.
ps. Suppose you are left handed. I had the problem where I was pulling harder with my right hand.
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Whatever you do, don't listen to ChrisD.

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