Improving Landing Skills.

[imarquez 0]

Hello All,

I am an AFF 6 Student and would like to improve my landing skills. By improving I mean Landing on a Stand up position.

It is allways hard for me to get on the ground runing or at least Standing Up. Out of my 6 jumps, I have landed 50% of them on my Butt.

Thanks
Have great jumps.!!!

AFF Student

[NewGuy2005 51]

First: Talk to your instructor.

Do you lift your legs when you flare, like a tandem passenger? I used to do that.

I got out of that habit by repeating to myself, while on final approach, "Landing gear down."

Your legs are like an airplane's landing gear. They won't work if they are up.

[UDSkyJunkie 0]

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Out of my 6 jumps, I have landed 50% of them on my Butt.

I know people with 600 jumps who land less than 50% on their feet.

First, RELAX! You don't have to be perfect just yet.

Second, talk to your instructors (duh!) since they actually are watching you... if they can't help you, sure as hell nobody here can, since we have no idea what you're doing.

Beyond that, I'd say watch a LOT of landings, and really pay attention to what people are doing (how high do they flare? how quickly? how smoothly? where are their arms? how do they hold their legs and feet? how high do they stall?) Obviously watching the hot-shots land their velo 84's won't help you here... you have to watch the "boring" landings on big canopies.

A picture is worth 1,000 words, right? Ask someone to video some of your landings. Try to have them video you from the front so you can see everything. Then you can see what's going wrong.

"Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

[peregrinerose 0]

I agree with what everyone else said, but want to add... learn how to PLF, do it instead of landing on your butt. Landing on your butt is a great way to get a spinal compression fracture... I've seen it happen. You'll walk away from a PLF, you may not walk away from a hard butt landing.

Get video, take a canopy control course, and relax... learning anything new, including landing, takes time and work.

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[AggieDave 6]

Talk to your instructors.

Now get them to get a video guy to video your landings for you to debrief. I'm willing to bet that you're not finishing your flare and your flare timing is off. That's normal, there's people with hundreds of jumps that have that problem. It may seem like you're flaring all the way to finish, but get video and see.

If you ever get the chance, take Scott Miller's canopy course. Its the best course out there for basic canopy flight. He teaches and covers a lot of things that people with hundreds of jumps can't or don't do correctly. So for others reading this, I recommend his course irregardless of your jump numbers.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[NewGuy2005 51]

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Out of my 6 jumps, I have landed 50% of them on my Butt.

I know people with 600 jumps who land less than 50% on their feet.

First, RELAX! You don't have to be perfect just yet.

.

You know, that's a good point. Standing up 50% of your landings after 6 jumps is pretty good.

[hackish 8]

I'm not telling you what you should do - consider this and talk to ye olde instructors. I'm a newbie too.

For me I got a book on canopy control and read it. I studied the theory behind canopy piloting then pummelled everyone with questions and got them to all watch and pick apart my landings.

Soon I was landing close to the target and standing up just about every time. There is a lot of technical info out there and a lot to understand. If you can understand the theory and put it into practise it may help you as it helped me.

Last weekend I finally managed to land on the target - maybe not a great idea as it was slippery. Followed that up with 2 more standups within 5m.

When I do land on my butt I usually go through the landing again a few times and try to figure out what was off.

-Michael

[squarecanopy 0]

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I agree with what everyone else said, but want to add... learn how to PLF, do it instead of landing on your butt. Landing on your butt is a great way to get a spinal compression fracture... I've seen it happen. You'll walk away from a PLF, you may not walk away from a hard butt landing.

Get video, take a canopy control course, and relax... learning anything new, including landing, takes time and work.

Hey Ivan listen to the good doctor here- she is absolutely right about butt landings can cause spinal fractures. I fortunately learned how to PLF before I broke anything, but I was buttsliding my low flare landings and my packing teacher saw one of them and scolded me good. PLF is the proper way to land if not on your feet!

Just burning a hole in the sky.....

[imarquez 0]

What is the Title-Author of the Book?

A good reading allways helps!!!

AFF Student

[imarquez 0]

I do lift my legs when flaring. Last time I almost broke my left wrist because I was not flaring to my crotch. I was flaring to my sides, so when landing on my buttt, my hands were below my ass so, it was the first thing touching the ground!!!

AFF Student

[UDSkyJunkie 0]

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I do lift my legs when flaring. Last time I almost broke my left wrist because I was not flaring to my crotch. I was flaring to my sides, so when landing on my buttt, my hands were below my ass so, it was the first thing touching the ground!!!

Remember your first jump course? Hands all the way up, feet and knees together and slightly bent, flare with your hands together and in front of you and prepare to PLF... feet, calf, hip, side, over the back.

There's and old pilot's saying:

"A good landing is one you walk away from. A GREAT landing is one where you can fly the plane again!"

This applies... Please do all the things you were taught in your FJC, it will greatly improve your odds of having a "good" landing (unhurt!). You can work on the "great" landings (standing up) later.

I have over 1000 jumps and almost always stand up, but occasionally I'll make a mistake or catch a really weird rotor, and I'll PLF without hesitiation.

"Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

[rygon 0]

i found this article to be great help

http://www.ukskydiver.co.uk/cms/content/view/141/82/

To me if you body position isnt right before you flare, then you are going to have problems

[popsjumper 2]

A couple of questions:
1. Did they teach you PLF in your first jump course (FJC)?

2. How many times did you practice it before you jumped the firt time?

3. Have you done a tandem prior to your first jump?

4. Why are you not doing what you were taught in FJC?

5. What did you learn from nearly breaking your wrist?

6. How many more butt-slides do you plan to do?


What I'm getting at here is: If you were taught PLF and practiced PLF before you jumped, then use the tools provided to you and help prevent serious injury to your back and/or tailbone.

If you were not taught PLF, PM me the name of your FJC instructor.

Do a search on DZ.com on "PLF".

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[tkhayes 140]

there are too many questions to generalize here.

what kind of canopy - what shape is it in?

What kind of flare have you been taught?

What sort of winds are you normally landing it.

Elevation of DZ?

First, read the two recent articles here on dz.com from Brian Germain and Scott Miller about no-wind landings.

Talk your instructor, sure, but if your instructor is not that good at reaching landings (and many are not), then find a second opinion.

It is also possible that if you are jumping a baffed-out F-111 canopy with 1000 jumps on it, that you are simply not going to stand anything up.

as I said, too many questions.

I am working on an article I will call the 'Perfect Practice Flare' (although 'perfect' may not be the right term) targeted to students and intermediates to improve their flare and landings based on what they feel in their belly when they flare (lift) and some exercises to practice it.

I can teach it and it appears to work in practice, however, I have yet to write it down.

TK Hayes

[kkeenan 13]

First, avoid butt landings. You're not a tandem passenger. A bad butt landing can result in permanent spinal damage. Learn to PLF.

A good training aid for stand-up landings is running off of a picnic table, or other platform about 3-4 ft. above the ground. Run off and hit the ground running. Practise at different speeds and try to keep your balance as you look down and ahead to your touchdown point. This will train your eyes and your legs to coordinate movement with touchdown. It's way cheaper to run off of the table 100 times than to buy 100 jumps.

Kevin K.

_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?

[in2falling 0]

One of the biggest mistakes made by new jumpers landing canopies is that they tend to look down at the ground during landing and not out at the horizon in front of them.

[ladydyver 0]

"TI'm willing to bet that you're not finishing your flare and your flare timing is off. That's normal, there's people with hundreds of jumps that have that problem. It may seem like you're flaring all the way to finish, but get video and see."


That has been my biggest issues with landing...having people watch you and getting video are both very helpful....in addition practice flaring up high. Muscle memory is a good thing.

DPH # 2
"I am not sure what you are suppose to do with that, but I don't think it is suppose to flop around like that." ~Skootz~
I have a strong regard for the rules.......doc!

[tree102678 0]

I did this on Sunday, November 4th. and ended up tearing my ACL, sprained my other ligaments, strained my hamstring, bruised both knees, bruised my right elbow pretty good and sprained my left ankle. Will be having surgery soon to fix it.

I have learned the lesson of PLF and how important it is, but just have to wait 8 months to jump again.

[chrismgtis 0]

It might or might not be the best way to do it or explain it, but personally when I land I know whether or not I am going to have a stand up landing now. I don't attempt to stand it up if I have any doubts that I won't, no matter how much I think I could fight it and stand it up.

When I PLF my feet hit the ground first. I don't attempt to move them or tense up the muscles to cushion the fall. I just let my legs bend. The parachute continues to go forward, pulling my body forward as my body sort of "collapses" to the ground, which also causes me to "fall over" and I let it. I don't fight it.

Usually when this happens my body will start to turn and a lot of the time I roll across my body, end up on my back and simply slide a few feet (since the parachute is still moving and will drag me forward).

I've never been injured that way. I have busted my knee a few times when I allowed myself to fall forward instead of "turn, roll and fall". I think if you allow yourself to go limp, you can prevent yourself from falling over hard on your face or another limb. Since your body collapses, you don't have as much room to fall over anymore and hit harder.

Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033
Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

[kmfenaughty 0]

Try getting to Scott Millers

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The Essential Skills Course

[http://www.freedomofflight.tv/public/index.php?which=canopy]

Scott Miller - [[email protected]]
www.freedomofflight.tv

99% of the people on this earth are sheep ... dare to be different