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SFBayArea

At what elevations you set your audible?

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IJskonijn

******1100ft,
800ft
450ft



If you put in meters instead of ft, I might agree...
Those sound perfectly reasonable for canopy alarms. I have mine set to 900ft, 600ft and 300ft, so I'll cover exactly the same distance in a no-wind situation on each leg.

For freefall, it really depends on the type of jump and my mood. Sometimes I feel like pitching at 6000ft, just to play around with my canopy. Third alarm is always at 2000ft, and lowest setting for second alarm is 3500ft (which is lowest altitude I want to pull my pilot at)

:)

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

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Just wondering what altitudes people set their audible altimeters?



This question is an odd one, because different jumps have different requirements. A better question would be about the 'strategy' that people use with their audible.

Right off the top, most audibles have 3 alarms, and most skydives have 3 'key' altitudes, with those being break-off, pull, and your hard deck, so there seems to be a natural fit there.

As previously stated, some people will set them for just under their key altitudes, counting on their eyes and brain (and conventional altimeter) to keep track of things, and the audible is there if you blow it and lose track of those things. I disagree with this idea because if you do make that mistake, you don't find out until it's too late and the mistake has been made.

Another idea is to set them right at your key altitudes, but due to the speeds were falling, even when you do that your key altitude is well above you by the time you hear and react to your audible.

My thought has always been to set them 500ft above your key altitudes, so you know what's coming up and have time to act accordingly. If you want to break off at 4500ft, set the first beep for 5000ft, and you stand a good chance of turning away and tracking right at 4500ft. Ditto for your pull altitudes, give yourself 500ft to get the hackey out.

So what about 'relying' on your audible with that plan? It could happen, but it's up to you to be honest with yourself about your altitude awareness. If you set your audible 500ft above break off, and it comes as a complete surprise to you every time it goes off, you need to step up your game in terms of altitude awareness. If you have recently checked your visual altimeter, and that 'clock' in the back of your brain starting to tick-tock a little louder, and the beep 500ft above break off is no surprise to you, then you're doing OK.

In my mind, if you're going to lose altitude awareness, it happens well above missing your key altitudes so I'd rather have your audible clue you in before you smoke through those altitudes, not after.

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As previously stated, some people will set them for just under their key altitudes, counting on their eyes and brain (and conventional altimeter) to keep track of things, and the audible is there if you blow it and lose track of those things. I disagree with this idea because if you do make that mistake, you don't find out until it's too late and the mistake has been made.



I don't like devices (that have to be set, and work on batteries) to do my altitude tracking for me, Im afraid that it will seduce me to a wait for the beep mentality. But that is a personal preference.

Even more so because I use an old skool time out that has only one beep. I set it to "you should be under a parachute thats opening/sniveling". If not action...

Or in other words, Id rather be 200ft behind the curve on a bad day, then waiting for a beep (and thinking that Im still 500ft above the beep alltitude) that doesnt come on a really bad day...
Parachute gear garage sale at :http://www.usedparachutes.eu

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Meh. Mine are set at 5k, 4k and 2k so that they tell me I'm at 5k, 4k and 2k. I might have to break off at 4k, I might have to break off at 6k, it makes no difference to my audible settings. I never change them and they've never surprised me.

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The vast majority of my jumps are 4 way FS and I find that I do rely quite heavily on my audible for breakoff (we all do)..

I've got mine set to:

4500ft break off
3500ft time to think about pulling
2000ft - hard deck (/ get something open you dumb #@!* ;))

If doing formations where the organiser has suggested a different break off / pulling then I'll change the first two beeps..

I've heard the 3rd beep a couple of times after tracking a bit longer to clear airspace and a snivelly pilot opening.. Does get the heart pumping to hear it but a good reminder during a snivel

(I have the L+B Solo II which only sets in increments of 500 ft)

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JackC1

Meh. Mine are set at 5k, 4k and 2k so that they tell me I'm at 5k, 4k and 2k. I might have to break off at 4k, I might have to break off at 6k, it makes no difference to my audible settings. I never change them and they've never surprised me.



Me too except mine are at 4k,3k and 2k.
Replying to: Re: Stall On Jump Run Emergency Procedure? by billvon

If the plane is unrecoverable then exiting is a very very good idea.

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For this weekend I think I will set my Optima II for the following
1. 5000 break off altitude.
2. 3800 pull altitude. By the time I wave and reach for pool, I will most likely be at 3400-3500. Most if not all of the guys on our DZ pull at 3500, so don't think I need any lower altitude set.
3. 2500 hard deck altitude, make sure you have a good canopy above your head, if not pull all you can :-) or cut away and pull.

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Sounds like a good plan:)
Just remember to stay altitude aware without it, and if you want to set your low speed alarms that's fine as well but just remember to set them at your 3 points, and use them as confirmation that you're in the right spot at the right time; not to tell you that you need to be heading there!

"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way." -Alan Watts

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Depends on the jump. Usual default is 4500 breakoff, 3000 pull, and 2000 hard deck. On some dives, I may set breakoff for 4000, 5000 or 5500, sometimes I'll set the pull for 3500. Hard deck is always 2000.

On the pull alarm, I'll usually pull beforehand and hear it go off at line stretch. At a higher setting, I'll wait for it to go off first, or if I'm in the air with a lot of people I'll stay in a track all the way through 3 grand. Almost never hear the hard deck and when I do the canopy's already opening. In that case it's telling me I have ZERO time to mess with anything like line twists. At that point the canopy has to be good or it's gone.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

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davelepka

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Just wondering what altitudes people set their audible altimeters?



This question is an odd one, because different jumps have different requirements. A better question would be about the 'strategy' that people use with their audible.

Right off the top, most audibles have 3 alarms, and most skydives have 3 'key' altitudes, with those being break-off, pull, and your hard deck, so there seems to be a natural fit there.

As previously stated, some people will set them for just under their key altitudes, counting on their eyes and brain (and conventional altimeter) to keep track of things, and the audible is there if you blow it and lose track of those things. I disagree with this idea because if you do make that mistake, you don't find out until it's too late and the mistake has been made.

Another idea is to set them right at your key altitudes, but due to the speeds were falling, even when you do that your key altitude is well above you by the time you hear and react to your audible.

My thought has always been to set them 500ft above your key altitudes, so you know what's coming up and have time to act accordingly. If you want to break off at 4500ft, set the first beep for 5000ft, and you stand a good chance of turning away and tracking right at 4500ft. Ditto for your pull altitudes, give yourself 500ft to get the hackey out.

So what about 'relying' on your audible with that plan? It could happen, but it's up to you to be honest with yourself about your altitude awareness. If you set your audible 500ft above break off, and it comes as a complete surprise to you every time it goes off, you need to step up your game in terms of altitude awareness. If you have recently checked your visual altimeter, and that 'clock' in the back of your brain starting to tick-tock a little louder, and the beep 500ft above break off is no surprise to you, then you're doing OK.

In my mind, if you're going to lose altitude awareness, it happens well above missing your key altitudes so I'd rather have your audible clue you in before you smoke through those altitudes, not after.



I like all this.

As for relying on it, I do,.. dunno I mean I look at the ground too. The alti on my hand has batteries and can take a crap too, etc. I mean, I watch the ground too for the most part. Internal clock, etc.

Dunno - I don't look at the alti on my hand that often really.

Breakoff
3500
1700

with canopy alarms at 1500, 1100 and turn altitude.
~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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SFBayArea

For this weekend I think I will set my Optima II for the following
1. 5000 break off altitude.
2. 3800 pull altitude. By the time I wave and reach for pool, I will most likely be at 3400-3500. Most if not all of the guys on our DZ pull at 3500, so don't think I need any lower altitude set.
3. 2500 hard deck altitude, make sure you have a good canopy above your head, if not pull all you can :-) or cut away and pull.



You posted elsewhere that you have 14 jumps. What do your instructors think?
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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I don't like devices (that have to be set, and work on batteries) to do my altitude tracking for me



Nobody should. Altitude awareness should be a cross-check of mechanical devices (visual and/or audible), your own eyeballing of the ground, and that clock in the back of your head that tells you the skydive is getting 'old'. You should never count on any one of them, but you should monitor them all and draw your conclusions from there.

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Or in other words, Id rather be 200ft behind the curve on a bad day, then waiting for a beep (and thinking that Im still 500ft above the beep alltitude) that doesnt come on a really bad day...



Here's why that's wrong - on your 'bad' day, you're 200 ft behind the curve to start with. On your 'really bad' day, your troubles start 500ft above your 'target' altitude when your audible doesn't go off, which is still 700ft above where your troubles would have started on your 'bad' day.

If you read my whole post, you'll see the paragraph about the need to be honest with yourself about your altitude awareness, and that if the audible 'surprises' you in that you had no idea it was going to beep when it did, you need to do way better keeping track of things. The audible should simply be a confirmation of what you already know, not a source of 'new' information.

An audible is simply a tool, and it's up to each jumper to use it properly.

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NWFlyer

***For this weekend I think I will set my Optima II for the following
1. 5000 break off altitude.
2. 3800 pull altitude. By the time I wave and reach for pool, I will most likely be at 3400-3500. Most if not all of the guys on our DZ pull at 3500, so don't think I need any lower altitude set.
3. 2500 hard deck altitude, make sure you have a good canopy above your head, if not pull all you can :-) or cut away and pull.



You posted elsewhere that you have 14 jumps. What do your instructors think?

Yes, you right, I only have 14 jumps, hope to have more this upcoming weekend. What do my instructors say, um not much, when I up for plane boarding people (including instructors) ask me what elevation I will pull. I tell them at or around 3500 they seem to be ok with it.
Why do you ask? Too low for a new jumper? I figured if I have to do hop and pop from 5500 feet and second hop and pop from 3500 feet then I should at least be comfortable deploying parachute at 3500.

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SFBayArea

******For this weekend I think I will set my Optima II for the following
1. 5000 break off altitude.
2. 3800 pull altitude. By the time I wave and reach for pool, I will most likely be at 3400-3500. Most if not all of the guys on our DZ pull at 3500, so don't think I need any lower altitude set.
3. 2500 hard deck altitude, make sure you have a good canopy above your head, if not pull all you can :-) or cut away and pull.



You posted elsewhere that you have 14 jumps. What do your instructors think?

Yes, you right, I only have 14 jumps, hope to have more this upcoming weekend. What do my instructors say, um not much, when I up for plane boarding people (including instructors) ask me what elevation I will pull. I tell them at or around 3500 they seem to be ok with it.
Why do you ask? Too low for a new jumper? I figured if I have to do hop and pop from 5500 feet and second hop and pop from 3500 feet then I should at least be comfortable deploying parachute at 3500.

I ask because at 14 jumps, such guidance best comes from your instructors not random strangers on the internet. :)
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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Just wondering what altitudes people set their audible altimeters?
I set mine at
5300, 4000 and 3300.



I leave mine on the same settings all the time

6000: pull time for aff is coming soon, time to stop what you're doing and get ready to pull for coaching, or breakoff is soon for rw

4000: my pull time is coming soon

2500: hard deck is coming
Owned by Remi #?

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I understand your point of view. To me the surprise is when I hear the beep and have not pulled yet. Thats when I need to reflect on keeping better track of things. Like I said, I jump an old school time out, it just has one beep, so on all the jumps where I pull on planned altitude its a confirmation that I did perfect. I hear it while the canopy is opening and think, I pulled perfectly on time, good job, keep it up.. (so its either a sign I'm late, or did perfect, and can reflect on this every jump)

Maybe I'd set things differently when I would have the option of multiple beeps, then it makes sence to have an advance warning for the phase of the skydive thats coming up. I like the crosscheck concept. Then again I have always learned audiables are backup/secondary devices for your altimeter and eyeballs and internal clock and thus to treat them like that..

Would you set a single beep time out 500ft before planned altitude/action?
Parachute gear garage sale at :http://www.usedparachutes.eu

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"There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bit pedantic I know, but breaking a BSR and not 'getting away with it' is ipso facto, more dangerous, maybe even lethal than getting away with it....

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To me the surprise is when I hear the beep and have not pulled yet



At which point you are still in freefall lower than you wanted to be. In cases where people have hit the ground with partially deployed reserves, that could be looked at as the first link the chain of events that lead up to an incident. With all other things be equal, if the exact same event took place but had started at a higher altitude, the reserve would have had time to inflate.

That's just one example, but you get the idea.

Let's keep in mind that pull time is a pre-determined altitude, and not something you think of at the last second. With that in mind, you should be aware of pull time for some time before it arrives. Be it for break off from a jump, or when you switch to belly from a solo freefall, the point is that you should know pull time is coming and taking steps in that direction at least 10 to 15 seconds before it actually arrives.

With that in mind, you would be just as surprised if the audible went off 500ft above pull time if it went off below your pull time on a jump where you lost altitude awareness and were not in the process of ending your freefall. The difference would be that you would still be above your desired pull altitude as opposed to below when your audible 'surprised' you.

The benefit of being surprised, and learning that you were not altitude aware remains, but you also learned that lesson with altitude to spare. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Time Out work in 200ft increments? So if you have been setting it 200ft low, I would suggest you move that to 600ft above pull time (400ft is on the low side, and not sticking with the idea of being more conservative for the sake of safety). Provided you follow that advice, you would 'learn your lesson' 800ft higher if you follow my plan, and that's a significant chunk of altitude and time when you're talking about the bottom end of a skydive.

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Would you set a single beep time out 500ft before planned altitude/action?



Yes, and I'm pretty sure my answer above makes that clear. For the record, I have a couple thousand jumps on Time Out audibles, and thought they were great. The single programmable beep was fine when coupled with the pre-programmed 2500ft beep and the flatline that kicks in somewhere under 2k.

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Flysight - 5,000 - flysight goes silent
Timeout - 4,500- hello...
Neptune - 3,500- how's it going?
Neptune - 2,500 - so you want to pull now?
Timeout & Neptune - 1,500 - whatcha doing?
----------
Neptune - 1,200 - you thinking about setting up?
Neptune - 1,000 - So you should be approaching set up.
Neptune - 800 - Ok, you should start landing manoeuvre.

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thanks for taking the time to explain the merits of your approach... Ill take some time to ponder on this and talk to the people who taught me my approach to audiables and timeouts (you know what they say about advice from the internet :P)

Parachute gear garage sale at :http://www.usedparachutes.eu

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cazzercam

I set mine for
5500 (breakoff)
4000 (check alti and pull)
2500 (why the fuck dont you have a chute?)

i do this for the 500 feet of "thinking" time, it doesnt take long for you to fall 500 feet, and I fall fast!
I see it as by the time you have heard the warning, and then done the action, you have already wasted time. so I would rather have a little extra "doing" time than have a warning at 5k for breakoff, because by the time you have heard it and turned and gone, your lower than 5k!

plus I dont trust anything!



I agree with ya but have you actually looked at your visible altimeter while listening to the audible. They actually start beeping about 300 feet or more PRIOR to the designated altitude. If you set it to 4, it is beeping from 4300-3900 roughly. But our brains sometimes lag on thinking and doing like you've stated and that's why I run almost the exact same numbers.

bigger groups RW
5500
4000
2300

Freefly
5000
4000
2000

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