"Throw" your pilot chute?

[peckerhead 0]

Where did this come from?

You can't "throw" a pilot chute into 120 mph air....As soon as you let go of it it is gone. It does not matter how hard you "throw" it.

You pull it out to FULL ARM EXTENSION and let it go.

That is the best way to get it out and clean and away from your burble....

You don't fucking THROW IT!

[980 0]

I think you may be referring to my current sigline.

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Where did this come from?

BASE jumping

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You can't "throw" a pilot chute into 120 mph air....As soon as you let go of it it is gone. It does not matter how hard you "throw" it.

no argument there

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You pull it out to FULL ARM EXTENSION and let it go.

That is the best way to get it out and clean and away from your burble....

works for skydiving and some terminal BASE jumps

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You don't fucking THROW IT!

you DO throw it, to full bridle extension, on sub-terminal BASE jumps

make sense?

[dragon2 0]

It also comes from wingsuiting. With some of the wings you need to throw the pilotchute outwards to make sure it clears the large burble. I do the same with my camerasuit-with-very-big-wings too.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[Brains 2]

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Where did this come from?

You can't "throw" a pilot chute into 120 mph air....As soon as you let go of it it is gone. It does not matter how hard you "throw" it.

You pull it out to FULL ARM EXTENSION and let it go.

That is the best way to get it out and clean and away from your burble....

You don't fucking THROW IT!

Is it not easier to teach a student to THROW it? I know that is the first time i heard it. It has stuck with me since. Plus, who starts a malfunction story with, "I had just pulled out my pilot chute to full arm extension and let it go when. . . "

Never look down on someone, unless they are going down on you.

[D22369 0]

if you teach a student to immediately throw it, then the odds of them taking it out and hanging on to it for a second or two before letting it go are much less.

I have one buddy years ago that had the bridal wrap his hand , it resulted in a reserve ride, he took it out and held it rather than tossing it.

Roy

They say I suffer from insanity.... But I actually enjoy it.

[MagicGuy 0]

This topic makes me laugh, because the other day I was thinking about this and actually put my rig on and went through how I "throw" my pilot chute, along with watching videos of deployments from some jumps I did with a coach in October.

I used to think that I was really throwing that thing out there, but as soon as it leaves the pouch it just gets whisked away by the air. I feel lately that I have really been extending the arm a lot more than I was previously, but thinking about it, what I did in those videos seemed to work just fine.

Intersting topic. In sub-terminal BASE jumps the pilot chute is definitely thrown. Watch any Bridge Day or low object BASE videos and you'll see that.

So I guess getting the "throwing" thing drilled in and therefore going through the motions is a good thing, especially when planning on transitioning to BASE.

[NickDG 23]

Bill Booth originally called it, "hand deploy" and it made sense to us because, earlier, we had been hand deploying our front mounted reserves. It only became "throw out" as a means of differentiating it from the "pull out" when that became popular on the Racer.

It's like the term "cutaway" and all the confusion it causes especially in the press. But like the above poster says, who'd want to be watching someone not dealing with a malfunction while screaming, "Mechanically release it! Mechanically release it! . . .

Some years ago the USPA suggested we dumb down skydiving terminology, so we'd be better understood by the public at large. It raised a firestorm of protest from some old timers but they did manage to get some things changed. It's why "RW" is now "Formation Flying" and I remember a blistering letter they got from me that ended with, "Do whatever you want. But while you knuckleheads are in the designated flat surface rehearsing area, I'll still be dirt diving."

In fact I think we should mount a reverse campaign and rename some newer terms to reflect their true meaning.

"Tandem Jump" should be "Sissy Jump"

"Coach" should be "Not-good-enough-to-be-a-Jumpmaster"

"Safety Day" should be "Winter Beer Bust"

"Skyhook" should be "Can't pull two handles in a timely fashion"

"Skydiver of the Year" should be "Let's make up silly awards and give them to ourselves"

NickD BASE 194

[brettski74 0]

I'm not an instructor, nor do I have your level of experience, but I am about to respectfully disagree with you on a couple of points.

You can throw the pilot chute. Just because the relative wind will accelerate it away from you much more rapidly in the vertical direction does not mean that any horizontal speed your arm movement has imparted suddenly disappears. Even if that only gives you an extra 6 inches away from the burble in the time that it screams away from you, that's still an extra 6 inches away from a potential problem.

I'd also suggest that we don't want people acting like they have all the time in the world at pull time. You don't, and so you should be acting with a certain sense of urgency in those moments before under a stable canopy. The word "throw" tends to impart this sense of urgency. If you throw a ball properly, you will release it at or near full arm extension, but you'll also do it quickly. I somehow think it's better to have someone getting the pilot chute to or very near to full arm extension quickly and probably with some additional latent horizontal motion away from the burble than to have them worrying about whether they're at full arm extension, yet.

I've heard and read several people who've experienced pilot chutes in the burble comment that their throw was rather lazy. I wonder if they were thinking at the time that they don't really need to throw, but just put it out there somewhere?

[monkycndo 0]

Nick, thanks for the laugh. I needed it today.

50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

[diablopilot 2]

Throwing it (allowing it to leave your hand with horizontal momentum) gets it to bridle stretch sooner, and decreases the chance the P/C will end up in your burble.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[tombuch 0]

OK, so far in this thread I've heard that the term "throwing" a pilot chute started with BASE jumping, and wing suit jumping. Wrong. The term was around long before either contemporary wing suits or BASE jumping.

As I recall, back in the day people would pull the pilot chute out to full arm extension and then just let it go. There was a chance that the bridle would wrap around the wrist, so instruction focused on throwing or tossing it outboard, away from the body. Entanglements seemed to almost vanish until we started using hand deployed pilot chutes for AFF students. Once again we started seeing bridles around or close to the wrist, and the throw became an instructional point again.

Does throwing the pilot chute with major force make a difference in contemporary skydiving? Probably not, but it is important to keep the bridle clear of the wrist. While that point has been around since the early days, it has gained importance in the world of hand deployed BASE pilot chutes. BASE video has given us a good view of what happens when the pilot chute is simply released and the bridle has a chance to hang up on the wrist.

So, I'm fine with teaching a student to "throw" the pilot chute, as long as the real function of the instruction is to get the pilot chute and bridle clear of the arm,wrist, and body.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[jakee 1,257]

That makes a heck of a lot of sense.

Thanks

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[wmw999 2,128]

I was just reading the original Wonderhog packing instructions. In there, it said not to use the pilot chute to wave off (I'm sure people did), but instead to throw it to clear the burble.

The Wonderhog was the first (I'm pretty sure) hand-deploy. I know that while the emphasis wasn't as strong then, we were told to throw the pilot chute, and not to just lazily let it go.

Wendy W.

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)

[Guest 1010]

the pilot chute is trying to kill you ... THROW that bitch as far away as possible ... and if the wind whisks it into clean air good on ya

You can have it good, fast, or cheap: pick two.

[JohnMitchell 14]

It's a throwing motion, for Christ's sakes, that's why we say it that way. Let's say you're driving 120 mph with the windows down. Can you "throw" a beer can out the window? Hell yeah. And those fat tandem drogues throw real well all rolled up like a fattie.

[peckerhead 0]

Throw the beer can out of a convertible with no windshield at 120 mph and see what happens. It will likely end up in the back seat.

Now take the can, stick your arm out and let it go. It is much more likely to clear the vehicle.

The force of the relative wind is stronger than the power of your arm.

[billvon 2,406]

>Now take the can, stick your arm out and let it go. It is much more likely to clear the vehicle.

Agreed! And if you throw it such that you release it at arm's length, it's even more likely to clear the vehicle.

[peckerhead 0]

Exactly!

release it at arm's length

[billvon 2,406]

> release it at arm's length

A release is part of a throw. Throwing it and releasing it is better than just releasing it - wherever your hand ends up.

[diablopilot 2]

Who throws INTO their burble?

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Andy9o8 0]

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Who throws INTO their burble?

Possibly a student.

[slotperfect 7]

I throw the crap out of mine . . . I guess I've been doing it wrong all these years.

Arrive Safely

John

[kallend 1,635]

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I'm not an instructor, nor do I have your level of experience, but I am about to respectfully disagree with you on a couple of points.

You can throw the pilot chute. Just because the relative wind will accelerate it away from you much more rapidly in the vertical direction does not mean that any horizontal speed your arm movement has imparted suddenly disappears. Even if that only gives you an extra 6 inches away from the burble in the time that it screams away from you, that's still an extra 6 inches away from a potential problem.

?

Just in the interests of physics, the drag force is non linear with velocity, which introduces a coupling between the horizontal and vertical components of velocity when determining the drag. So the horizontal drag in this case (opposing the "throw" velocity) is much much larger at a 120mph fall rate than it would be for a static throw. So if you can throw the chute 6ft sideways on the ground, it doesn't mean it will go 6ft sideways when you're in freefall.

Isn't physics fun?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[JohnMitchell 14]

Absolutely true, Kallend. That is why one must "throw" much harder when in freefall.

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[JohnMitchell 14]

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Throw the beer can out of a convertible with no windshield at 120 mph and see what happens. It will likely end up in the back seat.

Now take the can, stick your arm out and let it go. It is much more likely to clear the vehicle.

I throw with full arm extension, don't you? I just wonder why you stop the outward movement, then release.