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NWFlyer

Smart things I have done

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Casually practiced my EPs in front of a newbie, so he'd notice a "big gun" was doing it.

Jumped with beginners a lot, and enjoyed it.



First post! That's beer, right!!

As a newbie, you don't know how much it means to see an experienced jumper practicing EP's and then get a chance to jump w/ them. My DZ (Emerald Coast Skydiving) is really great at including new skydivers.

I guess the smartest thing I've ever done was hang around those guys and not be scared to ask lots of stupid questions.

Stan

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>"intentionally took a rig without a cypress on a particular jump"

Stupid things I did on that jump:

Jumped with people who were not going to back off our plan (7 points in a 4 way)
Jumped on a day where we wouldn't get full altitude (indeed we only got 4000 feet)
Didn't agree on a breakoff altitude beforehand
Didn't break off at a reasonable altitude
Didn't pull at a reasonable altitude

The one smart thing I did:

Took a rig without an AAD with a main that slams open. As a result I did not have a cypres fire (as two people did) and ended up being the highest open canopy on that load (about 1000 feet.)

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Recently got behind the jump when winds kicked up while setting up for landing.

Realized, quickly, my trajectory was taking me right onto the runway - too short to make the landing area proper. I could either land into the wind on the runway, or I had just enough time and altitude to turn away and land cross wind and into a muddy field, just the other side of runway. I chose the latter, and was glad. Better a little mud-slide than smack the runway.:$
"...I've learned that while the "needs" in life are important (food, water, shelter), it's the "wants" in life (ice cream, chocolate, sex) that make it worth the effort." Kbordson

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I could either land into the wind on the runway, or I had just enough time and altitude to turn away and land cross wind and into a muddy field, just the other side of runway. I chose the latter, and was glad.



I'm curious:
- What was your altitude when you initiated your turn? About how many degrees (90? more? less?) was your turn? Did you use a one-toggle turn or a flat or braked turn?

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I was somewhere around 300 - 400ft. I had just come off the downwind leg for a few seconds and was on the base leg (running mostly parallel w/the runway), eyeballing where it look like the winds would allow me to place my landing. It soon became obvious that I had let the winds take me too far downwind to make it safely back over the runway - I was going to end up on the active runway.

So, at the last few seconds before I had to make the final, I turned w/one toggle to the right (about 20 degrees) and then readjusted w/left toggle imput just enough to fly straight and went parallel to the runway, cross-wind for my landing. It wasn't much of a turn...it was mostly knowing not to go for the full final turn, which would put me not only on the runway ( I envisioned broken ankles), but on an active runway at that. I'm not proficient enough w/my landings to guarantee a stand-up on a runway.

Hope this makes sense - sometimes it's not easy to articulate what you do.
"...I've learned that while the "needs" in life are important (food, water, shelter), it's the "wants" in life (ice cream, chocolate, sex) that make it worth the effort." Kbordson

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  • Another jumper had just gotten the approval to do RW (doesn't come with the licence here). We went up on a cloudy day with the intention to pull out a hook if we got "decent altitude". This was to be her first "RW" jump with someone who was not an instructor. We agreed that 4000 ft was not decent altitude and did solos.


  • Local boogie with a skyvan and low attendance. We could only just keep it flying. We had just drilled an 8-way and people were gearing up. I took a second look at the weather and decided to stand down even though it would keep the plane on the ground. I would probably be able to do the jump but I wouldn't be having fun, and I jump for fun. Two things immediately happened:
    1. Four other people from our 8-way stood down including one very experienced.

    2. My old FJC instructor and the chairman of our national association (who was being kept on the ground by us) applauded us for standing down.

    In fact the only person bitching about our decision was a guy of approximately my own level of experience. :S
    HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
    “I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
    - Not quite Oscar Wilde...
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  • Ridden the plane down (a few times) when conditions didn't feel right (ok...so I shouldn't have gotten on the plane to begin with but I made the wise choice of riding it down).

  • Chosen not to get on the plane when the winds were too high or when my brain had taken a vacation.
    Life is short! Break the rules! Forgive quickly! Kiss slowly! Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably. And never regret anything that made you smile.
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    DZ Owls...


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    Is that another term for OLD GUYS?!?!



    Definition:

    owl - (ow-ul) - A bird or apparently well informed and experienced veteran skydiver.

    Hope that clears that one up:P...
    .
    .
    .
    Anvil Brother #69

    Sidelined with a 5mm C5-C6 herniated disk...
    Back2Back slammers and 40yr old fat guys don't mix!

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    It's nice when little things that I pick up on these forums make a potentially huge difference. Yesterday I turned to break-off from a two-way freefly jump. I turned to track and looked down in the process. I realized that I was tracking along jump run, made a quick fix and finished my track in the appropriate direction. After the jump I learned that the person I was jumping with made the same realization and dealt with the situation similarly.

    It probably wouldn't have been a problem, but it's something that I would've never thought to do if it weren't for things that I'd picked up here. The concept of tracking off of jump run was only mentioned once in my training and it didn't make an impact. As it stands, I make specific note of jump run direction [as I'm sure most do] to keep aware of my position in the sky.

    I dunno. Not major or noteworthy by any means, but 'smart' nonetheless.
    I really don't know what I'm talking about.

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    Jump around nr 20, don't know anymore what jump.
    We fly a cessna grand caravan, so 18 people can fit in it. That jump there were quite a few AFF (3 I think) and a couple of tandems. Exitwise I had to jump before the AFF's. At that time I still pulled at 4000ft.
    While decending under canopy, at a certain point I saw the AFF-jumpmaster and videopeople come in for landing. We have a pretty big landing area, but everyone wants to land right in front of the hangar (and avoid having to walk a mile back). So, they all wanted to land there, and because my canopy (a 220) decends a lot slower, I decided to backoff and land a bit further from the hangar, avoiding the rest of the jumpers. I had to walk back to the hangar for some time, but better to walk then have a mid air collision.

    Jump 13: Second freefall from 5000ft. I waited kinda long to exit and the plane was already far from the dz. I opened at 4000ft and I saw I wasn't going to make it back to the dz, or it was going to be really close.
    I looked around and saw a nice landingarea not so far from me, flew to it, cirkeled around it, and landed there. Luckely two people from the dropzone came and picked me up :)
    On every jump: asking people what they will do on their jump (RW, Freefly), with how many people they will jump, asking how high they pull... in order to know after which group I need to exit.

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    You know how sometimes you just get that feeling - that 'not feeling it' feeling. That, for some unexplainable reason, I just don't feel like jumping kind of feeling?
    On more than one occassion, I've just hung out with friends and watched people jump while my gear sat piled on the floor.
    On more than one of those occassions, someone got hurt or had a cut away or something odd happened. Obviously, not saying I knew something was going to happen or that I think it would have been me instead - just that sometimes your guts are your best inner voice. I've always done well with listening to it.
    There are plenty of days, plenty of planes....

    -------------------------
    "If you've never jumped out of a plane, the best way I can describe it is it feels as if you've just jumped out of a freakin' plane."
    David Whitley (Orlando Sentinel)

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    I did a smart thing just today. I thought an experience nazi was giving me shit unecessarily about something and it got my ire up. It got me to do some further research on my choice of canopy, how it flies, how I fly it, how I train on it, how I will continue to train on it, etc.

    Turns out, that was his whole intention from the get go. ;)

    I miss Lee.
    And JP.
    And Chris. And...

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    >what was her deal again?

    Long story short -

    Chick with about 100 jumps who had been in a motorcycle accident and had a head injury (that no one told us about.) Her SO sort of dropped her off at Tent 1. She jumped with another organizer who gave me a conditional thumbs-up, so I organized a 4 way with her. She backslid into a cloud, tried to pull, flipped on her back and gave up.

    Afterwards she thought she had had a mal. She didn't remember me pulling her reserve.

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    >what was her deal again?

    Long story short -

    Chick with about 100 jumps who had been in a motorcycle accident and had a head injury (that no one told us about.) Her SO sort of dropped her off at Tent 1. She jumped with another organizer who gave me a conditional thumbs-up, so I organized a 4 way with her. She backslid into a cloud, tried to pull, flipped on her back and gave up.

    Afterwards she thought she had had a mal. She didn't remember me pulling her reserve.



    :o:o Wow. good work!

    I miss Lee.
    And JP.
    And Chris. And...

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    I chose a very conservative wingloading for the number of jumps I have. I don't stay current enough to fly something more aggressive.



    This One from your Profile or you just kidding?
    Whats a Phantom 22 reserve?



    Don't believe everything you read. Lisa is way to smart to jump the gear listed in her profile.:)
    A Phantom 22 is a very small round reserve from yester-year.:P
    My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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