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ellena

Slow openings and emergency exit from the plane

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Hi!
(My first post on this forum, I've just been lurking for the last couple of months, please be nice :$ )

I just bought my pre-second rig, and with it an Electra 190 main which has rather slow openings (the guy I bought it from said it usually takes about 900 feet to open, and with me only having 4 jumps on it thus far, I can't really say if it's closer to 700 or 900 feet. I do however know that it definitely takes longer than what I'm used to from the student canopies I've used up until now).

Anyway, the fact that it has slow openings got me thinking about some "what if.."-situations, such as "something's wrong with the plane, get the fuck out", and at what altitude I would go straight for my reserve, instead of my main.

So, for you guys who have canopies with slow openings (7-800+ feet?), what would be the lowest altitude you would exit the plane and still go for your main canopy?

(And yes - I am going to talk to my instructors about this the next time I'm jumping, and no, I am not asking any of you internet-strangers what you think I should do, I just figured it would be interesting to hear what you have decided for yourself).

- Ellen :)

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This is a good discussion to have with your instructional staff. It is more complicated than you think.

Having a solid idea of your main vs. reserve altitude is a good one. Many people would say 1500 feet, BUT... In many places I've jumped, my altimeter saying I was at 1500 ft, was misleading. Think about where the ground is. I have often been at "1500" feet but really been only 500 feet above the ground, because the ground we are flying over is much higher than the ground we took off from.

Another issue is the well known one of making the intellectual decision ahead of time that you will use your reserve, but doing the emergency action of activating your main, because that is what you virtually always do. This is a well know phenomenon.

Continue discussing...

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

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I've done intentional jumps below clouds from 2200ft on a nitro and 2500 ft on a Safire2. When you dump out the door it doesn't take 900 vertical feet to open. You don't hit terminal the second you leave the plane. I was open by 1600-1700 on the nitro and by 1900 on the Safire.
I definitely don't recommend going that low, but hey it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I would go reserve below 2000ft. Here's why. If everything works like it should and I pitch right out the door, that's 5-600ft until I can even evaluate if some shit is wrong and I'm below my hard deck. (1,500ft) Above 2500, I'd definitely go main. Below two in an emergency situation, I'd have to really fight the urge to go main and leave with my hand on silver.
I was that kid jumping out if his tree house with a bed sheet. My dad wouldn't let me use the ladder to try the roof...

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I won't go into all the details involved, but another thing to take into consideration is what type and the altitude setting of your AAD. Slow opening mains, combined with possible low emergency exit altitudes are a great combination for 2 canopy out situations. Discuss this with your instructors and your rigger that know your specific equipment and local conditions.

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If you only have 64 jumps, I don't think a canopy that takes 900 ft to open is the best choice for you. Ask a rigger if there is any way to modify the slider to speed up the openings. Your rigger can hot knife a hole in your slider to allow air to flow through it causing less drag on the slider, thus the slider will come down easier, speeding up the opening. The slider can also be replaced with a smaller one.

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Thanks for your reply. I'm not saying I won't think about it or ask my rigger and/or instructor, but I was just wondering why a person with low jump number shouldn't jump a slow-opening canopy?
And yes, I only have 64 jumps, so I'm still brand new in this sport :)

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In an emergency exit, say 1,000 t/ 1,500' and you have to get out PDQ, go silver. Chances are between the time the PIC gives the order to get out, the jump ship may well be losing altitude all the while, and you have to wait your turn to exit, more reasons for deploying your reserve at such a low altitude.
-Richard-
"You're Holding The Rope And I'm Taking The Fall"

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Something jumpers don't think about also is...where are you bailing out. If I'm at my DZ, we have a couple of 200' hills off of the west end of the runway. If I'm at Lost Prairie there are 1,800 foot hills lurking. Skydive Arizona or somewhere flat like that. No worries.
Be alert to what you fly over in case the spinny thing stops.

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ellena

Thanks for your reply. I'm not saying I won't think about it or ask my rigger and/or instructor, but I was just wondering why a person with low jump number shouldn't jump a slow-opening canopy?



I'd also like to hear (read) an explanation of this. I have a Pilot, which opens slowly and softly. That's one of the primary reasons that I bought it, and I've been very happy with the openings so far. I pull at 3,500'-4,000', so don't really believe it should be an issue. But this thread has made me think about that in a way I hadn't thought about before, and I should probably raise my "go-to-silver" altitude.

"So many fatalities and injuries are caused by decisions jumpers make before even getting into the aircraft. Skydiving can be safe AND fun at the same time...Honest." - Bill Booth

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ellena

Thanks for your reply. I'm not saying I won't think about it or ask my rigger and/or instructor, but I was just wondering why a person with low jump number shouldn't jump a slow-opening canopy? :)



I personally wouldn't worry about it. The response you got was fairly old school. Including the advice to cut a hole in your slider. Technically it could work well, but not something anyone typically has done since the early 1980s I'd guess. If one were pulling at 2000-2200' all the time, then maybe a newbie might be wary of a slow opening canopy that takes 800' or so to open. But most pull higher these days -- or you do with that sort of canopy.

There's a well known old timers joke, that what is a "normal soft opening canopy" these days would have been called a "streamer malfunction" in the '80s, when you expected to get an open canopy within 500' of reaching for the handle.

For emergency exits, just make a realistic plan about what canopy is appropriate to what altitude, knowing the characteristics of your main canopy.

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Some ideas to consider...

Which canopy has a higher chance of malfunctioning?

Which canopy would you rather be flying if you're put in a situation where you may be forced to land in a suboptimal (perhaps VERY SUBOPTIMAL) location?

What is the downside of leaving the plane, deploying your main, and immediately thinking "man, I wish I was on my reserve right now!" ?

What is the downside of leaving on your reserve and thinking "man, I wish I was on my main canopy now?"

Hopefully this make it clear where my opinions lie... My guiding philosophy is that unless I have time to check my altimeter (more than once) *and* I have enough time to verify that I have a decent spot, I'm going out on my reserve.

Another way to think about it... "If you have to think about which canopy to use, the answer is the reserve."

All that said, learning about how/why canopies open at different speeds and take different amounts of altitude based on terminal vs sub terminal, etc can only make you a better, safer skydiver. But until you feel like you have a really good grasp of all those variables, you'd rather be safe than sorry.

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Hello, (First post - beer).

I tend to make my decision on a few things, and it always varies. I have had some low exits, and emergency exits.

Firstly, the ground. Is it a hilly area. You might be low. I have jumped places where the mountain is at 5000ft above the landing area.

The plane. Speed, door size, and how many people. The faster the speed, the better. Bigger the door, the better. More people, less good. Alititude difference since the pilot's eyes pop til you get to the door might be another 1000ft, the plane might even climb....

AAD, are you going to go into fire range while your main in deploying.

I have exitted lower than 2000Ft, going onto main. It was "controlled" emergency, known flat DZ, and my main doesn't take that long to open. As I opened, I was ready though to avoid others, and chop instantly if required. I also have RSL.

If anything was different for that jump, I would have probably gone to reserve.

As a rule of dumb, 2500 for main. Below, you are risking it a bit, unless planned.
You have the right to your opinion, and I have the right to tell you how Fu***** stupid it is.
Davelepka - "This isn't an x-box, or a Chevy truck forum"
Whatever you do, don't listen to ChrisD.

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First off I am old school, but the way the canopy opens is still the same. I have a few reasons why I personally don't like slow opening canopies for low time jumpers, here is just one.
You will eventually find yourself pulling below your normal opening altitude for one reason or another. It could be because someone is above you at pull time, because your pc is dislodged and you have trouble locating it, hard pull of pc because it is bound up in the spandex, The 4 way you were on was going so well that you lost track of altitude, and on and on and on. there are dozens of reasons why you will end up throwing your pilotchute well below your normal opening altitude, but still above your emergency altitude. Now let's say you throw out at 2300', still above your hard deck to go to your reserve, and you experience a 900' snivel and let's say that at the end of the snivel you have a break release and the canopy twists up , now what altitude are you at (1400' or less) you will need to make a decision quickly because you are already below your normal emergency procedure hard deck. The long snivel contributed to you being that low. I just feel that a low time jumper should always keep the cards stacked in their favor to survive in this sport.

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Yeah, I see your point. And you are probably right, even though I always plan to pull before 4000 ft, something could easily happen that would make me not being able to do that. I kind of like the slow, soft opening though. I tried a pulse for a couple of jumps before I bought my own gear, and I must say that even though mine uses fairly long time to open, I prefer it. Or you know, at least I do until something happens and I kind of wishes it didn't take as long to open. Fingers crossed it won't happen B|

But thanks for your answers all of you, I'm going to have a chat with one of my instructors and make sure that I have plan for which altitude I would go straight for my reserve with my snively main, and also take my AAD and elevation around the DZ into consideration :)

If anybody else feels like sharing their straight-to-reserve-altitude (and why), go for it :)

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Keep in mind that a canopy that needs say 800 feet to open in terminal freefall, will not necessarily take 800 feet to open sub terminal. On a quick sub terminal deployment, you don't have the vertical velocity to burn up as much altitude during the snivel like you do when terminal.

I tend to jump slow opening canopies, and can usually get in the saddle from a hop in pop less than 300 feet below the aircraft.

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Quote

Keep in mind that a canopy that needs say 800 feet to open in terminal freefall, will not necessarily take 800 feet to open sub terminal. On a quick sub terminal deployment, you don't have the vertical velocity to burn up as much altitude during the snivel like you do when terminal.

I tend to jump slow opening canopies, and can usually get in the saddle from a hop in pop less than 300 feet below the aircraft.



100% agreement. ONly thing I'd add for the OP is that you should do some hop and pops on your current main to get an idea of what that would feel like. Make note of your alt when you leave, clear the plane, deploy, and then make note of your alt so you know what to expect.

Something to keep in mind with subterminal openings is that youre not falling straight down, you are going to have some forward throw from the airplane. So you will travel further than your altitude loss because you're not going straight down.

however you're also not going that fast, so after you pitch, you should fully expect to feel the deployment take a longer time. I'd describe it as "mushy" and "lazy".

Do a bunch of those until you feel perfectly comfortable with the altitude loss and the deployment characteristics.

That said i'm on board with the rest of the advice--if you're getting out low go straight to silver. Not only will you open faster, but considering you're not going to have much exit separation, I wouldn't want to be sniveling down into other canopies that might already be deployed below me.

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3mpire

Quote

Keep in mind that a canopy that needs say 800 feet to open in terminal freefall, will not necessarily take 800 feet to open sub terminal. On a quick sub terminal deployment, you don't have the vertical velocity to burn up as much altitude during the snivel like you do when terminal.

I tend to jump slow opening canopies, and can usually get in the saddle from a hop in pop less than 300 feet below the aircraft.



100% agreement. ONly thing I'd add for the OP is that you should do some hop and pops on your current main to get an idea of what that would feel like. Make note of your alt when you leave, clear the plane, deploy, and then make note of your alt so you know what to expect.

Something to keep in mind with subterminal openings is that youre not falling straight down, you are going to have some forward throw from the airplane. So you will travel further than your altitude loss because you're not going straight down.

however you're also not going that fast, so after you pitch, you should fully expect to feel the deployment take a longer time. I'd describe it as "mushy" and "lazy".

Do a bunch of those until you feel perfectly comfortable with the altitude loss and the deployment characteristics.

That said i'm on board with the rest of the advice--if you're getting out low go straight to silver. Not only will you open faster, but considering you're not going to have much exit separation, I wouldn't want to be sniveling down into other canopies that might already be deployed below me.



This....(silver)emergency means your not the only one coming out. Also it means you don't have time to be thinking about what you are going to do as you should have already done it by the time you have made up your mind as to what to do. This is assuming this is a low altitude emergency. If your on jump run and the plane stalls and your lucky enough to get out then id track away and dump high to watch and see if anyone else got out and if they are going to need help and land with them..

MAKE EVERY DAY COUNT
Life is Short and we never know how long we are going to have. We must live life to the fullest EVERY DAY. Everything we do should have a greater purpose.

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dzswoop717

Your rigger can hot knife a hole in your slider to allow air to flow through it causing less drag on the slider, thus the slider will come down easier, speeding up the opening. The slider can also be replaced with a smaller one.



Bad advice!

Unlike the old F-111 7-cell canopies that could have opening characteristics "safely" tweaked with the aforementioned mods and many others like them, today's Zero-P, higher performance designs can produce anything from streamers to slammers when modified in the field.

I suggest anyone wanting to change the opening characteristics of their canopy contact the manufacturer. The manufacturer designed it, built it, and test jumped it - a lot! The manufacturer knows more about the canopy than anyone else by a big margin. ANY mods should be approved by the manufacturer first. DON'T experiment!
Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

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I have a nice snively pilot 188, and I like that it is that way. There is nothing inherently dangerous (or at least more dangerous; I mean, we're talking skydiving here) about a slow opening canopy. It's a feature (not a defect) that lots of people actually value.

But you do need to factor in your canopy's opening time when planning your normal opening altitude and for determining your "straight-to-reserve" point if you unexpectedly find yourself low. And similarly for what altitude you will deploy your reserve if you have to make a low emergency exit. (And of course, that's true whether you got a slow opener or not.)

For me, 2000 ft is my "straight-to-reserve" altitude, and for simplicity's sake it's the same whether I'm in free fall or hopping off a cripled plane in an emergency. (Other factors that went into that decision were 1) there are 100+ft hills near the DZ I jump at, 2) my Cypres is programmed to fire at 850 ft, 3) there are lots of densely wooded areas that I might not be able to overfly if I opened at just over 1000 ft directly above them.) BTW, my normal deployment altitude is 3,000 to 3,500 ft, but I've pulled as low as 2,500.

Whats the difference in opening altitude for a slow opener vs a briskly opening canopy? About 500ft.

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Yeah, definitely a good idea, thanks! I'm going to do a few hop'n'pops the next time I can, just to get a feeling of what it's like, and also to check how much altitude it takes wih a subterminal opening. Haha, can't believe I didn't think of that myself. Thanks!

But thanks a lot you guys, I was a bit worried about posting here (I've read far too many threads that somehow have ended up with "you shouldn't ask here, we're internet-strangers, ask your instructors! what do you know, you only have xx jumps!", so thank you for not replying that way :$)

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I agree with you to contact the manufacturer but, I never suggested that she start cutting holes in her slider or to experiment on her own. I said she could go to her rigger, who could modify or replace the slider. Dave DeWolf recently modified a slider for my buddy on his lightly loaded zp canopy that had started to snivel increasingly longer because of the canopies total number of jumps being high. A small hot knifed hole shaved 300 ft off the opening. On highly loaded canopies, I can definitely see your point.

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As above, canopy opening distance on a true hop & pop is significantly different to a terminal opening.

Make sure you're doing 'proper' hop & pops though not the modern version where you go up to 5k-6k, get out and pull at 3k. I never liked this trend. Sure, fine for the first one or two but we need to be training our students a 'proper' emergency exit like we used to.

With a proper (aircraft specific) brief, exprience flying sub-terminal air and the knowledge that you can exit stable every time... you can be pulling right as you go out the door. Hell, static line student's toss on the 3-second count; CRW dogs before then.

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dzswoop717

I agree with you to contact the manufacturer but, I never suggested that she start cutting holes in her slider or to experiment on her own. I said she could go to her rigger, who could modify or replace the slider. Dave DeWolf recently modified a slider for my buddy on his lightly loaded zp canopy that had started to snivel increasingly longer because of the canopies total number of jumps being high. A small hot knifed hole shaved 300 ft off the opening. On highly loaded canopies, I can definitely see your point.



Riggers are not designers and should not make mods that are not approved by the manufacturer. Modern day canopy designs vary widely and a mod that may work well on one brand/model may cause catastrophic failure and/or injury or death of the jumper on another. Also keep in mind that there are sometimes "bastard" canopies - canopies that for reasons unknown have unexplained problems, often hard openings. Modifying one of those in a way that has worked just fine on the same model in the past could yield dramatically different and possibly devastating results.

You can choose to do whatever you like but let's remember there are a lot of new jumpers on these forums. To the jumpers at large, NEVER modify or have your rigger modify your canopy in any way that is not approved by the manufacturer!!

Most often a simple phone call to the manufacturer will provide the solution. Many (most?) manufacturers will even take the canopy back and test jump it to determine what the problem is and replace it if it's a bastard.
Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

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I assumed that her rigger would contact the manufacturer. The first step for a rigger when confronted with a problem canopy is to contact the manufacturer. No rigger in his right mind would modify equipment just because the low experienced owner wants it done. Again, I never said for her or any other inexperienced jumper to modify their equipment. If it came out that way, I apologize.

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dzswoop717

I assumed that her rigger would contact the manufacturer. The first step for a rigger when confronted with a problem canopy is to contact the manufacturer. No rigger in his right mind would modify equipment just because the low experienced owner wants it done. Again, I never said for her or any other inexperienced jumper to modify their equipment. If it came out that way, I apologize.



I don't know any manufacturer today that recommends cutting a hole in the slider to speed up openings so it's likely that any rigger who is performing that mod is doing so without consultation.

Unfortunately there are some riggers who are willing to perform mods without consulting the manufacturer. Many are "old timers" who have done mods for decades and don't think about design and material differences in modern canopies and how those things can affect the outcome.

I'm always open to learn. Anyone following this thread know of a manufacturer that recommends slider holes to speed up openings?
Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

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