How to prepare for a hot air ballon jump

[jumpwally 0]

C'mon Nick, ! this sounds like a great story.........

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[NickDG 23]

I'd written about it here before but I can never find anything specific with the search function on this site.

But that's okay as I'm sure I tell it better every time I take a swing at it.

So here it goes again . . .

It was in the 1980s and I was working at a DZ in San Diego. There were several jumpers on the DZ who wanted to make a balloon jump so a group of us arranged for one up in Riverside County. When we arrived 5:00 AM it was us and several other groups from Perris and Elsinore. The balloon was going to 5000-feet on each load and we'd all follow along in our vehicles as the wind pushed the balloon landings further south.

The basket would carry three jumpers and the pilot and we are on the fifth or sixth load. When it was our turn the balloon pilot told us to hurry and get aboard as the winds were coming up and he still had three or four loads to go. On the load was myself, my then girlfriend Karen, and another jumper we'll call Manny, as he's still jumping today and I don't want to embarrass him. I had probably a thousand skydives, plus I was already making some B.A.S.E. jumps at that time, Karen had around 400 skydives, and Manny had just recently done his hundredth jump, and it was a first balloon jump for all three of us.

We took off all giggly nervous and singing some Wizard of Oz song. At about 500-feet Manny mentioned the houses and terrain below us didn't look all that great for landing, but I said we'd be passed all that by the time we got to altitude. For gear we were all wearing state of the art stuff for the early-1980s. Wonderhog rigs (the forerunner to the Vector) with seven cell square mains and round reserves. And of course no one had an AAD (which were called AODs in those days.)

In hindsight, and because I've made plenty of other balloon jumps since, I didn't realize how fast we were going up. Usually it's not really noticeable, but we could feel it in our knees and the pilot was continuously running the burner with only very short breaks in between. We didn’t have a chance for gear checks on the ground so I was doing them now. And I couldn't help notice Manny was getting visibly nervous. I suppose we all were, but you know as you get more experienced you can just hide it better. I'd previously practiced with Karen for her making a stable type B.A.S.E. launch as she was using this as a rehearsal for her very first B.A.S.E. jump. I hadn’t had a chance to work with Manny at all. And at about 1200-feet Manny dropped all pretence of being brave and said, "So how the fuck are we gonna do this?"

I then made a very bad mistake considering what was about to happen. I told him, "Just sit up on the edge of the basket and push off. After about 8 to 10 seconds it will feel just like a normal skydive." "What's it gonna feel like before that?" he then asked way too seriously. So I tried to lighten him up with some humor and said, "It'll feel like falling down an elevator shaft." And everybody laughed except Manny. We figured out an exit order with ladies going first, then Manny, and me going last.

By now we were making good progress toward a large open field and we could see the chase vehicles below snaking along the dirt roads trying to keep up. I mentioned the wind direction to everyone as being out of the north, "So keep that in mind for landing." But with the burner going full blast it was hard to talk and hear each other. (I've since always worn ear plugs on every balloon jump). Right then everything went south.

I'd just looked at my altimeter and at the other one mounted in the balloon. That one was set to MSL and I was doing the math in my head. Mine said 1700-feet and pilot's said something like 3200-feet. I looked below us at the rolling hills and was about to mention something about it all when we all heard a most horrible sound.

The top of a balloon, what we'd call a crown or an apex, balloonists oddly enough call the parachute. And it's actually held in place with Velcro, and there's a rope attached to it so on landing the pilot can rip it loose to spill air from the balloon. But the Velcro had let go on its own all the way around and we are all just staring up at it. The pilot grabbed his hand held radio and announced, "We've got an in-flight emergency!" Which, at the time, I thought was weird as was someone going to send us a ladder or something?

We started coming down. I looked and could see my altimeter starting to unwind and feel it too. "You guys gotta get out right now," the pilot yelled. I told Karen to go now and without a word she just dove straight over the side of the basket did about five seconds and opened her main. She was tumbling when she deployed but she did wait until the business side of her rig was up. "Now you Manny!" But he was a mess. "I can't, I can't, you go, you go first, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!" I looked again and we were going through 1200-feet and picking up speed. "Manny, you gotta go right now or I'm gonna leave you here!" But now he's really freaking. And all the time the pilot is screaming, "Get out, get out, get out now!" I thought about trying to throw him out, but didn’t want to get into that fight, but my instinct as a jumpmaster was telling me not to leave him.

I decided to do what you do on AFF when you and your student get low but you can’t get to them. You open in their line of sight and just hope they follow suit. "Follow me, Manny, you can do it!" And over I went as we were going through a grand. I delayed a bit and saddled out about 700-feet. I know some of you are wondering why we didn't all use our reserves, but in those days we didn't have snively mains, and you only used your reserve just before the light were about to go out.

I looked up and could see the balloon above me and coming my way. I pulled down on the front risers trying to get out from underneath it as I knew, or hoped really, that Manny was coming. I looked down for a second to decide where to land and picked someone's back yard. I then looked back over my shoulder. The balloon was still a couple of hundred feet above me and all of a sudden I see Manny go over the side. He passes me in freefall at about 500-feet, on his back kicking and flailing. I watched him get way below me and I'm expecting the exploding dust ring any second. And I'm yelling, "Get something out, Manny!" But I later realized my bad advice was coming into play. Manny was waiting for it to start feeling like a skydive.

At the last possible moment he did throw out a pilot chute, but it was his main, and he just made it. I only saw his canopy stay inflated for a very few seconds.

Manny landed first, then me, and then Karen. And now here comes the balloon. The pilot, of course wasn't wearing a parachute, and he had the burner going full blast. The balloon envelope wasn't a complete streamer but it was very close. And it crashed into the ground with a wallop. We all ran over expecting the worst, but not only was the pilot alive, except for some bleeding from cuts and some big bruises, he was awake and talking. And I could hear sirens in the distance.

I talked to the pilot a bit later, and when I asked him, he said thank god you guys were jumpers, as if it would have happened with wuffos onboard, like he usually takes up, the extra weight in the basket would have probably killed everyone. He also admitted he was over-temping the balloon with the burner, in order to get in all the loads before it got too windy to fly the balloon. And that's what made the Velcro let go.

He also became a great believer in parachutes, and while I don't think he wore one when he had regular passengers on board, he purchased two pilot rigs that he and his wife used when they flew together, and he always wore one when he took jumpers up.

And that's what happened over a field in Riverside County some 25 years ago . . .

Enjoy your first balloon jump!!!

NickD

[BigMark 1]

Bump for a great story...

[TommyM 3]

Artemis, your asking the right questions, balloon jumps provide an opportunity to practice all sorts of atrophied skills such as judging landing sites, low exits, dead air exits, judging wind direction and speed, extreme accuracy, personal responsibility, making decisions under pressure, fear management. All these thing can easily occur on one jump. I just looked at my log book, I made my first one at jump #256

Watch out for whuffo passengers, they frequently don't understand what's going on at exit time and can really be a distraction, you might want to request that they not speak unless spoken to at the critical exit time. Passengers should also be briefed to not freak out when they watch a jumper falling straight down because it frequently looks like the jumper is taking too much time and pulling really low.
I was on a load where the passenger started screaming that the jumper was not pulling and going to die, really distracting and scaring the shit out of the next quivering guy ready to leave....me!

[wasatchrider 0]

this reminds me of my first skydive

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4292468;#4292468

BASE 1519

[3mpire 0]

Wow!

[Di0 1]

Holy shit, what a story.

On a related note to this thread.
For a new jumper, let's say ~50-70 jumps, which one is better between Hot Air Balloon and Helicopter jumps? They are both similar, meaning you jump into dead air and both "educational" for the other and BASE (but that should be waaaaay down the road to aforementioned jumper, ideally), but which one would you pick to start from? What considerations do you have? Or maybe the jump number is to low to do either of them?

Initially, I though hot air balloons were the safer and easier option and I though about trying them first, but now, after reading this, I'm actually reconsidering if Helos first aren't actually a better idea. Or if it really matters at all which one you do first.
Any inputs?

I'm standing on the edge
With a vision in my head
My body screams release me
My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

[erdnarob 1]

What a good idea to make a hot air balloon jump. Just in case the balloon pilot is not aware, ask him to let you quit when the balloon is decending. ie if you want to jump at 5000 ft, ask him to go at 5500 ft, stop the burners and wait until the balloon starts to go down. This to avoid the balloon to climb up suddenly when you leave.
Also you should :
1) have a demo jump licence, check with your skydiving association
2) have the air space reserved if jumping in an air traffic control area. You need to contact the air traffic control authority for that.
3) have somebody with a chase car since the balloon can cover quite a distance
4) jumping from a balloon is quite similar than jumping from a helicopter. ie you will stay for several seconds in the same position that the one when you leave due to no relative wind to help you for your presentation. I recommend you to leave the ballon with your body at 45 degrees head up.
5) if launching from the door, make sure to clear the skids or descend on them and launch.
6) have fun

Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

[ILUVCHUTERS 1]

Holy Shit that is quite the story!!

My first balloon jump was kind of funny. It was me, my now-husband, and two other jumpers from my home DZ in Canada - we were in Arizona at Christmas a few years ago - As we were preparing to get in, my husband starts telling me what to do when we land out (figure out where the wind is coming from, pick your spot early, stay with the others, etc.) I was like... what do you MEAN we're not landing on the drop zone!! Apparently the look on my face was priceless.

It was my first time away from my home DZ (big Alberta DZ with lots of open fields around it for miles), I had about 100 jumps (if that) and I was scared enough being at a new DZ, never mind landing in the middle of the friggen desert!

I didn't know anything about balloons, and for some reason I thought you could steer them somehow . It never even occured to me we wouldn't be landing on the DZ.

[freakflyer9999 1]

My only balloon jump was a bandit jump with a balloon pilot friend of mine. We had several whuffo's with us as well. The pilot had taken jumpers before and was experienced, so I didn't spend much time briefing him other then discussing how he wanted me to exit, altitude, etc.

For the whuffo's I told them simply do not grab anything on my gear. If I slip and look like I'm falling as I climb out, that's ok. I was intending to fall out anyway. DO NOT GRAB ANYTHING.

Have fun.