Hard Deck - where is yours and why ?

[Sky_doggy 0]

Good catch Wendy!

I have been caught out with this trap. It's an seductive slippery slope, I can clearly remember thinking, "I've nearly got it, such a few more seconds and I'll have it"

[DocPop 1]

Pull around 4.5k
Flat-line set to 2k - I have not heard it in freefall yet, but I do hear it at 100-200' at the end of a 270!

"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

[SeanYang2k 0]

From the USPA SIM Section 2-1 - Basic Safety Requirements

G. Minimum opening altitudes [E]

Minimum container opening altitudes above the ground for skydivers are:

1. Tandem jumps–4,500 feet AGL
2. All students and A-license holders–3,000 feet AGL
3. B-license holders–2,500 feet AGL
4. C- and D-license holders–2,000 feet AGL

[craigbey 0]

Quote

Flat-line set to 2k - I have not heard it in freefall yet, but I do hear it at 100-200' at the end of a 270!

You're coming out of your turn, canopy on heading, everything is Zen ... and then SCREEEEEECH!!!!

[unkulunkulu 0]

Can someone comment on what does "container opening" mean? Does it mean the altitude at which the d-bag leaves? Because on our DZ in Russia we're constantly told that we have to have a "square, stable and steerable" (not just the d-bag leaving) at 2500ft AGL (800m) and the decision altitude is at 1800ft (600m)
To have d-bad leaving at 2500ft feels a bit too low for me. Can someone clear things up?

This is mostly a USPA rules question, not a S&T question :)

[airtwardo 6]

what does "container opening" mean?

Quote

You've initiated deployment...canopy isn't necessarily open yet - but you've pulled by that altitude.

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

• Quote

[DocPop 1]

Quote

Can someone comment on what does "container opening" mean? :)

I always interpreted it as "the pin is out of the closing loop".

"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

[DocPop 1]

Quote

Quote

Flat-line set to 2k - I have not heard it in freefall yet, but I do hear it at 100-200' at the end of a 270!

You're coming out of your turn, canopy on heading, everything is Zen ... and then SCREEEEEECH!!!!

Exactly - made me jump the first couple of times, but now I take it as a sign of building some good power!

"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

[NWFlyer 2]

Quote

Quote

I never want to be in a situation where my only 2 choices are keep it or chop it

Beware of "I can fix this;" it's killed more than a couple of people.

Wendy P.

Thanks for that, I was shaking my head because I couldn't figure out what another option would be. I consider "fix it" to be just forestalling the inevitable decision between "keep it" and "chop it." Making the decision at the right time about trying to fix it preserves both options. Keep trying to fix it too long and you are stuck with it.

"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

[julio_gyn 0]

main opening is 4-3.5k
if main is malfunctioning the hard deck is 2k
aircraft emergency, main 1.8k or up (my sabre takes 3 seconds to open in HP) reserve under 1.8k

Julio Cesar
blue skies

[chuckakers 370]

Quote

With all the Z Hills thread and a recent bad set of line twists after opening which took me about 700 ft to kick out .... I was fine as i pulled at 3500 and was under a good canopy by 2600 ft...

My hard deck is 2000 ft but I don't know why......

Where is yours and why. What do I need to consider ?

Just 66 jumps - pd210 pulse - my exit weight is 210.

Thanks in advance.

For me, it's good main by 1,500 feet or I gotta go. Don't want to risk an AAD fire during EP's.

I still whack 'em when I see 'em, though. Altitude below is time. Altitude above is history.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[popsjumper 2]

I said "SIM"

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[popsjumper 2]

Quote

Congratulations on finding a semantic argument where the hard decks differ by 10% and the general theme was completely ignored. If you keep typing you will finally be able to split the atom with your replies.

Social skills go along way towards making and keeping friends.

Please note that SIM/BPA is not semantics.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[Trev_S 0]

Quote

Quote

Congratulations on finding a semantic argument where the hard decks differ by 10% and the general theme was completely ignored. If you keep typing you will finally be able to split the atom with your replies.

Social skills go along way towards making and keeping friends.

Please note that SIM/BPA is not semantics.

Pfft, I thought it was hilarious - I'm stealing it.

[popsjumper 2]

Quote

Quote

Quote

Congratulations on finding a semantic argument where the hard decks differ by 10% and the general theme was completely ignored. If you keep typing you will finally be able to split the atom with your replies.

Social skills go along way towards making and keeping friends.

Please note that SIM/BPA is not semantics.

Pfft, I thought it was hilarious - I'm stealing it.

Pfft. Already been stolen. APB out.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[BillyVance 34]

Although I haven't always stuck with it in the past my hard deck is 1500 ft. Still in freefall by then, I'm going straight to silver. Hopefully!

There was one jump I had months before I got my cypres in '98 where after floating a linked exit on a 12 way from a Grand Caravan where my leg strap buckle got hung up on the guy floating in front of me momentarily, and pulled my leg strap all the way to the end without my noticing it until break-off and I started tracking off at 4500 feet and felt it slapping my thigh. Holy fuck I better get that strap pulled and cinched tight before I got a canopy open. It took me a good few seconds to get a hold of the wildly flapping leg strap and another few to pull it tight and then I instinctively went straight to my PC and pitched it while glancing at my altimeter, which read about 1200 feet. I was in the saddle by 700 feet.

My thinking at the time was with a 120 sq ft canopy loaded about 1.5, the offset caused by the loose leg strap would have caused it to malfunction. Same deal on the reserve. I felt I HAD to get the leg strap tightened. In retrospect I should have gone straight to silver on that jump.

A couple months later Sandy Wambach was killed, and a month after that, I got a cypres.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[Scrumpot 1]

Quote

A couple months later Sandy Wambach was killed, and a month after that, I got a cypres.

And have you ever thought about the possibility that maybe you even might have been killed because of it (firing & dual-fowling your deployment) - had you actually had that cypres, on that jump?

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[BillyVance 34]

Quote

Quote

A couple months later Sandy Wambach was killed, and a month after that, I got a cypres.

And have you ever thought about the possibility that maybe you even might have been killed because of it (firing & dual-fowling your deployment) - had you actually had that cypres, on that jump?

That was a definite possibility. I was low enough for the cypres to fire. Fortunately my leg strap was cinched by the time I pitched so I likely would have just had to punch the cutaway and transfer canopies, and replace my underwear afterwards.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[nigel99 143]

Here is an excellent post on the 'why'. I've copied it from the other thread - the author is Robin Heid.

Quote

Very astute of you, John, or should I say, thanks for reminding everyone of basic physics.

Faster speed, longer stopping time. Period.

Planes, trains, automobiles or parachutes.

Story to illustrate:

Guy is flying a Mig-21 doing supersonic threat scenarios against a Canadian aircraft carrier.

After one run, he pulls up and hits 12,000 feet. Don't know his supersonic speed but 1500 f/s = 1000mph, so it takes him about 8 seconds to get that high.

then (as the investigation discovered) something came loose on the wing (pylon, tank, can't remember) and increased the drag on one side, throwing the plane out of control.

By the time the ship's radar dish rotated around, the MiG was off the screen.

Found the wreckage, found the body, and found the parachute streamered but not open.

Pilot was former Navy Top Gun instructor, thousands of hours of jet fighter time, hundreds of MiG-21 hours, and I can't remember the exact numbers, but we worked it out in terms of reaction time to the precipitating event in relation to the presumed speed and IIRC came up with a he-did-everything-right-and-fast ejection altitude of about 8,000 feet and he still hit the water before the parachute fully deployed.

Yes, there is aircraft clearance, seat separation, etc, which adds to deployment time, but the bottom line is, he was going so fast that even 8,000 feet wasn't enough to get the reserve out and open before impact.

This is a big deal to think about these days of freeflying were everyone's going so much faster, even at pull time, than the AAD firing altitude can comfortably accommodate. The same goes for RW, too; the suits are so much tighter that the actual freefall speeds are faster than they were back in the 1970s when jumpsuits were much bigger and baggier.

And if the assumed scenario here - incapacitation on the student's part - holds true, then we have two guys going way faster than the AAD firing altitude could accommodate.

Which brings us to raising the AAD firing altitude, which them bumps against the two-out problem --- which brings us to guess what: the obsolescence of USPA's 2,000 feet pack opening altitude BSR.

As you remember, John, this BSR was created in the mid-1970s when most peeps were still jumping surplus rounds with and without sleeves, and a lot of them were pulling at 500-600 feet because the parachutes opened in 200 feet and they were all nuts anyway.

So let's do the math: When this BSR was created, your parachute was completely open -- or not -- by 1,800 feet, and then you acted accordingly. If it was a total, you had 90 percent of your 2,000 feet left to take care of it. If it was a partial, you had 90 percent of your 2,000 feet left to take care of it.

Granted, back then, you have more complex release systems so it took longer to do EPs, but still, you had that 1,800 feet or 90 percent of the 2,000 feet to observe, orient, decide and act.

Fast forward to today: Many commonly used parachutes open in 400 to 700 feet, so suddenly you have to wait until you've used up 20-35 percent of you 2,000 feet before you even know what your next move is, yet IIRC correctly, USPA still has a "decision altitude" of 1,800 feet.

So that's where we are today: Everyone's falling faster, and most of their parachutes are taking longer to open than they did when the 2,000-foot BSR was put in place -- but it's still in place and people don't think critically about the consequences of pulling at that altitude given these changes in the math and physics.

And you know, back when that BSR was put in place, most skydives were from 7,500 to 10,500 feet, so the 2K was a reasonable compromise between opening altitude safety and cutting the skydive too short.

Well, now almost everyone goes to 12,500 or higher, so they're all getting several more seconds of freefall time per jump, so, you know, I think maybe instead of having stupid discussions and wasting BOD time about wingsuit BSRs, that discussion and BOD time would be far far FAR better spent revisiting the pack opening altitude BSR and see if it's maybe time to raise those altitudes by 500 to 1000 feet.

One final data point in support of that notion: When that BSR was put in place, there were almost no "resort" DZs; everything was kind of gnarly, and rough and tumble (literally) and when you were skydiving you never forgot that you were dancing on the edge of the envelope. Plus, you could only make a few jumps a day because the airplanes were so slow, so you thought more about each one and focused more on what you were doing.

Now with all the resorts and high-tech electronics and cameras and cool gear and trust fund baby social scene, it's more like a big party at the amusement park, and now you can make 10 jumps a day easy at most places, all of which means when you have a problem, almost everyone is going to burn through a second or two or three of their "life saving time" shifting their mental gears from amusement park to dealing with the Reaper right in their faces.

So the math doesn't add up any more, and even with ADDs (Anti-Darwin Devices) reducing the carnage significantly, we're still seeing a lot more body bags than we should be seeing.

So thanks again for the reminder, John. Speed affects distance and if you change one, then you better understand its effect on the other.


44

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[DcloudZ 0]

Actually that would be 0' hehe

-0.5' if you're going fast enough

Quote

1500ish is the absolute lowest I'll go without a landable parachute over my head.

"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

[popsjumper 2]

Quote

Quote

A couple months later Sandy Wambach was killed, and a month after that, I got a cypres.

And have you ever thought about the possibility that maybe you even might have been killed because of it (firing & dual-fowling your deployment) - had you actually had that cypres, on that jump?

Two is always better than none.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239