Both on Red or One on Each?

[Andy_Copland 0]

My instructor told me it was a massive anti climax on his first malfunction and that i would find it the same.

Personally on my first malfunction im going to down a pint quicker than ever before and wear a nervous grin for the rest of the day

1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

[winsor 187]

Quote

My instructor told me it was a massive anti climax on his first malfunction and that i would find it the same.

Personally on my first malfunction im going to down a pint quicker than ever before and wear a nervous grin for the rest of the day

My first reserve ride was a handle I couldn't find. I dropped the rig off for a repack, and manifested for another load with a different rig.

My first malfunction was a tension knot. I dropped the rig off for a repack, and manifested for another load with a different rig.

I don't drink, and don't think I was any more nervous than I am normally.

As far as heart-pounding adventure goes, ,flying TO a DZ one time I had a knife-edge near-miss with a Cessna 310-type airplane. We both saw each other at about the same time, and each jammed in a 90 degree left bank in time to avoid a head-on by a few inches. If he/she had gear down, we would have hit.

My reaction was Wow! Cool! I'm still alive!" I then continued to the DZ, made a couple of jumps, and flew home.

All things being equal, I find having someone else get maimed or killed in close proximity to be more unsettling than having to chop. Even then, the thing to do is get on the next load and make a jump.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[mdrejhon 8]

Quote

As far as heart-pounding adventure goes, ,flying TO a DZ one time I had a knife-edge near-miss with a Cessna 310-type airplane. We both saw each other at about the same time, and each jammed in a 90 degree left bank in time to avoid a head-on by a few inches. If he/she had gear down, we would have hit.

Left bank? If it was a direct head-on trajectory, isn't that a right turn we've been all trained to do?

I'll always do right bank as taught for a direct head-on collision danger, but I'm just curious what circumstances would warrant it -- perhaps it wasn't directly head-on and a left bank was simply the "obvious" direction to go in at the time (i.e. potential collision at an angle), or you just saw the plane banking left and you followed suit? Just making sure that was the case, and not some foreign rule, etc.

Yah, yah, I know, best not to listen to dz.com - and just ask the instructors questions. I just am curious, though.

[hookitt 0]

If 2 planes are flying left of center enroute to an imminent headon on, turning right would be dumb.

Common sense and reflexes must prevail.
---
PS: My preferred method is one hand on each handle.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[billvon 2,435]

>If 2 planes are flying left of center enroute to an imminent headon
>on, turning right would be dumb.

?? If you're going to pass each other on the left, then you're not going to collide. If you are going to collide head-on, then you're both flying a straight line towards each other, and you both turn left. If you're going to collide at an angle, then you turn away from each other.

[hookitt 0]

It's not that confusing...

For example purposes only. The numbers I’m about to use are made up. Let’s say, that two fifteen foot wide objects are on parallel paths heading towards each other. The center of the paths is only 5 feet apart. That would leave 5 feet of the right side of each object on a collision course. Turning left would be the shortest path of avoidance.

mdrejhon had it figured out, I was simply agreeing.

Quote

-- perhaps it wasn't directly head-on and a left bank was simply the "obvious" direction to go in at the time

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[billvon 2,435]

>Turning left would be the shortest path of avoidance.

Ah. I will still be turning right. Why? Because the other guy is probably going to turn right as well. If I turn left and he turns right, then we still collide. And I can't rely on him making the same decision as me if I make an unorthodox one (like turning left.)

At the speeds modern canopies fly, you have fractions of a second to decide which way to go, and for me that's not enough time to judge the relative size of our canopies.

[hookitt 0]

I have a modern canopy. I've been presented with that exact scenario. We both turned the obvious left and nearly touched bodies. A right hand turn would have caused a collision.

At the speeds modern canopies fly, you have fractions of a second to decide which way to go. Sometimes that direction is not to the right.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[mdrejhon 8]

Quote

mdrejhon had it figured out, I was simply

Flattering but I don't think so. I'm just a newbie and I'd say FAA knows way more than I do... I haven't heard from the original poster -- I'd like to know what the original scenario was.

Both plane and skydiver obviously turned left, so it must have been obvious to both parties that they had to turn left instead of right. I'm only making guesses as to possible scenarios. Obviously, the possibility needs to be considered that if only one turned right, it may possibly have been disastorous. So I would like to know what happened in this case - was it obvious, or was it luck, or both.

"If about to collide at an angle, turn away from each other" is pretty obvious to me. What's less obvious is what to do when you're "head-on but offset" ... for example, you're about to collide with the wing of the aircraft, a skydiver's instinct may be to turn away from the wing away from the center of the plane. I sense this must be a can of worms, but the "obviousness" factor plays here, though it's probably easier with obviously offset, such as a skydiver about to collide with the last 2 feet of a Twin Otter wing, then I (at my relatively newbie experience levels) would automatically turn left away if it was so clearly obvious. Then again, I may not be able to notice that from the distance with the plane racing towards me at breakneck speed, I'd automatically turn right anyways. At speed, something tiny can become big in a real hurry, so I'll automatically turn right anyway unless it was so blatantly obvious I had to immediately yank left. Turn right is a muscle memory now though. Anyway, I would be such a dumbass to have been in front of a Twin Otter in the first place...

Probably such an unlikely scenario, and more worth it to pratice my EP's for the zillionth time, but I'm just curious what happened.

[billvon 2,435]

>We both turned the obvious left and nearly touched bodies.

Fair enough. I'll be turning right.

[hookitt 0]

If you say so ... one does not know until the situation presents itself. In general... I would turn right.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[goose491 0]

Whatever, I'd like to think that we can use the heads on our shoulders and not turn ourselves into a collision because in our minds, there is only one way to turn.

Bill don't be silly. I am a pilot too and I understand that a "collision avoidance turn" is to the right... But flying is dynamic and that doesn't lock me into automated action if turning right is the obvious wrong decision.

Any pilot worth his/her salt knows that you won't blindly turn right if the instinctual correct direction is left. That is, if most of the plane you are going to collide with is to you right already.

Quote

Fair enough. I'll be turning right.

The poster stated that the other plane turned left too! You'd of killed yourself and him.

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[billvon 2,435]

>The poster stated that the other plane turned left too! You'd of killed
>yourself and him.

Perhaps; but I'd rather make a predictable avoidance manuever if I have zero time to think than an unpredictable one. So far it's worked for me over about 4500 jumps with up to 672 people in the air, so I think I'll stick with it.

[goose491 0]

Quote

Perhaps; but I'd rather make a predictable avoidance manuever if I have zero time to think than an unpredictable one. So far it's worked for me over about 4500 jumps with up to 672 people in the air, so I think I'll stick with it.

(emphasis mine)

The parameters of the scenario presented by the posters example, gave him time to understand that left was the best course of action. It is whithin the same parameters that you stated "fair enough, I'll still go right."

All I'm saying is that you weren't in the pilot seat, HE went left and so did the other pilot... you are telling him what he did was wrong because he didn't go right.

He is alive to tell the tale so what he did was right.

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[billvon 2,435]

>you are telling him what he did was wrong because he didn't go right.
>He is alive to tell the tale so what he did was right.

Again, that's fine. But if you get out of the plane, have a total mal, panic, freeze and just wait for your AAD to fire, then you will likely survive - but I don't think anyone would agree that what you did was right. I'm not saying that what he did is anything like this, just that "I survived" does not always equate to "I did the right thing."

I've got no problems with someone turning left instead of right, as long as they have enough space to deal with the other guy doing what is taught to all students, which is to turn right. It's like being over someone in freefall near pull altitude. It's all well and good to hope that he sees you and takes it really low, but pulling before he does is still a better idea, because most skydivers pull by 2000 feet.

[goose491 0]

Quote

>you are telling him what he did was wrong because he didn't go right.
>He is alive to tell the tale so what he did was right.

Again, that's fine. But if you get out of the plane, have a total mal, panic, freeze and just wait for your AAD to fire, then you will likely survive - but I don't think anyone would agree that what you did was right. I'm not saying that what he did is anything like this, just that "I survived" does not always equate to "I did the right thing."

I liken it more to a person chopping line twists and someone else telling them that they were wrong because proper proceedure for line twists is just to kick out of them.

BTW, the "collision avoidance turn" is meant as a reaction for when you are going to collide head on and there is no time to think... not for when there is time to think or when the collision is offset from head-on enough to make a right-hand turn a very stupid move. Are you a flight instructor Bill?

One word of advice, if you are going to crash into a plane, and your gut tells you to turn left to avoid it because most of him is already to your right. Don't turn right into him/her, killing you both. After the fact, there won't be any way for you to tell him/her you were right and they were left, er, wrong.

Actually, that goes for canopies too!

Let's just say: don't crash into someone just because you remembered: "turn right!"

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[billvon 2,435]

>I liken it more to a person chopping line twists and someone else
>telling them that they were wrong because proper proceedure for line
> twists is just to kick out of them.

Good example. I suspect you would say something along the lines of "good job that you're alive; clearly you made a decent decision. But since you were open at 3500 feet and had a 230 square foot canopy, realize next time that you have a bit of time to kick out those line twists before you decide to chop." In other words, they're not wrong, but they might think about doing something different next time.

>Are you a flight instructor Bill?

Nope! Just a skydiving one.

>One word of advice, if you are going to crash into a plane, and your
> gut tells you to turn left to avoid it because most of him is already
> to your right. Don't turn right into him/her, killing you both.

Same advice for you. When you are presented with a person almost dead in front of you, but there's a slightly shorter turn you can make to the left, don't make a left while he's making a right. That could kill you too.

It's all in the situation. If it's clear that you have time and that a barely perceptible left turn will make you miss, it may make sense. If you are presented with a closer call than that, you might consider (beforehand, of course) that the person you are about to collide with may not have read this thread, and thus will be following his training to turn right, as most skydivers will.

[goose491 0]

Quote

I suspect you would say something along the lines of "good job that you're alive; clearly you made a decent decision. But since you were open at 3500 feet and had a 230 square foot canopy, realize next time that you have a bit of time to kick out those line twists before you decide to chop."

Maybe... but it's all in the situation . If it wasn't a 230ft canopy but a small HP elliptical, the twists had him or her on their back and were getting worse, then all I would say is "Good Job!" because it wouldn't matter how high he/she was open by.

[note: A student, standing near by, may not understand that and question why the jumper didn't just kick out of them.]

Quote

It's all in the situation.

Precisely my point... While yours was: "Fair enough, I'll still be turning right."

Quote

If it's clear that you have time and that a barely perceptible left turn will make you miss, it may make sense. If you are presented with a closer call than that...[snip]

Once again, remember that what we call a "Collision Avoidance Turn" is always to the right and is performed when you realise there is an imminent head-on collision and there is no time to think. I think you understand that, and I think you are slowly getting to that. Actually, fact of the matter is: given the situation presented by the poster, you'd probably have turned left before realizing you did.

I just had a bad taste in my mouth when I heard a pilot say he almost hit another plane, they both turned left in order to live, and you told him he did not do the right thing.

It's all in the situation as you said. And there were but two people involved in the situation we are discussing. They both made a decision... They both made the right one.

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[winsor 187]

Quote

As far as heart-pounding adventure goes, flying TO a DZ one time I had a knife-edge near-miss with a Cessna 310-type airplane. We both saw each other at about the same time, and each jammed in a 90 degree left bank in time to avoid a head-on by a few inches. If he/she had gear down, we would have hit.

Left bank? If it was a direct head-on trajectory, isn't that a right turn we've been all trained to do?

I'll always do right bank as taught for a direct head-on collision danger, but I'm just curious what circumstances would warrant it -- perhaps it wasn't directly head-on and a left bank was simply the "obvious" direction to go in at the time (i.e. potential collision at an angle), or you just saw the plane banking left and you followed suit? Just making sure that was the case, and not some foreign rule, etc.

Quote

I think the extent of my "training" wrt avoiding head-ons was being told to turn right.

Given that the Cessna and my plane missed each other when we both cranked in a left 90, in retrospect it appears we weren't exactly head on. Maybe I would have eaten his starboard engine if we had not spotted each other.

It is hard to estimate the time frame involved, but I doubt if it was more than two seconds between acquiring a visual and having the results become history. I surely did not have any time whatsoever to ponder my course of action; as soon as I spotted the oncoming silhouette getting big FAST, I reacted.

If either of us had done anything slightly differently, we would have made the news. Regardless of what is the "correct" course of action, the other pilot and I reacted such that we survived.

I'd rather be lucky than good.


Blue skies,

Winsor

• Quote

[goose491 0]

Quote

If either of us had done anything slightly differently, we would have made the news. Regardless of what is the "correct" course of action, the other pilot and I reacted such that we survived.

Windsor you did the right thing.

Any fligth instructor worth their salt is going to teach you that a collision avoidance turn is to the right... but not to let that mess you out of taking the obvious best course to avoid collision.

You likely had half-completed the turn before realising it... glad you didn't stop it and turn the other way realising: "Hey! I'm avoiding a collision! I should be turning right!"

In any case, I'm glad to have heare of it from you and not the news

Nick

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[goose491 0]

Now the real question about your near-miss with another plane is:

Did you use both hands on one side of the yoke... or one hand on each?

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!