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Rettrae

I found out how easy it is to lose altitude awareness!!!!!!!!

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I did my #3 AFF today--90 degree turns left and right with one or more JM's in tow. Good exit - 1 prct, good turn left, secondary JM let go, good turn right. Then hell broke loose! My primary JM and I did a lot of wobbling and I kept looking over to her, ignoring my altimeter. I suddenly remembered, saw 6000 (i need to pull at 5500) I panicked since I had not looked at my alt since 9000, lost all of my arch position groping for my pilot chute, JM ended up pulling for me, at that time I was vertical and about to (flip?) roll over onto my back. I thought being aware of my altitude was going to be a no-brainer. I am humbled. [:/] I have no problem doing this one over again. I got the standard advice to just relax and arch, but that is hard at crunch time.

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I thought being aware of my altitude was going to be a no-brainer. I am humbled



I thought the same about alti awareness and landing in. I learned my lesson on AFP #2 (similar to AFF but only 1 JM).
Lost alti awareness - but still pulled myself -- and landed in someone's backyard[:/]
Inveniam Viam aut Faciam
I'm back biatches!

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I never lost altitude awareness, but let me mention something I did do that got my attention. We jump near a pretty large butte out here, probably 800 feet or more high, and depending on the wind you might get a spot over the top of it. I finally did, around jump 15 or so. Just before pull time (3500 feet), I happened to take a look down and HOLY CRAP! I can see the lawn furniture in people's back yards pretty clearly. See what I'm getting at here? If you're training in an area with hills, take a minute and think about what may happen if you get a spot over a new area and look down once in a while. That was the worst scare I ever got skydiving, and a Cypres would fire just as you impacted, so it's a real danger. If I had lost altitude awareness on top of this, I would have had a bad day. Nobody had ever mentioned this possibility to me during training or prior to the jump, and I hadn't really realized just how big that friggin hill was until I was looking down into it at about 2700 feet at terminal. That's a bad time to make the connection, and if you panic, thrash and go unstable, it's going to get dicey. Just something to think about, "altitude awareness" isn't all about your altimeter reading.

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Actually you really didn't lose altitude awareness as much as the little man in your head started screaming for you to check your altitude [:/] That's a good thing. I'll bet you won't do that again. Valuable lesson learned and I'm glad you are OK.
Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

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My focus on altitude awarness tended to drift durning my first two jumps after my tasks were done, around 8000'. My instructors made little mention of this, because other than that I did well. But, I realized, from my point of view, it was a real problem. I made it a point to adjust my attitude at that time. I made my #1 priority: "I must maintain altitude awarness for the whole dive" That meant constantly checking my altitude every 3-5 seconds, and consciously avoiding sightseeing, playing, sticking my head up my ass, or any other kind of distaction. My third dive went much better. I even remembered every altitude I was at when I checked my altitimeter. It's been good ever since.

Cheers

Relax, pay attention. You have plenty of time.

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yeah, I kept on looking at my primary JM, asking myself stupid questions, "why are we wobbling?" "why is she having such a hard time keeping me stable?" Duh! No time for stupid questions, the answer was relax, arch, and look at my alt. Better jump next time

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Tunnel time could help. I think everybody should have 10-20 minutes in the tunnel before getting into the sky. So, they can get stable and be able to turn.

Cheers

Brian



I thought the issue was altitude awareness! How much of that do you get in a tunnel?
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Wait till you get a good amount of RW jumps in start to build an internal clock then start to work on Freefly... my first solid sit/stand I glance at my wrist alti with my internal clock telling me to expect just under 6K .. alit is just crossing 4.5K and my audible starts screaming (I still tend to pull around 4 so I wanted to be back on my chest and slowing down by 5K or so) ... WONT MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN

Good Judgment comes from experience...a lot of experience comes from bad
judgment.

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I plan to go down to lake perris and work on my arch,90 and 360 degree turns in the wind tunnel before I go back up. I believe that if I have more experience keeping myself stable and going through the turns, COA will go back to being routine. It seems that I was flat when I started to wobble, and in my panic, I leaned forward to reach around my hip to pull my pilot chute, which caused me to go vertical just before my JM said I was about to roll onto my back. Hey! my first freestyle! Did that count? HA HA

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I didn't have the alti awareness issue, but nervousness at pull time was what delayed my solo graduation jump to 17th. I had a bunch of instructor-supervised funjumps (of my own objectives already earlier taught) as my freefall and canopy was progressing much better than my ability to relax at pull time ;) I relaxed till I was 6000ft and knew I was at 6000ft, but I start to get nervous when my alti reads 5000ft or less and that 5 seconds to 4000ft pulltime gets me tense....less than 30 seconds to death in the event of a Cyrpres failure.

Tense unstable pulls. (not too different from what you are saying) I would always pull on time, albiet tensely, and briefly hunt the knob, eventually find the knob after 1 second, and sometimes I would tilt forward. That happened two or three times (during the jumps that no instructor was holding onto me) during my freefall progression, between stable pulls.

I started consistent relaxed pulls starting at the 13th jump (9th solo) and had time to put in a few instructor monitored 11K funjumps (after I finished the freefall progression) in before my graduating solo hop-n-pop at 3.5K near the end of the day.

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Yeah, I gotta jump in here though to what Kallend said.

Tunnel time? Altitude Awareness?

Doesn't compute.

I've only got 68 jumps and as such I'm not an authority on this sport.

But I will tell you, I had a jump, where I came within some short seconds of pounding in. All due to loss of altitude awareness.

Nothing helps that besides simply being aware.

No brain farts, no amount of panic, nothing.

Either be aware of where you are, or die.

As a friend told me then. In this sport, the ground is always there, waiting for your should you lose your place.

Blue Skies, and Good luck.



J
It's a gas, gas, gas...

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I thought the issue was altitude awareness! How much of that do you get in a tunnel?



The loss of altitude awareness stemmed from stability issues. Tunnel time would allow him to work on that and other maneuvers, gaining confidence and experience. Then on the next jump, which should go a lot smoother because of the tunnel time, it will be easier to pay attention to altitude and accomplish the dive plan maneuvers.

Derek

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I thought the issue was altitude awareness! How much of that do you get in a tunnel?



The loss of altitude awareness stemmed from stability issues. Tunnel time would allow him to work on that and other maneuvers, gaining confidence and experience. Then on the next jump, which should go a lot smoother because of the tunnel time, it will be easier to pay attention to altitude and accomplish the dive plan maneuvers.

Derek



Yea, what he said :P

That was reason I went to the tunnel in the first place before I ever jumped to remove that exact stress AFF. Being able to maintain stability and turn without thinking much about it, frees the mind to concentrate on the tasks of the dive flow B|

Cheers

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Yea, what he said

That was reason I went to the tunnel in the first place before I ever jumped to remove that exact stress AFF. Being able to maintain stability and turn without thinking much about it, frees the mind to concentrate on the tasks of the dive flow

==================================================

"Tunnel time" is a great idea in theory, but just not practical for a lot of people. Unfortunately, there aren't that many tunnels in existence, and lots of people live way too far away from a tunnel to be able to commute to one on a driving day trip.

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I have no problem doing this one over again. I got the standard advice to just relax and arch, but that is hard at crunch time.

hey... it took me forever to learn to arch AND relax. the two seemed oxymoronic (is that a word??:P)
since you live in california, i would seriously think about getting to a wind tunnel before your next jump. i never wrote about my experience, but should have i guess. there's no doubt you'll remember that jump!

this same this happened to me in february on my stp2 level (aff2 w/ 1 jm)... same jump and everything--turns! i turned too aggressive and went unstable. i was with a fantastic instructor and was glad when he pulled for me.

the tunnel helped build muscle memory (and confidence for that matter). it's pricey, but well worth it. i wouldn't have attempted that dive again if i hadn't made the trip.

obviously, it doesn't help with a.a., but it does get you used to the feeling of being in freefall.... which relaxed me! you're more likely to be alt aware when you're not freaking out, right? until i got to the flips/rolls level.. the thought of losing my arch terrified me. so, take advantage of the tunnel... you'll learn so much.
the staff rocks too!:)
disclaimer: just a student's 2c.
i didn't lose my mind, i sold it on ebay. .:need a container to fit 5'4", 110 lb. cypres ready & able to fit a 170 main (or slightly smaller):.[/ce

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tunnel wouldn't hurt. it would be much better than getting back out there tense from the previous failed dive. the grate is more forgiving than earth... the ground doesn't care much at all.
i didn't lose my mind, i sold it on ebay. .:need a container to fit 5'4", 110 lb. cypres ready & able to fit a 170 main (or slightly smaller):.[/ce

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Actually you really didn't lose altitude awareness as much as the little man in your head started screaming for you to check your altitude



Exactly. Don't beat yourself up about it - I am sure everyone has had at least one incident of lack of aa.

It is good that it happened so early on in your skydiving. I know a lot of very experienced skydivers (instructors included) who have lost altitude awareness and pulled low and/or had two canopies out due to cypres fire.

My incident was a few years back when I was jumping in the UK. I was doing a 4-way out of a piston islander which took 1/2 hour to altitude and then only 10k (was used to jumping from 12k). We all exited and my internal clock seemed to be set at checking my alti at 6k. When my internal clock went it was 4k and break off time. The other 3 didn't notice and wondered why I tracked off. None of us had audibles as we were quite new. I was a little bit freaked out as I had not taken into account we were exiting lower. I didn't make that mistake again!

Enjoy the rest of your AFF!

Liz

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The tunnel is also nice because it gives you a frame of reference that you do not have falling/flying through the sky. As a new jumper, you can't really tell if your slipping or sliding ten feet...where as it's easy to tell in the tunnel, because you smack the glass. It's spendy, but worth it, IMHO.

More importantly, did you ask your instructor what indeed it was that made you "wobbly"?
Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

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She said I flattened out halfway through the freefall which caused me to start wobbling, I guess this is because I was concentrating on my turns, my last alt check was 9000. When I finally remembered my alt and looked to my left to see 6000, I ducked my head while reaching for my pilot chute like I was looking for it. My legs straightened out also, causing me to go vertical when she pulled for me.B| I take it the wind tunnel at Perris is good, good instructors, all that stuff. right?

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The loss of altitude awareness stemmed from stability issues. Tunnel time would allow him to work on that and other maneuvers, gaining confidence and experience. Then on the next jump, which should go a lot smoother because of the tunnel time, it will be easier to pay attention to altitude and accomplish the dive plan maneuvers.

Derek



Hm yes, but isn't that sort of like treating the symptoms, not the disease?

There are numerous situations where one, even after much time in a wind tunnel, can become unstable. In the ideal situation, body position should not matter with regards to altitude awareness.

OTOH tunnel time would certainly help with confidence and reduce the risk of sensory overload so it'd not be a bad idea. Ultimately however I think altitude awareness cannot be gained in a tunnel - some other factors that contribute towards losing it may be reduced but good habits wrt altitude awareness can probably only be learned by jumping a lot.

Maybe there is such a thing as a "degree of altitude awareness loss". A total one where you just don't think about it and a less severe one where all of a sudden you get this "something's wrong" feeling - check your alti and ooops, time to track away and pull. Seems like this was the latter.

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Hm yes, but isn't that sort of like treating the symptoms, not the disease?



Maybe, but how do you suggest treasting the disease? Besides if some tunnel time allows the student to relax and maintain altitude awareness, why mess with sucess?

Derek

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The tunnel is great for students to learn body position and then gain confidence as one less crucial issue to stress about.

Treating the 'disease", well that is up to the individual student to go through all the steps for their level. Practice, practice, practice on the ground - exit, body position and each step of that particular jump. Being totally comfortable on the ground with what you will do up there will help in the air.

Liz

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