lessons from this weekend

[keithbar 1]

not all light brown fields are freshly plowed. DON'T if you can help it land in unpicked soybeans. no damage to the canopy but getting my lines out of that shit SUCKED!

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[Gato 0]

Did the exact same thing about 5 weeks ago. Luckily, it was a student main - but I DO feel your pain.

T.I.N.S.

[keithbar 1]

up at a couple of grand I was like I hope I can make it to that gravel road. but i know i can at least make that plowed field. that when I realized a a few hundred feet that it was unpicked beans. I was allready hemmed in by fence rows on each side an I was commited. lucky i almost got to the far edge and landed only about 30 yards in. after I finally got all the canopy fabric clear of the stalks after awhile I gave up on all of the lines and just bulled my way to the edge with a few microlines harvesting a swath behind me. the canopy itself didn't have near as many beans inside it as I feared but the lines were full of stalks and bean pods.

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[Driver1 0]

OMG! What the hell kind of DZ is that? I definitely don't want to jump there!

Where was it anyway?

There will be no addressing the customers as "Bitches", "Morons" or "Retards"!

[keithbar 1]

hey shit happens. we were the " presecond" wind dummy load and the surface winds were fine but the uppers were honking alot stronger than the weather center was saying. ya jump long enough your gonna land off. plus we were the inital group and not everyone on the load landed off. I'm fine with it at least I didn't have to parahike all the way back. there was a truck there to pick us up right away.

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[Driver1 0]

Damn dude, who was spotting that load? That sounds a lot like something that happened to me over at greensburg one time. The main difference was that I notice a smoke stack near the airport and figured out that we were on the wrong side of the airport to be up wind, then I waved us off and pointed down at about 5,500, got it out and the whole load made it back. A couple barely made the airport property, but we all got back.
What DZ was this?

There will be no addressing the customers as "Bitches", "Morons" or "Retards"!

[keithbar 1]

I wasn't trying to stir up any shit. I just thought it was a funny story from the weekend. as far as blame I was spotting it I opened the door at the door call and was like. hummm. were a little short and we wern't gettin much ground speed.but it was a good little while b4 they gave the exit call and by that time we were just past over the top. and I was i'll just wait about a good 5 sec before I even climbout and did a lazy slow climb out and a good count. I really thought we were fine when we left. and i was framing the video during freefall and didn't look down till breakoff and was HOLY SHIT! how did we get over on the other side of the airport. we got a tremendous amt. of freefall drift. I got closer than the other 3 guys that landed off with me even though i opened the lowest. but they were all jumping much more lightly loaded canopys. they said they were backing up under canopy. I wasn't going backwards but I was comming straight down for a long while. I didn't start to penetrate into the wind till I was under a grand like I said shit happens and I was the one who was spotting. I bet the tandems did think I was hoseing them though. they were a ways upwind and made it back.

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[Nutz 0]

I can't believe all you assholes whining about screwing up the spot. Thats what the first load is for and why I usually stay on the ground for it. Anyone can screw up a spot, what difference does it make what dz it was?

Just my $0.02. How's it going Keith?

"Don't! Get! Eliminated!"

[Gato 0]

Easy, now Nutz - haven't we all been the WDI (wind dumbass indicator) at one time or another?

For what it's worth, I agree that it doesn't matter what DZ it is we're talking about. A bad spot is a bad spot is a bad spot - is an opportunity to work on "getting back" skills, innit?

T.I.N.S.

[diverdriver 5]

Simple math. Get the winds from your pilot. Figure your average freefall winds. If your freefall is one minute with an average wind of 60 mph then you will drift ONE MILE before opening. So if you want to open half a mile upwind of the DZ then you need to exit 1.5 miles past the landing area.

30 mph average = .5 miles of drift

You get the idea.

Chris Schindler
www.diverdriver.com
ATP/D-19012
FB #4125

[swilson 0]

Quote

Simple math. Get the winds from your pilot. Figure your average freefall winds. If your freefall is one minute with an average wind of 60 mph then you will drift ONE MILE before opening. So if you want to open half a mile upwind of the DZ then you need to exit 1.5 miles past the landing area.

30 mph average = .5 miles of drift

You get the idea.

Drifting a mile in freefall? I have a bit of a problem believing that. If you were a plastic bag drifting with the wind, then sure. But we don't "drift" that well. Half a mile of freefall drift would be pushing it for VERY strong uppers.

[Nutz 0]

You obviously have not watched from the ground when the uppers are honking. You would be amazed how much drift people get, especially a group of people.

"Don't! Get! Eliminated!"

[keithbar 1]

it prob was about a mile. I know we got out well off the airport property upwind and at track I was shit we are totally on the other side off the airport

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[keithbar 1]

the pilot had got the winds but the uppers were NOT what the weather center or whatever the name of the place that gives out that info were calling for. the weather people screwed the pooch for sure. but we addjusted the spot and were fine the rest of the day. so no harm no foul. like I said at least we all got picked up w/o having to parahike all the way back. I've jumped at places that you land off fuck ya find your own way back. ya just get to a road and thumb it.

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[jeffyg 0]

get out over the DZ pull low... problem solved no math needed

Speed is your Helmet

[keithbar 1]

believe you me. I was tracking my ass off toward the dz from a 4500 break off to around 2500 but if I had hummed it to 500 ft. I don't know if I could have made it back over the fence and over airport property. maybe. but people would surely have been pissy about it. and i would still have been the other side of the airport from the d.z.

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[Scrumpot 1]

Quote

...a bad spot - is an opportunity to work on "getting back" skills, innit?

Not a flame - seriously. So please do not take this as such. However, I am seeing a commonality here now running through this thread I just had to comment on:

Please take it easy with the Get-Home-Itis. There are way too many instances of where concentrating so heavily on "needing to get back" has seriously injured or KILLED. Some of those instances even just recently.

Please land SAFE 1st, and remember - that safe landing area, may even be BEHIND you, and AWAY from the dropzone!

Trust me, it is not worth it, to NEED to get back, or try to get back at all costs. The price can become way all too easily - simply just to expensive. In more ways than one.

Blues,
-Grant

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[keithbar 1]

I knew from the moment I opened that I WAS NOT gonna make it back and was just looking to get as close to a road I i could safely. hence the brown field. I was like I can deff. make the brown field I hope i can make the green field on the other side of it the borders the road. I landed about 30 yd's short of the fallow green field.

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[richard1954 0]

My problem is I keep opening right over the airport. I can't find it for awhile since it's in the last place I think to look (under me), and when I do find it, I don't know where to go. Straight down?

But I'm just a student. My instructors do the spotting. So I don't get to say anything.

[I3uller 0]

We definitely had a guy land himself about 40 feet up in a pine tree today. Literally the last pine tree before the DZ grass started too...soooo close.