Aircraft emergencies - freefall and canopy collisions

[lintern 1]

A dropzone I used to go to had an aircraft emergency in a Cessna 206.

The engine cut out at 7000ft, everyone had to exit and the engine didnt restart until 4000ft.

There were 2 tandems on the lift as well... something a bit different for the tandem students !

This got me thinking about the drills of an aircraft emergency....

When exiting we normaly leave a gap of at least 5 seconds between each each person or group and check that the person or group who exited before you is at 45 degrees.

However, in an aircraft emergency presumably there is no time for that kind of delay and each person will exit one after another as quickly as possible.

So what about the fact that everyone will be very close in the air upon opening ?

Do people attempt to track away from each other or have different pull heights ?

Or do they just hope that no collisions in freefall or under canopy occur - afterall it's an emergency so is there no option but to take the risk ?

It's something I never thought about until I found out about this aircraft emergency where I used to jump.

[phoenixlpr 0]

It was some thread about this too. If you have to leave the plane for this reason you have to leave it as soon as you can and open about 2 sec delay, so the vertical speed of the plane is going to make the separation.

[IvanPeters 0]

Have a read of this thread.

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When exiting we normaly leave a gap of at least 5 seconds between each each person or group and check that the person or group who exited before you is at 45 degrees.

You might find it interesting to do a search and see what people have to say about that 45 degree thing as well.

Ivan

[lintern 1]

Thanks for your replies...

I have learnt something new already which suprised me and opens up more questions

I have never heard of pulling your reserve handle in an aircraft emergency ?

I always though if you were 1000ft or below you stay in the plane, otherwise above 1000ft you get out.

But I thought you pulled your main ?

Although I am unsure what height you would pull at, which is one of the reasons for my original post.

Why do you have to use your reserve and not your main ?

Is it because the reserve will open quicker than the main ?

And do you always pull your reserve in an aircraft emergency, no matter what the altitude is ?

It seems a bit daft pulling your reserve at higher altitudes (say 4000 ft and above) because in effect you are jumping with only one parachute - your reserve !

Should there be any problem with your reserve, you cannot cut away your reserve and use your main !

I am confused about this now

[dragon2 0]

Think about what may happen if you get out on your main at 1000 ft and you have an AAD.

I'm definately NOT going out on my main at 1000 ft, AAD or no. If I'm at 2000ft or higher I'll pull my main, otherwise I'll pull my reserve. This is my personal decision altitude, and I know people with really snivelly canopies who'll have say 2500ft or 3000ft as the limit, or people who'll go out at 1500ft on their mains (I might, with a Lightning). Nobody is saying you should pull your reserve at 4k of course. But think about YOUR alti limit and go over it with an instructor.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[larsrulz 0]

Trust your instructors. This is something directly relavant to the dropzone you currently jump at. Different dropzones train differently and they each have their reasons. Just because Perris trains one way and Deland another doesn't make either one the wrong thing to do. There is reasoning behind the training, if you are unsure, especially on something directly related to safety at your dropzone, then speak to your instructors or S&TA (or UK equivalent) about your questions.

If at 1000' there is a gas leak into your aircraft (not that this could really happen, but just stick with me) and an internal fire starts, there is no staying in. There are occasions where even at 1000' there may be the need to exit. With the advise of your instructors think about how comfortable you feel about pulling at various altitudes. If you got out at 1500', how would you feel on the main. Do you trust your main well enough to exit at 4000' and pull it? These aren't questions that other people can answer for you.

I got a strong urge to fly, but I got no where to fly to. -PF

[Kris 0]

For me, personally, if i get out above 1500 I'm going for my main, below 1500 and it's straight to reserve. I know my Stiletto and I've done enough hop&pop's with it to know how fast it opens, and how to speed up the opening if I so choose.

Either way, if you're required to get out and *immediately pull*, you shouldn't have a problem with anyone around you, as you should still have decent separation, even if you're all exiting immediately right after one another. Watch video of CRW dogs exiting if you want some reassurance. Just be ready to get on your rear risers immediately, as someone or yourself may open off-heading.

As for the 45-degree rule, forget it, it doesn't work.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[riggerrob 558]

When exiting we normaly leave a gap of at least 5 seconds between each each person or group and check that the person or group who exited before you is at 45 degrees.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The 45 degree rule is obsolete.

[riggerrob 558]

So what about the fact that everyone will be very close in the air upon opening ?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Fly with your eyes open.
Keep your head on a swivel.
Grab your rear risers and be ready to turn (usually to the right) out of the other guy's way.
As soon as you can, move off to the side of the cloud of canopies.

[billvon 2,400]

>When exiting we normaly leave a gap of at least 5 seconds between
> each each person or group and check that the person or group who
>exited before you is at 45 degrees.

The 45 degree thing doesn't work. The time thing does work, though.

>So what about the fact that everyone will be very close in the air upon opening ?

Don't run in to them. It is easy to keep your eyes on the next guy getting out; they're right there in front of you.

>Do people attempt to track away from each other or have different pull heights ?

No. They're really not all that close. At 60 knots, if you get out within half a second of each other (which is VERY fast for a bailout) you're still 50 feet apart horizontally. And if you see someone open 50 feet away from you, you should be able to dodge him if the worst possible opening (i.e. a 180 off heading opening) occurs.

If the incident occurs at altitude, generally the best thing to do is to either 1) open immediately or 2) stick to the original group plan (except for the bailout of course.) Generally the worst thing to do is to have 20 people do 20 different things.

If it occurs at a low altitude, of course, open immediately.

>I always though if you were 1000ft or below you stay in the plane,
>otherwise above 1000ft you get out.
>But I thought you pulled your main ?

It depends on your main. If your main is a Raven II and your reserve is a Raven II also, then obviously it doesn't matter too much, although your reserve may still open _slightly_ faster due to deployment system differences.

If, on the other hand, you have a snively Spectre for a main and a PD176R for a reserve, you will probably be better off opening your reserve. If you're going to do that, make sure you exit with your hand on the handle so you don't hunt for it in freefall.

>Although I am unsure what height you would pull at . . .

If you are below 2000 feet I would pull immediately, with no more than a 1 second delay to clear the tail of the plane.

>Is it because the reserve will open quicker than the main ?

Generally, yes. It's also a bit more reliable, since it is packed by a rigger and uses a freebag (which is a way to avoid some sorts of entanglements and PC-over-the-nose problems.)

>And do you always pull your reserve in an aircraft emergency, no
>matter what the altitude is ?

Personally, if I were using my birdman rig (a PD160 reserve and a Pilot 150 main) I would use my main down to about 1500 feet and my reserve below that. I would recommend always using your reserve below 1500 feet and using your main above 4000 feet (since you're more familiar with deploying and flying your main.) Between those altitudes is a gray area. Generally if you're unsure, the reserve is a better option.

BTW bailouts are a good thing to practice next time you're doing a hop and pop. From a Cessna 206 (non-cargo-door) the drill would be to start in the back, climb out as quickly as possible, put your hand on (but NOT around) your PC, do a poised exit in a stable position, count to 1, then deploy. You don't put your hand around the PC so that if you stumble on the step or something you don't deploy into the tail.

As always, ask local instructors what the recommended (or required) procedures are for your DZ. They may be different than the opinions I posted above.

[riggerrob 558]

Do people attempt to track away from each other or have different pull heights?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It depends how high the airplane is.
If you only have 2,000 feet, everyone gets out and opens immediately.
If you have more altitude, you can pull at different heights to increase vertical separation, similar to the way people stagger openings at accuracy competitions or exhibition jumps. The guy with the smallest, fastest canopy sucks it down to 2,000' before pulling while the guy with the biggest, slowest canopy pulls 2 seconds after exit. Then the fastest canopy spirals down to land first while the slowest canopy hangs in half brakes to increase separation.

Tracking?
Again, it depends upon how much altitude you have. Clearly, no one has any time for tracking if they exit at 2,000'.
On the other hand, if the aircraft emergency starts at 7,000' everyone has plenty of time for tracking. The first guy guy out can track towards the tail, second guy tracks towards the right wingtip, third guy tracks towards the left wingtip, etc.
The key is flying with your eyes open and giving the other guys plenty of space.

[relyon 0]

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... And if you see someone open 50 feet away from you, you should be able to dodge him if the worst possible opening (i.e. a 180 off heading opening) occurs.

You might want to think twice about this. There was a double fatality at the '96 CRW nationals that occured in exactly this way. I'd give it at least a second at the door or, better yet, suck it down a little lower and use my eyes.

Bob

[billvon 2,400]

>There was a double fatality at the '96 CRW nationals that occured in
>exactly this way.

I have no doubt that if you tried such an exit 1000 times, eventually you'd get a collision. But this is an emergency bailout we're talking about, an event that most jumpers _might_ experience once in their lives. Jumpers have been killed because they couldn't get out of an airplane fast enough; given that, I don't advise anyone to slow down their exits. Not only will there likely be sufficient spacing even without such an artificial delay, but you might just get tackled out the door by the next jumper, leading to an unstable deployment right next to someone else.

[relyon 0]

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I have no doubt that if you tried such an exit 1000 times, eventually you'd get a collision. ...

This isn't a statistical anomoly. I've seen plenty of close range worse possible deployment scenarios and quite a few have resulted in collisions.

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... But this is an emergency bailout we're talking about, an event that most jumpers _might_ experience once in their lives. ...

It only takes once. With 20+ jumpers bailing out from a disabled aircraft with some stable and some not, some deploying immediately and some not, the chances of off-heading deployments and collisions is going to go way up. It wouldn't be very cool to successfully exit a ship that's going down only to get entangled or wrapped by the jumper who left before/after you.

At Kapowsin's safety day a number of years back, they made a Otter run at 3000' with the left engine feathered. The plan was for 2 second poised exits (something most skydivers rarely if ever do). I went out first so I could watch the antics. Well over half the load had deployment problems of some sort or another and there were several close calls.

Again, I'll be using my eyes before deploying, regardless of exit timing.

Bob

[billvon 2,400]

>It only takes once. With 20+ jumpers bailing out from a disabled aircraft
>with some stable and some not, some deploying immediately and some
> not, the chances of off-heading deployments and collisions is going to go way up.

Compared to a normal at-altitude jump run - I agree. However, take the example you mentioned - 20 people exited a plane, no life threatening injuries. If that plane were going down, then that would be the best possible outcome.

>It wouldn't be very cool to successfully exit a ship that's going down
>only to get entangled or wrapped by the jumper who left before/after you.

It would be less cool to take enough time that the last jumper exited the plane at 200 feet, or when the airspeed hit 300kts. Most jumpers I know are aware of the danger of staying in a plane after the pilot has told everyone to bail out, and hence peole who _do_ take extra time in the door are, more likely than not, going to find themselves in freefall before they are ready to go. It seems like a rapid poised exit would be better for all involved than a rapid suprise exit.

[AggieDave 6]

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It would be less cool to take enough time that the last jumper exited the plane at 200 feet, or when the airspeed hit 300kts

No doubt!

I would rather take my chances under canopy then find myself in a situation in which we were now too low to get out because of some asshole that wanted better seperation. I would come back from the grave to kick his ass.

What a lot of folks don't realize is that bail out altitudes are different for different AC and the conditions are drastically different.

An otter with proper weight should be able to maintain altitude or even climb slowly on one engine. A kingair may have a hard time maintaining yaw, and so forth. A 182 at 1000' unless the wing falls off or the plane is on fire, it would be better off letting the pilot fly the plane to the ground. At 1000' and no engine, the plane is now decending fairly rapidly. By the time everyone gets seatbelts off, door open and start exiting the 3rd and forth person would be exiting at around 400' not to mention the possible loss of control on the pilots part due to weight shifting and MUCH more drag with the door open and people climbing out to leave.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[relyon 0]

My point was and still is to look before deploying if you find yourself in an unplanned close proximity rapid exit situation. Your statement that 50 feet of separation should be enough to enable a jumper to dodge another in the worst possible opening scenario (one on-heading, one 180 off-heading) is wrong. People have been injured and killed this way.

Bob

[mjosparky 3]

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Think about what may happen if you get out on your main at 1000 ft and you have an AAD.

Nothing would happen, your AAD does not arm until 1500 feet. (3000 ft. for a tandem)

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[billvon 2,400]

>Your statement that 50 feet of separation should be enough to
> enable a jumper to dodge another in the worst possible opening
> scenario (one on-heading, one 180 off-heading) is wrong.

I've done that with some regularity (exited as rapidly as humanly possible and deployed immediately.) I'm still here, and have seen no injuries from such exits. I have no doubts that CRW people have managed to collide, but with people deploying literally a few feet from other people, I'm not suprised that occasionally there are collisions. I recall a picture in Parachutist showing a 4-man CRW team deploying about 1/2 second after exit, all at exactly the same time.

A lot of this exit-separation fear is from the AFF generation, where jumpers plan all exits for 60-second-freefall-with-breakoff separations. A few practice jumps can do wonders for people's perceptions of what a safe amount of separation is during a bailout (or even a low jump.) We spent a few days at Rantoul this year exiting from 2500-4000 feet due to clouds, and we'd get out as fast as we could. No problems. These sorts of jumps are excellent training for eventual bailouts.

>People have been injured and killed this way.

Far more people have been killed when they were unable to bail out of an aircraft that was going to crash. It's all a question of what's more important when you're in a burning airplane, or in one with half its tail torn off in an uncontrollable dive - lots of exit separation or getting the hell out? For most people it's getting out. And like I mentioned before, if someone in such a situation _does_ decide to take three or four seconds to allow for safe separation, they will likely find themselves in freefall prematurely anyway.

[dragon2 0]

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Think about what may happen if you get out on your main at 1000 ft and you have an AAD.

Nothing would happen, your AAD does not arm until 1500 feet. (3000 ft. for a tandem)

Sparky

I know that that's why I said MAY happen, since if something happens to the plane it may have been higher before you have a chance to get out... But yeah you're right of course.

Question: how about an FXC? We have those on our SL rigs. Can't find the manual anywhere, but that AAD does not have an arming height, correct?

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[relyon 0]

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I've done that with some regularity (exited as rapidly as humanly possible and deployed immediately.) I'm still here, and have seen no injuries from such exits. I have no doubts that CRW people have managed to collide, but with people deploying literally a few feet from other people, I'm not suprised that occasionally there are collisions. I recall a picture in Parachutist showing a 4-man CRW team deploying about 1/2 second after exit, all at exactly the same time.

Have you ever been in the exact scenario you describe? 50 feet horizontal deployment separation in a worst case situation? I have and it's not pretty. Two still-deploying parachutes with minimal or no control at just sufficient range to build up quite a lot of momentum as the canopies surge can really ruin your day. Deployment right next to one another (eg SkyTribe's exit shot) is far safer than at 50 feet as it doesn't allow the momentum to build up. I wouldn't for a second draw any conclusions from a seasoned CRW team's exit and apply them to an emergency bailout situation. Apples and oranges.

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A lot of this exit-separation fear is from the AFF generation, where jumpers plan all exits for 60-second-freefall-with-breakoff separations. A few practice jumps can do wonders for people's perceptions of what a safe amount of separation is during a bailout (or even a low jump.)

I wouldn't know about the AFF generation, but I do know about low airspeed close proximity deployments. 50 feet is smack in the middle of the danger zone. Those practice jumps you mention can also have people perceiving things are safer than they are when the shit hits the fan.

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Far more people have been killed when they were unable to bail out of an aircraft that was going to crash. It's all a question of what's more important when you're in a burning airplane, or in one with half its tail torn off in an uncontrollable dive - lots of exit separation or getting the hell out? For most people it's getting out.

Get real. People are usually unable to get out because of the aircraft attitude, spin forces, or insufficient altitude, not someone lolly-gagging in the door. Getting out of of burning and/or structurally compromised aircraft is great - sure, do whatever it takes. Getting out and impacting or becoming entangled or wrapped with adjacent jumper(s) (most with RSLs) because you didn't bother to look before deploying isn't so great. Kinda like going from the frying pan to the fire.

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And like I mentioned before, if someone in such a situation _does_ decide to take three or four seconds to allow for safe separation, they will likely find themselves in freefall prematurely anyway.

And like I've said repeatedly, 50 feet of deployment separation is not good. It's just enough to make the unavoidable impact of a worse case situation really bad. Again, my point is about deployment separation, not exit separation. Regardless of how one manages to get out, it behooves one too look before deploying. A half second of hestitation in the air after exiting might mean the difference between a relatively normal deployment vs. a spinning ball of crap plummeting earthward (been there, done that).

Bob

[diablopilot 2]

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You might want to think twice about this. There was a double fatality at the '96 CRW nationals that occured in exactly this way. I'd give it at least a second at the door or,

Depending on the A/C emergency, the seperation is a secondary concern.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[freakydiver 0]

I think you are missing the point - if the plane is going down and the pilot is yelling get the fuk out, get the fuk out and 50 feet seperation is better than a) none AND b) going down with the plane.

-- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." --

[relyon 0]

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I think you are missing the point - if the plane is going down and the pilot is yelling get the fuk out, get the fuk out and 50 feet seperation is better than a) none AND b) going down with the plane.

I am not missing any point, I am making one. Namely, look before deploying if you find yourself in an unplanned close proximity rapid exit situation. Fifty feet separation is worse than zero feet separation; both are better than going down with the plane.

Bob

[freakydiver 0]

Fifty feet is WORSE than zero? How do you figure?

-- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." --