Accidental breakoff/pull 1000 feet too early (Or know one who did?)

[mdrejhon 8]

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I understand what you're saying, but I'd wager it doesn't happen very often for a couple or reasons. From the digital v. analog threads, it seems that some analog jumpers aren't really focused on reading the numbers so much as looking for the needle to reach one of the colored zones or for it to make a familiar angle.

That's true -- it's great that many analog altimeters have the familiar red/yellow zone to allow you to easily tell your pull altitude. This makes today's altimeters easy and very safe, even for people who have more difficulty quickly reading an analog dial than others. The pie chart effect helps a lot too -- one knows that 4000 feet is very close to the yellow zone. It's a very familiar angle.

Now consider sensory overload, a wrist altimeter on a flailing arm, a quick glance, 4500ft versus 5500feet being sufficiently outside of the colored area, fast-flitting eyes, doing less-than-sufficient glance at your altimeter by chance.... I am sure most people just glance at their altimeter a second time if they were not sure. I knew I didn't give it a honest enough glance (that was signal enough for me to glance better) but 4500 still immediately registered in my mind anyway, due to the 'read the wrong tick effect'. Under high time pressure, under heavy distraction, doing new things, sometimes one leaps into action (the breakoff, the pull). Seems like so many, more often students, do the same thing, or in one variation or another similiar, to what I experienced.

[bjjman 0]

Well I pulled about 500' too early on my first jump for this very reason. My planned pull altitude was 5000' and I was able to read the altimeter just fine throughout the freefall. That is, until I saw the needle near the 5. Suddenly, I found myself unable to decipher if I was at 5500' or 4500' so I pulled. It's only because of the photos I know that I pulled at 5500'. I bet my instructors were excited!

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Albert Einstein

[bjjman 0]

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...even if the poll formatting is mostly a failure.

I think your poll is just fine. If people don't like it, they can start their own.

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Albert Einstein

[firstime 0]

I understand your point, but you are getting a little extreme with the splat thingy with a 500' difference in my alti from anothers. I am not base jumping and I DO have a clue even without my alti when to deploy. It was a simple question that you turned into a lecture to a 4 yr old.

the question was directed to Bill Vance

[mdrejhon 8]

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I understand your point, but you are getting a little extreme with the splat thingy with a 500' difference in my alti from anothers. I am not base jumping and I DO have a clue even without my alti when to deploy. It was a simple question that you turned into a lecture to a 4 yr old.

Apologies if it was taken this way. It wasn't meant this way.

My deaf colleague (I'm deaf too) almost got killed by this error. Billy Vance, John Woo, and myself, attended the Deaf World Record 2005 event.

[firstime 0]

OK, but the poll did say"glance" at your alti not an audible

[mdrejhon 8]

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OK, but the poll did say"glance" at your alti not an audible

Right, but John Woo isn't relevant to this 'poll' anyway except as an interesting side topic -- I wanted to hear from others about early breakoff/pulls, rather than late breakoff/pulls (late pull is what happened to John Woo). The topics of John and altimeter calibration just simply came up as a side topic...

[grue 1]

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I've pulled low by accident a couple of times, both resulting in cypres fires... You remember one of them, you were there.

However, the best story belongs to John Woo. He was doing one of those 21K feet jumps from Mullins King Air at the WFFC years ago (mid 1990's). His altimeter sometimes was slow to keep up with the altitude on the climb. Twice along the way, he noticed his altimeter was 500 feet off the next guy's, and both times he adjusted (NEVER DO THIS!!).

So he exits the plane with his altimeter 1000 feet off, and he usually pulled at 2000 feet back then. He wondered why he could see people walking on the ground and immediately pulled his main. In the saddle at 500 feet, probably.

A couple of years back, I was doing a bat-hang from a 182 and thumped my alti on the step when I fell. Continued with the dive, and glanced at my alti a few seconds after getting stable. Then my brain said "wait a second, that can't be right", and I took a solid look at it. When I realized it was reading 11,000 15 seconds into a dive that started at 10,000', I knew treachery was afoot

Good practice though, since I got to have first-hand experience on estimating opening altitude

cavete terrae.