Cutaway - hard deck wins!

[turnlow 0]

I thought I would post this to again emphasize the importance of knowing and respecting your hard deck. Last week I was able to escape the overcast skies of the UK for sunny AZ under the pretense of a business meeting. On my second day of jumping, jump #668 I had a mal and a cutaway. Yes, this would have been a cooler story if it was jump #666, but this is how it worked out. The stats for the curious: canopy – Stiletto 135, loaded at 1.5; no RSL, Cypress AAD.

To start with, I had used an unfamiliar packer. While the mal was not likely her fault, I thought that I’d mention it. The jump was a 4-way and went well. We broke off lower than planned, around 3700 feet. You could see this as link one in the chain of events. I turned and tracked off longer than necessary, which took me to approximately 2600 feet. This would be the second link. I realized that I was low, waved off and pitched in a hurry. In retrospect, I believe it was this hurried deployment – likely a bit sloppy, likely with still a bit of forward momentum from the track – that caused the canopy to spin up as it deployed. Link number three.

The canopy snivels for while and as it finishes deployment, I hear the final warning from my audible. It is set for 1700 feet, my decision altitude to enable execution by 1500 feet. I look up at the canopy and see about half a dozen line twists and start to fight it. Just then the canopy goes into a diving spiral. “I’ve been here before, I know I can get out of it…I just need a few seconds.” Link number four? No, chain broken. As I’m looking at the horizon over the top of my canopy my thought process goes something like this, “Your hard deck is there for a reason. This is how people die.” And then I chopped it. I pulled the reserve handle immediately after and was under my PD 143R in seconds. I had a pleasant little reserve ride with plenty of time to locate my freebag and main, find the wind direction and identify a nice piece of the desert to land in. I landed near my freebag and my buddy landed with my main. Two hours and $50 later I was in the air again.

Know and respect your hard deck.
_________________________________________________

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

[freefalle 0]

way to keep your head about you in a shitty situation, I'm glad to hear you didn't get dead. lessons learned, thanks.

[Ron 7]

Quote

“I’ve been here before, I know I can get out of it…I just need a few seconds.” Link number four? No, chain broken. As I’m looking at the horizon over the top of my canopy my thought process goes something like this, “Your hard deck is there for a reason. This is how people die.” And then I chopped it. I pulled the reserve handle immediately after and was under my PD 143R in seconds.

Perfect...

Quote

likely with still a bit of forward momentum from the track – that caused the canopy to spin up as it deployed

BTW forward movement alone will not spin up a Stiletto.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[diablopilot 2]

Quote

BTW forward movement alone will not spin up a Stiletto.

Was just gonna go there. I find a bit of foward movement improves heading consistancy during opening.

Glad the jumper is ok, and glad they stuck to their training.

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

[turnlow 0]

Thanks for the good vibes.

BTW, the intended implication was that the line twists were likely caused by poor body position from a sloppy throwout at the end of the track - NOT that deploying in a track by itself would cause the line twists.
__________________________________________________

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

[diablopilot 2]

That's kinda how I read it.

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

[NWFlyer 2]

Nice to see this here and not the incidents forum. It's a nice contrast to the Hawaii story, which (at least from the info that's been released so far) appears to be a case where the jumper didn't respect the hard deck.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[billvon 2,444]

> NOT that deploying in a track by itself would cause the line twists.

Agreed. Although I will add that a bad body position can be amplified by a track at pull time, since your body will be pitching up more than 90 degrees during the opening.

[Scrumpot 1]

Beautiful! ...Thank you! ...And thank you for sharing in such an "easy to read" and follow fashion!!

"Link #4?... NO!" ...PERFECT!!*

*(edited to add... Hey Ron, is there an "echo" in here? ...Oops, somehow I did not see your post until just AFTER mine )

Blue Skies,
-Grant

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[mjosparky 3]

Damn, don't you love it when a plan come together. Now thats how its supposed to work. Great job.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[goose491 0]

Great post. Whomever just commented on it being easy to read and follow is right. I truly could picture myself in your harness!

Congrats on clear thought and the right decision made. Happy to hear it from you and not one of your loved ones.

Let me get this straight though. My "harddeck" is 1500"... what I consider "hardeck" to be, is the altitude at which a)if I don't have fabric out, I'm an idiot and I'd better PULL!!!! or b) if I had gotten fabric out and it still doesn't look right or I'm fighting something, I chop and go silver. Do you mean to say that your "plan" on every jump is to have decided by 1700 ft whether this is the canopy for you or if you need to chop?

Thanks for the input.

Blues,
Nick

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[Scrumpot 1]

Quote

Let me get this straight though. My "harddeck" is 1500"...

I think that is actually me you are asking this of. If I am mistaken, then my apologies in advance.

What I mean by my hard-deck is 1,500 is, that this is the absolute lowest I will continue to try to correct, futz with, work-through, or whatever you want to call it, ANY sort of main malfunction. ...If I do not have it CLEARED and CONTROLLABLE/LANDABLE by 1,500 I am performing EP's PERIOD. That means even if I have "only a few" more line-twists to go ...ANYTHING!

This is just my PERSONAL hard-deck. Whatever yours is, the point is to be unwaiveringly FAITHFUL to it!! Too many before us have already "thought" that perhaps they can still fight that extra little fight to clear something, but then they were wrong.
That is exactly the point I think of the initial poster here too.... and BTW (edited to add):
-------------------
"Oops", I did not mean to hijack this as if mine It must have been another post somewhere where I quoted this, and I MISTAKENLY thought goose, you were directing now to me. ...My bad.
Turnlow deserves absolutely ALL the credit for this string, HIS actions, HIS taking the time to bring this reminder to us, and all the "accolades" accordingly.
--------------------

It's the whole point of your hard-deck.
Have one. Then LIVE with it. Literally.

Blue Skies,
-Grant

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[turnlow 0]

I’m sure that many people have their own opinions on this subject and I am far from an expert. With those two caveats, however, I’m happy to share my philosophy (and I would like to hear the opinions of more experienced skydivers). At roughly 1700 feet, I will to decide to land what I have over my head or cutaway and deploy my reserve. If it is not landable at that juncture it is gone.

I believe it is important to think about it in terms of your decision altitude as it may take time to execute your chosen actions. You have to both decide and give yourself a margin safety to ensure that you can carry out your plan. I’ll give you two examples to illustrate the point. I had a docile malfunction where the canopy was flying nicely on-heading, but it was not landable and could have rapidly turned ugly. I attempted to fix it until I reached 1700 feet. While it seemed a shame to chop it, I put my hands on my handles, took a deep breath (this was my first) and executed my emergency procedures by 1500 feet. In contrast I had a malfunction that was significantly more challenging. The malfunction caused the canopy to dive and spiral at a dizzying rate. Upon deciding to chop it, the centrifugal force being generated by the spin made it difficult to pull my cutaway handle (tried it once, tried it twice and then used both hands and all the might I could muster and then had to find my reserve handle again). Had I made the decision to cutaway at a lower altitude, I would have been unlikely to get a reserve over my head in time to save my life. I have personally known two skydivers who fought similar malfunctions too long. They decided at a low altitude to cutaway and had trouble finding and pulling their handles. One’s reserve almost got out of the bag and the other’s reserve fully opened an instant before he landed (and an amazing PLF saved him from injury or death – this is quite the video btw).

Let me make one final point: I am not saying that I will never cutaway below 1500 feet. If a situation develops below that altitude whereby a cutaway appears to be the best course of action I will not hesitate to do so. What I am not going to do is attempt to fix a malfunction below that altitude.
__________________________________________________

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

[mjosparky 3]

Quote

I’m sure that many people have their own opinions on this subject and I am far from an expert. With those two caveats, however, I’m happy to share my philosophy (and I would like to hear the opinions of more experienced skydivers). At roughly 1700 feet, I will to decide to land what I have over my head or cutaway and deploy my reserve. If it is not landable at that juncture it is gone.

I think you "philosophy" is pretty much right on the money. The only thing I would add is you don't have to wait until your "decision altitude" to make your decision and chop a bad main.

And always remember there are no experts in skydiving, all the experts are dead.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[goose491 0]

Quote

I think that is actually me you are asking this of. If I am mistaken, then my apologies in advance.

None required my friend. More input is better than less if you can decipher good advice from bad.

This explanation of yours matches Turnlows and my original concepts as well so we're all happy.

Nick

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[goose491 0]

Quote

At roughly 1700 feet, I will to decide to land what I have over my head or cutaway and deploy my reserve. If it is not landable at that juncture it is gone.

Perfect. That's just what I thought you meant. I share the same philosophy. My "harddeck" is 1500 and an un-landable main canopy will not follow me through it.

Quote

Let me make one final point: I am not saying that I will never cutaway below 1500 feet.

Also a point worthy of discussion.... Not saying you won't cutaway below your harddeck per say. Next topic: "What's too low to cutaway?"

I had mentioned once that if I ever found myself at a thousand feet, still stoopidly fighting a malfunctioning main, that I would then throw out the reserve without a chop. It was requested of me that I reconsider this altitude as a thousand feet would give me ample time for proper EPs.

So... What's the magic number? What altitude is the point where simply "getting more fabric out" is more important than "chopping this ball of laundry and trying again"?

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[mark135 0]

Quote

“I’ve been here before, I know I can get out of it…I just need a few seconds.” Link number four?

I had a spinner on a monarch once due to a fired brake line with multiple line twists. I had it in my head that i could fix it. At one point i put my hands on my handles then decided "it's a square i can fix this"
I began to work on it, looked down and decided i had to go.... now.

Point is, go with your first instinct, fighting a mal "can" be a very good way to lose altitude awarness.

_______________


"It seemed like a good idea at the time"

[Salsa_John 0]

Glad you posted this.

Thanks.

"You did what?!?!"

MUFF #3722, TDSM #72, Orfun #26, Nachos Rodriguez

[Scrumpot 1]

Quote

"What's too low to cutaway?" ...I had mentioned once that if I ever found myself at a thousand feet, still stoopidly fighting a malfunctioning main, that I would then throw out the reserve without a chop. It was requested of me that I reconsider this altitude as a thousand feet would give me ample time for proper EPs.

So... What's the magic number?

I've often THOUGHT for myself that # would be 600ft AGL. Although I've never actually "planned" on ever being there!

Just this past weekend though, I had dinner with an "old" friend, and also a very "seasoned" jumper ...(yes Michael, by now if you are reading this, you know who you are ), and he imparted upon me an interesting perspective, that has given me at least, some pause for second thought on that now.

His philosophy (and he can remain relatively anonymous hereby if he so chooses)? Very SIMPLE. And I'll quote: "I am not, ever doing rigging in the air." Meaning that (for instance) his main opens, and it can be immediately determined right then and there that "this is unlandable, ...chop it. REGARDLESS of altitude.

Now here, is; if he likes, he can "chime in". Michael: Do I have this (understand this) right?

It's an INTERESTING perspective, and it has, as I say, given me pause for thought. Given this jumper has been around for 25 or so (+/-) years, ACTIVE in this sport, also "gets my attention" (and RESPECT). ...Of course, he is also, his OWN rigger too!

Just does make me think though, when it comes right down to it, WHAT really does make us "all" need to either hesitate, or think we somehow NEED TO for some reason necessarilly, "work through a mal? "Correctable", or not?

...Cost maybe? ..."Image"??

What are EITHER of these things if you happen to turn out instead to have been WRONG; and you go in?? (and with a reserve that COULD HAVE worked, HAD IT BEEN DEPLOYED using your EP's higher/immediately upon even recognizing a mal that is still instead at this alt clearly within its container ...doing you no good!) Hmmmmm....... ???

Okay, now I suppose 2 line twists at 3 grand you're NOT going to chop. Or closed end cells, or something "silly" like that. But maybe some food for thought? Let's say though that you've got what looks like a line-over. It's clearly UNLANDABLE as is, but you're over 2,500 (or whatever). ...You gonna choose to fight it?

Serious question, because I am now reconsidering this now even myself. Right up until this weekend, I was (and would) be saying "YES". ...I even HAVE been in exactly this situation and done this in the past.

However, let's say your 2 attempts at clearing this DON'T work (and actually, USUALLY they won't ...I just happened to "luck out" myself personally once), and things become on that second attempt (that you started even BEFORE your hard deck) rapidly and suddenly worse?? A couple of line twists and a collapse at 1,500 can become "HIGH-SPEED" and eat up your altitude now, right then & there, all of a sudden mighty quick!!

It is indeed sometimes now in thinking this stuff through even more as a result of this encounter and conversation, the "low-speed" malfunctions that has got me RE-thinking.

So what if you cut-away at 2,500ft a line-over mal?? ---Are your friends gonna laugh at you? Hey, my feeble mind at this point is almost outright saying (seriously) ...SO WHAT? -LET 'EM! Let em laugh at your ALIVE ASS all they want. I'm starting to seriously WONDER now, how many of our skydiving bretheren just MAY HAVE gone in already, as a result of just simple, and just plain vain (read: NEEDLESS) "pride"?

Not unequivocally saying this is so, but having read MANY incidents over my 10 years here... (and I can quote several of them ...I'll bet you can too); it REALLY HAS, at this point made me have to simply at least stop and wonder.

Further debate?

coitus non circum - Moab Stone