Question: What's The Lowest You've Ever Pulled?

[AFFI 0]

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Once early on I lost stability and statrted tumbling at about 4500. I was aware of what was going on and just knew that I could get stable again. If I wasn't stable by 2000 I was going to pitch anyway. Right at 2000 ft I got stable and threw out and was in the saddle by 1400. Way way low for an A license. Scared the shit out of me. Also scared the shit out of the friend that I had just finished a 2 way with. He watched the whole sequence from under canopy. I was wearing a helmet cam at the time and the film goes something like this. Nice exit. Nice uneventful 2 way. I backslide just a bit to film my friends deployment, and don't extend my legs back out, the ground sky, ground sky, ground sky, almost stable, oops, ground sky, ground sky. Oh YEA! Stable, throw out. Beautiful parachute.

This is an interesting testament concerning the relationship between experience levels and adding additional risks into the equation such as flying a camera.

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[Tornolf 0]

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For the skydive I used my BASE rig which I had tuned in for low openings. This was done completely legal in the US.

Re: "completely legal", do you mean a BASE exit, or an aircraft exit? I was under the impression that aircraft exits require a reserve parachute, which BASE rigs don't have. Am I misunderstanding your post?

Aircraft. Loopholes exist in the FAA regulations. I know I was in the clear because the FAA rep who was at the event told me my jump was pretty cool. Also, the reason you can't jump a BASE rig out of a plane (normally) is that the harness isn't TSO'd. It's not hard to throw a belly reserve onto a BASE rig.

A waddling elephant seal is the cutest thing in the entire world.
-TJ

[AFFI 0]

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the very tip of the (reserve) loop was cut (he beat the cypress, but by so little time that it fired and cut the very end of the loop as it was being extracted).

Either I do not understand the mechanics involved or I do not understand the explination.

The loop was being extracted from the cutting device?
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Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[UDSkyJunkie 0]

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Either I do not understand the mechanics involved or I do not understand the explination.

The loop was being extracted from the cutting device?

Hard to explain in words, but here goes. Upon landing we found that

- the cypres had fired
- the "loop" was still intact (meaning if you put a pin through it, it would still hold a container shut)
- The tip of the loop was cleanly cut off, making the loop thin in that region... resembled when a closing loop is worn and fraying, but cleaner.

This could only happen with a flap-mounted cutter (like a vector) as opposed to a backpad mounted cutter (like a dolphin).

So picture this sequence of events: the ripcord is pulled, there's a very short moment where the pilot chute is pushing the flap out, away from the loop. At that time, the cypres fires. The loop is maybe 2mm thick, and the cypres cuts only 1mm. If it had fired a millisecond earlier, it would have beat the jumper and cut the loop, and if it had fired a millisecond later the loop would already be fully extracted from the cutter, and the blade would cut nothing.

Weird stuff... impossible odds. But life is stranger than fiction, right?

"Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

[jcecil 0]

Exited at 1800' several times on cloud limited days, usually open by 1600' (went down to 1200' once, pilot cut WAY back on exit and didn't have much airspeed). These were mostly on a PD 9 cell, which usually opened from PC toss to full canopy in 500 - 600 feet at term anyway.

Lowest ever open from term, we launched a 3 way from 4500 feet and waited til the last guy got in, then turned to track at 2500', dumped around 1700', had full canopy by around 1100'. Talk about ground rush, that's as much as I ever want to see.

[htrammel 0]

Aircraft. Loopholes exist in the FAA regulations. I know I was in the clear because the FAA rep who was at the event told me my jump was pretty cool. Also, the reason you can't jump a BASE rig out of a plane (normally) is that the harness isn't TSO'd. It's not hard to throw a belly reserve onto a BASE rig.

[riggerrob 558]

The lowest I have ever deployed on a skydive was 700 feet.
The Chief Instructor chewed me a new a$$$$$ and I deserved the chewing out.

[jerm 0]

in the saddle on main.. 1100 ft
in the saddle in reserve... 900ft

a few years back (2001?) i watched someone chop ~300ft from a low CRW entanglement, we all thought she was dead.
she ended up in the saddle with her canopy at treetop height -- didn't have enough canopy time to unstow her toggles... i'd say less than 2 sec of canopy time. scaaaary shit.

Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

[testpilot 0]

in the saddle on main.. 900 ft
No reserve rides yet.

Dave
D830
http://www.skydiving.co.za

[elias123 0]

lowest main pulled at 2700-2800 ft
no reserve rides ... yet

"In a mad world, only the mad are sane"