Minor landing mishap

[newsstand 0]

Second jump of the day 47th total. Sabre 2 (I think, rental gear, same canopy I have been jumping for most of these jumps.) 210 loaded at .9. Winds 10 - 15.

I was working on accuracy and using rear risers to sink in when I realized to late that I did not have time to release them and then flair and there was not much left in them to flair with either. Did not react quickly enough and so although I let myself collapse to the ground I did not PLF. End result is a "tarsail chip fracture", possible tibial plateau fracture, splint and crutches. Go see the Doc in a few days and get told how long this is going to ground me. If the knee still hurts in a couple of weeks that takes the tibial plateau fracture from possible to yeah you had one.

Lessons learned:
1. Landing safely is more important than getting close to the target.
2. PLF, PLF, PLF
3. Have the canopy in a condition where you can flair when needed.
4. During your vacation week save skydiving for the end so as not to screw up your other plans.

edited to add that this is the same canopy I always jump.

One more edit, I am signed up for a canopy control class too. Assuming enough people pay the deposits on the slots they reserved!

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[JYorkster 0]

Quote

Sabre 2 (I think, rental gear)

Lesson #5. Know what type of canopy you are jumping BEFORE you jump it. Not doing so could have pretty serious consequences. Glad you're OK.

Rock

[Push 0]

Quote

using rear risers to sink in

Don't rear risers typically flatten your glide? You must have been applying a lot of rears to sink, I guess. Is applying lots of rears more efficient than sinking with toggles? I guess it's more dangerous, since it requires significant input and rear risers near the ground are tricky. Is any of this right?

-- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo
Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

[billvon 2,391]

Use of rear risers near the ground to sink a canopy can result in a sudden stall and resulting hard landing; something to be avoided.

[skymama 35]

Quote

Use of rear risers near the ground to sink a canopy can result in a sudden stall and resulting hard landing; something to be avoided.

So, if he wanted to sink-in to hit a target, what should he have done instead?

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[newsstand 0]

My experience, limited to this one canopy, is that I can not get much sinkage with toggles but I can with the rear risers. In either case the problem would have been the same in that I had the canopy in the max breaks position to high for landing and to low for letting it back up and then flairing.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[newsstand 0]

Playing with the rear risers up high has given me a good idea of where the stall point on this canopy is so that is one thing I was not worried about. I still left myself in a position with no flair as much more pull on them would have stalled it.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[billvon 2,391]

>So, if he wanted to sink-in to hit a target, what should he have done instead?

Brakes, at 10-15 knots and at lighter loadings brakes basically stop the canopy and it sinks straight down. Gotta let up on them above 50-100 feet though, to give the canopy enough time to recover to normal flight.

In general I don't think it's a good idea to do a steep approach on a high performance elliptical near the ground, whether it's brakes or rear risers. You can easily find yourself without any flare or (worse) stalled at a low altitude.

[newsstand 0]

Nothing high performance about the boat I was flying but point is well taken.

"Gotta let up on them above 50-100 feet though, to give the canopy enough time to recover to normal flight. "

That is the part I screwed up.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[piisfish 135]

do you know your wingloading or exit weight ???

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[billvon 2,391]

>Nothing high performance about the boat I was flying . . .

Perhaps, but how times change. When I started, a Monarch 210 was considered a deadly hot rod. Now a much higher performance elliptical of the same size is a boat.

[Push 0]

I've landed my old Triathlon 160 from 3/4 brakes. It was a pretty hard landing compared to a normal full flare, but not too bad. Definitely not bad enough to fracture anything. I've never had a problem sinking in under brakes, especially since I've had a problem flying approaches too tight. It worked for me on Mantas, weird intermediate canopies like Falcons and West Winds, Triathlons, Sabres, Safire 2's and Stilettos. Keep in mind that I only have a handful of jumps on any of those canopies and am not a great canopy pilot to begin with.

Watch out with those rears. People have been hurt much worse than what you've experienced. In my experience, and from what I heard from Brian Germain last weekend, rears put in a lot of very sharp control. If your hand slips...

Cue debate on practicing rear riser landings. Regardless of your opinion on that, I think that holding the rears down significantly for 200 feet on final is asking for trouble. More experienced opinion?

-- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo
Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

[newsstand 0]

Quote

Second jump of the day 47th total. Sabre 2 (I think, rental gear, same canopy I have been jumping for most of these jumps.) 210 loaded at .9. Winds 10 - 15.

Exit weight approx. 190lbs

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[newsstand 0]

Everything is relative isn't it?
It is certainly higher performance than my four modified T-10 jumps from about 1980 but this is considered student gear at my home DZ.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[newsstand 0]

Had I PLF'ed I don't think I would have been hurt at all, that was the second mistake.

I hope to learning a lot from Brian in the next month or so!.

My previous landing of the day had been a rear riser and while still a little harder than I would want was not a bad first attempt. I left myself the room to use them properly.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[freakydiver 0]

I would never use rear risers to sink it in, ever. If anything I use them to get back from a long spot because it flattens the glide out on my sabre.

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

[newsstand 0]

Finally got through to the DZ rigger and it is a Triathalon not a Sabre. More to the point is that I have jumped the rig about 30 times so I am reasonably familiar with it.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[newsstand 0]

Well on the Triathalon it sends me nearly straight down if I pull them in enough. To much and it stalls the canopy.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[NicoNYC 0]

Quote

Lesson #5. Know what type of canopy you are jumping BEFORE you jump it. Not doing so could have pretty serious consequences.

Glad you're okay man but JYORKSTER is right.

Quote

Finally got through to the DZ rigger and it is a Triathalon not a Sabre. More to the point is that I have jumped the rig about 30 times so I am reasonably familiar with it.

Not to knock your jump numbers or anything but it'll take you more than 30 jumps to familiarize yourself with your canopy's characteristics and capabilities. You've mentioned that you practiced this maneuver high up in the air. Were you looking at your alti when pulled on both risers just before the stall point? Did you notice how much altitude you lost when you performed that maneuver high up? When I took Heath Richardson's and Scott Miller's canopy control class, they both stressed the same concept. "10 second rule: No toggle input for the last 10 seconds on your landing approach before you touch ground". That means at 100feet you do nothing but prepare to flare, feet and knees together and watch out for oncoming obstacles or other canopies. Both Heath and Scott said "100 Feet", no less. Another alternative instead of doing a rear riser approach to hit your mark is to curve your base or final legs to bleed off altitude. Never do S turns. It's okay to miss the mark by a few feet steep or short. On the next dive you can make the adjustments to your pattern and you will almost always get closer to your mark. Even if you land parallel to the target, you still hit it. Try doing some hop and pops too. My routine is always doing a hop & pop for my first jump to practice my maneuvers up high and accuracy. Doing this for 4 months straight help me land in the middle of my target on every jump. I'm far from being an expert in canopy control or even being good at it but I learned from the best and I follow what they taught me. You're doing the right thing by taking a canopy control class. Good luck and fast healing!

How many hits of adrenaline can you take?

[newsstand 0]

I wasn't meaning to imply that 30 jumps was a lot, only that not knowing the brand name was not as critical as knowing something about the handling of the particular rig. Frankly I could swear that the name on the board where the rentals are listed was Sabre but at this point that is neither here nor there.

"10 second rule: No toggle input for the last 10 seconds on your landing approach before you touch ground"

That is exactly where I screwed up. I was so focused on bringing it down towards the target I forgot about needing room to flair at the end. Fortunately when I realized that I didn't then let up on the risers and go in to a dive. I was thinking a little.

Finally saw the ortho yesterday and he said nothing broken, part of the ovoid (maybe that was the bone name) was crunched, no torn ligiments, mild sprain of the ankle. When I feel comfortable walking and jumping up and down I can start jumping again.

It feels good, ouch, it feels good, ouch

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[Cacophony 0]

Quote

Lessons learned:
1. Landing safely is more important than getting close to the target.

Tell that to some of those old hardcore accuracy guys out there, heh.

Thats great to hear its nothing too bad. Practice those PLF's!!

[par 0]

Quote

Tell that to some of those old hardcore accuracy guys out there, heh.

HEHEHEHEHE true true .. seen some ...

[billvon 2,391]

>When I took Heath Richardson's and Scott Miller's canopy control class,
> they both stressed the same concept. "10 second rule: No toggle input for
> the last 10 seconds on your landing approach before you touch ground".
>That means at 100feet you do nothing but prepare to flare, feet and
>knees together and watch out for oncoming obstacles or other canopies.
> Both Heath and Scott said "100 Feet", no less.

This is a good rule for first time jumpers; I actually use 200 feet when I'm teaching newer jumpers how to land large parachutes. However, at some point you have to learn to make small adjustments (and even large ones) down low. If turbulence puts your 1.2 to 1 loaded parachute into a turn at 50 feet, not giving any toggle input could lead to serious injury. As you progress as a canopy pilot, you have to learn to:

1. use your toggles down low to keep the canopy flying in the same direction

2. use toggles at low altitudes to turn slightly in either direction to make minor adjustments

3. use toggles at very low altitudes to make drastic changes in direction, either via flat turning (above 50 feet or so) or through flare turning (below 20 feet or so.) Before a jumper downsizes to a small canopy (above, say, 1.5 to 1) they should be able to turn 90 degrees below 200 feet and 45 degrees in the flare. These are survival skills once you get to smaller canopies.

[Jimbo 0]

The 10 second rule, as I remember it being explained, wasn't so much "don't touch for 10 seconds", as much as it was "the canopy should be in full flight for 10 seconds to achieve the best possible landing". I think it's possible to make minor adjustments for the sake of accuracy or not crashing into one of your friends without drastically changing the flight characteristics of your canopy.

Yeah, I know this all goes to shit when we start talking about high performance landings.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.