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Altitude Warning Alarm Stratigy

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I was wondering what experienced skydivers think of this stratigy.

Altitude Alarms:

1st 3500'

2nd 2500'

3rd 1500'

I have a Spectre that takes 500'-750' to fully deploy from pulling. I always plan to pull at 3500' or higher. The 3rd alarm, the siren sound, at 1500 would warn me about soon approching the 750' firing altitude of my cypress. So, if I manage to hear that, I was thinking I should pull the reserve in stead of the main, in order to prevent a possible two out.

Opinions anyone?

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if your profile is correct, I think you're a little early in your progression for an audiable. I'd rather know you were still focusing on your personal altitude awareness and not so much relying on the audiable.

That said, if you're going to use the audible, I'll say your absolute minimum pull altitude (3rd alarm) should sync with the BSRs; in your case, you need to get things opening no lower that 3,000 ft. Put #2 at your target pull altitude, and #1 ar breakoff.

But still, if you're worried about hitting 1,500 without realizing it, I highly encourage you to put the audiable on the shelf until you've had more time to develop a sense of altitude awareness.


edited to clear up some termanology & sloppiness

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That's what I use, but you should be opening higher. Set for breakoff, minimum main pull altitude, and hard deck. Keep track of your altitude by watching your altimeter and watching the ground. Try to use the audible as a backup only. You should be waiting for the beeps, not surprised by them

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To me an audible is just for insurance, like the cypress. I've been opening between 5.5K and 5K to give me time to play with the canopy. I might start taking it down to 4.5K in the near future. I only got the ProTrack to log my jump data. Although, it comes with alarms. So...

How do you guys reply to the fact that most two out situations occur when an 'experienced' skydiver gets distracted, loses altitude awarness, and pulls the main so close to the cypress altitude that both canopies get out?

Do you think that this is less than deserving of its own precautionary alarm?

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The 3rd alarm, the siren sound, at 1500 would warn me about soon approching the 750' firing altitude of my cypress. So, if I manage to hear that, I was thinking I should pull the reserve in stead of the main, in order to prevent a possible two out.

Opinions anyone?

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Yeah. You are seriously mistaken about the reason to set your 3rd alarm at 1.5k. It hasn't got a thing to do with your Cypres. 1500 ' means GET A CANOPY OUT NOW!!!!!!! You know, the piece of cloth thats about to save your life? Your canopy of choice at that altitude, in case nobody ever enlightened you, would be your reserve. If you haven't thrown by 1500' you have already fucked up. Badly. You need to get more training. Or possibly you are just another smelly troll. In that case just wait for your Cypres to fire.

Sometimes you eat the bear..............

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What TRAVMAN said, "break off altitude, pull altitude, and GET SOMETHING OUT altitude." That will vary between everyone here depending on their experience and what they are doing at that time (FF, video, RW, etc)

Ask YOUR instructors what they think YOUR break off, pull, and reserve pull alarm should be. At 21 jumps and no license, they should be your primary guides, not friends on dropzone.com forum posters;)

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I agree and set mine with what others said - breakoff, minimum main deployment, and hard deck. The hard deck altitude alarm addresses your concern about the two out situation with a Cypres fire. If you hear the flat line of the final alarm you've gone below your hard deck and should go straight to the reserve. The only reason your Cypress should fire is if you are unconscious, lack of altitude awareness is a poor excuse and in some dropzones will get you grounded now.

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Remember your CYPRES is meant to read your altitude in your burble. So if you are at 1500' and your throw your main, when you get stood up the pressure on your back changes and you will get a 2 out.
Discuss this more with your instructors.

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Remember your CYPRES is meant to read your altitude in your burble. So if you are at 1500' and your throw your main, when you get stood up the pressure on your back changes and you will get a 2 out.



That's a good point too.

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The hard deck altitude alarm addresses your concern about the two out situation with a Cypres fire. If you hear the flat line of the final alarm you've gone below your hard deck and should go straight to the reserve.



That seems reasonable. I'll discuss it with my instructors: Pulling the reserve if I manage to get below my hard deck without an open container.

Thanks

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I only just started jumping an audible this weekend (I do mostly RW jumps)... I didn't and still don't want to learn to rely on my audible alti to indicate break off altitude so I have my audible set for 500 ft below planned break off (if I hear it and am still turning points then I have messed up and need to pay more attention)... so I still have to rely on my visual altimeter and I should expect to hear my first alarm just after initiating my track...

My second alarm is at 3000 ft which is the altitude that want to throw my PC by (this weekend I typically heard my second alarm at around line strech or after I was in the saddle... I don't toss based on my second alarm I turn and track for 5-7 seconds wave off clear my airspace and throw.

My third alarm is at 1800 ft and better never hear that thing...
Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

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Remember your CYPRES is meant to read your altitude in your burble. So if you are at 1500' and your throw your main, when you get stood up the pressure on your back changes and you will get a 2 out.
Discuss this more with your instructors.



You are certainly welcome to believe this if you want. Lovely piece of pseudoscience.
Sometimes you eat the bear..............

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My $0.02 as I was taught/suggested.

1st: set to your dive's breakoff altitude, if it changes, change it...

2nd: pull-time

3rd: 2000ft, time to seriously think about pulling some handles + a couple of extra seconds to decide how to do it.


Your alarms are set too low IMHO.
NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

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The hard deck altitude alarm addresses your concern about the two out situation with a Cypres fire. If you hear the flat line of the final alarm you've gone below your hard deck and should go straight to the reserve.

That seems reasonable. I'll discuss it with my instructors: Pulling the reserve if I manage to get below my hard deck without an open container.



Brian, pulling your reserve at or below your hard deck should have been covered by your instructor at your first jump class. It isn't considered to be some kind of option. Thats why its called a hard deck, the altitude at which you immediately go to your reserve. At 21 jumps your hard deck should be more like 2000' but its up to you to pick an altitude and stick with it.
Also for those of you who believe that setting your third (flatline) alarm at 1500' is a good plan, think about how long it will take you to react to that alarm if you hear it. If you happen to be freeflying you will likely be below 1300' when you throw. If this happens to you please use your reserve.
Sometimes you eat the bear..............

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What does everyone who sets their audibles to remind them to do things do if it fails?

I have my audible set for 2 heights, 3,500' and 2'500. At 3'500 I am in a track and know I should pill sometime within the next few seconds, 2'500 is 500' before my hardeck - it gives me 2 seconds to react before I hit my hard deck.

I don't think 1000' or even 2000' is a good time to realise your audible failed and you should probably stop turning those points now and decide whether to get the hell away from the people you are jumping with and pull or just pull and hope for the best and deal with a pursuant wrap etc.

Also, talking to instructors about this always gets the same sort of reasonses as on here - half of them say to set it to remind you (ie breakoff, pull and hard deck) the other half say don;t rely on it to remind you. Talk to your instructors by all means, but you need to decide what to do with what they tell you, because the chances of having even 5 highly skilled instsructors with the same opinion on this topic is rare.
www.TerminalSports.com.auAustralia's largest skydive gear store

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Brian, pulling your reserve at or below your hard deck should have been covered by your instructor at your first jump class. It isn't considered to be some kind of option. Thats why its called a hard deck, the altitude at which you immediately go to your reserve. At 21 jumps your hard deck should be more like 2000' but its up to you to pick an altitude and stick with it.



Actually, I lack a recollection of this particular situation being specifically addressed in my FJC. The only time I recall being told to pull the reserve is if we had a plane emergency and had to bail out between 1000' and 2500'. I suppose that answers the question in a round about way ;) Being conservative, I consider my harddeck to be 2500' at the moment. I now feel comfortable setting the 3rd alarm to that altitude, and pulling the reserve there or lower if need be. That will leave me 3500, 2nd alarm, for my main pull reminder, and the 1st alarm for break off, say 5000, when I need it.

Thanks for making these issues clear :)
And yes, I will talk this over with my instructors and them some.

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Cool, I'm real glad to hear that you have a sensible approach to getting low. If I came across as harsh its because I was trying to get some attention to the issues being discussed here and how off-track the consensus was. I don't consider my having or not having a Cypres in my emergency procedures, they don't change based on that. I'm happy to see these kinds of discussions as nearly everyone will at some time find themselves lower than planned and still smokin, just keep in mind that the real issue is not hitting the ground too hard. Also I hope that your instructors discussed reserve use more than in an aircraft emergency. By far the most use comes from canopy malfunctions.
Sometimes you eat the bear..............

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Also I hope that your instructors discussed reserve use more than in an aircraft emergency. By far the most use comes from canopy malfunctions.



Yes, of course they covered that. I meant, the particular situation of getting distracted somehow, then realizing your way below where you should have pulled. The emphasis durning AFF was to pull the main. You know: Pull at altitude, pull stable, just pull. I lack a clear recollection of being instructed to straight away pull the reserve if I got below any certain altitude without an open container. Although, I may have just missed that.

During AFF, the instructors are right there. So, if the student fails to pull at 5.5, they're gonna pull for them. So, the possibility of me, or any student, of actually getting below 2500 without pulling was given little concern. Prehaps , they wanted to avoid confusing new students as to which handle to pull when. They did tell me though, if I managed to get seperated from them, to just pull the main.

I'm glad I asked this question.

Cheers

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Ok, here's a repost of something I wrote in the Freefly tips thread ( http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=786811;page=1;mh=-1;;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC )

My audible is set to 6000 feet. This doesn't mean that I break off at 6000 feet. Normally, if I'm doing a 2 or 3 way, it's around 5k for breakoff. However, occasionally it's 6k on big ways or long spots.

So, here's the advantages of setting a higher audible setting:

1. When the alarm goes off, I know that it's "almost time" to break off. That means, finish what you're doing, check your space first, and then break off. The positive here is that there should be no need for a panic break off, since the alarm is not signaling break off time. If you're set for 5k and 5k is your break off alt., then you may rush the break off.

2. You learn to build internal timing for 6k, not 5k. This works well because, if you miss your audible, you'll likely check your visual altimeter at or around 6k. If your timings a bit off, it may be lower, like 5k, which is still better then realizing you missed your audible at 4k.

3. This kind of goes along with #1 - you'll be more relaxed during break off time. If you're doing a 2way, and just finishing a move, you know you have a few seconds to finish what you're doing, then leave the scene. Instead of the start of your alarm indicating your break-off altitude, it's more the end of your alarm that does so. Alarm finishes, got another second or 2, then it's time to go.

4. Don't be a robot. Think about what you're doing. Don't just be reactionary to your alarm - there's an initial tendency to break off as soon as your alarm goes off. I don't like this reflex-type action - so, better to be a thinking skydiver than a reactionary one.

I've used a 6k audible setting for years. It works well for me. For those who've used 5k for a long time, and decide to set their audible higher, be conscious of what you're doing - think about your breakoff while in the plane. Don't "set and forget" - think instead.

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I suppose that answers the question in a round about way Being conservative, I consider my harddeck to be 2500' at the moment. I now feel comfortable setting the 3rd alarm to that altitude,



I'll second the breakoff, pull and hard deck tones for an audible.

I do want to point out that according to the SIMS, your Hard deck isd 3000' not 2500.

http://www.uspa.org/publications/SIM/2005SIM/section2.htm#21g
I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. eat sushi, get smoochieTTK#1

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Gary, the term hard deck isn't generally considered the same thing as minimum container opening altitude although they could be the same. If Brian should find himself at 2700' with nothing out he has already violated the SIMS. That may not mean that he should automatically deploy his reserve. If his chosen hard deck (the preplanned altitude at which a jumper will always go to his reserve) is 2500' then he might choose to use his main. (this should not be considered a reccommendation on my part) The hard deck is something every skydiver should work out for himself. If you don't have a chosen hard deck altitude then get one. Consult instructors, the S&TA, an experienced jumper you trust etc. and figure out the altitude you'll use. Then lock it into your ep's just like you lock in your cutaway procedures.
Sometimes you eat the bear..............

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Sorry, I was wrong in that the hard deck as per USPA is 3000'. I knew it was defined in the SIM but accidently referred to the wrong list ( I was doing a quick search) It is 2500' for students and A license holders.

uspa stuff
I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. eat sushi, get smoochieTTK#1

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Also, bear in mind that some dropzone have hills around the landing area. Track above one of them, and you can find yourself closer to the ground than your altimiter, audible, and Cypres "think" you are...

"For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

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