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Bignugget

Alternatives to S-turns on final

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I had a student jumper ask me about this, and I really didn't have an answer besides, ask your instructor, I don't know for sure.

Which made me want to know for sure.

I KNOW deviations off course on final are bad news bears. I have read the articles by Bryan Burke (and got yelled at my first time in AZ for sashaying, which I had been justifying in my brain) but was explained that it also a less than predictable input, and still increases the chance of an issue with traffic.

In that moment (2 years back) I didnt think to delve into what I should have done, besides don't sashay anymore.

I am pretty accurate, land where I want 90% of the time, but my (tunnel) students question and the incident I saw in the forum of the 300ish jumper with a lot of cross pattern turns to get on target, got my pretty uncurrent brain wondering.

What are good alternatives to S-turns, off heading turning on final?


My go to if I end up long, is just land longer than I originally thought. ( I fly super conservative, always trying to make sure I leave myself room for error on all sides....I dont stay super current)

After my student asked me, I came up with using my fronts to get down (if comfortable)....good idea/bad?

Other suggestions?

This is just for my brain, im sticking with the advice of ask a real instructor for the student im coaching. I have 0 ratings in the air.

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I generally dislike the term 'S-turns' as it seems to indicate that we just sway left and right, which means you are still going forward all the time. The S-Turn is meant to burn off altitude, but that means you have to spend some time flying it as well.

'Figure 8' is a better term, meaning, you have to turn MORE than 90 degrees out from your final path and then MORE that 180 degrees back, to burn off some altitude and end up where you started, but at a lower altitude.

Of course, this all depends on your altitude and ability to execute such turns with the time and altitude remaining. Braked turns can help with executing them but a braked turn means you do not lose any altitude either.

attached my seminar, I think there is a slightly newer version out there, but this has all the basics in it. Ultimately the best thing is to learn the accuracy trick so that you continue to fly the base leg until you KNOW that the target is in the right place, and then do your final. hope that helps for you

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>What are good alternatives to S-turns, off heading turning on final?

Easiest is to adjust your final turn. Are you going to be short? Flat turn. Everything looking OK? Normal turn. Going to be long? Front riser turn. (Make SURE you will recover before the flare, of course; start these gradually so you know how long your canopy takes to recover.)

You can also use front risers to get yourself down sooner, but again be very conscious of leaving enough recovery time. Canopies recover from double front riser dives faster than the recover from front riser turns, so you have a little more leeway here - but people can (and have) hit hard from double front risering too much.

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LolaJov

Is going into deep brakes to slow forward speed and allow sink, no longer considered a good technique to shorten an overly long final?



Not for most jumpers now days on most modern canopies. Few jumpers anymore are comfortable entering a sink in deep brakes and some modern canopies will provide more drama than needed if you aren't cautious about keeping the canopy flying. '70s and '80s style flying was good for the canopies of that time; 7-cells mostly, low wing loading, less performance. Not so much today. A bit of brakes will typically leave you floating around on final which means that jumpers above you will likely be catching up to you in the pattern. Landing straight ahead with a nice flair, even if you go a bit long, is the best solution in most circumstances.

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>Is going into deep brakes to slow forward speed and allow sink, no longer
>considered a good technique to shorten an overly long final?

Not on your typical HP canopy. The risks are:

-Shallow brakes, in light winds, actually extend your glide - so it makes the problem worse.

-Deep brakes (enough to sink in light winds) put you in a precarious position. Either you land in deep brakes (which means you land very hard; small HP canopies aren't designed to land like this) or you let up at a low altitude and let the canopy try to recover. If it doesn't recover before you get to the ground - you land even harder. And during the recovery, of course, you can't just flare and stop the descent because the canopy is trying to recover airspeed.

However, it's still a good method on canopies designed for sinking accuracy approaches.

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So often I've heard it said that you can't sink in moderate brakes, that you'll just go farther. That is absolutely not my experience. Moderate brakes doesn't have to mean super deep near stall, just significant brakes. If the brakes are let up at a slow pace, I've found that flaring can be reinstated without waiting for recovery and result in a great flare. I jump a Pilot 210 at about 1.2 WL. Even without being able to recover at the end, I'm confident I could PLF and walk away without a break if I needed to.

Using brakes to keep from going too long should of course be known to have the very real potential to cause collisions with those behind. No doubt about that.

The ability/skill at using brakes to sink in a near accuracy type of approach, letting up as appropriate/possible before a final flare is I think a vital skill, so valuable when facing a really tight landing area. I think there is no other technique that work as well in tight areas.

I understand that many people jump canopies at a WL that does not lend itself so well to an accuracy-type of approach. I intentionally keep my WL down as I have had the experience in the past of needing to put it down in real tight spots.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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sundevil777

So often I've heard it said that you can't sink in moderate brakes, that you'll just go farther. That is absolutely not my experience.



It sounds like you know your canopy well, at your wing loading. Which is really good.

It is tough to provide jumpers in general with advice on 'what brakes do on final approach', because it depends so much on the canopy & wing loading & wind.

Traditionally and in the simplest look at how canopies fly, "brakes = slower & steeper", but newer jumpers do need to know that with modern canopies a little brakes can reduce the descent rate a fair bit without decreasing the speed much, extending the glide through the airmass. When the headwind is also lighter, they'll travel further over the ground too.

This tendency for a little brake to reduce descent rate applies most to canopies trimmed to dive, and is less likely to apply to a canopy already trimmed to fly fairly flat. I'm not sure but the Pilot tends to be a fairly flat trimmed canopy.

The principle certainly still holds that one shouldn't surprise anyone behind oneself, although some amount of vertical glide path adjustment is generally accepted.

(I knew a guy who did stalls - for just a moment - with his F-111 canopy on final at a moderately busy DZ. While he wasn't zig zagging in traffic, and he had things under control, the DZ did ask him to fly a little more predictably nonetheless and not give people heart attacks...)

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Use front risers a bit? Atleast that's what I do if I'm too long. Depending on the trim of the canopy you can really knock out a few meters on front risers without pushing to the edge of danger. Just keep an eye on the alti that you are atleast 50m... which you probably will be when you realise you ain't where you want to be.

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>Moderate brakes doesn't have to mean super deep near stall, just significant brakes.
>If the brakes are let up at a slow pace, I've found that flaring can be reinstated
>without waiting for recovery and result in a great flare.

If you use moderate brakes in moderate wind you can indeed get more sink, and you can also recover as you mentioned. However to do that well you have to have practiced a lot with your canopy - both to know where that point is (i.e. how far you have to flare to get more sink in a given wind) and to know how to deal with a partially braked flare.

There is a specific scenario that will catch people, which is why I don't generally recommend trying sinking with a modern HP canopy:

1) Jumper approaches landing late in the day. The winds have died and he realizes he is going to overshoot.

2) He flares a moderate amount. In no wind, this will generally _extend_ your landing distance.

3) He realizes this, so goes deeper and deeper into brakes so he does not overrun the landing area.

4) He gets to 20 feet in deep brakes at a high rate of sink. At this point he has two choices:

a) Stay in deep brakes and land that way (generally painful)
b) Go to full flight or partial brakes, recover and land with additional speed (a problem if you've just overrun the landing area and are now in a poor landing area.)

With enough practice, of course, they can overcome the risks of such an approach - but with enough practice they are also far less likely to need it.

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Quote

What are good alternatives to S-turns, off heading turning on final?



I don't think anyone gave you a good answer; S-turns are not a good idea and there are no good alternatives.

If you are high on final, you have already made your mistake(s) and passed the point where you can fix them. You are landing long. If your accuracy skills don't meet or exceed the size of the landing area, you are going to miss. Improve your accuracy skills or find a larger landing area. S-turns are not a good idea.

If you are on a 6-lane free way, doing 65-mph and are 100-feet from your exit ramp, you could swerve across 3 lanes of traffic and make your exit, but that is not a good idea. Basically, you missed your exit.

Derek V

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When I teach the braked approach and landing for the A license, I really emphasize how important it is to keep practicing this on every canopy they every own. As I tell them, if you learn to do it on the student 230, when you get a 210, its still easy to do its about the same. Then if you downsize to a 190, its about the same as the 210 etc...

But if you do it on your student 230, but don't do it again for a thousand jumps and now you are on a 120 and have to put it down in a tiny area - you are going to struggle.

A few years ago I ended up videoing the last tandem out on a long spot and since I was turning the load I really wanted to make it back as far as possible. I was on a Crossfire 88 loaded 1.8ish? I practice braked on every single jump on every canopy I own. And for random reasons this was my first ever Crossfire jump. I got to just before the fence and had to land in the next field. I started a very deep brake turn back into the wind, got halfway through and realized I was out of altitude. Started to let up, got from my hips to my belly button, realized it was time to flare, and stood it up from deep brakes going crosswind and it wasn't even painful.

But I practice flying slow all the time not just flying fast. And I teach my students to practice it all the time so that when shit hits the fan, its instinctive and natural. If all you ever practice is swoops and going fast, you will struggle..

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