Your hairy moments in the air

[Zep 0]

Been reading some posts from novice skydivers an I got to thinking about my early experiences. I thought it might be fun to share some of the scarier moments you’ve had in the air.
Malfunctions don’t count as it’s been covered

I’ll start with 3

1. clipping a canopy whilst in freefall, very painful
2. A group of us decided to do a silly exit from a Sky Liner
we were the last group to exit an started running the length of the plane to soon.
I did a back flip whilst the plane was rebounding from the last exit an hit my head
On the tail gate/door an got knocked out till 6oooft (no AAD)
3 I was in a Sky Van when it stalled on jump run an took 5000ft to recover control
in those days seat belts weren’t installed (lots of screams an some broken bones)

Now it’s your turn

Gone fishing

[JonBonGraham 0]

Holy shit, man - by the sound of it you're lucky to be alive!
The only two scary moments for me so far (except my early jumps, of course!) have been:
1) Free-falling within 10 metres of someones canopy - I was doing a solo and he pulled high - and
2) Going zero-G in a Cessna-182 which has no restraints and no door, and I happened to be sitting next to the hole in the wall. I think we were somewhere beetween 1 and 2k, but especially scary since I had no idea it was coming! Good fun though!

Durham University Freefall Club

Grounds For Divorce website (band I'm in)

[bigway 4]

hanging off the door of a c-182 by my risers. Door handle ended up breaking in the middle so let me go and then, had a bit of work removing lines that were wrapped around my arm, All good though, learnt a valuable leason as well.
Jump number 67.
Got straight back up when my reserve was repacked and another cut away staright away. Turns out it was n ot needed and i think i must have been fixated on my reserve.

.Karnage Krew Gear Store
.

[mattjw916 2]

Um, my only story is pretty weak by comparison... I had a loop in a brake line wrap around two fingers as I was unstowing my brakes once... ouch!

The lines wrapped so tight I couldn't get my fingers out and then they started turning blue... I just took a wrap on the other side so the canopy would fly straight and landed uneventfully with some violent language as the lines finally went slack. I am a LOT more careful when grabbing the toggles now.

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

[CornishChris 5]

1. Someone falling past me in freefall about 10 metres away whilst i was under canopy.
2. Windy day - coming in backwards over a freeway - never wanted to be on the ground so much as that day.
3. The incident with the door on the skyvan getting stuck on the outside of the plane - sounded like it was about to rip te tail off.

CJP

Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people

[freeasabird 0]

Had someone freefall right by my open canopy (after cutting his main canopy away and before he pulled hisreserve). He was so close that turbulence off his falling body made my canopy buck to one side. Turned my head around to see what the hell the noise (whoosh) and "turbulence" was from just in time to see him pull his reserve about 500 feet below me. The load was out of a Sikorsky in Rantoul this year. Exit separation sucked between groups. This guy was actually two groups after mine and we were still that close!

-----

[billvon 2,400]

Scary moments for me -

Watching one of the people in my group go spinning away into a cloud on her back, after giving up on pulling.

Feeling a jolt in the plane and seeing a main parachute inflate over the tail.

Breaking off a 4-way and realizing we were at about 1500 feet at breakoff

Doing an AFF eval and having the candidate hang onto my right hand through 1200 feet

Realizing that my first jump on a Xaos 98 was going to be an off-field downwind landing at a DZ I'd never jumped at before

Landing in a tree during a BASE jump, successfully grabbing a big branch 40 feet up - then feeling it break off the trunk

Being in a Porter packed so tight that I was not 100% sure I had hooked up my student to my tandem harness, and not the harness of the TM next to me

Jumping in what I thought was OK weather, and seeing lighting in the little tiny harmless cloud 1/4 of a mile away

Hitting a 5000 foot thick cloud as I was approaching a 60-way in Chicago

Having hypoxia so bad that I lost color vision, then peripheral vision, and was down to about a dime-size area I could see through before it started to clear

[AggieDave 6]

Lets see...

I was in a 182 crash after loosing an engine on take off.

I've been in a tandem side spin that after reviewing the video with a RWS course director we determined it was 100% the student's fault. (fucker)

Landing downwind in a highschool football stadium next to the DZ after pulling at about 1800ft due to being an idiot with a 100 jumps.

Jumped with a pumpkin on my head for jump #30...(not really that bad, but stupid).

Hypoxia bad enough that I couldn't remember how to fix a collapsed end cell while I was spiralling lower and lower towards the desert floor.

Had to be IADed out of a 182 after I lodged my PC under the manual flap handle and nearly left the plane like that (one seriously heads up jumper caught me, who also happens to be a SL/IAD instructor...so that worked out).

Got out of spinning linetwists at about 500ft after loosing altitude awareness. Had to land in a VERY small front lawn of a business, dodging obsticles and flying UNDER powerlines (I got very very very lucky on that one).



There's a few more good stories, but those are the better ones.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[FrogNog 1]

Quote

I was in a 182 crash after losing an engine on take off.

Dang, Dave, how many engines do they put on 182s in Texas?

-=-=-=-=-
Pull.

[JohnMitchell 14]

Holy S#!+, Dave, I'd hate to be your insurance agent!

I was in a 182 that lost the engine on take off, but the pilot set it down without a scratch on a dirt road. Did you guys really bend the plane up or was it more of a crash landing?

My biggest scare was having half my canopy collapse at 90 feet one day. Not a good day.

[FrogNog 1]

I think the one story I had is leaving the plane when the wind was fine, and being under canopy when a gust front arrived. (The "bad" clouds were 10 miles away minimum and moving around the valley, not through it, so we thought it would be OK.) From 1,500 feet I did a hard 180 to downwind, flew awhile, then did a 90 and another 90 and realized the reason I felt disoriented was because I was still at 1,500 feet.

I did alternating left/right 360s with alti check after each one until I broke 800 feet, when I felt a "drop" and saw I was now coming down - and backwards.

I held my front risers so I was coming straight down, then disconnected my RSL at 50 feet, flared for 1/4 second to land softly, and pulled my cutaway as I was leaning over backwards. I didn't fall over and the canopy went about 100 feet.

-=-=-=-=-
Pull.

[linestretch 0]

1. Terminal no drogue reserve deployment on a strong tandem...the opening put me to sleep for a few seconds

2. sidespin with handycam. Made for a very good video.

my pics & stuff!

[dreamsville 0]

Bill, at 1500 feet i would guess you probably turned a bunch of points by then!

More seriously, though. We had a load where the clouds were closing in when I had 70 jumps (about 1998). I finally had to pull in a cloud, doing a slow turn to try not to move into others' paths, not knowing where I was. When i emerged from the cloud at 1100 feet I saw I was being blown backwards from the only open field almost a mile from the DZ. There were no other outs. There was only a ravine with a creek dotted with small pine trees. As I descended the wind was dropping due to the shield of the trees at the crest of the ravine. I slid between 2 trees, harmlessly clipping a tree with my lines as I came to a stop. Fortunately, there was help to take us back to the DZ nearby.

Years later, I now have 2 or 3 good friends whom I didn't know then whom I later found out (one only yesterday) were on that same load. One of them had his shoe laces knot together in a sit-fly and had to kick off his shoe before landing. Another person landed in a tree and had to have the canopy cut down later affter the property owner was contacted. Until it was cut down a few hours later, the pink canopy could be seen at a distance from the DZ, flapping in the breeze, a tell-tale sign of the load from hell.

I don't drink during the day, so I don't know what it is about this airline. I keep falling out the door of the plane.

Harry, FB #4143

[pilotdave 0]

Nothing too bad for me...

Put myself into a bunch of linetwists at ~1300 2 weekends ago. Had em kicked out by around 700 feet. Luckily the canopy was flying pretty straight the whole time. Never had that happen before. Toggle turn started normal, but then swung me in front of the canopy on my back and twisted up.

Once did a 12 nautical mile cross country... well, made it back around 10 miles and picked a back yard to land in. Hit some really nasty turbulence off the trees at around 300 feet which turned me almost 180 degrees suddenly. Did a flat turn back into the wind and landed fine. Immediately got offered a ride back to the DZ, which I thought was gonna be like a 2 minute drive so I didn't bother calling. Ended up being more like a 7 minute drive and temporarily had a state police helicopter searching for me.
Dave

[AggieDave 6]

Quote

Did you guys really bend the plane up or was it more of a crash landing?

The pilot was kickass, he set us down in a cow pasture, unfortunately the landing bent a main and the nose gear collapsted forward, fubaring the firewall. Beyond that we all walked away without a scratch.

It was a 182 that we were renting, that the company who was renting it to us had literally *just* purchased. It was the 3rd load on the airplane. The A&P up from where it was from did a 100-hour and an annual on the plane, BUT didn't check an AD. That AD is what brought the plane down.

Moral of the story, now when we get a new plane OUR A&P checks the plane before we put a load up in it.

The worst "injury" from the landing was a pair of torn shorts the pilot was wearing when we had to cross a barbed wire fence to get back to the road...that and the braincells lost that night after the fact (all 4 of us bought the pilot different 5ths of liquor and he shared).

Quote

My biggest scare was having half my canopy collapse at 90 feet one day. Not a good day.

That would seriously be scary.

Did you do anything to help it reinflate, did it reinflate or was it one hell of a PLF?

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Zep 0]

Here’s one that didn't actually involve me but I was on the load
An 18 way went to rat shit big time at around 6oooft, people started tracking away to get clear air
One guy got nervous an pulled at around 5000ft with out looking or waving off
another guy tracked straight through his risers an lines at the height of the "D" rings.
He hit the risers just at the time of full line stretch.
When we got down, we went running over to this guy expecting the worse (pleased to say he survived)
His jump suit was shredded, he had line burns on his face, shoulders and chest, also massive bruising to his thigh.
On checking the other guys canopy (Blue Track) he'd lost 3 lines at the attachment point with a square foot
of material still attached to each of the lines.
One of the mini risers had been parted about half way up (both ends frayed like you'd expect from a tension test)
we reckon the only reason the guy didn’t loose his leg was the fact that he was wearing Levis under his jumpsuit.
One lucky Scotsman
The other guy fuck'im he came down under his reserve



Another one:

Winds from the North all morning around 14-15kts full Twin Otter load drops an the wind comes howling in at 56-60kts
Experienced jumpers front riser almost to the deck then chopped on landing, some low experience jumpers didn't make it
Due to not knowing their water drills or not having flotation devices


Both these stories are true and they have a moral. First one ALWAYS WAVE OFF even if you’re jumping solo an last out.
Second one. Take time out to learn your WATER DRILLS I know in the States it's mandatory but in other countries it's not.



edited, to read "chopped on landing"

Gone fishing

[Snowbird 0]

The only hairy scary was during a 10-way. BIG funnel exit. Everyone is regrouping around the base that has travelled a fair bit. 5 or 6 of us have to fly over to the base and my slot is on the far side. I come around, stop, turn to make my way into my slot. Another guy overshoots and is coming straight at me. Fast. His eyes get big. I arch hard, he cups, I sink, he goes over me. He was hauling, I felt his turbulence going over me.

We both made it to our slots.
I was walking in after landing before I truly grasped how close that collision was.
And no he wasn't a newbie. He has almost 500 jumps.

Okay, reading this thread has given me a chill.
Everyone be safe!

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein

[JumpRu 14]

Half of my canopy folded under at 100 ft (maybe lower). That was not pretty

[DrewEckhardt 0]

King Air Vmc roll.

[BlindBrick 0]

Jump #10, extremely low unstable opening in a spin. Looked over at my left side and most of my lines were gone. Like 3 or 4 suspension lines and only one control line above the cascades were intact. Too low to chop, so I had to try to bring it home.

Jump #50. Another low opening(used to have trouble reading an altimeter) resulted in two out after AAD activation. Foolishly chopped my main while in a bi-plane. Had the displeasure of watching my main risers tangle in the reserve control lines on the right side. Luckily that cleared, but I was so rattled that when I realized I was low, I panicked turned on to final, downwind. Tried to PLF but had too much speed and ended up cartwheeling a little over ten yards. Very sick, and weird, feeling to be doing that, especially when one of the points of rotation is the top of your head.


-Blind

"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

[Sheenster303 0]

Jump #15 - First Hop 'n Pop. I open as soon as I exit the plane. I bring my knees up to my chest when I pulled and I flipped over on my back. The bridle got wrapped around my neck and I could see the pilot chute between my legs. I turned just the right way that it unraveled itself and opened nicely. Everyone in the plane thought I was going to go in, but I had no idea that it was as bad as it was until I got on the ground and people were asking if my neck was hurt.

I'm so funny I crack my head open!

P.M.S. #102

[bob.dino 0]

Forgive the ignorance, but: huh?

Google tells me that it probably means that the KA lost an engine on take-off, stalled, rolled, and hit the ground. Is that correct? If so, how'd you get out in one piece?

[hoppinnpoppin 0]

jump master sucked out of a c-141 while turning to give the thumbs up signal to the other jm at the other door. his reserve handle caught a rivet on the door and one sec he was there and 1/2 sec later a loud thud and something was missing. it took about 3 more seconds to figure out it was the jm... it's not my hairy moment i was third man in the first stick & we still to make the night jump onto cicily dz. with the safety doing jm. bad vibes that night...


other than a may west or a sqid nothing much to tell. reserves work so use them...

Send lawers, guns and money!!!!!

The shit has hit the fan!

[teason 0]

Got to many to count.
my top three

1.) hitting someone's canopy in freefall
2.) A ton of low openings, on one hop n pop from 3000' following a student, I became fixated on his malfunction ... watched it for 16 secs ... After I watched it inflat, I pulled, flightchecked, turned and flared.
3.) Pulled extremely low and had a streamer after getting my gear (mainly the reserve) soaked by a sprinkler the night before. Pulled both handles simultaniously. Low highspeed mal + snivley canopy = bad mojo

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

[jumpinjackflash 0]

Jump number 7, nine years ago...

5500 Ft, 182

Was supposed to release, count to five, and pull.

I released, went fetal (freaky feeling) and started rolling. Instant loss of altitude awareness. Didn't count.

As I was tumbling, all I could think was get flat, against all the training, I kept reaching for the arch, finally, I got it, flattened out real nice, saw the ground, and opened.

It took another second or two after opening, to realize, I was about 1200 feet off the deck...

Spooky as hell. Temporal distortion? Yeah, I know about that one. If I live to jump 10,000 more times in my life, I can stand to avoid going low.


jjf

It's a gas, gas, gas...