Scared myself, semi-low pull on jump 25

[Lostinspace 0]

I love skydiving.

I scared the heck out of myself last weekend. I have always had good altitude awareness. This was jump 25.

My first jump last Saturday had 1 coach and 1 jumper practicing his camera skills. We left at 11k, I flipped once on exit. Had a GREAT jump, it was all about vertical and forward motion.

At 6k I turned to track, they said I have a good track. But then I don’t know what happened.

The clouds looked way to closes, they were low that day. I looked at my Alti (not the first time during track), I don’t remember what it read, but it was in the colored section. I was under canopy by about +1.5k.

Right after my canopy was over head, I checked it repeatedly fearing I would have a malfunction. It was good.

The fear came in after I knew I had a good canopy. And it took a couple of seconds to shake before I started to find a place to land.

Everyone thought I was going to end up in a tree, but I made it back to the airport. Set it up so i could land down wind. As soon as I was on the ground, all I could think about was how angry the DZ would be.

Airport personnel picked me up and drove me back, I prepared myself to be reamed. I though the dropzone staff would be irate. The first thing they did was give me a hug. Then I got the talk about altitude awareness. I feel like an ass. I feel a little ashamed when I talk to the coach.

I just needed to tell get that out for my sake.

B


-x- I think I might get my license tomorrow.

[Frenchy68 0]

1/ Pull
2/ Pull with altitude
3/ ...
Alright, who am I to judge you from my almighty 40-something jumps???
Now, seriously, what do you think happened?
I myself always count (on a 2 way, break off at 5,5k, count to 1000-5, turn aroudn to visually check seperation, if clear pull at around 4k). I have a pro-track, which I use more as a back up.
Truly curious to know what you think went wrong.

Cheers,

Nick

"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."

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Quote

I love skydiving

Welcome to our world. Isn't it great?

Quote

At 6k I turned to track, they said I have a good track. But then I don’t know what happened. The clouds looked way to closes, they were low that day. I looked at my Alti (not the first time during track), I don’t remember what it read, but it was in the colored section. I was under canopy by about +1.5k.

Can you fill in a few missing details for us here? How long did you track and were you tracking through clouds? On most of my freefly jumps I will break off with the people I'm jumping with at about 4.5k and will track like a MotherF###er for about 5-7 seconds at which time it is time to start thinking about deploying somewhere around 3k. Now my freefly speeds will be different than the speeds you were jumping at, but the point I am trying to make is that there is a finite amount of time that you can track before it's time to get down to business. Seperation is good, but you don't have to be a mile away from the person you jumped with to have a safe deployment. Plus I asked you about falling through the clouds as clouds do have a way of taking your breath away. And I'm not talking about not being able to physically breathe, I'm talking more about anxiety levels.

Quote

Everyone thought I was going to end up in a tree, but I made it back to the airport. Set it up so i could land down wind.

Please please please please don't fall into that "get-back-i-tis" syndrome. Too many people have been seriously hurt or killed because they thought they could make it back when they couldn't. By 1000 feet AGL, you already needed to have selected the landing area that you know you can make. If this means landing off, then that's what you do.

Do you know about the sweet-spot trick under canopy?

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[Frenchy68 0]

Very good point: trying for horizontal separation too long = terminal vertical separation!

"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."

[acrojunky 0]

At 6k I turned to track, they said I have a good track. But then I don’t know what happened.

The clouds looked way to closes, they were low that day. I looked at my Alti (not the first time during track), I don’t remember what it read, but it was in the colored section. I was under canopy by about +1.5k.



You said during your track you did not know what happend. It could be one of those thing where you just get low and get lucky. Now my question to you is after the jump beside been scared did you feel light headed/dizzy? And have you ever been in a altitude chamber? Because I know jumper's who dump at 6,7,8 thousand because they are hypoxia sesitive.

[Lostinspace 0]

I wasn¡'t trying for more separation.

I jumped with a coach that I have never jumped with before. We planed to break off at 5k with a short track.

At around 6 or 7, he gave me a signal that I didn¡¦t under stand, but I knew he wanted me to track. He is very experienced. I later found out he was giving me a signal for a three second track .. maybe he was giving three fingers. I didn¡¦t get time to iron it out on the ground, it took some time to get back to the drop zone, and he got put on another load. There was only time for the altitude awareness talk before his next load. I had to leave to pick up a friend (who was going to make their first jump).

We agreed to talk later.

I was over the top excited because the guy i was picking up was the first person who was willing to skydive with me.
(I spent the day before at the DZ ground for weather. feeling lonely I called and asked this guy to jump... and he agreed immediately to jump the next day with me .. and he is going to again next weekend )


When I turned to track at 6/7 grand after a signal, at the time I thought WTF, this is high and odd. I though I might have mis-read him a broke early. I tracked for a few seconds and stopped, looked at my altimeter and I remember it being above 5. . I remember thinking “Oh, I can have a little more”.

After all, 5k was where we had plan to break. I pushed my legs out quickly and brought them back slower, just to feel it. I briefly looked at my Alti just before I threw, just because it is habit, I was mentally already begin to throw. I remember it reading 4k, I have been questioning since if I am remembering reality. But WHILE I was throwing, I remember seeing the clouds and think WTF! And then looking down and seeing the ground like I never had while in freefall.


I checked the canopy and it was good but my altimeter read a bit above 1.5k,. Then I checked the canopy again, Looked around, knew I could not make it back to the landing area. Looked at the trees below me, checked my penetration and figured out how I was going to land..

I plan to talk to about what I did wrong with my instructor before my next jump and I decided to start announcing the altitude every time I read it.

B


Tell me about the sweet-spot trick under canopy.

[Lostinspace 0]

I have never been in an altitude chamber and i felt fine.


Why do you ask?



... i smoke cigarettes

[Lostinspace 0]

Quote

Now, seriously, what do you think happened?

I really have no clue.

Seriously, on every jump Altitude is the most important thing to me.

[Lostinspace 0]

And I'm not talking about not being able to physically breathe, I'm talking more about anxiety levels.




I have No aniexty when I jump.

I sometimes fear skydiving will get boring.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Quote

Tell me about the sweet-spot trick under canopy.

When you are under canopy there will be objects on the ground which will appear to move below the horizon. If you do nothing to control inputs of your canopy, you will over fly these objects. Likewise there will also be objects on the ground which will appear to rise with the horizon and you don't do anything with you control inputs, you will not make it to these objects. But there will be a spot on the ground which doesn't move up or down. It remains stationary and only gets bigger. Once again if you do nothing with the control inputs of your canopy, this is where you are going. So after opening, you've cleared you skies of other canopies (being close to you), you've done your controllability check and after opening procedures. Start evaluating your sweet spot. If you desired landing target starts rising with the horizon and you can not extend your glide slope. Well it's time to start thinking about finding an alternate landing area. And you need to have selected exactly where you plan to land by 1000 feet.

As far as the rest of your story, it's hard to understand what really happened. If I'm not mistaken, are you telling us that you initiated your deployment in the neighborhood of 4k yet you were only under the saddle by 1.5k? Well either you experienced a high speed mal (which you needed to react to faster) or you initiated your deployment much lower than 4k as canopies just don't take 2.5k to open. But it's not my place (nor anyone else here on DZ.COM) to pass judgement. You need to talk to this coach and maybe an instructor at your DZ. But I'm glad things worked out.

Quote

I sometimes fear skydiving will get boring

Don't fall into that trap. Skydiving may appear to be safe. But it's not. It is a very unforgiving environment when the shit hits the fan and believe me the shit does hit the fan (which you may already have experienced if you indeed did have a high speed mal).

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[JustRelax 0]

I an still a baby skydiver myself. I keep training myself in one area only to realise I have let another area go sloppy. I suspect your experience is about the stress that happens at the bottom of the dive. For me as with all the training I figure I train myself so that I act instinctively when under stress. Some of my trainings are:
a) practicing looking at the ground at different altitudes, from the plane and in freefall. b) shouting to myself in freefall the altitudes, so I know I am registering as apposed to looking at my alti and not really taking it in. c) taking not of the cloud altitude on the way up d) making it very clear to myself what my breakoff height will be.

As I said, I am a novice. I figure I have to keep training myself over and over untill these things become automatic. At least I always make my first jump of the day a solo consolidation, where I choose to focus on some kind of retraining like this.

Hope this helps.

________________________________________
Taking risk is part of living well - it's best to learn from other peoples mistakes, rather than your own.

[nightjumps 1]

Quote

I have No aniexty when I jump.

Perhaps you will from now on. Maybe this was someone's way of giving you a little anxiety. Having said that, at some point everyone has a low pull wake up call in the first couple of hundred jumps.

Rather than focusing on what you did wrong, just file it in your "Lessons Learned" folder and ensure it doesn't happen in the future. As long as you're in skydiving, you're going to continue building a knowledge base of these kinds of things.

It'll be even better when you begin filing "Lessons Learned" based on other people's mistakes. Hopefully someone filed yours away in theirs.

[dninness 4]

OK, maybe this is just me....

You broke at 6 or 7, which you said was "early," and didn't understand the 3-second track signal (understandable, particularly if it wasn't pre-briefed to you), tracked and eventually pulled at 4 on the alti, yet you said you saw the low clouds and thought "WTF?"

My first thought is that something is FUBAR with your alitmeter! If you broke at 6 or 7, and you thought it was early, tracked a little and were still oddly "high" by your altimeter, then threw out at what your alti said was 4 but looked lower... You see what I mean?

The MkI Mod0 eyeball can be a lot more accurate than we think, even at 25 jumps. You knew the clouds were "low" and when you deployed, your alti & your knowledge of the relative altitude of the clouds didn't coincide. Not only that, but your "internal clock" was saying throughout the jump "Hmmm, why am I 'high'?" when you looked at your altimeter.

You could have been showing 6 or 7 on the alti, and yet really been at 4 or 5. And maybe that's why the coach was like "3 second track!" Perhaps he was caught a little unawares, too. Was watching your alti in freefall and then when he looked at his said "Uh oh..." Who knows. When you were tracking and looked at the alti and it said "5", you may really have been at 3000 ft. If you tossed at 4, that could have really been 2000.. You see where I'm going with this?

If the alti you were using belongs to the DZ and you can ID it out of all their altimeters, have them get it tested or have someone jump it doubled up with a known correct altimeter to see if its off. If its your alti, borrow one of the DZ's and double-up (know which one is which! hehe! ) on your next jump to test it. They can read correctly in the airplane on the ride up, but not unwind correctly on the way down.

/me had an altimeter stick once. It was 7000 ft for a LONG time...

NIN
D-19617, AFF-I '19

[catfishhunter 1]

My thoughts exactly. Reading this thread I wanted to get all the way through and see if anyone had picked up on the fact the coach gave a 3 second track signal?(by the way which signal would that be?) Dollars to donuts you have a Altimeter problem. Get it checked. I personally don't look at my Alti after break off on RW Jumps(4k) until my eyes tell me to stop my track, check alti, look wave reach pull. I know what 3K looks like and unfortunatly I KNOW what sub 2K looks like going terminal Scary shit don't do THAT!

Gte your alti check and start checking the ground. get used to what your DZ looks like at 7-6-5-4-3K cuz man made items can and do fail.

MAKE EVERY DAY COUNT
Life is Short and we never know how long we are going to have. We must live life to the fullest EVERY DAY. Everything we do should have a greater purpose.

[JohnMitchell 14]

What altitude did the coach say he gave you the track signal? Could be that you were already at 5000 feet or lower with a malfunctioning altimeter. What type of altimeter do you have? Both electronic and mechanical have their failure modes. I've been mislead by both types. Was the coach wearing an altimeter that was visible to you? That can be a good backup.

Two things for safety. Keep an eye on the ground at the bottom of every skydive, and try to develop that mental clock of when it's time to pull. When in doubt, pull. An audible might be a nice investment for you, and an AAD is always a comfort. It's very disconcerting to have let the ground sneak up on you, but you did okay. Take a deep breath and go skydiving.

[d604 0]

Yah, I'm thinking it’s an alti problem. Opening shock sometimes gets them to the correct altitude.

It's been mentioned above but get a good audible (a modern one). Counting after starting the track is good when practicing tracking (unless the whole jump is dedicated to tracking). Since, on a normal FS jump you might track away at 4000', track for 5 secs, wave look pull, opening around 2500'. So there is not much point when you are learning to track after a fs skydive to do anything else as this helps to build the tracking time sense. If you do everything correctly you are open high on the training jump since you started at 5K, but if your track was closer to a delta this might mean the difference between a low opening and a normal opening (altitude).

What's this 3 second track thing? Why would anyone want to do a 3 second track? ON a 2-way fs belly coach / learning dive the time of the track should be decided on the ground. The only signals should be a wave off (reminder to track), the coach tracking (then you should just pull), or the coach pulling (you're real f-n low, so pull!). I just don’t get a 3 second signal to track.

Sean

[Chrisky 0]

Quote

My thoughts exactly.

Same here. My Alti started getting "sticky" sometime last year.
Didn't worry too much because i use two audibles as backups and still have the int clock ticking. Got it fixed anyway.

One more thought... Do you dive a lot when tracking (track at a higher angle)? I once almost ended up headdown on an early jump because i overdid the diving portion of the track. Just a thought, it didn't sound like it from your description though...

The mind is like a parachute - it only works once it's open.
From the edge you just see more.
... Not every Swooper hooks & not every Hooker swoops ...

[Push 0]

Quote

When I turned to track at 6/7 grand after a signal, at the time I thought WTF, this is high and odd. I though I might have mis-read him a broke early. I tracked for a few seconds and stopped, looked at my altimeter and I remember it being above 5. . I remember thinking “Oh, I can have a little more”.

After all, 5k was where we had plan to break. I pushed my legs out quickly and brought them back slower, just to feel it. I briefly looked at my Alti just before I threw, just because it is habit, I was mentally already begin to throw. I remember it reading 4k, I have been questioning since if I am remembering reality. But WHILE I was throwing, I remember seeing the clouds and think WTF! And then looking down and seeing the ground like I never had while in freefall.


I checked the canopy and it was good but my altimeter read a bit above 1.5k,.

Depending on your style of tracking, you may create a burble between your chest and hips. It feels like a cushion of air on your stomach. In this case, your altimeter can be inside this burble and read several thousand feet too high. This sounds like the most reasonable explanation here. For me, I have seen my altimeter go haywire, but it happens differently from your description. My needle starts bouncing around a lot, +/- 1500 feet, so that the altimeter is impossible to read. It happens during sitflying sometimes (I have perfect body position according to Dave Brown, but a very flappy and baggy suit) and during tracking. The best way I know to avoid it when tracking is to switch to a delta with your arms out, check the alti, then go back to hard track. This should not be necessary if you're breaking off an RW/Freefly jump, counting, eyeballing and the internal clock should be enough.

It doesn't sound like your altimeter is broken to me, it sounds like it functions as appropriate, which is, it's sensing the pressure around it. You probably just put it into a low pressure area. It's good to understand that these things are possible and do happen on a daily basis. Read your SIM, it details other situations, such as backtracking, when this could happen. Remember, there's nothing magical about your altimeter, it's a mechanical piece of equipment that senses air pressure and displays it on a dial, calibrated to correspond to altitude. Nothing less, nothing more.

-- 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.

[d604 0]

Yes, tracking can 'fool' an alti, but if you read loastinspace's posts it states "I tracked for a few seconds and stopped, looked at my altimeter and I remember it being above 5." therefore it sounds to me that the alti was checked while not tracking (at least once). Also, this problem is usually associated with chest mount altimeters.

Loastinspace, what type of alti do you have (chest, wrist, other) and were you actively tracking when you checked it?
Sean

edit fore speling

[Push 0]

Absolutely correct, but weirdness has happened before. In particular, especially if the alti is a bit old, the needle could stick. Honestly, when I look at my alti bouncing around, I get a little worried that the needle could dislodge and start reading incorrectly. Anyway, I'm no expert, mostly just wanted to point out that perfectly good altis can, and do, read incorrectly sometimes.

-- 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.

[Lostinspace 0]

Quote

Loastinspace, what type of alti do you have (chest, wrist, other) and were you actively tracking when you checked it?
Sean

I have a Alti-3, hand mounted. I attached a picture below. Check out the S/N, C13666. I almost returned it.

Thank you all so much for your input.

The nearest place to get my alti checked is 200 miles away. I've decided to do a solo next, while wearing 2 altimeters.

Hopefully I will see the guy who filmed the jump and I will get the video up on skydivingmoves.com. You can see my track ... and you can see me still in freefall after the video guy is under canpoy (and saying OH SHIT).

Thank you,
Belinda

[plowdirt 0]

At 25 jumps you should still be pulling at 4 or 5k.
Watch those clouds when your on the ride up and take note. Be carefull

[pccoder 0]

Are you possibly epileptic? Have you ever been diagnosed with having had a seizure. Seizures do not have to be grand mal body shaking seizures. They can last only a matter of seconds and when they do you may not even know that it happened. It's more like a loss of time than anything else.

PcCoder.net

[skybill 19]

Hi lost,
Double check your alti. against the one in the plane and the ones other jumpers around you on your way to altitude. Pay special attention at 2500', 3500' and notice what theground looks like at these alts. If it works on the way up without "sticking" (you shouldn't have to thump it to move!!!) it should work on the way down!!

Get a "Reaper Beeper," "Dirt Alert" or some audible alt also.

Remember!! All these whistles and bells are just "For Reference ONLY!!!!"

Bottom line,"When in doubt, whip it out!!!!"

Famous last words to your guardian angel on the other side of the white light,"But my altimeter said I was at 4000'!!!! Really!!!"

The sky is NOT the limit, the ground is.

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out