What makes people do low turns?

[xavenger 0]

I read a lot about people seriously injuring or killing themselves under canopy performing low turns and want to get a feel for why those people were doing those turns in the first place. Hell, I'm sure a few of you have hurt yourselves doing low turns - and if so I want your opinion.

I'm fishing for information because otherwise it would be inappropriate of me to sit here as a newbie saying "I'll never do a low turn" without knowing what causes people to do them in the first place.

I certainly have no INTENTIONS of attempting one for the foreseeable 1000+ jumps. Why, it seems like the margin for error is slim and well .. I think most people are probably only **really** beginning to get the "hang of" canopy control at this level of jumps let alone get good at it (I realise some progress faster than others).

I believe myself to be pretty smart and I know how long it's taken me to become what I *think* (!!) is an excellent driver .. or an expert in my chosen profession - a long time, I don't see why canopy piloting is any different.

Hell, truth be known, I'm still having problems landing my fairly big canopy the plain ole sensible way ... anyway this leads me to the question ... which may be impossible to answer ...

Are the people seriously injuring / killing themselves doing low turns - experienced canopy pilots initiating the turns very much intentionally as part of their landing approach to be cool and groovy .. as .. or are they less experienced skydivers responding too aggressively to obstacles ... or intermediary skydivers who think they can get away with the turns .. but who surprise surprise cannot.

I know there are other categories people could fall in to, nothing is black and white etc etc.. But from what you and your friends have experienced .. WHY do you think people that hurt themselves doing low turns - did the low turns in the first place?

[AggieDave 6]

You can break it down:

1. Swoopers--sometimes they just screw up, or get too hyped to show off.

2. Wanna-be Swoopers--they want to fly like the big boys, but don't have the skill yet

3. Regular jumpers--obstical advoidance, chasing the windsock, flat out stupidity with flying their canopy.

Of course, if people don't have a plan for their landing pattern (even the swoopers) and they don't know what direction everyone has been landing in, then they may go the wrong way, casing someone to do a low turn avoiding them or vice versa.

Quote

sit here as a newbie saying "I'll never do a low turn" without knowing what causes people to do them in the first place.

Never say never. Right before my 3rd jump, I was gear up and waitnig for the 182 to land, a guy hooked in right in front of me in the landing area. A couple hours later when everything had settled down a bit, I went on my jump. I swore then I would never ever do a "hook turn" even though this wasn't a hook turn, it had been an obstical advoidance panick turn by a jumper with 80 jumps.

Well, fastfoward nearly 4 years. I live for swooping, although I'm not doing "stupid" turns, some people would call my 270deg carving turn "stupid".

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

[billvon 2,380]

>I certainly have no INTENTIONS of attempting one for the
> foreseeable 1000+ jumps.

You mean a low turn? I recommend you reconsider that. Learn to flat turn at least 90 degrees and flare turn at least 45, and practice them down low. _Certainly_ do them down low before you downsize, and you will probably want to downsize.

The people getting killed during low panic turns are not the hookturners - they know how their canopy reacts to a low turn. The people getting killed are the cautious ones, the ones who would never turn below 100 feet. Then one day they get cut off at 50 feet and all they know how to do is toggle turn, so they do it. And afterwards everyone says "But he/she was such a careful, conservative jumper! Why did they toggle turn at 50 feet?" Because that's all they knew how to do.

[Ron 7]

Quote

What makes people do low turns?

risers or toggles

Its just pushing the sport a little further. When I was in my first jump course, I was told not to turn low..Its dangerous. I swore never to do that....300ish jumps later I have a Stiletto loaded at 1.4.

Just like some students say they would never pull below 3500 feet....Yeah, that lasts a few hundred jumps..

Done right its fun...done wrong its tragic.

The problem is that no one really wants to do it right, they want to by pass levels and the valuable skills and experience those steps bring.

AFF is more popular than SL cause its faster. People want to skip canopy sizes, and no one stops them. They can get an d jump any canopy they can afford.

Thats stupid.

But swooping is fun.

The Ego is what kills. not many people are current enough and skilled enough to jump a Cross braced...But they buy them anyway..Why? Cause its cool.

Stupid really.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[xavenger 0]

Sorry I'll clarify that, what I meant is "I have no intentions of doing a fast/full/sharp toggle or riser turn close to the ground for fun - for the foreseeable future"

When I'm ready I may experiment a little, but I suspect it won't be for one hell of a lot of jumps .. just landing normally has gotta feel 110% natural first ... being aware of what's in my airspace has gotta be the same .. and I'm not going to be there for some time yet ..

I've already used flat turns to avoid obstacles on the ground to good effect. What I am really trying to get a feel for is .. how many of the people that are killing themselves are avoiding obstacles incorrectly .. how many of then are trying to be cool and groovy and simply not pulling it off ..

[billvon 2,380]

>how many of the people that are killing themselves are avoiding
> obstacles incorrectly .. how many of then are trying to be cool and
> groovy and simply not pulling it off ..

From talking to Jak Gramley, it's about half and half. Molly never turned low, and then turned at 50 feet and almost died. I know several people who just wanted to "try it" and so toggle turned at 100 feet like they'd seen other people do.

[MarkM 0]

I don't know how it is for other noobs, but for myself the biggest issue I have right now is understanding that what may not at first seem dangerous can still kill you.

As an AFF/SL student I learned all the obvious dangers. If you don't get something out, you die. If you don't do X on mal Y, you die. If you don't pull by X, you can die, etc. But I think my instructors did a lot to protect me from other dangers I didn't even know about. As I've moved onto jumping onto my own the challenge has been to recognize those dangers and minimize any damage they can cause me. Maybe that's why someone here(I think it was Ron) said he expects sub 100 jump wonders to burn in.

There's a lot of things I see done which are out of my skill level that don't appear immediately dangerous to me, because I'm watching skilled people operate and they keep the mistakes minimal. If I didn't trust them when they say to me "no, you can't do that yet" I could easily see myself getting in over my head, because when things went bad I wouldn't have the skill to dig myself out of a bad situation.

[crutch 0]

Well geez, I have been doing front riser turn landings since 1987...so should I stop because some people are thumping in?

blue skies,

art

[namdrib 0]

No shit, there I was, thought I was going to die!!! I refused to do Hooks all the way up to about 800 jumps. (*Kinda like I swore I would not go any smaller than a 150 after my "Losing Bout with a truck" a few years ago) But now look at me, I am flying a Spinetto 97 loaded at 2:1 and doing 180 degree Hooks. here is the key though, DON'T DO THEM LOW... We have this individual that I won't mention his name, (***Jason H***) that was trying to be like the other high jump number divers. We have been telling him for several, several months that he is going to frap. He totally disregarded everything that we said. Well, two weekends ago, he got the opportunity to come to me and say "Well, you called it"... He did a very SLOW left hand gradual turn right into the ground on a Sabre loaded at about 1.3:1... If you have ever heard the sound that a human body makes when "Frapping", you will never forget it.
Jason was one of the lucky ones that got to walk away from that mistake. I really can't tell you how seeing as though he bounced about 5 feet in the air upon impact.
The moral of the story is, no matter who you are, how many jumps you have, how good you think you are or how many hooks you pulled off successfully, if you don't pay attention, you are going to FRAP!!!
Sorry I got off on my own little tangent, but I am tired of hearing the dreaded frap noise!!!

Unknowing attempting to take out all 4 wheeled vehicles remotely close to the landing area!

[namdrib 0]

Quote

Well geez, I have been doing front riser turn landings since 1987...so should I stop because some people are thumping in?

I can't decide which sounds better to say: Thumping or Frapping??? They both are fun to say and bring the point across!!!! Just not fun to see!!! Peace, Out

Unknowing attempting to take out all 4 wheeled vehicles remotely close to the landing area!

[selbbub78 0]

Quote

Sorry I'll clarify that, what I meant is "I have no intentions of doing a fast/full/sharp toggle or riser turn close to the ground for fun - for the foreseeable future"

When I'm ready I may experiment a little, but I suspect it won't be for one hell of a lot of jumps .. just landing normally has gotta feel 110% natural first ... being aware of what's in my airspace has gotta be the same .. and I'm not going to be there for some time yet ..

I've already used flat turns to avoid obstacles on the ground to good effect. What I am really trying to get a feel for is .. how many of the people that are killing themselves are avoiding obstacles incorrectly .. how many of then are trying to be cool and groovy and simply not pulling it off ..

Well, I'm just going to talk from my experience. I'm not a very experienced skydiver (around 200 jumps or so). I like you have said "i'll never do a fast/full/sharp toggle turn close to the ground". Not even for fun. I just said I'd never do it. I also have learned my flat turns and use them ALL the time. I felt good that I knew how to do them, and felt comfortable with them. Well in February, I was doing some CRW, I was landing with a fellow jumper, and I'm still not sure what happened. I was doing a downwind landing and i was around 50 feet, definitly not higher than that, when I did a 180 degree HARD toggle turn. Listening to other people, they all tell me my canopy landed before I did. I'm just lucky that I'm in the healing process right now.

Sometimes, people don't do low turns on purpose. I don't know why I did mine. An incident, that I wish I could reverse. Just because you say you aren't going to ever do that (at least not in the recent times), doesn't mean that's the case. Sometimes things just happen that you don't expect. I guess that's just something to realize. Always expect the unexpected. That's just my 2 cents. I could be completly clueless, i dunno.

blue skies,

"Women fake orgasms - men fake whole relationships" – Sharon Stone
"The world is my dropzone" (wise crewdog quote)
"The light dims, until full darkness pierces into the world."-KDM

[xavenger 0]

Bubbles

This makes sense to me .. and scares the shit out of me at the same time .. ;-) ..

It's ok saying "I'm never going to do something" but then one day you find yourself .. well doing it because of some bizarre mental blip or subconcious desire to be reckless .. or who knows why.

Sometimes I drive my car in a certain way, maybe just try and overtake 1 too many people in a line of traffic .. I don't have an accident, I get in safe but think to myself afterwards "just why the hell did I do that - what a dick head I am". I could have caused an accident and hurt other people let alone myself. I say I'm never going to do it again, but sooner or later I end up doing something similar and thinking the same again. Yes what an idiot.

A friend of mine with about 800 jumps did something very similar to you a few weeks ago. "No I'm never going to do it". He turned too low a couple of weeks ago and was extremely lucky to limp away. Why - he has absolutely no idea why he did it, he says his reflexes went screwy. Yikes!

blue skies

James

[DanglesOZQld 0]

DEFINITELY flat turns should be tought more in my opinion as well as good canopy skills such as PLANNING AHEAD. Much like during my Private Pilots Licence we were taught that some avoidable mistakes were made by not planning or thinking every now again about the what ifs as much as possible. A good example is Chuck Yeager ; he is still alive a great deal to the fact that he researched everything he possibly could about the aircraft he flew before "going out and fanging it." Sure he was lucky in some circumstances but he reduced the risks to the point that what he did not know was not known at the time or able to be researched beforehand. Much like people who drive for 50-60 years and have never had the car sideways (and consider themselves experienced!) so are some of the canopy pilots out there......dangerous. Hook turns are a canopy pilot choice. Personally I have been known to do them and have learnt a lot in only 11 years in the sport. I believe we should be allowed to jump within the abilities of the canopy that you fly with certain rules obviously for recklessness or inexperience. I have always said that skydiving is a sport in which you are constantly learning and can never know everything! -BSBD Mark.

"A Scar is just a Tattoo with a story!!!"

[mjasantos 0]

Hi,

I think your question could get several types of answers:

- by the pleasure of feeling the rush and the adrenaline;

- sometimes by mistake (on trying to reach the DZ from a drop out of it;

- sometimes for show-off;

- sometimes to push the "envelope" to or beyond the limits;

- etc. ...

Basically you have those who do it on an intentionally and planned way and those who do it but were not planning to.

Regarding the outcome of those low turns, you also have the ones who walk away from it and those who don't (many of them... within this category, unfortunatelly some go to the statistics).

You should do whatever you feel comfortable with... of course, the most you will learn and the most you get current as a canopy pilot, the most you will push your limits... just don't go beyond... preferably stay "short-limit" on your fast approach skills and swooping capabilities, but never go beyond them... this will guarantee, at least, that you won't be just another number in the statistics... it may sound rude to tell it, but all of us know what's the feeling when some of our friends, or someone we used to know, passed the way as a consequence of such a stupid accident.

Those fast approaches are spectacular... when everything goes fine! But sometimes, a mistake (e.g. a bad evaluation on your altitude, or the type of circuit your practising, or doing it the same way as you were used to with another canopy but this time with a new one where you're not current yet, etc.) or something unexpected happens (another skydiver getting into your circuit, turbulence, etc.)... and this type of mistakes or unexpected usually has very very tough consequences...

And for what I've seen in statistics, they happen to experienced, intermediate and beginners. No one is out of the odds of a mistake happen when doing such type of manoever. Both the excess of confidence or the lack of knowledge on how to do it, could saddly end the same way.

Many people says that at the very end, the skydiver reaction while doing such type of landings, is a survival one... and there's no margin for errors: you went 2 or 3 feet lower than you should, touching the ground where you shouldn't, and that's it.

These approaches give pleasure to both those doing them and those watching them, when both the circuit and the swoop are awesome... but they hurt both phisically and emotionally when these fail.

Blue Skies!

-----------------------------
Mario Santos
Portugal

[Frenchy68 0]

My 1.5 cent as a (more than) newbie, based on my experience from yesterday: picked my landing pattern at 2,000ft, confident that I had identified the wind direction. Found myself on final straight away approach realizing I was about to land crosswind, as my canopy was crabbing right. Due to my lack of experience, I couldn't tell whether I was 50ft of 150 ft AGL. The little devil on one of my shoulder was telling me I should do a very soft (whatever that means) left turn into the wind. The good guy dressed in white on the other shoulder was saying "if you have to even think whether you can wing it or not, it's not worth it". So I commited to a PLF about 10 seconds before touchdown. I did PLF, good roll but a little hard, my ass still hurts. Moral of my story as I can ID it: the famous "I think I still have time to..." will make you or break you. And the chance of a break is not worth 1,000 close "make". In my humble unexperienced opinion. Then again, ask me when I have a couple more ks under my belt, I may/will have a wiser POV...

"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."

[Unstable 8]

Quote

You mean a low turn? I recommend you reconsider that. Learn to flat turn at least 90 degrees and flare turn at least 45, and practice them down low. _Certainly_ do them down low before you downsize, and you will probably want to downsize.

The people getting killed during low panic turns are not the hookturners - they know how their canopy reacts to a low turn. The people getting killed are the cautious ones, the ones who would never turn below 100 feet. Then one day they get cut off at 50 feet and all they know how to do is toggle turn, so they do it. And afterwards everyone says "But he/she was such a careful, conservative jumper! Why did they toggle turn at 50 feet?" Because that's all they knew how to do.

Bill,

VERY well written. These words are going into the front of my SIM. Thank you so much for this info...

Blue Skies,

=========Shaun ==========

[Romericus 0]

I myself only have one story to tell. I am not jumping right now, and have not for the past 4 years (i'm getting back into it soon though
I had been doing 90 degree turns on my Viper 120 for a while and having a good time at it. No close calls, a lot of fun landings. Then one day, I hooked in. It wasn't because of inexperience (although that can be argued) or being stupid (again arguable), I just had a brain fart and the circumstances aligned such that I bounced a few feet when I landed.

The circumstances were this: I was flying along the road adjacent to the DZ on my down wind leg. It was a blacktop and a warm day. I'm sure that when I started my hook turn I lost probably 20 feet when i got over to the grass side of things. Another thing that I didn't count on was that I was wearing a weight vest for that jump. I wasn't used to wearing it, but it sure was nice in freefall! I didn't calculate the wingloading, though, and I'm sure this had something to do with my frap.

Looking back, this is the single reason I"m not skydiving today. I was just unprepared for the circumstances.

[Reginald 0]

Quote

The people getting killed during low panic turns are not the hookturners - they know how their canopy reacts to a low turn. The people getting killed are the cautious ones, the ones who would never turn below 100 feet. Then one day they get cut off at 50 feet and all they know how to do is toggle turn, so they do it. And afterwards everyone says "But he/she was such a careful, conservative jumper! Why did they toggle turn at 50 feet?" Because that's all they knew how to do.

I understand your point and I agree with the flat turn education point but let's be honest a good portion of the high jump number hook turners are the ones getting killed.

"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

[WrongWay 0]

Quote

The Ego is what kills. not many people are current enough and skilled enough to jump a Cross braced...But they buy them anyway..Why? Cause its cool.

Stupid really.

I couldn't agree more. Every day I see and hear about more and more jumpers buying canopies they couldn't possibly be ready for, pulling hook turns and trying to swoop at 100 jumps and whatnot because it's cool. Being alive under a 7 or 9 cell to me is much cooler than being dead under a crossbraced.

Basically, hook turns are like handguns. Always dangerous, can be fun in the hands of a trained experienced user, but can be deadly in the hands of a child.

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[mjasantos 0]

Quote

Quote

... let's be honest a good portion of the high jump number hook turners are the ones getting killed.

Looking at the Fatalities Database in 2004 (still a very small sample), we verifiy that 5 out of the 11 fatalities reported this year, are due to low & hook turns.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/fatalities/search.cgi?fatal_category=Landing

Looking at each of them, we find out that:

- On those five accidents, 3 were hook turns and 2 were low turns;
- They hit jumpers at any experience level (rookies, intermediate and experienced skydivers); we had jumpers with 150+, 450, 600, 4000 and 5000 jumps;
- They happen anywhere in the world... we had these at UK, Australia, South Africa, USA and Netherlands.

The sample is too small yet and hopefully will remain like this... but if we could get numbers putting together the 3 or 4 years, I'm sure we would get similar data.

Here is a summary for 2004:

- 150+ jumps / Hook Turn / UK;
- 4000 jumps / Hook Turn / Australia;
- 5000 jumps / Hook Turn / South Africa;
- 600 jumps / Low Turn / Netherlands;
- 450 jumps / Low Turn / USA.

I would divide this type of accident in 3 categories:

1) The mistake of trying to come back to the DZ after a bad drop and turning low for landing is probably the one who gets skydivers with less experience... those with experience would choose an alternative zone for landing safely rather than try to make it back and then turn low.

2) Intermediate jumpers: they are not beginers or students anymore... they look forward to become experienced and do whatever "pro's " do... that impulse to "imitate" those pro-swoopers sometimes has bad consequences, usually because they were not prepared yet for such manoevers... if the first ones go OK, they get over confident and then is when the mistake happens (an altitude misjudgement, pushing their limits too much beyond or something else goes wrong).

3) Experienced skydivers: they know how to do it and have done it many, many times... but just the fact that the manoever is tried will add some sort of risk... and they come real fast... the more fast they come, the less margin for errors... and swoopers know it.

Be safe out there and...

Blue Skies!

-----------------------------
Mario Santos
Portugal

• Quote

[chuckakers 369]

[replyThe people getting killed during low panic turns are not the hookturners - they know how their canopy reacts to a low turn.