Learn from this....

[Remster 24]

chuckakers

************Dont you guys all skydive?
Sounds to me this is a forum for the pottery barn.
Martha Stewart and Oprah argueing over what kind of soil to use for sun flowers.

Yeah I've been known to make a jump now & then...only between flower plantin' seasons though.

What kind of soil do you use?

I find that impact crater yields the best results...pure virgin soil sprinkled with bullshit ~ best fertilizer going!

Mmmm, virgin soil.


[insert ploughing joke here]

Remster

[airtwardo 6]

Real 'farmers' spell it plow!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[shropshire 0]

airtwardo

Real 'farmers' spell it plow!

Real pharmers cain't reed n'rite

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Squeak 17]

airtwardo

In other words - no one has ever been trained to dick with a malfunction for 1/2 a minute, and if they think doing so is ok then their judgement is in question.

This ends the sensible thread. Let the dumbarsedness contiue

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[chuckakers 370]

Squeak

***
In other words - no one has ever been trained to dick with a malfunction for 1/2 a minute, and if they think doing so is ok then their judgement is in question.

This ends the sensible thread. Let the dumbarsedness contiue
Aw c'mon, Squeak. We're jus' havin' a little fun.

My rant stands, though. It gets a little old hearing folks constantly reinventing best practices from nothing more than their own brand of completely untested wisdom.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[airtwardo 6]

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[cpoxon 0]

airtwardo

In other words - no one has ever been trained to dick with a malfunction for 1/2 a minute, and if they think doing so is ok then their judgement is in question.

How long are we trained to dick with malfunctions for? We are trained to altitudes by which we should have a landable canopy above our head.

Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

[excaza 1]

cpoxon

How long are we trained to dick with malfunctions for? We are trained to altitudes by which we should have a landable canopy above our head.

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean ride a mal to your hard deck.

I'm of the opinion that you try things twice (if you're above your deck) and if it doesn't clear get rid of it. Depending on the canopy and wingloading I may not even get that far with a spinning mal, I don't want to get to the point of cutting away only to find myself starting to get g-locked.

[mattjw916 2]

There's nothing wrong with trying to clear problems if you have enough altitude available... and if you have the ability to lift your arms over your head and pull on risers you are likely nowhere near the level of g-force that is going to cause you to pass out.

The "try it twice" concept is good for students but as you progress and have various malfunctions (especially of the low-speed variety) you will see that fixing some issues, like spinning line twists for instance, is a process oriented operation, not a try-once-try-again style fix.

A lot of things go through your mind when you start orbiting your canopy... can I arrest the spin, what altitude am I at, did I hear my third alarm, how extensive are the twists, where's my slider, are the brakes still stowed, am I on my back or can I see the ground, what's my approximate rate of decent, etc... The faster the canopy the shorter your decision time is to analyze the problem and attempt to remedy it.

In the end all you can really do is maintain altitude awareness and play the hand you're dealt. You have the rest of your life to deal with whatever garbage is overhead... choose wisely... then argue about it on the internet later.

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

[airtwardo 6]

Quote

There's nothing wrong with trying to clear problems if you have enough altitude available... and if you have the ability to lift your arms over your head and pull on risers you are likely nowhere near the level of g-force that is going to cause you to pass out.

That's not really true.

It's definitely not true for ALL people, even lesser G's than would restrict arm movement, for an extended period of time can have an effect.

Since it isn't enough force to 'stop' you from trying to work the problem, you keep doing so until you grey out - or worse.

Aerobatic pilots know this and plan their performance routines accordingly, air racers like at Reno have long straight aways to recover from the turns.

Add to that - you 'may' be continuing to work a problem which is not only making you weaker...it very well could in an instant become even worse, making the physiological component the primary factor in being unable to cut away.

AND...as we all know, perception of time & distance are altered during a panic/crisis situation. it happens to the best. I saw Jim Stoyas go in after 'fighting' a slow malfunction too long and chopping too low. The best of he best of the '70's era.
'I have time - I got this - one more second' then HELLO planet! It's happened before.

So...I'll stand by my statement that no one was ever trained to fight a function for 1/2 a minute.

-and I'll add that, IF you think it's okay to do so because you're 30 seconds worth of altitude above your hard deck... you just MAY wanna rethink that.

Ya don't see a lot of CReW dogs fighting a spinner from 12.5 down...

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[cpoxon 0]

chuckakers

Aw c'mon, Squeak. We're jus' havin' a little fun.

12 pointless posts in a serious thread in a topical forum, contrary to site rules. Doesn't really assist the discourse, does it?

Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

[mattjw916 2]

which is precisely why I said "if you have enough altitude available"

even a brisk spin under loadings up to 1.4, 1.5, or so I don't really see rapidly incapacitating the average person, medical conditions and obscure corner cases not withstanding, again that is just my experience when I was jumping faster canopies

I'm not advocating mid-air rigging but you don't need to go berserk and chop anything you can't fix in 3 seconds though... I'd probably have a dozen cutaways by now instead of zero if that was the case and that may or may not have caused a different set of problems

and I actually have seen a lot of people, CRW dogs included, that purposely rode a mal down knowing they were going to chop it, so it would be easier to retrieve later... not something I would personally do but denial doesn't alter reality in this case...

with almost an infinite number of variables I don't see how nitpicking over timestamps is going to accomplish anything though, or teach us any new lessons, since we already know that hitting the ground at the same time as your canopy, or going in without all your handles pulled, will not achieve a desirable result

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

[chuckakers 370]

cpoxon

***In other words - no one has ever been trained to dick with a malfunction for 1/2 a minute, and if they think doing so is ok then their judgement is in question.

How long are we trained to dick with malfunctions for? We are trained to altitudes by which we should have a landable canopy above our head.

The problem with that logic is - as I stated in a previous post - that a highly loaded spinning mal can go from manageable to deadly so quickly that the jumper ends up unable to take proper action without warning. This has been demonstrated time after time from first-hand accounts by people who have actually had it happen to them.

I have been flying highly loaded cross-braced wings since the introduction of the Excalibur in the late 80's/early 90's. To say I have been a student of the discipline would be an understatement. Over those years I have personally known several highly accomplished canopy pilots who were stunned by how quickly a spinning mal became debilitating when seconds earlier it was a non-problem physiologically.

You advocates of "fuck with it until the hard deck" are welcome to you opinions, but there is one thing for sure. There have been many, many, many skydivers die trying to clear mals on highly loaded wings and almost NONE that whacked them upon recognition.

I rest my case.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[airtwardo 6]

Quote

I'm not advocating mid-air rigging but you don't need to go berserk and chop anything you can't fix in 3 seconds though...

But that's not what we're discussing...

I agree with you on the 3 second (+ -) attempt to fix (altitude allowing) but the topic in question is regarding 10 times that amount of time.

Getting focused on that task only, tends to put the other thing you should be doing on the back burner.

I'd bet that the jumper in the video in question, had no clue that was 30 seconds of mid-air rigging...time plays tricks.

That's why many 'old school' jumpers follow the try twice & bye bye rule of thumb. (again, altitude allowing)

Pulling steady G's for 30 seconds has nothing to do with 'rapidly incapacitating', but it will 'slowly' diminish abilities if not considerably incapacitate many people.

Getting ever lower while your judgement and senses are possibly diminishing is not a wise choice in my book.

And yes I too have seen 'a few people' ride a malfunction down to keep it close for recovery, in fact for CReW I use to grab a riser and chop it high - then drag it down to 3 before letting go and deploying the reserve.

Doesn't make it a good idea, and really puts a lot of unnecessary wear on the nylon.

After burning the hell out of a canopy I quit doing that and opted for following the main down on the reserve - which I do anyway on lower cutaways.

It's not about having 'enough altitude' ~ the concern is the amount of time you're pulling blood away from your brain.

My better half use to perform aerobatics both competitively & in airshows. I have a respectable amount of hours in the plane we owned back then, trust me the amount of time pulling even lower G loads has an effect on your performance.

Lowering your level of performance when you need it at 100% just doesn't add up...not in the long run anyway.

Touting that kind of reaction & procedure as wise or acceptable in a forum where less experienced people may not fully understand the context - is kinda reckless, always better to take a safer & more conservative path.

Why throw unnecessary links into the chain of disaster?

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[cpoxon 0]

I respect your experience and your opinion Chuck and understand what your saying. I'm appalled by the number a fatalities recently from failing to cutaway but I still think it is a grey area and your use of the phrase "fucking with it" implies a futility that may not always be there.

I had spinning line twists on my highly-loaded cross-braced canopy after a 4-way and cleared it just above my hard deck. I fought it because it felt like I could recover it, and I did, but I knew where I was and was about to cut it away as I cleared it (yes, I know, "felt like" and "about to". I hope it doesn't appear in an incident report about me one day. I am also mindful of the phrase, "You are not that good".).

I had another spinning line twist on a hop and pop recently from about 8k, that I knew I couldn't recover (I guess the risers were more uneven than the previous example) and I felt I was making no progress in recovering it so I was under my reserve well above 6k. Not wanting to spin down six thousand feet was part of my decision making process during that one.

I do trust my reserve, but I don't want to use it unless I really have to. And I can think of at least a couple more times I've recovered line twists that would've been reserve rides if I'd given up after "two" goes.

As Jim said, it's not true for all people. I'm mindful as an instructor, that my advice to students and lower experienced jumper, is not to mess around with stuff, but that's to simplify things until they have more experience to re-evaluate.

The guy in the original video (is the team Hairspeed?) works it a lot and still has the wherewithal and ability to cutaway after it (above what I would consider to be a hard deck). Maybe the fact that he got the canopy to level out for a but, or at least stop turning, gave him some respite. Yes, he could've got entangled with it, but I've heard of people getting hands trapped in risers when they put their hands straight up to start sorting out twists. Should they have not even bothered?

I understand you've rested your case, so I expect no response, but I do think it's a grey area.

Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live