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Landing advice

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I hope I don't get an opening violent enough to shake my contact lens loose. I'd be interested to know if yours was a hard or soft lens. It's easier for hard lenses to pop out which is why soft ones are recommended if you take part in sports.



Believe me I wouldn't have wished this opening on anyone. From somewhere 'above' normal terminal the Raven II 'Bit' me hard. I'd been in a sit and went to a stand. altimeter jumped from 6k to 4k almost immediately!! I cupped, then dumped at 2500 though I still felt I was going fastr than normal.

In my mind I still don;t remember even having time to go back to a 'box' pose before the opening shock hit me. The snatch WAS the opening... there was no snivel :S. The recoil caused me to slam my pull hand and arm into my chest (bruised ribs) then sucker-punch myself in the face :S:S. My jaw and face were numb but I had the presence of mind to confirm I hadn't blown up my main. I hadn't, but it destroyed the slider (torn on one edge and all 4 grommets severely bent!!) A buddy of mine who speaks math did the calcs and figures an AVERAGE of 6 G's over a '1 second opening'. I understand why a Cobalt would be a good idea.

I suspect the soft contact lens and the opening were subordinate to the fistfight I had with myeslf. I'm not really sure because in 10 years of contact wear I've never had a problem like this. Don't want another one either;)

Dave

PS: believe it or not I got my first cookie that jump despite all the badness. It was a hit'n'chug so I had Live Targets to aim for. I didn't so much touch down on the cookie as crash it. Ten yards of gravel grazing later...B| face down, they brought the beer TO me. Nobody had the video camera :( or you'd have seen this one on the FTP site.


Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

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. . . lost a contact lens so I had no depth perception, ...sunset load 'light' issues, . . .


Binocular depth perception is highly over-rated when it comes to landings.

I know of at least two skydivers that are D-licensed and make fine landings. One is even a chick -- so there goes that myth too. ;)
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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A buddy of mine who speaks math did the calcs and figures an AVERAGE of 6 G's over a '1 second opening'



Geez ! I can definately understand how 6G's would pop any contact lens out, regardless of it's design. In fact I'm surprised you eyes were still in their sockets after that.;)
Gerb

I stir feelings in others they themselves don't understand. KA'CHOW !

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Binocular depth perception is highly over-rated when it comes to landings.



Fair enough, the planet 'rises up' at us and HEIGHT perception is the key unless you need to touchdown at a certain point ("the cookie", like it really mattered under the circumstances). Maybe what I SHOULD have said was:

... if after you've punched yourself in the face during a brutal opening, and then have someone install sandpaper under one eyelid to the point of continual blinking and tearing, just seeing where to get back to is a challenge - never mind doing an accuracy approach for a hit'n'chug on the sunset load.

On final, I tried keeping the affected eye closed as much as possible because it was distorting my overall VISION. With only one eye open I COULD NOT have binocular depth perception :o. That's the whole story and I'm stikkin tuit.


PS kids, don't try this at home. Hell, adults, don't try this either. Skydivers, I'd bet you've already done something similar:P

Dave


Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

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...ya, me too. For a moment I wasn't sure WHAT had gone on. I've never been 'ambushed' like that before.

In fact, I was flying AWAY from the DZ until I a) confirmed I was still 'alive' and under a 'good enough' canopy to proceed to b) feel my face and found my polycarbonate goggles had NOT shattered into my right eye (phyew!) c) ponder WTF ... hey waittaminute the DZ is THAT way. I'm quite sure I was facing the DZ when I pulled. Hmmmm. Abouuuuut-FACE! Forewarrrrd-FLY!!


***

For those who care, the numbers I gave Wayne were a 1 second and 3 second opening at 120 and 150 mph. I believe the numbers were 1.6 and 6.2G 'average'. I have no illusion that these numbers are accurate (no ProTrack), but I'd had enough slammers under the Raven at 'normal' speed to know this one was the Tsunami of all openings. Subsequent jumps on various Sabres have felt VERY confortable compared to even a normal Raven ddeployment.

Dave


Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

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>With only one eye open I COULD NOT have binocular depth
> perception . . .

Binocular (i.e. parallax) depth perception is only one of the ways we perceive distance, and is one of the less important ones. It only works to 7-10 meters or so. Focal accomodation is the other important physiological cues (i.e. how hard you have to focus) and works at a slighly lesser distance (to 5 meters or so.)

The rest are actually a lot more useful, and are all perceptual. Relative speed (faster things are closer) occlusion (closer things cover farther things) relative size (larger things are closer) optical path degradation (things far away are hazy) and parallax motion (if you move and look at a tree, things behind the tree move one direction and things in front move the other) are all ways we perceive distance. This is why people with one eye don't have much trouble driving or skydiving.

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Yeah, but I needed both eyes to understand your post!



Burrrrrn ! (to quote Michael Kelso). :P

Actually, I'm fascinated with where this thread has gone. Deep down underneath all this "flare" directive there are obviously several kajillion things going on in our brains that let us NOT biff (when all is well).

I guess I'm just one of those guys that has a compulsion to take things apart to see how they work. Most of the time I can even put them back together again ;). Since we're into the winter layoff in Canada (but for a few hop n pops) Billvon do you have any suggested reading above and beyond the 'basic' books I've already read? I'm also interested in taking a rigger A course for the technical knowledge and to help my DZO out on the 'basics'.

Dave

"Hi, I'm Dave, and I've been jump-free for 16 days...:(:P..."


Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

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So long as we're at the top of the list, Ketih, got an questions?

In the last 50 or so jumps I've learned to 180 riser my Raven ... I have more than enough jumps sinking it in to a 'thud' ... Many demos on 170 class semi's (my likely progression as i've passed the BillVon tests on them "just like that")... nobody around to do CReW ... I'm learning to run fast now that I know how to PLF with the best of them :P. Swooping a Raven?!? Oh, to have a new canopy budget...

-Dave


Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

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just finshed AFF so need to get landings right myself. So far i've landed twice in the corn field next to the DZ.

The main thing my JM is telling me is to work out that setup point and be there at 1,000 feet and then go for the approximate other turn points, and with an understanding why I might turn sooner or later on them.

So I would turn sooner on the first turn if the wind has come up because the into wind turn can be close to above the landing place if the wind is up to 15 knots. That;s becuase I wont move forward much as I descend. However if the wind has dropped more I will cover more ground on the into wind approach so my first turning point will be more past the final landing point.

We'll see how I do on the next one. The theory needs to be tried out.

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

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