Skypilot 0 #76 January 9, 2003 I agree with the majority above in putting the belly workers out first as I have opened on top of the free flyers too many times when following them out ! There are some times I will bend that though when you have a load of big canopies doing rel and groups of higher experienced freeflyers with smaller canopies in higher winds! You can puty the freeflyers out earlier and they still have plenty of penetration into the wind and leave a larger gap before the first rel group and the bigger canpies can cruise back on the breeze! In general though belly first!Go big! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 1,853 #77 January 10, 2003 QuoteI agree with the majority above in putting the belly workers out first as I have opened on top of the free flyers too many times when following them out ! There are some times I will bend that though when you have a load of big canopies doing rel and groups of higher experienced freeflyers with smaller canopies in higher winds! You can puty the freeflyers out earlier and they still have plenty of penetration into the wind and leave a larger gap before the first rel group and the bigger canpies can cruise back on the breeze! In general though belly first! Did you take physics in college?... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
diverdriver 5 #78 January 10, 2003 QuoteI agree with the majority above in putting the belly workers out first as I have opened on top of the free flyers too many times when following them out ! There are some times I will bend that though when you have a load of big canopies doing rel and groups of higher experienced freeflyers with smaller canopies in higher winds! You can puty the freeflyers out earlier and they still have plenty of penetration into the wind and leave a larger gap before the first rel group and the bigger canpies can cruise back on the breeze! In general though belly first! Can you guarantee that one of those freeflyers with a small canopy won't have a premature deployment? Search these forums a bit. You'll see story after story of premature deployments. They do happen. The only safe seperation is horizontal seperation. And if your goal is to get everyone out on one pass in an otter (can be done) then putting FF first is asking for a problem at some point. If you don't care how much Jet A you burn and could care less about go arounds on EVERY load then by all means, put FF first and give an appropriate amount of time for seperation considering all the winds aloft. Here's the deal with seperation and putting Flats first. When the pilot looks at the ground speed and figures how much drift there will be the count for seperation is passed back (or passed around). When the break comes from Flats to FF the same seperation count works. But if you reverse it under normal winds aloft conditions then you have to pay extra attention to the break between the last FF and the first Flat group much more. It will be a different count. Are they going to adhere to it? What if that first Flat group is a 10 way? On climb out someone accidently slips off. What will happen? Naturally the instinct is to GO and catch that jumper or give him a chance to catch back. You have now screwed any seperation plan you may have had. Doing it Flats first and the break comes from the last flat group to the first FF group if someone in the FF group falls off early there is MORE of a chance that the seperation will still be ok and safe.Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites