AFF students doing "The Richard Branson"

[Tonto 1]

Had an AFF L1 Saturday am. Went through COK with him, dive sequence, in air emergencies, reserve drills, priorities of FF, priorities of landing, hand signals, etc.

AFF dive number 1849, and I see something I always knew was out there, but had never experienced.

I was Left hand side. Exit went OK, COA was rushed, then there seemed to be some arm wrestling going on with the practice touches.
AFF I on the right dumps the student out at 6000ft, I ride through the deployment and open, look for the student and see him under his reserve.

I think "Malfunction? Looked pretty good to me..." and follow the freebag for a while.

After landing, the student had no idea what happened. This from the other AFF I.. Student kept going for the cutaway puff on the practice pulls and was blocked by the Instructor. In an effort to prevent them from pulling the wrong handle, he decieded to pull for them. Although the student saw both of us fall away from him, he decieded to "pull" anyway, and so released the main canopy. The RSL ensured reserve deployment, and as I said earlier, the student had no idea.

When the issue was explained to him during the debrief, he felt "the wind had pushed his hand to the wrong handle." I explained that his brain had put his hand on the wrong handle. He was insistant it was the wind. Since it's windy out there on every skydive, I won't let him jump again until he acnowledges some responsibility for the wrong handle being pulled. He doesn't want to jump anyway, and is going back to Golf.

Your thoughts?

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[marks 0]

some people would have encouraged him to get back in the air right away in order to not dwell on it. but that all really depends on the student. If he refused to take responsibility, you probably made the right call.

[Floats18 0]

Sounds like the right side JM did everything right... if the student kept going for red during his checks then its probably wise to deploy him early so he doesn't follow through in freefall at 5.5k.

I wouldn't think its 'golf talk' worthy, but the studen't attitude is bothersome.

It is damn windy up there

--- and give them wings so they may fly free forever

DiverDriver in Training

[Miami 0]

Nice...never had one actually pull their cutaway, but had a couple of students similar to that. One in particular that was one of the first students I did tandem progression with (In this case it was 4 tandems then on to a single JM lvl 3 basically). The ripcord on the tandems was in a poor position, about where the cutaway handle was on the student rig...so of course the student went to the cutaway handle at pull time on the first AFF type jump. Fortunately she was very heads up and I was able to redock and redirect her hand before she actually pulled the cutaway, and the rest of the dive (the opening/canopy ride) was uneventful. Student recognized what she did and corrected it on the rest of her jumps.

Hard for anyone to say exactly what they would have done in that situation...only other thing I can think of would have been to try and force him to pull, I mean wrap his hand around the handle and help him extract the correct handle. That might help him realize the parachute has been deployed, or it might not...hard to say for a student that unaware.

I don't disagree with not letting him jump again, even if he wanted to, until he came to terms with what really happened. I'm not a big fan of taking people up who already know more than I do after their level 1 AFF.

In all I think you guys did the right thing...the student is alive and well to go on and tell completely inaccurate stories about his skydive to his golfing buddies!

Miami

[rasmack 0]

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Your thoughts?

I don't argue with people teaching me to jump out of airplanes. He might want to adopt the same attitude.

HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
“I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
- Not quite Oscar Wilde...

[genoyamamoto 0]

Perhaps a review of everything would be appropriate, to include the training regimen. Perhaps during the course of training, he mis-interpreted the functionality of the cutaway handle, i.e. "pull handle to release the main" = "release the main from the container" = "deploy the main".

It would have been nice to have heard the student's explanation of the skydive before the student was informed of what really happened.

Also, was he even aware that he was under the reserve?

Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me
Feel the hate...
Photos here

[AFFI 0]

Sounds like one to remember.

I saw something similar on MAX X, then the student flew the reserve into power lines.

All's well that ends well...

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[juggalo 1]

Maybe you should be re-certified
the customer is always right!!
NOT
Sounds like you all did the right thing for the situation.
Another Scenario
You might have gone on with the jump BUT paid close attention at pull time and guided the students hand to the right place or prevented him/her from pulling the worng handle. If this went on too long the R-jm sorry Instructor should pull the offside handle and deploy the main.
Wasen't there so I really won't pick on another Instructor. Everyone landed ok so its a good jump.
Just think all that fun and 35 bucks to boot.
brew

waving off is to tell people to get out of my landing area

[piisfish 135]

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I saw something similar on MAX X, then the student flew the reserve into power lines..

That's the Lutz

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[feuergnom 22]

am i the only one that doesn't get the connection to richard branson?

The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle

dudeist skydiver # 666

[Tonto 1]

Richard Branson did AFF, and pulled his cutaway handle instead of his ripcord. It was captured on video and has been used on several USPA and other AFF ICC's.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[popsjumper 2]

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...I won't let him jump again until he acnowledges some responsibility for the wrong handle being pulled. He doesn't want to jump anyway, and is going back to Golf.

Your thoughts?

That says it all.
Congrats on grounding him...it's the right thing to do regardless of his returning.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[kelpdiver 2]

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Richard Branson did AFF, and pulled his cutaway handle instead of his ripcord. It was captured on video and has been used on several USPA and other AFF ICC's.

Did he blame it on a gust of wind afterwards?

[rehmwa 2]

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Had Although the student saw both of us fall away from him, he decieded to "pull" anyway, and so released the main canopy. ....... He was insistant it was the wind

If you were 'falling away from him' when he "decided to pull anyway", then he pulled when he was sitting up during deployment.

I think the "wind" was coming from a different direction when he pulled handle during deployment versus when he was just doing his practice pulls wrong. His brain and attitude is 'windy'. How much would he have argued on the following levels if on this one he couldn't just admit "he had a hard time on this one, learned something about what he sees in the air versus what he thought he'd see from training, can we retrain and try again and what else does the instructor recommend"?

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Tonto 1]

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If you were 'falling away from him' when he "decided to pull anyway", then he pulled when he was sitting up during deployment.

You added a "when" in there, infering the deployment of the main was incomplete as he pulled the cutaway handle. This is not the case. The main was fully deployed when the cutaway handle was pulled. I know this because the other Instructor, who was aware of the whole situation at the time, watched the main deploy.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[riggerrob 558]

Good call.

Just curious, where was his main (ripcord or throw-out) handle?
Leg strap?
BOC?

That was a common problem - at Canadian DZs - until we switched to BOC.
Students used to look down their right side and grab the first handle they saw ... too often their cutaway handle.

[riggerrob 558]

The ripcord on the tandems was in a poor position, about where the cutaway handle was on the student rig...so of course the student went to the cutaway handle at pull time on the first AFF type jump.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That is why all tandems should follow the example set by Eclipse and mount their student ripcords on the instructor's right leg pad.
That location is standard on Sigma and I have converted a bunch of Strong tandems to a similar configuration.

[Tonto 1]

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Just curious, where was his main (ripcord or throw-out) handle?

Ripcord - Right hip. BOC is not yet allowed for AFF or freefall progression in South Africa. BOC conversion follows AFF directly - jumps 11 and 12 if there are no AFF repeats. (AFF here is a ten jump program - 3 double levels, 4 single levels, 3 consolidation dives, the last of which is a clear and pull from 4000ft.)

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[AFFI 0]

Okay, have had some time to sleep on it, time to think about it and finally enough alcohol and pain killers to respond…

"the wind had pushed his hand to the wrong handle"???

[Tonto 1]

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"the wind had pushed his hand to the wrong handle"???

Yup.

Wasn't anything he did at all. It was the wind.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[hookitt 0]

When the student is taught to practice touch, and to pull, is it:

Arch - Look - Reach- Pull

Or

Arch Reach Pull
???

Since I don't know, I'll just add this part while I wait to hear back.

Even with a hip mounted main handle, looking isn't necessary. It's tradition. Phasing it out will help in a couple areas. Looking causes body postion problems. Arch - Look - Barrel Roll - Pull (or attempted barrel roll) has been the result of looking. Also the big red handle on the harness is easy to see. If you don't want to pull that handle, don't look at it.

Hopefully JSC will be able to transition to BOC even if it's a BOC ripcord.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[Tonto 1]

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When the student is taught to practice touch, and to pull, is it:

Arch - Look - Reach- Pull

Or

Arch Reach Pull
???

We teach "Reach - touch - feel" for practice touches and "Reach - touch - pull" for the deployment. There is no look, and hasn't been for about 10 years for all the reasons you gave. Arch is a given.

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Hopefully JSC will be able to transition to BOC even if it's a BOC ripcord.

It won't happen for a long, long time.

PASA (Parachute Association of South Africa) regulates student gear so that it is standardised throughout the country. Any student changing DZ's will always be familiar with the gear. There are 15 DZ's offering student training of which only one doesn't offer Static Line progression. The Practice pulls on SL require a hip mounted ripcord due to the fact that the container is open during the practice touch sequence - making BOC positioning tricky. JSC shares the rigs used for AFF with those used for the freefall part of the SL progression.

Since the sport is often run by the "Old school" instructors at a National level, many feel the ripcord is better for those (very rare on AFF) occasions that the student pulls unstable. The fact that Pilot chute hesitations and even PC in tow situations are almost routine on AFF bothers them little, since the AFF I's deal with those issues equally routinely.

Much as I would prefer to go to BOC - simply to remove the variable of unsupervised transision from ripcord to BOC - I will acnowledge that the system does work, and that we have very few problems with it.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[hookitt 0]

Ok, thanks.

Soon after becoming an instructor, the DZ I worked at removed the look part from the program which is why I was curious. It was amazing how much tradition got in the way of progress.

Nothing wrong with sticking to the springloaded PC because as you say... "... I will acnowledge that the system does work, and that we have very few problems with it."

Thoughts about the original post: I've seen cutaways pulled a few times and have faught very hard to keep students from cutting away. Your main side instructor did a fine job. For whatever reason, the student continued his version of the pull sequence even after a canopy was out.

I have only refused to jump with one person and after a bit of head butting, he did accept retraining. The circumstances were different, but I think the attitude was similar. Retraining your student will work, whether he admits to simply grabbing the wrong handle or not. (because deep down, he knows you're right) However, if he's pig headed about it, and "knows more than you do" he doesn't get to jump yet.

It's interesting, that he would say the wind blew his hand to the wrong handle, and meant it.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[Sky15 0]

BTDT on the main side years ago! Got some great video that demos a RSL in action.

No real "thoughts" on it I guess but to share my story and tell you how it changed the way I do AFF from then on..

Basically I am a smaller female and could not arm wrestle a big guy to get his hand to the ripcord handle, he never touched cutaway during practice pulls, just never got to the r/c. But I had always tried to give a student every opportunity to pull (above my "hard deck" for them of course). At pull time to my surprise he went right to the correct main r/c! Jerk faked my out, and instead of pulling, quickly moved his hand to the cutaway. I tried for a second or two to get his hand of the cutaway and couldn't budge his fingers, so I tried to beat him to the punch by pulling his main. Well at the same time I pulled for him, he pulled the cutaway. Fortuntely my husband was on reserve side had about 7,000-8,000 jumps and was an original AFFI with loads of experience, and saw what happened. He dug his head into the student preparing for the ride through, and kept the student stable during reserve deployment. Man those RSL's work fast!

Student had no idea what had happened of course.

From that jump on, and after landing with the main in a field with a donkey that didn't want to let me near it, ugh..decided that if a student didn't touch the main r/c on a practice pull he wasn't gonna have the opportunity to pull it. And lo and behold, same weekend I had a Mr. Stiff that I could not get to touch it on PRCPs. So after some good eye contact discussion with my husband in freefall I pulled the student a tad high (just above pull altitude). Haven't had to do it again, but occasionally I just win in arm wrestling, and it became my new back up plan.

[cpoxon 0]

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Richard Branson did AFF, and pulled his cutaway handle instead of his ripcord. It was captured on video and has been used on several USPA and other AFF ICC's.

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