How do you teach landing accuracy?

[GLIDEANGLE 1]

My recent posting about “Skydiver Integrity and Logbook Veracity” provoked an interesting discussion of the value of landing accurately as a life saving skill.

Given that many experienced jumpers consider landing accuracy to be important, HOW DO YOU TEACH IT?

Let me be clear. I am NOT talking about “classic accuracy” (with big canopies, funny shoes, and tuffets); I am speaking of everyday “sport accuracy”.

First off, any difficulty that I had with learning accuracy is entirely my own fault.

Once licsensed, I often found it difficult to get helplful guidance to improve my landings and/or accuracy.

Getting feedback about freefall was easy, as other jumpers saw my performance, and they had a stake in me getting better… to be a suitable playmate for them. However, as long as I wasn’t a hazard in the pattern, other jumpers had no stake in my landings or accuracy.

Getting teased or harassed about my lousy landings was easy… getting effective help was another matter altogether. It was easy to get useless help like “Do you know the accuracy trick?” That was useless because, by the time I was headed at the target and could use the accuracy trick, 90% of the critical decisions were already made.

SDU teaches the novice to move the entire pattern to compensate for the degree to which the previous landing was off target… while this is a great novice technique, it has no value when trying to land the FIRST time or when conditions are changing.

The two canopy control courses I took both focused on MACRO accuracy such as getting back from a long spot… not a word was spoken about MICRO accuracy of getting close to a specific target on the DZ.

So…How do you teach your students to land accurately? How do you help your low-time licensed jumpers improve their accuracy?

++ Do you video and debrief student landings?
++ Do you video and debrief non-student landings?
++ Do you teach Germain’s “D” point?
++ Do you teach TK’s rising target technique?
++ Do you teach braked approaches for accuracy?
++ Do you hold sport accuracy contests to focus attention and reward accuracy?
++ Do you pretend that the problem is too hard and ignore teaching accuracy?

Thank you in advance for your time.

The choices we make have consequences, for us & for others!

[AggieDave 6]

++ Do you video and debrief student landings? YES
++ Do you video and debrief non-student landings? YES
++ Do you teach Germain’s “D” point? NO
++ Do you teach TK’s rising target technique? SORT-OF
++ Do you teach braked approaches for accuracy? NO
++ Do you hold sport accuracy contests to focus attention and reward accuracy? NO, although I do run Texas Swoopers
++ Do you pretend that the problem is too hard and ignore teaching accuracy? Heh, NO.

The problem starts with landing patterns for most people. If you can teach someone to fly a consistent pattern then the pattern will put them on their spot accurately. There are obvious side benefits to flying a decent pattern as well.

Lets say you fly a good landing pattern and land 20ft short. You can now slide your entire pattern 20ft and land on target on your next jump (assuming conditions). Lets say you don't fly a good pattern and you land 20ft short. What do you do? Who knows, there isn't a baseline to adjust from.

That's one of the points I cover in the canopy courses I teach. That was also the extreme condensed version. The full explanation takes 45 minutes to an hour and I use a white-board to draw out some major points and examples. And that's just the section about landing patterns. There are obviously other factors involved with landing accuracy and many of those are covered through out the different sections of what I teach.

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

[danielcroft 2]

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It was easy to get useless help like “Do you know the accuracy trick?” That was useless because, by the time I was headed at the target and could use the accuracy trick, 90% of the critical decisions were already made.

I'm no instructor (what, I like stating the obvious!) but when I went to TK's presentation about this last year, he specifically addressed using the "accuracy trick" throughout your pattern, I've used it as such, not sure why you think it's useless?

[dninness 4]

Quote

So…How do you teach your students to land accurately? How do you help your low-time licensed jumpers improve their accuracy?

++ Do you video and debrief student landings? NO & YES
++ Do you video and debrief non-student landings? NO & YES
++ Do you teach Germain’s “D” point? Considering
++ Do you teach TK’s rising target technique? Yes
++ Do you teach braked approaches for accuracy? Yes
++ Do you hold sport accuracy contests to focus attention and reward accuracy? Not recently
++ Do you pretend that the problem is too hard and ignore teaching accuracy? No

I was a S/L student at a DZ that HAMMERED the pattern into us. With 7 jumps, I went and did AFF in the winter in FL, and was commended on my "awesome" canopy flying skillz. :)

Mind you, I'm not a swooper or a radical canopy pilot. I flew a Monarch 195 for 11 years loaded about 1.1/1.2 (depending on my "winter weight" :) ) and just recently, after 14 years in the sport, downsized to a Sabre 170. My concept of canopy flight is "Enjoy the ride, get to the ground safely with your femurs intact. On target will help." I land within 10 meters of the peas on probably 90% of my jumps, as long as its not crowded in the landing area.

My angle toward accuracy is "experience will help" and "try be consistent, and only change one variable at a time if you can."

My approach to accuracy is very similar to the Germain article, minus the math :)

NIN
D-19617, AFF-I '19

[GLIDEANGLE 1]

Why the comment "Do you know the accuracy trick?" is useless:

Without context (additional instruction) it has no utility until you are on final and it is too late. TKs approach gives it additional context.

Almost always this "help" was offered in isolation, as if this single idea was all that was necessary.

The choices we make have consequences, for us & for others!

[danielcroft 2]

So, the comment wasn't followed up with an explanation of what the accuracy trick is, fair enough. I've certainly had people say that to me & I had to go find out for myself what it was. The way TK teaches it is great, well worth attending his talk if you have the opportunity.

For the record, PD has information on it too, it's not just TK (as I'm sure you know): http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/survival.pdf

[pchapman 261]

Nice questions / challenge.

A few comments:

- I know TK's rising/sinking target is mathematically wrong if one tries to apply it from other places in the circuit, other than on final approach. It may work in some cases, but not always.

So while I think there's benefit in thinking about the angle to the target that one expects to be able to achieve when on final, I won't apply TK's method specifically.

- I think there can be more done with getting jumpers to perceive the sight picture and descent angle. For a given jumper under a given canopy at full flight, and a given wind (with a given typical wind shear gradient), the final approach angle to the landing point will always be the same.

Yes conditions change, but a jumper has to get used to the idea of what his approach angle is going to be in whatever he thinks as zero/light/medium/strong/very strong winds.

One needs to get used to thinking about the approach angle as a starting point for figuring out where one wants to set oneself up on approach, and for applying the accuracy trick. (Even if it is only to see what went wrong on one approach to try to fix on the next.)

- One pretty much has to teach different accuracy styles, one for being alone in the sky vs. in the circuit of a busy turbine DZ. The rules clearly differ on how important exact accuracy is, versus what maneuvers are permissible in the air.

Although I sometimes talk about the old school vs new school techniques, that is a bit unfair. It is really just that different techniques are appropriate in different situations. If you are making an off-landing into a small clearing, you'd be good to have S-turning in your arsenal of techniques you've practiced, even if you learned at a big turbine DZ where people normally beat you up for trying that on final.

- Use of brakes for approaches is to be taught, but canopies vary a lot. Putting on brakes won't always steepen the glide; a little brake may extend the glide especially with a low headwind. It gets messy if one tries to fully explain the whole glide polar thing, although I at least introduce it in canopy control seminars. Still, hanging in brakes can often produce a steeper glide if one is still OK when it comes to turbulence or stall point.

- Tighter circuits. Some teachings for novices have them make huge circuits. Eg 1000/800/500 ft for downwind/base/final. Tighter circuits (800/500/300 ???) will keep any errors in accuracy smaller.

- If one isn't in a situation where big S turns are appropriate, and brakes are good more for smaller adjustments to glide path, what's left as one's main tool?

Then I figure it is all about making the circuit suit the winds. So I think a lot of emphasis has to go into when to turn base and final, with the whole base and final thing being a big curve if necessary, constantly adjusted to get the accuracy one wants. It isn't about doing a sharp 90, another sharp 90, and then finding oneself on final in the wrong spot to hit one's target.

- The idea of a tighter circuit and a fluid, varying base and final will also fit in better with when a jumper starts to learn accelerated landings, little front riser 90 dives etc. Then one can vary one's circuit not just so much in its horizontal planform, but vertically. I don't think that ever gets much talked about. You hear about "this is the circuit that a novice learns", and "this is how to swoop", but not much between.

So even if one turns base and final at the same spot, one varies how sharp a dive one makes. Need to extend one's final? Do a gradual efficient turn to maintain altitude. Need to keep from going too far on final? Make a sharper turning dive that kills altitude and burns off potential energy through the drag at high speed.