Don't track towards the DZ

[Snowflake 0]

When you jump alone you should not track towards the DZ especailly if you were the last one out. The reason being that your tracking back towards jumpers. I maybe stating the obvious but thought it needed to be said.
Peace, Love And......Blue Ones!!!
PS Don't track on the windline the obvious exception being on big ways.
JG

[FallinWoman 1]

I am guessing that there was an incident?
Anyway, you are right, and it never hurts to remind ourselves of all of the things we need to do to keep ourselves and others safe!

[Snowflake 0]

no incident......I read someones post about a jump and they ended the jump by tracking towards the DZ and I noticed no one said anything about that so I felt I must try to inform him.
JG

[FallinWoman 1]

i guess my question then is, what about big(ish) ways? What if you are jumping with five other people and your turn 180 and track direction is straight toward the DZ? Should you track less? Steeper? Trust that the other groups are far enough away(not a good choice)?

[billvon 2,384]

i guess my question then is, what about big(ish) ways? What if you are jumping with five other people and your turn 180 and track direction is straight toward the DZ?
You should turn 180 from the center of the formation and track as if your life depends on it (it does) no matter which way you are facing. Big ways leave more separation to allow for this. You should always plan on enough separation to ensure that you won't run into someone even if you track as hard as you can straight towards them. It's probably obvious that trying to concentrate people into perpendicular tracks (away from the jump run) is dangerous, since the idea of breakoff is to get you _away_ from other people.
Basically, that's true of any RW jump, even two ways. The caveat is that you have to do a normal breakoff - if you want to break off at 8000 feet and track for 20 seconds, you have to wait much longer for separation (and the group after you has to wait longer, as well.)
-bill von

[fonz 0]

Snowflake> When you jump alone you should not track towards the DZ
Snowflake> The reason being that your tracking back towards jumpers.
Don't most DZs have a fixed direction in which they want you to track? My current DZ has and I know so does Perris.
Alphons

[BenW 0]

How can you have a fixed direction to track???? That puts everyone in the same airspace for deployment! Turn 180 from the centre of the formation and track like a beeeatch!
B.

[fonz 0]

BenW> Turn 180 from the centre of the formation and track like a beeeatch!
The originator of this thread was talking about SOLO jumps.
And so was I.
Alphons

[BenW 0]

Fonz,
Tracking on a solo jump should only be perpendicular to the line of run in - otherwise you're going to be tracking into some poor unfortunates.
B.

[fonz 0]

That's exactly the originator's point.
But I know for a fact that some DZs tell their students to always track in a fixed direction (is it just me or is this usually across the runway?).
How do they get away with that?
Are the jump runs mostly in a fixed direction as well?
If so, does that mean that the upper winds are mostly in a fixed direction too?
Or is it just that they think it's easier for students to determine which way is across the runway than which way is across jump run?
Sorry to be such a bother with all those questions :-)
Alphons

[lazerq3 0]

So i have a question,, if jump run is to the north and you find your self to far to the east of the DZ why cant you track back to the west back to the DZ. The way I see it as long as your traking perpendicular to the line whats the problem. everyone else should be to the north or south of you.
jason

[Geoff 0]

Sounds risky to me. In the heat of the moment (when you look down and see you're in the wrong place, and get that 'oh shit' feeling), would you be absolutely sure which way the run-in was, and where you are compared to other groups? Could you be certain you're tracking perdendicular? - there's a real risk that you or other people would track towards the DZ, and converge closer together.
On a more general point - Tracking is a very inefficient means of compensating for a bad spot. You're much better off to clear your air and deploy high. Even 500 or 1000 ft higher makes a big difference, especially if you're deep (upwind of the target). The exception to this might be if you're downwind of the target with a very strong wind against you and/or a lightly loaded canopy.
Geoff

[riggerrob 558]

fonz and geoff got it right.
laserq3 missed the point.
Solo jumpers practicing tracking can cover a lot of ground in 50 seconds, so they should track perpendicular to jump run. This prevents them from tracking over or under another formation.
Relative workers should track like banshees away from the center of their formation. Since relative workers are only tracking for 5 to 7 seconds, they won't cover much ground. They will barely cover enough ground to get clear of their buddies. In 5 seconds RWers are highly unlikely to get any closer to any other jumpers.
By that same logic, if RWers realize that they are a long way from the DZ, tracking for 5 seconds will not bring them appreciably closer.
You will cover more ground in 5 seconds under canopy than during a minute in freefall. Especially if you are a long way upwind of the DZ and pull around 3,000' and sit there in deep brakes. That will expose your canopy to the upper winds for
up to a minute more than your buddies who opened at 2,000'.
At Pitt Meadows, most jump runs are to the West. Conveniently, the prevailing winds come from the West. When junior jumpers are learning to track, we tell them to practice perpendicular to jumprun, ie. track North.

[freaksister 0]

We are always taught to track perpendicular to the line of flight...and I always try to practice that. It isn't hard.
However, I tracked along the line of flight Monday and still opened really far from anyone else...we were giving about ten seconds or more and the uppers were really cranking, blowing us farther apart then. However, that is the only time I have (knowingly) tracked along the line of flight, because I was trying to get closer to the dz, knowing it wouldn't help much. I paid close attention to my airspace above and below to see if I was in anyone's way...however, it was still a dumb thing to do, and luckily I came out of it OK. I still landed about 2 miles from the DZ, as did the entire load...first load of the day - can you say "adjust the spot?" LOL
Big ways are different, at least at MY dz...when we have 20 and 30 ways, they usually have their own pass (jumprun).
Sis
Music should trigger some kind of response... - The Chemical Brothers

[fonz 0]

riggerrob> At Pitt Meadows, most jump runs are to the West.
Is it common practice that at a certain DZ most jumpruns are in a particular direction?
Alphons

[RemiAndKaren 0]

Hi Alphons,
yeah... some DZs do that because of either flight restrictions or not wanting to fly over the neibourhing town to keep the relations good (Empuria in spain for exemple)
Remi
Muff 914

[fonz 0]

Thanks!
Alphons

[lazerq3 0]

Quote

Solo jumpers practicing tracking can cover a lot of ground in 50 seconds, so they should track perpendicular to jump run. This prevents them from tracking over or under another formation.

Isnt that what I said in my post. "As long as your tracking perpendicular to the line wharts the problem"
A lot of times I find myself directly over but to east of the drop zone on a south jump run in which case there is no problem with tracking towards it. The post wasnt stated towards long tracks or short tracks it was just tracking in general I was just asking/stateing an instence where felt it would be safe to track toward the DZ. If you are perpendicular to the line!
I understand if your south east of the dz you dont want to head for it because then you would be tracking to the north /northwest which maybe into someones space!
jason

[huffermoose 0]

yeh remi your right about empuria but its nice and easy to figure which way to track there just keep the sea either on your left or right i prefer to track off to roses or if your doing a tracking dive with some friends catch the rabiit and then go on to your back and do a circuler track so you are going back in the direction you came from..
great fun

[jcoller 0]

There is a difference between a 3-4 second track at the end of the group jump (RW/Freefly) as opposed to jumping out of the airplane and making a beeline for the dropzone. The first is fine and the second is a big no-no. You would be amazed how far a tracker can get.
A couple of months ago we had a jumper do that very thing. She was the fifth in line out of the door. She tracked to the dropzone (didn't know any better), flew over the fourth group (I was in that one) and missed a guy in the third group by about 50 yards when he was under canopy (she was still in freefall). She also pulled low and ended up getting counseled twice.
The important thing is to not fly up or down the wind line, but across it. That way everybody has a much better chance of staying in thier own air corridor.
There is considerable debate about whether this jumper should be jumping, but I think it is mostly a training problem. I don't think anybody ever told her not to fly up or down the line. I never committed that grievous error, but I didn't learn about it from my instructors. Another jumper pointed it out to me after I had about 50 jumps. It hadn't really occurred to me that this would be a bad thing. I don't have any experience with the new AFF program, hopefully it makes up for these kinds of shortfalls. I did have to learn some other lessons the hard way (the Safety guy yelling at me after the jump about some infraction I committed that nobody ever told me about until the saw me do it).