Thoughts on head down tandem?

[mjosparky 3]

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Actually, I think that one shot was taken a bit farther north... but it was still in Califorrrnyuh...

IIRC, I was there a time or two myself.

And I didn’t get tossed in jail either. It must have been from leading a good clean life.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[decompresion 2]

I am glad your kid reads these forums a lot. He should notice that many posts on these forums are a bit...silly (including this one I might add.)
To translate from Dropzone-ish to British: We don't know what we are talking about. And the two people here who do know what they are talking about: their voice is lost in the babble.
I for one am jealous of his HD flying skills and I wish I had that kind of control on my belly.
Can't wait to see him kick ass in Bedford this year.

There are no dangerous dives
Only dangerous divers

[Squeak 17]

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OK - I'm the mother of the child in question. I am not a skydiver. About six years ago one of his uncles (who was a skydiver) bought him a voucher to fly at Airkix, in England. Jamie has Asperger's Syndrome and Dyspraxia (severe problems with balance and co-ordination) - he LOVED flying and we found it really helped his balance etc and his self confidence. At various points I have re-mortgaged my house to pay for his flying BUT to me this has been worth it - things are tough enough for him and flying is the one time that he is really in harmony with the world. He is coached by Adam Mattacola (Volare) and by Ted Foster (Varial) and is in training for The World Challenge at Bedford next year with his team-mate Caleb. This was his 1st jump. He'd forgotten his contact lenses but he wanted to see, so he wore goggles over his glasses. I didn't know he was going to do HD, and if they had asked, I don't know what I would have said - but he was proficient at HD before he jumped. His second jump he chose to flat fly as he wanted more time to enjoy the view. Please note that Jamie reads what people post on here. He's not planning to jump again until he's 16 as he wants to be in control of the jump himself although he really did enjoy the tandem and we are really grateful to everyone at Empuriabrava for how well they looked after us.

Ok well that explains the emotional detachment on landing i was curious to know why he was so stoicGood for him and well done in fostering his goals..
Hey ya wanna foster my tunnel time too

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[JohnMitchell 14]

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You guys were as improtant to modern skydiving as Kraftwerk were to Electronica.

Pretty faint praise there.

[DBlank 0]

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OK - I'm the mother of the child in question. I am not a skydiver. About six years ago one of his uncles (who was a skydiver) bought him a voucher to fly at Airkix, in England. Jamie has Asperger's Syndrome and Dyspraxia (severe problems with balance and co-ordination) - he LOVED flying and we found it really helped his balance etc and his self confidence. At various points I have re-mortgaged my house to pay for his flying BUT to me this has been worth it - things are tough enough for him and flying is the one time that he is really in harmony with the world. He is coached by Adam Mattacola (Volare) and by Ted Foster (Varial) and is in training for The World Challenge at Bedford next year with his team-mate Caleb. This was his 1st jump. He'd forgotten his contact lenses but he wanted to see, so he wore goggles over his glasses. I didn't know he was going to do HD, and if they had asked, I don't know what I would have said - but he was proficient at HD before he jumped. His second jump he chose to flat fly as he wanted more time to enjoy the view. Please note that Jamie reads what people post on here. He's not planning to jump again until he's 16 as he wants to be in control of the jump himself although he really did enjoy the tandem and we are really grateful to everyone at Empuriabrava for how well they looked after us.

I'm sorry if I brought any unwanted attention to the situation, I was just curious what others with more experience than I had to say, so I wouldn't say I was "whining and sniveling".

"Do you really want to take advice from the guy we call Tarmac?"

[jamiesmum 0]

Just a footnote to all of this, Jamie's team, Volosity Freefly won the amateur section of The World Challenge at Bedford this weekend (April 2012) - he's looking forward to doing his AFF next year when he turns 16 - thanks, Jamie's Mum

[jumpsalot-2 2]

I said it before, and I'll say it again.........he's a winner.......

Life is short ... jump often.

[JohnSherman 1]

An old subject. I am linking to our position on "Head Down" Tandem published back in 1998.
http://www.jumpshack.com/default.asp?CategoryID=TANDEM&PageID=TANDHEADDOWN&SortBy=TITLE_A
Racer Tandem harnesses will withstand a terminal drogue deployment.

[jamiesmum 0]

well that makes me feel a little better - I did forbid them to do it again when we went back recently - he's booked in to do his AFF in March (dreading it).

[adagen 0]

Will he be doing the Bodyflight World Challenge again this year? Enjoyed watching his training last year.

Anne

[BMFin 0]

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Hey Dave,
Usually I really like your posts but here you just presume all European TI's are dumb and unprofessional and that sucks and it isn't true !
Blue sky
Taz

Im sure dave didnt mean Europe, He ment Yurop

[jamiesmum 0]

Hi Anne, probably - I found him a carer who was happy to learn to fly, Ricar and he's gone from never having flown to HD in 10 weeks with a lot of help from Adam Mattacola and others

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[adagen 0]

Great stuff, that's going to be some couple of weeks with AFF then the World Challenge. Who's doing the AFF coaching? Nice idea finding a carer who can fly - will he be jumping as well? Jamie'll have a great time doing FS with Tarn.

Anne

[Jalien 0]

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- A 4way team jumps (I guess at 3200m or something) meaning the door is open and the tandem pax is NOT attached to his TI. Considered a NEVER-EVER-DO-THIS! in Germany!
- The pax gets his gear fastened in the plane, OMG. See above, I also made it a custom (as all of my colleagues do) to NEVER let a pax leave the hangar without their gear properly adjusted and fastened.

Don't know if this changes your mind, but when I watched the video, it seemed that he had a seatbelt fastened while the 4-way exited (see 1:45), then when he was getting attached to the TI the door was closed again (see 2:40). I'd say that reduces the risk of the passenger falling out of the plane somewhat

Edit: links

[jamiesmum 0]

Hi Anne, Scotty Milne's agreed to come out and coach them - he's doing it with Ricar and with Josh Bennett who works at Airkix Manchester, Joel O'Donoghue who works at Bodyflight and Kim Willis (Ted Foster of Varial's girlfriend) - so 5 of them, all good tunnel flyers, so he'll have a lot of support - we've rented a house by the DZ so it should all be good - lots of people to support each other - just nervous - it was bad enough him doing tandems but I'm sure that nobody will let him jump if they don't think he's 100% ready:D

[SkymonkeyONE 3]

Paul Rafferty was awesome at head-down tandems! I don't remember him ever blowing up any drogues, but I know for certain that the German guy that used to do them on the North shore of the Dominican Republic blew up quite a few drogues.

Chuck

[BigBUG 0]

about 50 HD tandem jumps were done in Kolomna, Rusia few year ago. Passenger was a kid girl who had a lot of tunnel time and just wasn't old enough to jump solo.

No emergencies, no problems. TM was one of the lead freeflyers in Russia.

[Abedy 0]

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- A 4way team jumps (I guess at 3200m or something) meaning the door is open and the tandem pax is NOT attached to his TI. Considered a NEVER-EVER-DO-THIS! in Germany!
- The pax gets his gear fastened in the plane, OMG. See above, I also made it a custom (as all of my colleagues do) to NEVER let a pax leave the hangar without their gear properly adjusted and fastened.

Don't know if this changes your mind, but when I watched the video, it seemed that he had a seatbelt fastened while the 4-way exited (see 1:45), then when he was getting attached to the TI the door was closed again (see 2:40). I'd say that reduces the risk of the passenger falling out of the plane somewhat

Edit: links

If the door is open and jumpers are getting out it might happen that a reserve is pulled, whatever. In this case TI AND student might need to get out pretty fast. Student being attached to TI comes quite handy then.

The sky is not the limit. The ground is.

The Society of Skydiving Ducks

[davelepka 4]

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TM was one of the lead freeflyers in Russia

It's not the ability of the TM (or the pax) that's the problem. It's taking the tandem rig to speeds for which it was never designed.

FYI, the procedure on a tandem is supposed to be that you exity stable, and immediately attempt to deploy the drouge. No drouge, straight to reserve. The idea is to prevent a reserve deployment from tandem terminal, and they put that procedure in place with flat-and-stable tandem terminal in mind, not head-down tandem terminal.

The rigs were not built for those speeds or orientations. There's a good number of 'moving parts' between the tandem rig and passenger harness, and each one of them is a potential failure point.

Beyond that, you have to recognize that the industry as a whole has embraced the idea of 'freefly friendly' rigs for sport jumpers, in order to avoid the problems you could entounter with premature deployments at freefly speeds. I would hardly call a tandem rig 'freefly friendly', and I don't think any of the manufacturers would either.

[DougH 270]

Ask the people who have gotten cracked in the head with a Strong Dual Hawk reserve flap cover after a stable exit into the relative wind how "freefly friendly" a tandem system is!

With a student I think it is downright negligent.

With experienced jumpers it is putting expensive gear, and expensive personnel assets at risk.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[normiss 620]

I would like to publicly announce my full support for head down tandem.
For no longer that the first 2-3 seconds after exit, just prior to deploying the drogue.

[adagen 0]

Sounds like a good group. And you're right, he wouldn't be allowed to jump if he wasn't up to it. You'll probably relax a bit after his first jump
There are some nice places to stay near the DZ, easy walking distance. And the wind tunnel is open now if there are any days when it's not possible to jump.

Anne

[BigBUG 0]

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TM was one of the lead freeflyers in Russia

It's not the ability of the TM (or the pax) that's the problem. It's taking the tandem rig to speeds for which it was never designed.

Beyond that, you have to recognize that the industry as a whole has embraced the idea of 'freefly friendly' rigs for sport jumpers, in order to avoid the problems you could entounter with premature deployments at freefly speeds. I would hardly call a tandem rig 'freefly friendly', and I don't think any of the manufacturers would either.

I am not a TM so I would like not to step further into this discussion. I just know that manufacturers of the rig were fully aware of what going on (since the tandem system was Russian-made and head designer jumped on the same DZ full-time). Also weights for TI and passenger both could be merely adequate to one normal american skydiver :) just kidding

I do not want put this as a example to the whole industry. But personally I do not see it as a very bad thing, if done right and only professionals involved - just like any skydiving stunt, starting from your average Mr.Bill (our canopies aren't designed for double load on opening, are they?)

[jamiesmum 0]

The tunnels really good - we had a camp out there in October before it had officially opened. I've rented a house about 10 minutes from the DZ with a pool for March/April and an apartment in Maurici Park as an overflow and we've booked some tunnel time in each evening so they can go and "decompress" after jumping each day. I just hope it all works out OK.

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[adagen 0]

The nice thing is that everything is so close together. With the pool as well there's the opportunity to get away from the DZ and chill for a couple of hours if there's no jumping for a while. And it'll all be familiar since you've been there already. Sounds like you have everything as organised as can be!

Anne