Advice on cutaways

[JohnMitchell 14]

billeisele

all good points, regardless, to many don't have a plan and almost no one practices enough

have a plan, practice

It seems some people learn EPs in AFF, and don't seem to think about them after they graduate. Even practicing them just in your head helps.

[ajay 1]

JohnMitchell

It seems some people learn EPs in AFF, and don't seem to think about them after they graduate. Even practicing them just in your head helps.

I'm very inexperienced, so take this with a grain of salt, but I see nearly every jumper practice EP's regularly at my dropzone.
Along with pin checks, EP's are drilled before boarding, during the climb, and just before exit. Maybe it's just the culture of safety bred there, but as a new jumper (without a chop), seeing everyone doing it certainly helps to develop the routine.

blank

[JohnMitchell 14]

Good practice. I see many people going thru their EPs on jump run. I'm usually just trying to remember the 2nd point.

If you watch people doing that, it would be interesting to see which direction they mime pulling the handles, and if they keep their fists closed to retain the handles. One piece of harmless advice? Put your feet on your butt and arch when you chop.

[Bob_Church 7]

Pat Works saved my life in 1981 or '82 (I've GOT to put my logbooks into a database for searching). I'd read in one of his books about how hypnotic ground rush can be when you get low and terminal so I would practice my cutaway procedure constantly in the hopes that it became muscle memory. One afternoon after a really sloppy 2 way I had a total, which is especially rare since I was jumping a borrowed rig with a ripcord deploy. But you can screw up anything if you go about it right. I ended up going through 1 grand head low and terminal at z-hills and he was absolutely correct. My eyes and brain were locked on the sight of the earth spreading out at high speed. Fortunately, while all this was happening, my body took care of things. I reached up to the R2s and pulled them then pulled the reserve handle. I remember feeling every single rubber band pop free then woke up under canopy directly over the sewage tank and choppers. The 20 foot SAC (Strategic Aero Conical) opened hard but flew surprisingly well, allowing me to land it, going down to one knee, in the gravel road leading to the sewer plant.
It was just like Pat had written. Never develop a need to look at your handles and do everything you can to develop muscle memory of your emergency procedures.

[kkeenan 13]

Not completely on-topic, but it seems that Bob Church and I occupied the same airspace, but at different times. During a CRW boogie at ZHills, the ceiling was very low and we had a bunch of CrwDogs itching to jump. We decided to have a 4-Stack competition from about 2800', each team exiting one after the other on a single pass. It was going to be so low that our friends would judge the fastest stack by timing each one from the ground.

For some reason, this all seemed reasonable at the time. We were only doing 4-stacks, so what could go wrong? My CRW flying wasn't so great, and I missed my first approach on my stack. Worrying about the completion time, I rushed like crazy to dock my second approach. I hit my targeted teammate, Frank, but with so much speed that my canopy wrapped completely around his body. Looking up at the wrap, I knew it was never coming loose. I checked my altimeter and saw it reading just below 1000'. I remember thinking, "Jeez, this better be quick", and I chopped it instantly.

My left hand hadn't even gotten to the reserve handle by the time my right hand pulled the cutaway. (No RSLs are used in CRW) As I pulled the reserve, I looked down and saw that I was directly over that set of sewage tanks that Bob described. There's pretty much nothing to do on a cutaway following the reserve pull other than stay stable and hang out. I didn't even want to look over my shoulder for fear of getting unstable. I know now that it was a pretty quick deployment, but I had time to think that maybe cutting away wasn't a good idea, because those tanks were getting big very quickly. Just then, the reserve opened. I popped the brakes loose, thinking, "OK, which way was the landing wind ?" At the same time I realized that I was too low to turn and landed straight ahead. The reserve ride was approx. 20 seconds.

Frank flew directly toward the sewage tanks for several hundred feet because my main was still covering his head. He eventually got his head out and turned away from the tanks, landing with the main still wrapped around him.

This story probably has very little relevance to this thread other than, "Don't ever do this". There are many reasons that a non-RSL cutaway at a low altitude can cause you to arrive at the ground at a fatal speed. Clearly, doing CRW below a safe hard deck should not be attempted. The fact that this one worked out was certainly due more to luck than proper planning. I believe we all spent the rest of that low-ceiling day at the DZ bar. (And for me, a brief talk with the S&TA.)

Sorry to hijack John's very instructive thread, but it's a hell of a jump story.

Kevin K.

_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?