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bigbearfng

Is swooping pushing the envelope?

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People progressing too rapidly is only part of the overall swoop accident problem.



There is nothing safe about swooping. It doesn't matter if you are a wannabee trying to learn how to swoop, an accomplished beer line swooper or a competition level swooper. The best swoopers in the world have been seen digging themselves out of the corner. A momentary lapse of judgment could prove to be fatal.

- No argument "wannabee" swoopers need to be real and realize swooping takes hundreds if not thousands of jumps with small baby steps taken along the way and having some sort of personal coaching mentor. Want to learn how to swoop? Seek an experienced mentor (preferably an established competition level swooper), put your freefall ambitions on hold and start dedicating jumps towards canopy control.

- Beer line swoopers need to get off of regular loads. Swoopers need to be segregated by time or space (preferrably segregated by both time and space). I know some instructors, camera fliers and experienced fun jumpers will not agree with this, but swooping in traffic should NOT be tolerated no matter how skilled the person is. Want to swoop ... do a hop n' pop or pull at altitude out of the door if you jump at a DZ when pulling high is allowed. And always coordinate with others before you get on the airplane who swoops first, who will be second, so on and so forth. Always have a plan and stick to the plan.

- Competition level swoopers need to be honest with themselves. Sure generating more speed (ie: bigger turns) can help them. But we have lost a few people thanks to big turn swoops and others have had close calls while attempting big turns. I am not saying competition level swoopers should not be attempting big turns, they just need to weigh the risks versus the rewards be honest with themselves concerning their talents. I always wanted to do bigger turns when I was an active competitive swooper, but I was always training for the next competition and you would think that in training I could find the time to learn to do bigger turns. But making the gates was more important than generating that added extra speed of the big turn. Sounds weird ... training was the time to learn the bigger turns, but I was also losing valuable training time if I was always missing the gates (or worse putting myself at risk). So I stuck with what I knew, made the gates and lived to tell about it.

The problem with swooping is when you follow the "Go Big or Go Home" mantra, sometimes "Going Home" is a permanent home than most of us do not want to visit prematurely. Swooping rocks, but it sure is not safe.


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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I voted yes (not a swooper) but I guess I'm wondering what we're trying to prove here. All of the things you cited add risk, but the risk can be managed and mitigated in a variety of ways in all those examples, or you can go straight to the edge of the envelope, and lots of variations in between.



I agree sort of, but the only way to mitigate swooping is to not do it in the first place. Just an opinion from a non swooper.
Millions of my potential children died on your daughters' face last night.

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It is true that to avoid a potential disaster is to not do the activity. In 2011 I avoided unintentional canopy collisions and hooking it in. Mostly by drastically reducing the number of skydives i would have normally done (500+ to about 30 in 2011). Staying current till viable solutions form. The majority of my focus for last years jumps was surviving the pattern instead of the usual pond swoop away from others doing as big a turn as conditions would allow. I still find myself tailoring my skydives to position me in clean airspace away from others even for flying the pattern. Doing no more than 90 degree turns 2000ft and below is easy, flying the pattern, easy. Lower risk/less deadly than beginning a hookturn at 2000', nope. Flying the predictable pattern with others is just as dangerous as doing hookturns for me. Under canopy I tend to be a bit on edge, scared as hell of other flying crafts flight path interfering with my flight path and vice versa.
Hookturns, swooping, skydiving, they are dangerous activities. Safe and skydiving do not belong in the same sentence, nor does safe and BASE jumping, nor safe and driving. Mitigating risk/risk management is necessary to repeat such activities. Every jump is a stunt, I overcome the things that can injure me and kill me, with research and precautionary steps and go for it if I feel like all the predicted factors will line up right and I have a way to abort if necessary. Skydivers risk serious injury or death when partaking in skydiving activities. It's pretty obvious. Skydiving is pushing it. Within the first few minutes on the first day I went skydiving I realized this when I read initial'd and signed the waiver. Pushing it skydiving has been and continues to be very enjoyable dangerous activity. So inevitably for me, so has hookturns, swooping, cameraflying, wingsuiting, coaching, organizing, team training, skydiving competitions, beer line swoops, boogies, a few 727 jet jumps, night jumps, downplanes, crew wraps, big ways, RW, freefly, freestyle, skysurf, accuracy, and zoo loads. Pushing it. Always seeking clear airspace to fly my parachute however I decide so I can walk away from landing and go again. The ways I've endured skydiving may be considered pushing the envelope to some. To others, not so much.
Recognizing hazards and avoiding getting injured or killed skydiving is pretty easy. Having each jumper follow dz policies for landing area pattern daily, each jump, not so easy. Jumpers still screw up the simplest things like landing direction. Skydiving is dangerous. If banning a particular activity to mitigate risk is necessary, so be it. Skydivers flight has been constantly evolving at a heck of a pace, but the basics I learned on day 1 are still the basics I take on each jump. So far the training has paid off. If there is a place in time and space available for me to endure freedom playing with my parachute flying skills, I'll find it and go there if I so desire. Might fly the predictable 90 degree pattern, might swoop a pond after a big fat hookturn if it's a go, and skip and splash across the pond drowning camera gear and walking away to skydive another day. Skydiving, count me in. You can bet that whatever happens after I leave the airplane will be considered 'pushing the envelope' no matter how disciplined I fly compared to sitting here typing a bunch of bs.

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It just adds additional uncontrolled risk. Anyone can agree with that. If you eat it while doing it it's less surprising than a solo belly jump/straight in approach.

Even still, that belly jump has some amount of uncontrolled risk just as the drive to the DZ and the steak you ate tonight that might give you a heart attack one day.

Live and let die -- if you jump and your family would be heartbroken to lose you to something you love; maybe they are too greedy. Or maybe you are...

Jeff

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It just adds additional uncontrolled risk. Anyone can agree with that.



I disagree, at least as I understand you. The risk in swooping is not uncontrolled. It is by its' very nature a controlled risk. The uncontrolled aspects of swooping are exactly the same as the uncontrolled aspects of non-swoop landings like sudden wind changes and dust devils.

Maybe I don't understand what you mean. Can you explain further?
Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

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Sure - I mean that after you have a canopy over your head you're faced with a range of scenarios:

1) HP landing - this is typically higher speed and the rate of change between [altitude - ground] accelerates rapidly near the end of the jump.

2) 'Normal landing' - straight in landing most people fly from student to experienced who don't practice HP landings

In the case of the 'normal landing' the rate of change between the pilot and the ground stays constant during the parachute ride.

Given that BOTH scenarios involve uncontrolled risk (swooping or not), the addition of vertical speed near the end of the dive necessarily creates uncontrolled risk above and beyond the risk presented by a straight in approach.

Now I do agree that an experienced HP canopy pilot probably has better odds of landing safely than a novice jumper with no wind or a canopy that's slightly too small but I think this is an edge case. More often than not, comparing a D licensed jumper doing a normal landing vs a D licensed jumper with swoop experience, swooping...in the long run which we'll never live to see I do believe the swoop adds uncontrolled risk.

Another edge case could be a dust devil...if you're going crazy fast you might be less affected by it? My 2 cents, having never swooped just looking at it rationally.

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Yep Jeff it adds additional risk. Skydivers have 'uncontrolled moments' throughout their entire skydiving career. Have you ever seen a bigway? Bigger than 100? For the most part each jumper has control of themselves under canopy flying a superb pattern. As a bigway lands, count the number of 'other than controlled stand up landings'. Throughout a bigway event, some jumpers will need ice for botched landings. Same for swoopers, Students and Tandems, they play in the dirt too. All disciplines and jump numbers have had similar accidents, not surprising even deadly ones. Canopy collisions, turning too low, no pull/low pull misjudging flare timing, understanding speed=lift instead of speed= ground pound. There is additional risk, no doubt. I understand that if I skydive and do everything correct jumping any type of parachute equipment, I risk serious injury or even
death possibly due to 'uncontrolled circumstances'. Kinda shitty thing to have to accept but I do, therefore I skydive.

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Flying through the air with the greatest if ease is fun for me. With a hundred buddies, awesome! Incredible really. Sometimes cool, cold, hot as hell. I don't know much about being cool. Sometimes my shoes and socks don't match, dang downplanes and toe drags. I'll jump if the weather is jumpable any where between 1820' -24,000ft out of a skydiving airplane. Each jump has additional risks. I could spend each skydive decending at a constant survivable rate with a very small portion of the jump having any amount of speed. Static line rounds. That's how we should enjoy skydiving cause it'd be safer, right? Well, wouldn't ya know it, jumpers died that way too. Jumping out of airplanes is serious and fun and dangerous. When I jump out of an airplane, I'm AirTrash, flailing meat, look out below....

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I voted that it is pushing the envelop, but I do NOT think that is necessarily a bad thing. Humans finding ways to do anything we never thought we could is rarely a bad thing, in my opinion.

But, even my instructors acknowledged swooping is dangerous (and not in response to me asking how I could start :P ).
Weeeee!

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I voted that it is pushing the envelop, but I do NOT think that is necessarily a bad thing. Humans finding ways to do anything we never thought we could is rarely a bad thing, in my opinion.



People dieing attempting dumb things is not bad? Please explain.

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I voted that it is pushing the envelop, but I do NOT think that is necessarily a bad thing. Humans finding ways to do anything we never thought we could is rarely a bad thing, in my opinion.



People dieing attempting dumb things is not bad? Please explain.



"Dumb" is a relative term.

Is auto racing dumb? How about golf? People die doing both.
Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

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I voted that it is pushing the envelop, but I do NOT think that is necessarily a bad thing. Humans finding ways to do anything we never thought we could is rarely a bad thing, in my opinion.



People dieing attempting dumb things is not bad? Please explain.



Speak for yourself, Piggie. For someone like me to try it. It would be called suicide. For those that actually have the skills? It's their choice to make. They know the risks just as well as we do.

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I voted that it is pushing the envelop, but I do NOT think that is necessarily a bad thing. Humans finding ways to do anything we never thought we could is rarely a bad thing, in my opinion.



People dieing attempting dumb things is not bad? Please explain.



He didn't say dying is not bad, he said that pushing the envelope is not necessarily a bad thing.

Quite different.
"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

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People dieing attempting dumb things is not bad? Please explain.



For someone like me to try it. It would be called suicide. For those that actually have the skills? It's their choice to make. They know the risks just as well as we do.



Right. Therefore you can't make a blanket statement that pushing the envelope is a good thing. It depends upon who is doing the pushing and whether or not they are properly prepared to do so.

Is it a good idea for a 16-year old teenage male to push the envelope by driving 100 mph with his new learner's permit?

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He didn't say dying is not bad, he said that pushing the envelope is not necessarily a bad thing.



It is if you don't know what the heck you're doing.



I think it is implicit in the question that we are talking about experienced canopy pilots. It is obviously pushing the envelope for someone with no training to be swooping. Just as it is pushing the envelope for someone with no training to be skydiving, or driving a car.

Is swooping ALWAYS pushing the envelope might be a better question.

But then that would depend on your definition of swooping.
"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

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People dieing attempting dumb things is not bad? Please explain.



For someone like me to try it. It would be called suicide. For those that actually have the skills? It's their choice to make. They know the risks just as well as we do.



Right. Therefore you can't make a blanket statement that pushing the envelope is a good thing. It depends upon who is doing the pushing and whether or not they are properly prepared to do so.

Is it a good idea for a 16-year old teenage male to push the envelope by driving 100 mph with his new learner's permit?



I guess it depends on how you define "pushing the envelope."

I understand it as carefully, incrementally and with a great deal of calculation, doing things at the edge of your current abilities. Or the capabilities of the equipment you are using. It is shaving the error margin thinner one slice at a time.

For me it is 90 carving turns to final. A little more input each time to build a little more speed, most of which is bleeding off before I land.

Trying to crank out a 270 to a swoop wouldn't be "pushing" the envelope for me, it would be blasting a big hole in it.
"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

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