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in2jumping

A Solution for Current Canopy Collisions and Canopy Related Deaths/Injuries

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Its really not that hard to figure out, no offense. The bottom line is you wouldnt be able to jump with them, or they would need a more conservative WL. Not to mention similar WL's tend to jump together by nature/experience. Plus you are taking 2 complete ends of the spectrum and comparing them.



I think it's pretty common to have a range of wingloadings even within groups of similar experience. Some people want a fast canopy and others prefer something more docile. I have about a 1.12 loading on a 120. Since I'm never going to have a 1.4 or 1.5 loading I'd be eternally limited to jumping with newbies or trying to find other small women to jump with.

Anyway, I agree with others who stated that having a range within a group allows for natural separation of canopies. Groups at all the same loading seems like it would be more problematic.

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It was an interesting idea and it's great that you are trying to think of solutions. I think that in this case it won't work for the reasons stated above. For me, the primary one is that everyone in the same group would end up on the same level. In that instance, you potentially have a bigger issue that we do now. Not to mention that you're then arbitrarily controlling who jumps with who. I think it'd be a terrible shame to see experienced jumpers avoid jumping with newer jumpers because they couldn't work out the wingloading without spending money.


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~three 30's? :)


I'm doing 2 45s because I'm hardcore! :D

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But where is the cut-off for doing a 90, how do you get from base to final?



Same way you got from downwind to base, silly.
Even I know that!
:P



~three 30's? :)


How 'bout ten 42's?
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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This is exaclty how people are dying, higher WL's overtaking people, spiraling from 800' not seeing people.



Let's say you and I are doing a two way. You load your canopy at 1.4, I load mine at 1.0. When we open, we do our housekeeping stuff and then we begin to create horizontal separation. There is some natural separation because you descend faster than I do, but if you do a 360 and I go into some brakes we can increase it.

We work to maintain (or increase) that separation throughout our canopy flight. If we do this, there's no way that you can spiral into me at 800 feet.. I could spiral into you, though.

It can work just as well with a load of 20. If everyone talks about it beforehand.

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just the ban of mixing HP landings with conservative ones.



That's already been accomplished, if the dz is a group member and is following the pledge they signed. Requiring that HP landings be done on a separate low pass into a separate landing area is punishing some of the best skydivers in the sport to "fix" something that isn't their fault.

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Requiring that HP landings be done on a separate low pass into a separate landing area is punishing some of the best skydivers in the sport to "fix" something that isn't their fault(quote]

Some people are losing their lives through no fault of their own....I think the concept of "punishment" needs to be kept in perspective.

Some people are going to have to swallow some lumps, like it or not.

The ongoing carnage shows that whatever systems used to ensure life and limb on out DZs just aren't working.

Pocket rocket pilots have proven that generally, these canopies are too hot to handle.

Change isn't an option, its a necessity. Enough is enough.
My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

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This is exaclty how people are dying, higher WL's overtaking people, spiraling from 800' not seeing people.



Let's say you and I are doing a two way. You load your canopy at 1.4, I load mine at 1.0. When we open, we do our housekeeping stuff and then we begin to create horizontal separation. There is some natural separation because you descend faster than I do, but if you do a 360 and I go into some brakes we can increase it.

We work to maintain (or increase) that separation throughout our canopy flight. If we do this, there's no way that you can spiral into me at 800 feet.. I could spiral into you, though.

It can work just as well with a load of 20. If everyone talks about it beforehand.



In your 2-way example, yes I agree. The problem is ther could be a goup below, and that is where the problem lies. If there was a way to organiize the whole load that faster canopies either exited first, or found another way to get down first, then we would not have to worry nearly as much. Thats all im saying.

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That's already been accomplished, if the dz is a group member and is following the pledge they signed. Requiring that HP landings be done on a separate low pass into a separate landing area is punishing some of the best skydivers in the sport to "fix" something that isn't their fault.



All this talk really makes me wonder how many DZs are actually doing this? It is apparently not all of them, even though they have pledged to do it.

My home DZ does have a separate landing area of high performance landings, that's the only one I can speak to.

Edited to add: I realize this is only a USPA standard, I don't know what standards/expectations are other places.
"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

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This is exaclty how people are dying, higher WL's overtaking people, spiraling from 800' not seeing people.



Let's say you and I are doing a two way. You load your canopy at 1.4, I load mine at 1.0. When we open, we do our housekeeping stuff and then we begin to create horizontal separation. There is some natural separation because you descend faster than I do, but if you do a 360 and I go into some brakes we can increase it.

We work to maintain (or increase) that separation throughout our canopy flight. If we do this, there's no way that you can spiral into me at 800 feet.. I could spiral into you, though.

It can work just as well with a load of 20. If everyone talks about it beforehand.



In your 2-way example, yes I agree. The problem is ther could be a goup below, and that is where the problem lies. If there was a way to organiize the whole load that faster canopies either exited first, or found another way to get down first, then we would not have to worry nearly as much. Thats all im saying.



Exit order is currently (usually) decided by freefall drift with the goal being to maximize horizontal separation at opening altitude.

I can't see how we can keep that safety margin AND implement your proposal as the two are often mutually exclusive.

I think a better solution is to think about (and actively plan) the jump in two stages:

1. Exit in the order which allows maximum separation in freefall

2. Immediately after opening, start flying your canopy to fit into the landing order. Logically this could be organized as high WL to low WL. It would not even have to be perfect. Just dividing the load into high, medium and low WL and applying that to the landing order would help things a lot.

This approach would take some education though. For example, a jumper with a Stiletto @ 1.8 and a guy with a Katana @ 1.8 are on a level - who let's who goes first?
"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

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This is exaclty how people are dying, higher WL's overtaking people, spiraling from 800' not seeing people.



Let's say you and I are doing a two way. You load your canopy at 1.4, I load mine at 1.0. When we open, we do our housekeeping stuff and then we begin to create horizontal separation. There is some natural separation because you descend faster than I do, but if you do a 360 and I go into some brakes we can increase it.

We work to maintain (or increase) that separation throughout our canopy flight. If we do this, there's no way that you can spiral into me at 800 feet.. I could spiral into you, though.

It can work just as well with a load of 20. If everyone talks about it beforehand.



In your 2-way example, yes I agree. The problem is ther could be a goup below, and that is where the problem lies. If there was a way to organiize the whole load that faster canopies either exited first, or found another way to get down first, then we would not have to worry nearly as much. Thats all im saying.



Exit order is currently (usually) decided by freefall drift with the goal being to maximize horizontal separation at opening altitude.

I can't see how we can keep that safety margin AND implement your proposal as the two are often mutually exclusive.

I think a better solution is to think about (and actively plan) the jump in two stages:

1. Exit in the order which allows maximum separation in freefall

2. Immediately after opening, start flying your canopy to fit into the landing order. Logically this could be organized as high WL to low WL. It would not even have to be perfect. Just dividing the load into high, medium and low WL and applying that to the landing order would help things a lot.

This approach would take some education though. For example, a jumper with a Stiletto @ 1.8 and a guy with a Katana @ 1.8 are on a level - who let's who goes first?



I like this.

In regards to the 2 jumpers with the same loaded canopies, they could just defer to whomever is lower/closer to the LZ.

I know my idea seems like a little much, but besides having seperate passes for each jumper, it seems like the next best thing.

We concentrate so much on separation during freefall, which obviously is very important, but why do we not cocentrate on landings as much? It just seems so contradictory.

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>>For example, a jumper with a Stiletto @ 1.8 and a guy with a Katana @ 1.8 are on a
>>level - who let's who goes first?

>In regards to the 2 jumpers with the same loaded canopies, they could just defer to
>whomever is lower/closer to the LZ.

I think the point of his question was that you have to let the Katana land first. A Katana at 1.8 will land much, much sooner than a Stiletto at 1.8. Heck, the Katana at 1.8 will land sooner than a Stiletto at 2.2. Wing loading isn't the whole story.

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Not to mention that then you have to remember what everyone's canopies look like. Not easy at a larger dropzone, or one with a lot of visitors, or when you're the visitor.

Wendy P.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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>>For example, a jumper with a Stiletto @ 1.8 and a guy with a Katana @ 1.8 are on a
>>level - who let's who goes first?

>In regards to the 2 jumpers with the same loaded canopies, they could just defer to
>whomever is lower/closer to the LZ.

I think the point of his question was that you have to let the Katana land first. A Katana at 1.8 will land much, much sooner than a Stiletto at 1.8. Heck, the Katana at 1.8 will land sooner than a Stiletto at 2.2. Wing loading isn't the whole story.



Yep.

My problem with all the forum jockeying (and this isn't directed at bill) is that these issues aren't as cut and dry / simple as people want to make them out to be. Every DZ has a different layout, every canopy / jumper pair is a bit different, everyone's skill set is a bit different.

There isn't one right answer to solve this problem. I think what's going on here is pretty reactionary and not super tuned into what an educated response is. I mean, we have people blaming swoopers, people saying "fuck you it's not swoopers" and it's all just blather.

The reality of things is that sometimes people make mistakes, that's problem number one. In our sport a mistake can kill you pretty quick. We can't stop people from making mistakes, only educate them to help prevent mistakes. The second problem is that we have a whole generation of people who want what they want right now no matter what the consequences and regardless of anything. That's not a skydiving problem, that's a problem in general with society and it's only gonna get worse.

Couple those things with the fact that people are incapable of determining the level of their own skill and we start to see the issue.

The only time I know for sure that things are gonna work out for me and be 99% safe is on 4 person cessna loads where we exit one at a time, from highest to lowest wingloading and have explicit landing order set. Does that mean I think we should ban all other types of jumping cause there is risk associated with it, no it doesn't. Exiting a turbine in wingload order for "everyday" skydiving isn't even remotely feasible, for such a long list of reasons that it's not even worth talking about anymore, and I don't know why anyone is.

The reality of these problems is that the answers you all want, aren't gonna happen, at least not easily. I say this from the standpoint of having run a dropzone.

Banning swooping isn't gonna work, unless USPA came out and said "no more hook turns" which isn't gonna happen, a DZO isn't gonna do it. I mean sure Lodi did it and I know there are other DZ's out there that are isolated enough that they don't have to worry about it, but for a lot of us, there is another turbine right down the road. That's the problem with rules in general, skydivers don't like them from a practical standpoint. "Rules are ok, till they affect me, then fuck you I'm going somewhere else." That's the attitude a lot of people have in this sport.

Unless rules are going to be top down, sport wide and actually enforced by the USPA, people aren't going to follow them.

We need to not be reactionary and move forward with the solution of educating people. It's like the concept of teaching someone to fish, rather than just giving him some fish. We need the skydivers in the sport to want to not do that hook turn through traffic, now how to set up a landing stack, get better at predictable pattern flying, know how to look around under canopy, know why things shouldn't be done. Just making a rule that you can't do it isn't going to accomplish anything. It will only serve to limit the "fun" and be another way that "the man is keepin me down" and then you have to enforce the rule, well that's just a terrible way to look at a problem.

We already break people out of their mold when they come into this sport, it changes their life, now we just need to work on changing the part of it that causes them to throw all caution to the wind in the search of instant gratification. I feel that's gonna be our hardest challenge
~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

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1) Require a fairly extensive canopy training course for the A license.

Someone who doesn't have an A license isn't the problem. A student on a lightly loaded canopy is going to be flying, or trying to fly, a slow, normal basic pattern anyway. That's what they should be trying to learn, and if they can't do that then more advanced canopy training becomes irrelevant.

2) Implement Brian Germain's downsizing chart as a BSR.

While Brian Germain's chart is useful as a reference, it has some serious shortcomings that make it unrealistic to use as an enforced rule.

The chart only combines three factors: exit weight, canopy size, and number of jumps. It doesn't take into account the design and performance differences between canopy models, it doesn't differentiate between how the canopy is intended to be used, and it doesn't account for a skydiver's skills, training, and attitude.

Compare this to paragliders, where wings are uniformly rated according to skill level and safety.

3) Implement a NO passing rule, lower canopy has the “right of way” and you must not over take them.

This isn't realistic. In every other facet of aviation, there are right-of-way rules for converging, overtaking, and sequencing to a landing area. How do you outlaw overtaking or "over-descending"? It doesn't matter if one canopy is faster than another if they're both flying a logical pattern and the faster canopy is practicing "see-and-avoid" which a no-passing rule would require anyway. It's the lack of "see-and-avoid" and therefore yielding to another canopy that's the problem. Not to mention, a traffic jam behind a slow canopy doesn't work in the air anymore than it works behind a slow car on the road.

4) Segregate canopy landing areas by wing loading. Split landing areas into two, fast canopies land over here slower canopies land over here.

Again, one canopy overtaking another canopy isn't the problem; it's people not seeing each other and failing to properly yield to each other. "Circle of Awareness" is such a big deal during freefall training, but it needs to be an even bigger deal under canopy. Having a "head-on-a-swivel" looking for traffic and not just focusing on the landing area is what's going to make "see-and-avoid" work. I've seen very view videos of camera flyers thoroughly looking all-around them while under canopy.

5) Ban all HP landings (AKA swooping) on normal skydives and put into place rules that minimize any turns (must fly a standard pattern). Require a separate isolated pass for any type of HP landing.

Separate landing areas, sure, like DZO's are supposed to be doing all ready, but removing traffic and giving individual swoopers priority use of airspace, as restrictive as it seems, only builds bad habits by taking away the reason to be looking for traffic in the first place. It's not the airspace environment that's causing collisions, it's pilots not proactively trying to see-and-avoid other jumpers. Allowing swoopers to become complacent in their own protected airspace bubble isn't going to make them any safer when they do end up having to play nice with others.

Recommendations:

1) Better analysis of what exactly causes a collision or near-miss.

2) Having an observer on the ground, or video equipment, that monitors landing traffic looking for situations that could lead to conflicts and immediately providing feedback to a jumper who did something that encroached on another canopy. Or, bringing a dangerous situation to the attention of a jumper who may not have been aware of it.

3) Creating an affirmative way for jumpers to bring their concerns about specific actions or behavior from certain jumpers to the attention of the DZO.

-
It's all been said before, no sense repeating it here.

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>It's not the airspace environment that's causing collisions, it's pilots not proactively
>trying to see-and-avoid other jumpers.

Experience over the past decade has demonstrated that people are not capable of reliably seeing-and-avoiding other jumpers when making larger (>90 degree) turns.

>Allowing swoopers to become complacent in their own protected airspace bubble isn't
>going to make them any safer when they do end up having to play nice with others.

Right. But it will keep them from killing those others.

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Experience over the past decade has demonstrated that people are not capable of reliably seeing-and-avoiding other jumpers.



Fixed it for you ;)

Group members have already pledged to have separate landing areas (as ours does).

This obsession with turn degrees is supposed to be a moot point. If DZ's are not implementing the separation policies, then the effort should be focused on fixing that first. If they are, and aren't been followed, then that next. Degrees of turn, for the purpose of the discussion, should be irrelevant.

As long as people keep focusing on the wrong area, these incidents will continue to happen. I said it years ago after Danny and Bob's accident, and I'll say it again. People, across the board, need to seriously reevaluate how they approach canopy flight. Until every skydiver treats it seriously and approaches it with discipline, this will continue to happen. Even then, there will STILL be accidents - hopefully they'll be so infrequent though that they'll rarely need to be discussed.

There's so much misdirection it's laughable.

Ian
Performance Designs Factory Team

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>Degrees of turn, for the purpose of the discussion, should be irrelevant.

To Bryan Burke, who has direct experience with this than almost anyone on the planet, it is most definitely not irrelevant. Turn more and your risk goes up, period.

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>Degrees of turn, for the purpose of the discussion, should be irrelevant.

To Bryan Burke, who has direct experience with this than almost anyone on the planet, it is most definitely not irrelevant. Turn more and your risk goes up, period.



Again, misdirection. I'm starting to think it's intentional, Bill.

Pilots in the standard pattern (90 degrees or less) are going to make turns - and people are still going to collide with the current mindset.

Pilots in the HP pattern (>90 degrees) are going to make turns - and people are still going to collide with the current mindset.

I don't know Bill, maybe in the end we really are saying the same thing, and I'm just misunderstanding you.

I found this post by Nathan, and I thought it pretty much summed up the problem, and my concern with the current mindset. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4103094;#4103094
Performance Designs Factory Team

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Turn more and your risk goes up, period.



The way I read that in the original document, I took it to mean the number of turns, not the degrees of heading change in each turn.

That's just my interpretation of "the more you turn, the less you learn".
"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

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>Pilots in the standard pattern (90 degrees or less) are going to make turns - and
>people are still going to collide with the current mindset.

>Pilots in the HP pattern (>90 degrees) are going to make turns - and people are still >going to collide with the current mindset.

Yes. And that's true for many things. People who pull at 3000 feet sometimes have problems and don't have time to deal with them before impact. People who pull at 800 feet sometimes have problems and don't have time to deal with them before impact.

That doesn't mean that pulling at 800 feet is no different than pulling at 3000 feet, and that doesn't mean that pull altitude minimums make no difference.

The statistics show that 68% of canopy collisions involve people making big turns (>90.) Stop the big turns in the main landing area, and limit turns to those needed to fly a standard pattern, and you've eliminated over half the problems there. Are there still problems? Will people still collide if they do no more than 90 degree turns? Yes; and we should deal with them as well. But eliminating over half the fatalities out there is a good start.

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Experience over the past decade has demonstrated that people are not capable of reliably seeing-and-avoiding other jumpers when making larger (>90 degree) turns.



I've seen quite a few statements like that lately. I'd like to ask for a little more explanation; it does not seem intuitive to me.

Granted, we have seen several dramatic and horrific examples of what happens when skydivers do not see each other and turn anyway. But if skydivers cannot see each other when making turns larger than 90 degrees, how can any pilot under any wing ever make a turn greater than 90 degrees? Why do we even have it on our ISP that students must make turns of 180 and 360 degrees under canopy? If it's impossible to see past a 90, why teach it?

How many times in the last decade has a skydiver made a turn larger than 90 degrees under a ram air canopy? tens of millions? hundreds of millions? billions?

Even if you ignore regular skydivers and just focus on swoopers making a turn to landing that is larger than a 90, how many times has that happened? tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands? millions?

It seems that statements like the one you made focus on the dramatic examples of NOT seeing each other, but does not satisfactorily explain the 10-to-the-x-power number of times skydivers have made turns greater than a 90 and have been able to see each other just fine.


"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

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Pilots in the standard pattern (90 degrees or less) are going to make turns - and people are still going to collide with the current mindset.

Pilots in the HP pattern (>90 degrees) are going to make turns - and people are still going to collide with the current mindset.



I tend to agree. I've been trying to figure out the change in mindset that has ocurred over the past 5 years or so. The best I can come up with is that too many people seem to take the attitude:

'This is my sky, you shouldn't be here, you better get the f*** out'

rather than

'Hey man, what are you doing on this load? Cool, I'll try to stay out of your way'

Note that I'm not just talking about HP jumpers. Regular pattern jumpers seem to be getting plenty stingy, too. This whole canopy collision problem seems to be acting to divide us, when cooperation is the spirit that is needed to solve it.

It seems like in the past folks seemed to be more interested in sharing the sky. Now it seems like folks want to own it.


"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

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I found this post by Nathan, and I thought it pretty much summed up the problem, and my concern with the current mindset. http://www.dropzone.com/...ost=4103094;#4103094


Now That I actually bothered to read the post you mentioned, I really agree with it. It seems like to avoid a canopy collision, it takes a minimum of

- Communication with the rest of load
- Planning
- Managing traffic beginning the instant you open
- Cooperation with the other jumpers
- Constant Vigilance
- A bit of luck

The regulations lots of folks are preaching seem mostly to be aimed at increasing the odds in the 'luck' department but completely ignore the rest of it.


"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

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It seems that statements like the one you made focus on the dramatic examples of NOT seeing each other, but does not satisfactorily explain the 10-to-the-x-power number of times skydivers have made turns greater than a 90 and have been able to see each other just fine.



And how would you go about determining how many of thos times were just dumb luck. winsor said it best and I paraphrase, if someone gets away with something enough times they tend to mistake luck for skill. Just a thought.

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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