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Richardhayden

Re: [USPA] Fatality: Texel - Adrian Nicolas - 17 September 2005

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Also, what I mean by canopy sport, is the areas like CRW, Accuracy and swooping.

Many years ago the wisdome in CRW suggested that it was stupid to do unplanned CRW after a freefall. In the old days everyone had a 230 sq feet canopy (the days before different canopy sized, just around the time before micro-lines started to appear).

The conventional wisdome was, dont mix a jump. We seem to have lost that knowledge... now we are back to mixing freefall with swooping. In freefall an AAD is good for the risk of collisions, whereas in swooping an AAD is a potential risk as we see here.

I know most of the worlds best swoopers... not name dropping, I just do know them.... and what I see is that when they swoop, they swoop and when they freefall, they freefall.... if you get my point.

So yes Freefall is a canopy sport... its a lifesaver... but the canopy ride is not the objective of the jump!

Viz, what I said earlier about mixing jumps.... dont do it unless you are very experienced at both aspects of the dive.... experienced and considerate of the implications.

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In freefall an AAD is good for the risk of collisions, whereas in swooping an AAD is a potential risk as we see here.



Firstly, there are numerous incidents with people hitting the plane/tail only hop and pops.

Secondly, my point is the risk was already known to some, but not being communicated to the world as a bigger whole. What I am trying to say, the lessons learned from this incidents should not only be "Beware of dangers associated with combining high performance landings with AAD's" but should also be the question "Why wasn't this communicated before a fatality accured"
The trouble with skydiving; If you stink at it and continue to jump, you'll die. If you're good at it and continue to jump, you'll see a lot of friends die...

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Manufacturers dont like to be negitave about them selves. Thats why they dont publish information.

I was told by a manufacturer once that their AAD was good for CRW, so I asked, when and how did you test it.... after a while, I got a reply.... we didnt!

I coined the expression canopy sport here to discribe CRW, Accuracy and Swooping.... all of which focus the dive on the canopy flight. If accuracy and CRW jumpers avoid wearing AADs (and the CRW safety brief in many countries who have a formal CRW safety brief) advises against an AAD, why arent Swoopers opening their eyes and looking to similar aspects of the sport and learning form that knowledge. How else do I say it.... you dont need an AAD when you have a canopy over your head.

Yes people do have colissions doing hops and pops, but not very often! Look at the collision stastistics here. And that one doing a hopand pop was a team jump where all the team jump at once and deploy their canopys together..... very specialised, normally hop and poppers jump one by one, so this doesnt happen.

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i remember an article in parachutist where by a jumper took up a cypres and did some tests jumps on it to see if he could get it to fire during canopy flight in a very radical dive like the ones we see while swooping.

he was able to get the cypress to fire and concluded that it was possible to have a cypress fire in the critical moments when a canopy pilot is coming into land.

now i'm not sure but i think a lot of people read parachutist and probably read that article, but unfortunetly we don't learn until an incident usually occurs, then people start asking "why wasn't anything done or communicated about this possibility?"

in the end i believe its up to the individual jumper to make a decision on whether an aad is necessary for him/her and their jumping preference. but what ever they chose it's up to them to be able to deal with the possible consequences. but that's just me thinking out loud again.
Slip Stream Air Sports
Do not go softly, do not go quietly, never back down


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So yes Freefall is a canopy sport... its a lifesaver... but the canopy ride is not the objective of the jump!



So are you saying that I can only have one objective on any jump? How about a freefall objective and a canopy objective? I teach our students all the time to have an objective for each part of the skydive.

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Not sure what he is saying, but I will. If I were going to start busting multi-rotational turns from above 1000 feet (I won't be), then I would leave my CYPRES off. I try to have fun on every phase of each and every skydive, but I am not going to compromise my safety by performing a maneuver which is proven (more than once now) to allow a CYPRES fire after an AFF jump or some other "regular" skydive. I would love to be able to swoop my velo on every jump, but the fact of the matter is that it's simply not a good choice for wingsuiting; I have a small Sabre2 for that.

I jumped for nearly 18 years without an AOD. I have one in one of my sport rigs, but not my wingsuit rig. It certainly does not scare me to turn off the CYPRES in my swoop rig for meets.

Chuck

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I know most of the worlds best swoopers... not name dropping, I just do know them.... and what I see is that when they swoop, they swoop and when they freefall, they freefall.... if you get my point.



Well, I know most of North America's best swoopers, and I don't see them landing straight in after a freefly jump, or jumping a different canopy. I will concede they usually don't jump RDS on freefall jumps, but they still throw 270+ turns when the landing conditions allow it.

Everyone seems to be panicking about swooping and cypres not mixing, when in years of use, there has been no problems. Only now that more people are doing multi-rotation turns to land are they triggering firings.

Maybe I should look at the cypres detractors and thank them, since I might be able to pick up a used cypres cheap:ph34r:

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you are right, there have been few incidences in the past involving swooping and aad's. but like you said it's not until now, years down the road, when we're starting to do multiple rotations that we're seeing these things. my guess, if nothing changes we will see more of these incidence's in the future because that is where we're heading it appears, bigger rotations and higher speeds.

edited to ad: for the colorado cpc championship i took my cypress out. mainly because i didn't want to get it wet, but 2 you never really know what's going to happen. and after seeing the pro's enter the entry gates at 90+mph it was an awakening experience.
Slip Stream Air Sports
Do not go softly, do not go quietly, never back down


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I am not telling anyone how to jump. But I am pointing out that when anyone does a jump, they need to consider the implications for the Kit they are jumping.

The issue was about a Cypres firing during a swoop, the speed of the swoop generated a speed which triggered the cypres.

That is the sort of implication worth considering when one plans a dive, I am sure you would agree.

Thus I am sure that your training programme would point out stuff like this to your students.

Best regards

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I am definitely NOT anti AAD, they just must be a considered a part of your kit. For the vast majority of skydiving, they are a risk reducer.

Have you ever noticed how CRW jumpers havnt taken to AAD´s. Thats because of the risks of using one were considered from the outset.

Downplanes can exceed 36 meters/sec, thus fire a cypres. I would hate to be in a wrap and find my reserve firing.

If people exceed 36 meters/sec., while under a good main and under 750 ft, they just need to make informed decisions. Some countries such as France have made the use of an AAD mandatory for all jumps. Throwing broad brush safety measures around, can sometimes create som problems as well as solve others!

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ok, i'm a little confused. does 36m/s = out to cypress fire speeds? if so then mine should be firing on a regular basis cause when i'm flying in full flight i'm between 39-42m/s, and when i do my turns i'm regularly hitting 100+m/s.

i am starting my turn lower than 800' however so maybe that's just it.

but i am genuinely interested in this.
Slip Stream Air Sports
Do not go softly, do not go quietly, never back down


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I am a CRW jumper and dont have a Cypres. But to the best of my knowledge (PLEASE CHECK WITH YOUR AAD MANUFACTURER):

Many AADs will fire between 750 and 120 feet if you are above a vertical speed of 35 meters/sec. I understand that to be a typical design tolerance.

However, there is also the algorythem each AAD is programmed with, these are generally fairly secret (intellectual property), but they take into account such things as burble, time in burble etc., which affects the AAD´s "decision" whether to fire or not.

But you know the old addage, if in doubt, check it out!

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Maybe its time for the AAD manufacturers to create a swoop specific AAD or mode.

I don't have many jumps so don't know exactly what the variables should be but if they re-wrote the code so that if the jumper has been below freefall speeds for 10 seconds then disable the AAD.

The jumper could then ensure a safe deployment, refrain from any radical turns for 10 seconds to disable AAD (while collapsing slider etc). Then safely accelerate up past 78 mph during the swoop.

Maybe an audible bleep to acknowledge that the AAD has been disabled.

I'm sure the above has flaws but its just an idea.

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