Banning hook turns.

[williammonk 0]

Hey Guys.
Let me preface this by saying that I am not an advocate of regulating canopy choices. And i dont think banning hook turns is a good plan. I was just ad the dz the other day and had an idea that I'd like to pass on.

So.

I was at a dropzone where anything above a 90 is against the rules. Just after that I was talking to a relatively low timer who was jumping a canopy that I thought was pretty damn aggressive, a crossfire 109. We got to talking about canopies and he mentioned that he usually does HP approaches (90's), and he was trying to get more surf out of the canopy.

So after I had this discussion I had an idea. If a jumper does nearly all of his jumps at a dz that disallows hook turns, I thought that people would perhaps be downsizing more aggressively, due to the relative safety of 90's when compared to. 270's+.

Guys that want to get more out of their 90's would be more likely to hop on a swoop machine, and only really be capable of doing 90's or vanilla landings.

I liken it to driving a car with nitrous. Sure, you can drive the car around town safely, but once you get out to the track you might be in for a rough time.

What do you guys think?
William.

[davelepka 4]

Just to be clear, are you suggesting that in your above example, if the DZO lifted the 90 degree limitation and allowed any kind of swooping, that the end result would be newer jumpers would not downsize so fast, but just throw bigger turn on larger canopies in their quest for speed?

If that's what you're saying, that's pretty fucking dumb. What would happen in real life is that those jumpers would be on those same canopies and throwing bigger turn with them. The guy you spoke to was already jumping a 109, and openly told you that he wanted to go faster than the 90 degree turn would allow. Hint - the way to go faster is by making a bigger turn, not by upsizing and then making a bigger turn.

The only way to get a handle on the situation, as proven by countless other countries, is by regulating canopy size and type, and tying advancement in canopy size/type to jump numbers and continuing education. It's not a guess or a speculation, it's a proven concept that's been in place in other countries for years (maybe even a decade) and it works.

People seem to spout the 'freedom of choice' card, or the 'no nanny state' card, but when skydiving was born, canopy choice was not a problem. All of the regulations we have today were the result of the early jumpers finding out that certain things were overly dangerous, and that it made sense to reign those things in with some solid regs. Adding regs (wingsuit, camera, etc) shouldn't be looked at as a bad thing, it should be looked at as a sign that the sport is growing and developing. New facets are coming into the fold, and as this happens we learn how to deal with the pros and cons of each of them.

When you're dealing with skydivers, you're dealing with the tip of the 'type A' personality spear. These are confident, aggressive people, who if you give them an inch will take a mile. It's what got them to jump out of a plane in the first place, and then pour countless hours and thousands of dollars into the sport. Given the performance level of the canopies out there, and the level of what 'we' as a sport know what to do with them, you can't take those 'type A' people, and those 'type A' canopies, and just them freely intermingle.

[primetime 18]

I agree with monk. Some 200-jump wonders that would normally downsize anyways will downsize even faster at a DZ that puts a ban on +90 degree turns to final. One of the reasons could be that it is harder to catch bad landings when people are doing small turns or straight in approaches. And no, I don't think lifting the ban is the answer. More open communication amongst high-performance canopy pilots would be nice. Being able to walk up to a typical type A personality skydiver and tell him that he's not ready for a 90 velo without him taking my head off would also be nice.

[craigbey 0]

Quote

Being able to walk up to a typical type A personality skydiver and tell him that he's not ready for a 90 velo without him taking my head off would also be nice.

And you would probably have very good reasons why. But are those reasons backed up by your DZ and the USPA?

[danornan 64]

If your goal is to make the LZ safer, then it must be a predictable place for everyone.

They can be done safely ( a relative term!) in a separate area or announced ahead of time in the LZ.

Dano

[BigMark 1]

Swoop ponds really rock, and for the busy DZ's here in so cal appear to be death machines and not worth it, where are the nearest swoop ponds or 270 friendly drop zones? (not me,i'm a wuffo)

[Bluhdow 31]

davelepka

Just to be clear, are you suggesting that in your above example, if the DZO lifted the 90 degree limitation and allowed any kind of swooping, that the end result would be newer jumpers would not downsize so fast, but just throw bigger turn on larger canopies in their quest for speed?

If that's what you're saying, that's pretty fucking dumb.

I think he's right, actually. I know several people who frequent a "90s only" DZ. They are on small canopies doing 90s because they want a better swoop but can't increase the turn.

I think the unintended consequence of the limited turn rule is that people will learn to 90 on a canopy and then downsize. Learn to 90 on the new one and downsize, so on and so fourth. All this without ever attempting to learn 180s or greater.

I don't think it's the best course of action, but it happens. I've seen it.

*Edited for grammar.

Apex BASE
#1816

[Joellercoaster 6]

There are two consequences I think:

1) Never learning turns about 90 degrees is only bad if they then attempt a bigger turn at some point.

2) If the 90 limit is "causing" people to downsize faster (actually this just sounds to me like new jumpers finding excuses to do what they are desperate to do anyway), and if this is bad, you can either educate your jumpers out their dumbassery, or just rule again to prevent them from downsizing too fast. You are not forced to remove the turn limit.

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[DocPop 1]

Whilst I accept that they are a necessary learning step, I actually dislike HP 90s. There is so little time in the turn to assess your recovery arc that it means that if you are low you don't have as much time to deal with it.

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

~ CanuckInUSA

[Andy9o8 0]

Joellercoaster

There are two consequences I think:

1) Never learning turns about 90 degrees is only bad if they then attempt a bigger turn at some point.

2) If the 90 limit is "causing" people to downsize faster (actually this just sounds to me like new jumpers finding excuses to do what they are desperate to do anyway), and if this is bad, you can either educate your jumpers out their dumbassery, or just rule again to prevent them from downsizing too fast. You are not forced to remove the turn limit.

It makes me worry about people who can learn only 90s on their canopy at their home DZ, then they visit another DZ or a boogie and start popping 270s under the same wing which, for that maneuver, is too aggressive for their skill set.

Having said that, I understand where DZOs are coming from, because they're the ones who have to deal with a fatality, and the emotional toll alone can be devastating. My old FJI is a DZO now, and his DZ bans hook turns. I'm pretty sure that rule resulted from the loss of a beloved fellow jumper who died in a landing accident there a few years back.

[ianmdrennan 2]

My starting DZ, at the time, was a no hook turn dz. All it ended up doing was creating an environment where we

a) Did it anyway when we thought we could get away with it - with some of the most dangerous technique available.

b) Led us to downsize way faster than we should have.

c) Starved us from good information regarding canopy flight.

It wasn't a good thing for understanding canopy flight.

YMMV but that was my experience with it.

Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[airtwardo 6]

ianmdrennan

My starting DZ, at the time, was a no hook turn dz. All it ended up doing was creating an environment where we

a) Did it anyway when we thought we could get away with it - with some of the most dangerous technique available.

b) Led us to downsize way faster than we should have.

c) Starved us from good information regarding canopy flight.

It wasn't a good thing for understanding canopy flight.

YMMV but that was my experience with it.

Ian

I understand what you're saying...and that it's from a jumpers viewpoint.

What was the over-all effect as far as the DZO was concerned?

In other words did the 'rule' lower the number of injuries at the DZ...

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[ianmdrennan 2]

No because injuries happened when the dzo wasn't looking and jumpers tried anyway.

no major injuries, fortunately but that was due to luck and low jump volume more than anything else

Performance Designs Factory Team

[airtwardo 6]

Sorry!! I meant to hit reply not edit to your post. Didn't mean to delete it ~ Ian

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[ianmdrennan 2]

Impossible to tell, but at least 1 incident MIGHT have been prevented but I suspect the jumper would have done it anyway. Of course, the other incidents we had that were not related to low turns would have also been prevented if we never ever took off.

We should probably all just stop skydiving so that we can never die skydiving

Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[JasonYergin 0]

Seems like big cojones is one of the reasons people downsize fast too... I mean we could probably make a sticky full of reasons why people have downsized for better or worse.

I think it's a terrible idea to limit the turn someone can make. Require coaching or canopy courses, or a certain number of high speed landings to do certain landings but don't just don't try to make a blanket rule for a hundred different experience levels....

Right? Or am I just way off?

_________________________________

...Don't Get Elimated!!

[cube 0]

I too think that kind of ban promotes premature downsizing.. Theres only so much speed one can get out of a 90'.

...edited for writer's preview ability limitations..

[za_skydiver 0]

Easy to say to require coaching etc. I was on the same dz with Ian, I did the same shit when we knew no one was looking, and to be honest, back then, there was no such thing as coaching canopy piloting, it was all trial by error. Closest dz to ours was more than 600 miles away.

Some dream of flying, i live the dream...

[matt002 0]

I think that classics piece of American wisdom is particularly relevant in this situation. One individuals freedom to swoop ends where another individuals right not to get killed by some one swooping begins. Separate landing areas or passes for large turns is the only real solution and works well at eloy. If your keen on swooping do it away from the spectators and other traffic and walk back, the lack of audience will probably save a few lives.