Exits

[harro 0]

I'm apart of a inter 4 way team and would like some information or good methods in dirt diving the exits !!
Basic construction and any other information would be great

Jumpy Jumpy??

[Stacy 0]

one exercise that we were taught by coaches in learning to time exit counts and leave the plane together (simulated) is to get your team to huddle together. whoever does your count goes through whatever is normal for you (shake, down out, ready set go, whatever) on the "go" everyone jumps up. this can be done everywhere and gets people to work timing together. it looks incredibly strange to people watching, 4 huddled people hopping around, but it really works.

Otherwise, you can watch movies like 4'99, which shows airspeed going through exits for all blocks and randoms. the pools have changed now slightly, but most of the stuff is still in there. You'll start to notice similarities between certain exits, etc.

Practicing door jams is always a good idea. better to find out on the ground that someone is lining up too far back or forward in the door than at 10.5 K when things all of a sudden just don't go right...

also decide which formations you are going to launch and which ones you are going to launch with cheater grips, etc. example being a snowflake exit, a lot of teams launch a meeker instead and change grips out the door. when creeping always do an exit count on the creepers. timing is everything.

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[sdctlc 0]

The “hop” Stacy mentioned on the ground is very important to what may be the single biggest key to an exit, TIMMING. Not the hop itself but the idea of getting the team timing down. If the team hits the air-stream at the same time, even with some other problems such as grips or positioning going on it wont as quickly translate to a funnel. I am not trying to say that you will not funnel with a nicely timed team exit, but the chances are lower and you have a better shot at pulling off that funky exit.

A team I was on practiced out timing hop by huddling up and hopping at least 5 to 10 times at the beginning of the day. We would throw in another set of ground hops if the timing felt not quite right. Sounds funny but really helped.

Another important thing to do is on the mock up. Doing the mock up after creeping is good but you have to practice a full climb out with full gear on. There is a lot of extra room if your not wearing your rig. We took the time with full gear and did each exit that we would launch over and over to get the foot position and grip/body placement in our heads. By learning it and having it in our minds when a particular exit came up later we already had a head start on what we needed to do. As a side note we did not launch everything. Sometimes it is better to launch an exit you know you can hit time after time and make a transition rather then doing a more difficult exit and losing a huge percentage of your working time because it came off bad. I don’t know anything about your team but if you do not have the time to practice each different exit multiple times to nail them down find a set of exits that you can hit each time. This approach will put you in a great position to quickly get to the first point of a dive even if it is not one of your practiced exits. As the team dynamics gets better and better you can add exits to your “exit yes list”.

I my opinion there is really no "secret" trick to an exit, it is timing and knowing your job. Time on the ground is free! Working on the team exit timing along with each member knowing exactly what he needs to do will really improve your exit consistency. Put the work into the basics on the ground and it will translate to the what you see in the air.

Scott

[Watcher 0]

Skydive 499 is a good starter.

Getting good coaches that might be able to show you tricks.

Use a few different sources, our continuity plan started out basing most of the stuff on 499, now we find ourselves baseing it much more on PD Blue.

Build yourself a good pair of creepers, dirt dive everything, especially early on, if its raining dirt dive the entire dive pool all day.

Its a big commitment if you really want to improve. In April my team was doing a 2.8, this last weekend we did a mock meet and were able to post a 13 (slightly fast draw, we think a 11.5 is more accurate). The team has an average of about 350 jumps per person, and a couple of my teammates are just doing their first renewals of USPA membership. So I guess my point it anything is possible, and if you keep at it you can really improve really quickly if you put in the effort. Dirt Dive alot early on, jump as much as you can together, I have gotten 350 jumps since Jan, I would estimate only about 10 jumps without one of my teammates.

In conclusion, 4 way rocks!!

Jonathan
GTInviscid
http://www.gtinviscid.com
Georgia Tech premier Skydiving Team

---

Jonathan Bartlett
D-24876
AFF-I

[PhreeZone 15]

How many hours in the tunnel does your team have though?

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[RozeAY 0]

We have 5 hours with Shannon Pilcher, Ian Bobo, and David VanGreuningen. Not to mention their continuing support as well as help from Kyle Collins and Eric Taylor. They're some of the best guys we've met and our improvement is largely attributed to them. :-P

[mjasantos 0]

Hi,

If you'd like, you can get additional information at:

Briefing Structure
http://www.dropzone.com/features/BriefingStructure.shtml

Basic Exit Techniques
http://www.dropzone.com/features/BasicExitTechniques.shtml

Exits
http://www.dropzone.com/features/Exits.shtml

Hope it helps!

Blue Skies!
------------------------------

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Mario Santos
Portugal

[skybytch 259]

Great thread. I'm impressed with the amount of four way knowledge we have here.

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[kallend 1,623]

Careful with those head jams - see

www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/pdf/vh-mmv.pdf

[SweCow 0]

Nice homepage! Gave me some ideas...

[Jiggs 0]

Actually, I thought that was a case of rig jamming NOT head jamming.

Either way can be dicey.

"Don't blame malice for what stupidity can explain."

"In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our despair, against our will comes wisdom" - Aeschylus

[ERICCONNELLY 0]

Great incident report. I wish we had this much info on all incidents, we could all benefit.

Thanks for the link.