Feedback CReW seminar Empuriabrava Spain.

[remko 0]

I only learned about the seminar, which was organized by our English friends, in a very late stage. After some organization with family and work I decided to go. Booked a cheap flight from the Netherlands to Spain and got a bed in the bunkhouse.

Driving from the airport of Gerona to Empuria we noticed the strong winds coming from the north. This would hamper us the first two days since no jumping was allowed under these conditions. But, don't wander off! Chris and Dave made sure this time was not lost by giving detailed briefings about all the aspects of flying bigway formations. Ofcourse this time was also spent on the scale, working on B-line attachments. I gave my magenta 126 to Bassie and got to fly his borrowed blue 143 with pink nose.

One of the subjects that was very well covered also during the various debriefs was the crew toolbox. You hear often about "You have to slow down!" or "Don't jojo!", but very few will explain in detail how this is done. Being very well matched with the formation I noticed that I could use full flight to slowly outrun the formation, little rear riser (less than an inch) to gain height, toggle to slowly back up and warp (one toggle and one front riser) to loose height. Being very smooth is extremely important. I used inputs of less than an inch for these.

To kill off some excess speed you can use what you might call a "snap", quickly jerking down the front risers and letting them snap up again, or if you are already in front riser just letting them snap up in stead of smoothly letting them up. An other tool is what you might call a "whip", aggressively whipping the tail by jerking the toggles. You should hear a cracking sound. Or warping the canopy. All these moves will disrupt the airflow and create drag and kill lift. So, if you find yourself approaching the formation with an uncomfortable speed, use one of these. Better yet, don't get fast on it!

Common mistake: you fail to anticipate and are a bit high on the formation when it's you turn to dock. You make some chasees (toggle turns to loose height) these give you too much speed. You get scared and go into brakes. Up you go into your first jojo...

That's why the sideways approach is being introduced. The conventional method of coming from behind and below has some disadvantages. It requires a fairly aggressive turn which is hard to judge. It can leave you with ether too much speed resulting in a hard dock, coming from below aggravates the situation by lifting the docked person making the diamond breathe. Or it leaves you low and behind, taking you for ever to dock. further more this approach is harder to follow by consecutive lockers and during the approach it's harder to anticipate on persons in front of you.

On the sideways approach the absolute speed of the formation and the docker are almost the same. Closure is mostly being achieved by a slight difference in heading. This requires minimal steering inputs and adjustments are easily made. Level can be adjusted by using the variety of steering inputs explained above. On various occasions I would be waiting on number 4 so I could take a number 5 or 6 slot. I'd take a position level with 2 and 3 about only one canopy width away. Once I saw number 4 stuck low and behind (this 3-way is especially fast and floaty) It was very easy for me to just "slide" closely behind, passing my canopy in between the canopy and body of 2 or 3, adjusting smoothly with just a tad of front, rear, warp or toggle. No excess speed to kill. This approach looks very slow because there is very little closure, but there is also very little distance to travel and it is easy to judge and easy to follow by consecutive lockers. It is smoother, quicker and safer. Safer because misjudgment will less likely result in a wrap. It's almost like bumping end cells.

The debriefings were very structured and very useful. Detailed discussions were provoked about what controls and references people were using to set up and fly their approach. Not boring but to the point. Excellent, very exciting!

The same was true for the dirt dives. The pilot would lead the general flow, explain the characteristics of the different intermediates, big picture stuff, and delegate the details to the wings who would have short elaborations about the positions in the echelon and the approach and so forth.

One lesson that was (re)learned is not to go "go go gadget arm" to reel in lockers while being a wing. This one might have caused Wendy to loose her canopy. I had been brainwashed in the Netherlands that this is just not done. At the seminar it had been mentioned that under certain circumstances it was possible. In this particular case I was row 3 wing and the row 4 wing caught a locker close to the center cell and tried to hand it over to the number 7. As could later be seen on the video our side got pulled down so much that made it impossible for the opposite row 4 wing to fly and it (she) came around. Not a pretty sight. Luckily this rule is not (yet) written in blood but only in dollars: Dock to the center, don't catch a docker if you're not the center. I know now, not because someone told me, but because I saw with my own eyes. And there's an other reason. Don't salvage a badly flow approach, give the person an opportunity to practice an other approach, be patient.

Overall this seminar was well worth it's 40 Euros registration fee and I would like to give Chris and Dave most of the credits for it and the rest to all the enthusiastic and talented flyers around me that made the bigways so much fun to fly, and all that beer so much fun to drink!

Greetings,
Remko

Oh yeah, Richard Hayden made all the numbers add up. Let's not forget about that :-)

PS: I just checked Empuria's website on http://skyrats.com it has loads of beautiful stills and even some movies of the event. Enjoy!

--
Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

[Jaap 0]

Not being a CReW dog at all I still had a wonderful time. I tagged along with my girlfriend to enjoy a week of sunshine in Spain, and act as personal packer. Even made a couple of video jumps, with some FS4 and 1-on-1 CRW. All in all I really enjoyed myself.
Thanx to Chris and Dave for their excellent debriefs (even I learned something about CReW!), Gauda and Cookie for getting all the ladies out there and Richard and Juli for all their support from CPCB.
Don't forget to check out the CPCB website, which hosts great photos and footage from Vincent and Gustavo.

Chaos, panic, & disorder - my work here is done

[Gadget 0]

Hey Remco that nose isn't pink but orange.For the rest i can only say: your absolutly right.

If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes???
My logbook

[plastic 0]

Interesting and wise comments from remco, who i was fortunate enough to have at my side on some of the jumps, particuarly the comment about wings grabbing the lockup on the way in. I was a victim in that incident though thankfully remained attached to my lightning - just.
All in all a great week making some new friends and meeting old ones, especially danny and hans.
Also a big thanks to all the people who helped to make this week a great success, hope to jump with you again soon.

[CaTo 0]

Quote

Don't forget to check out the CPCB website, which hosts great photos and footage from Vincent and Gustavo.

and since that site hardly shows any pictures of the Women's record attempt, go and see http://CaTo.makes.it and go via the 'whats new' page to the womens' pictures o(or directly to record
(Thanks hans!)

see you somewhere under a canopy

Caren