The story continues - Intercepting the Big-way II

[remko 0]

Preface

'Soon, the planets will align again.' (I borrowed this line from Kevin K.) And the time has come for the final preparations. This article is targeted at the 2007 CF Word record team planning to build a 100-way diamond, and anyone that has an interest in participating the build of very large canopy formations. It consists of general and background information, technical details, practical techniques and last but not least, safety procedures.

Planning

The planning is done by the pilot(s) and often one or more interested wings. Designing a nice stable fast flying diamond is an art by itself. It can be a very complicated puzzle involving the following peaces: Number of jumpers, their capabilities and experience, canopy size, wingload, drag and sink. Number of jump planes involved and their capabilities and other factors like whether. Some of the key ingredients are: a pilot with a big fast floaty (new) canopy, big fast canopies around the top and center of the formation and skilled wing flyers accompanied by fast lockers. So, if you find yourself being switched around, or even taken of the load, this can have a million different reasons.

Dirt dive

Usually the dirt dive starts with a look on the board to find your position in the formation. Key points to look at are: Who is exiting before me, and who is supposed to exit behind me (This might not be clear until the jump plane plan is briefed). Who am I following in the echelon, and who should be following me. Who am I docking on, and who is my locker docking on. Who am I catching, and who am I handing the catch.

If you have a good understanding of the flow, it will help you identify problems during the build and maybe present you with an idea of a solution. In case of problems while in the formation, know who you can expect to be shouting at you to be dropped, and know who to shout at to be dropped yourself. A mere 'Drop me, drop me!' can have disastrous effects. A drop call must always begin with a name. Experienced CF flyers are trying to memorize all this, and even for other contingency backup positions they might have to fly (plug a slot). It makes bigway CF a very sociable sport!

The next step is walking outside and actually putting all the people in their place. This is the time to ask peoples names (again) and find out their canopy colors. Have a good look around you and label your key persons. A wing for example will need to identify the point of the diamond (it might come from the opposite side) to know when to start the approach. If the locker does the same, (s)he can anticipate, and will not be surprised.

Now we board the virtual plane(s). See who is with you in the plane and have a good look at the exit order. I personally prefer a plain stagger. That means the left and right echelons are mixed one by one. Sometimes wings and lockers are kept as pairs for the exit. Beware, sometimes jump plane formations do not enable complete echelons to be in the same plane, and sometimes left and right echelons have a plane for themselves.

Now the whole dive is being walked out. It enables you to mentally rehearse the complete dive including as many details as you like. Make good use of your time here because it is well known in aviation that once airborne, most of your brain power stays on the ground.

Make sure you are up to the job. If you have any questions find time to ask them. The pilot who designed the formation might not know your capabilities and over task you, or he has to solve a problem in the design and is forced upgrade you to something new. If you find yourself in this position let him and the people around you know. The awareness and a proper explanation might do the trick!

The planes

(Additional nice to know information, skip to last paragraph if you like.) Big formations require big planes, anyone can understand that, but actually CF has some particularities regarding jump planes. Ideally CF flyers would like to be dropped right next to their slot and dock. We all know that is not possible, but the organizers do have this in mind. For CF bigways having more and smaller jump planes is far better than one big one. It enables flyers to be brought to the formation while it is building. Let me explain some of the details.

In 2003 it was already practiced to have the planes in about a two mile trail to keep the echelons shorter. One of the problems we still faced was the big altitude difference flyers had to loose before they could approach the formation. This led to dizzy people from excessive spiraling or very hard terminal openings. Since the formation is descending during the build, the idea was brought up to stagger the planes vertically and start a descent during the drop. This is how it works. Once the 4-way is built the formation starts to descend around 1200 feet per minute. We asked the jump pilots to drop us in a descent of 500-1000 feet a minute, to minimize the accumulated altitude and still provide for a buffer in case of slow or low openings. This proved to work very well. Further more there is no need for the trail planes to climb all the way up to exit altitude and the descend again. With the two minute spacing we used they could stay 2000 and 4000 feet lower to begin with which enabled us to stick with supplemental oxygen for the lead plane only as well.

One thing to keep in mind though is that the trail planes will fly slightly offset over the formation in between the echelons on their run ins, expecting the echelons to be out to the side. The jump plane pilots are thoroughly briefed on what to expect and have a good lookout for lost CF flyers, but flying around in that area is potentially dangerous.

The Exit

A proper exit is very important from a safety point of view. Unfortunately we have lost more than one dear friend during this part of the jump. I do strongly believe, but this is a personal opinion, that exit spacing and exit delay are trivial factors to exit collisions and can not be used to prevent them. The key factor is watching the deployment of the next jumper and avoiding collision. So the right sequence of events is, first concentrate on a nice stable exit yourself. A good upright arch will be an important contributing factor to an on heading opening. While you pull, watch the exit and opening of the next jumper in front of you. You can influence the heading of your own opening with harness steering. By now you will have identified any opening and heading problems of the following jumper and must be ready to avoid collision with rear riser, toggle or front riser.

The echelon

Now turn to the side 90 degrees and access the situation. Let's assume you are on the left side of the formation, so you turned to the left. The formation is 90 degrees more to the left, the jump plane, leaving a string of canopies, is 90 degrees to your right, and the person you are following would be somewhere about 45 degrees to your left. If you are a locker, all you have to do is follow the person in front of you and you will be OK. If you would like to know a little bit more than that, read on.

There are two things you need to be looking at (besides the people around you). How much time do I have (to kill) and how much altitude do I need to loose. Typically you would start out with a couple of spirals, then back to a heading perpendicular to the formation and repeat this until you are level with or even a little below the formation. Do this first, while you work your way to the outside of the formation. Loosing altitude later is very hard, to almost impossible.

The other thing you have to access is how much time you have before it is your turn to dock. Arriving at the formation early means you have to wait a long time in a crowded area, while working your way down with the formation. This can be very tiring. Arriving late is bad, obviously. So you can choose between turning towards the formation and flying straight at it, or flying to the outside, giving you room and time for adjustments.

This way the echelons are formed, close to the formation tightly spaced, people ready to dock, Further away with more space, giving people more room to maneuver. The bigger the formations get, the more important orderly echelons are.

To be continued...

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

[starkmtn 0]

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Now we board the virtual plane(s). See who is with you in the plane and have a good look at the exit order. I personally prefer a plain stagger. That means the left and right echelons are mixed one by one. Sometimes wings and lockers are kept as pairs for the exit.

At the camps so far, the trend seems to have been keeping wings and the first lockup together, then staggering the rest of that wing team one-by-one.

While practicing being "in the plane," don't forget to coordinate delay times with the other people in your vicinity. You should be taking the same or longer delay as the person who exited just prior to you.

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Now the whole dive is being walked out...If you have any questions find time to ask them.

Also, don't be afraid to speak up about safety concerns. If a break-it-down is not practiced on the ground, ask if that can be done. If delay times have not been communicated among the jumpers in the same plane, make sure that happens.

"You guys should just do CRW. There are so many more ways to get killed, it makes a CYPRES seem safe." -Kevin Keenan

[CReWLL 0]

Safety-----
Watch the person that exits behind you. Your canopy is flying and you are already under control. You can see him/her open with a 180 and then laugh as you sidestep them, or get killed if you were not watching.

Blue Skies

[kkeenan 13]

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...and then laugh as you sidestep them, or get killed if you were not watching.

CRW always seems to be like that...you're either laughing or getting killed.

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Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?