emergency exits

[The111 0]

I know I read about this on here before, but I can't seem to find it now.

In Parachutist I think there was an article about how too many skydivers in general are unprepared for emergency exits. I have to admit I might fall into this category. Without the WS on I'm not too worried about it (which maybe is still a bad thing).

But now that I am jumping the WS almost exclusively, I am starting to think about it more. I do not zip legs until 10k and arms until about 12k. If I exited the plane with everything unzipped and just dumped, what would be the worst case scenario? Suit flapping causing instability? Canopy entanglement with flapping suit?

I've never had an emergency exit in general and I'm sure the first time it happens, it will be even more stressful if I'm sitting in an unzipped suit.

I seem to remember when I read about this before the safest suggestion was to zip up early. And I know convenience should never come before safety, but to be honest, I do not want to sit on a plane all zipped up for 10 minutes. Hell, I watch (very) experienced non-WS jumpers sit on the plane (right next to the door even) and not even tighten their leg straps until 10k feet. I would never do this, but how are they any more prepared for an unexpected exit than an unzipped WS?

Curious what the thoughts on this are...

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[LouDiamond 1]

katiebear21 and I actually had a chance to put the following to the test and it worked out fine. The important thing is we had a plan before we exited the A/C. This is a repost from a similar thread over at flybirdman.


While everyone has what they feel comfortable with or how they envision it will happen, one thing needs to be taken into account. Regardless of your arms/legs being zipped/unzipped one should be exiting with your hands on your cutaway/reserve handle for a low altitude emergency exit and immediately cutaway/deploy reserve after exiting the A/C. For those who zip legs up before or soon after boarding the A/C the important thing to remember is to keep your leg wing closed down.

None of this is new since the initial body position when launching an exit is with all wings shut down and you've all done it before. Stability shouldn't be an issue since you are pulling right out of the door.


As for Higher altitudes( 1500ft and up) that IMO is no different than a low altitude emergency exit in that you don't know where you are getting out at so why hum it down or attempt to fly. Again it should be handled as a clear and pull(main canopy) and then you can deal with your zippers and orienting yourself and finding an out while you have all that altitude. The best bet is to have a plan, your own personal plan, before your on the A/C, as to how you will handle a given emergency situation. The 3 critical things that need to be addressed in an emergency exit high or low are:

1: Get out of the A/C
2: Deploy a parachute. ( 1500 and lower on reserve;1500 and higher on main. There are different school of thought on what altitude dictates which chute you deploy. You choose which you prefer)
3: Find a safe place to land BEFORE you are 200 feet off the ground.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[TALONSKY 0]

Now, leaving with everything unzipped seams to make sense but what happens if one of the unzipped wings happens to inflate. Since you are unzipped you do not have any control of the wings. This may seam a little far fetch but it is exactly what happened to Steve (manbird) very early in his wingsuit career. I believe he had one of his arm wings inflate and ended up with the bridle getting wrapped around is arm/wing( in the end he deployed his reserve and landed fine) Very early on in my wingsuit career, I had a full altitude jump turn into a hop-n-pop (3000 AGL). I left with all my wings zipped in flu for a few seconds deployed my main, unzipped and landed fine. So in the end it is your choice but I can say I am fully zipped in at 2000 AGL, I know Steve will zip his arms up to the elbow before 2000 AGL.
Kirk

[LouDiamond 1]

True, if you decide to leave with your arms unzipped the wing can catch air. Zipping the sleeve down around ones bicep is usually sufficient to keep it from getting out of control is it does catch air.Slipping ones thumbs into the thumb loops will also help control a flapping wing.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[VectorBoy 0]

I am starting to think about it more. I do not zip legs until 10k and arms until about 12k. If I exited the plane with everything unzipped and just dumped, what would be the worst case scenario? Suit flapping causing instability? Canopy entanglement with flapping suit?

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Because some aircraft are cramped and some suits more confining you may have to be zipped up before boarding . Generally I leave my arm zippers till last so I can fuss with other gear. But I like to have my legs zipped up as early as possible or even before if the aircraft is gonna be cramped to move and adjust later. If there is an emergency your leg wings will act as a nice set of power tracking pants. If you don't have the time to track and must pull silver then it doesn't matter, without an LQRS you will be landing a reserve legs zipped.

Due to the fact that WS get out last you may not have time if the AC is low and may have to ride it down.

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[diablopilot 2]

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one should be exiting with your hands on your cutaway/reserve handle for a low altitude emergency exit and immediately cutaway/deploy reserve after exiting the A/C.

Why would you waste time cutting away?

My procedure has me in an unzipped arms state untill I am higher than my intended deployment altitude in the suit. Having the arms or legs unzipped and flapping has made no difference whatsoever in hop and pop exits I've made. If it did, I'd seriously reconsider jumping the suit.

Legs (zipped/unzipped) are somewhat dependant on the A/C I'm riding in and how easy I think it will be to put them on on the ride up.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[TALONSKY 0]

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My procedure has me in an unzipped arms state untill I am higher than my intended deployment altitude in the suit. Having the arms or legs unzipped and flapping has made no difference whatsoever in hop and pop exits I've made. If it did, I'd seriously reconsider jumping the suit.
.

I know you and I believe differently on this, but I would honestly say the exact opposite. If you have an issue leaving with your wings zipped up you should really consider weather or not you should be jumping a wingsuit period. Really what is the big deal you get out deploy(if altitude permits unzip or pull the wing cut aways) and land.
Kirk

[ManBird 0]

My 2¢

Zip your legs before you get in the plane to make your life much easier. Once you remove your seatbelt, get into a "ready to exit" configuration. I recommend zipping your arm wings down, at least, past your elbows -- this gives you some leading edge/control. I personally zip all the way up.

This will prevent entanglements between your wings and any part of your canopy/deployment system. It may also prevent some stability issues that can result from uncontrolled wings inflating assymetrically.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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[diablopilot 2]

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I know you and I believe differently on this, but I would honestly say the exact opposite. If you have an issue leaving with your wings zipped up you should really consider weather or not you should be jumping a wingsuit period.

Are you prepared to get out just as low on your reserve with a wingsuit as you would without your wingsuit? I'm not. My lowest exit altitude on my reserve gives me NO time to unstow toggles in the worst case scenario., I don't need to deal with wings at that point. The likelyhood of me having to ever so that is slim however.

My point is if you have a set deployment altitude, why would you get out lower than that with wings zipped. An inflated, unzipped wing is just something to fly and deal with, if you can't then I think more practice with the suit needs to be made.

Differing opinions. The bigger point is everyone should decide what works for them and plan, prepared, and practice their choisen method prior to needing to implement it.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[TALONSKY 0]

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I know you and I believe differently on this, but I would honestly say the exact opposite. If you have an issue leaving with your wings zipped up you should really consider weather or not you should be jumping a wingsuit period.

As said before what altitude are we really talking about anything much below 1500 AGL since we sit in the front of the plane(next to the pilots) there will not be enough time to get out on larger planes. For C-182, unless you have some contortionist skills the rest of us do not have climb out(or even dive out_ on a 182 takes a little while(time you would not have that low to the ground)

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Differing opinions. The bigger point is everyone should decide what works for them and plan, prepared, and practice their choisen method prior to needing to implement it

And here I thought we would not agree on anything. I agree, everyone should decide what works for them and plan, prepared, and practice their choisen method prior to needing to implement itt

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[diablopilot 2]

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there will not be enough time to get out on larger planes. For C-182, unless you have some contortionist skills the rest of us do not have climb out(or even dive out_ on a 182 takes a little while(time you would not have that low to the ground)

Believe me, when a wing comes off at 1200 AGL, I'll make time, and don't much care about being stable.


For one last attempt at explaining my point, would you have a tandem student hooked up to you via all 4 attachment points at 1000 ft AGL? What about at an altitude lower than you believed you could safley exit the pair of you on the reserve?

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Tonto 1]

This is what I do. Leg wing is done before boarding as there's no room in our Porter. Arm wings are zipped over Bicep. Since wingsuits go last, we'd be last out on an emergency exit. My plan is cut the wings away and leave the handles in the plane, then exit and use main or reserve depending on exit altitude.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[ManBird 0]

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I know you and I believe differently on this, but I would honestly say the exact opposite. If you have an issue leaving with your wings zipped up you should really consider weather or not you should be jumping a wingsuit period. Really what is the big deal you get out deploy(if altitude permits unzip or pull the wing cut aways) and land.

I think we've all been through this before. This is right up there with the whole RSL and AAD debates. There is no right answer, just opinions. So here's my opinion.

To prevent an argument, I'm setting the tone of this post...


OK.

IMO, being comfortable with "unzipped" exits is unnecessary. No offense, but thinking that someone shouldn't be flying a wingsuit because they don't feel comfortable exiting with their wings unzipped is... weird. If you can't get stable within 1,000' of exit at least 98% of the time, that's when you should reconsider flying a wingsuit. I'm not saying that you, JP, have exit issues (we know that you don't), I'm just saying that the logic is backwards. It's like working on manual pin extractions for ten jumps in a row, when you should just have your pilot chute hooked up.

After even just a few wingsuit jumps, you should be comfy exiting at any altitude, fully zipped up. I'm sure you are -- I don't know what experience you have with low altitude flights. Throw on a faster opening canopy and do some flights from 3,000'. It's no big deal. Seriously. In an emergency, two zips and a pull on the LQRS (or unzipping one leg with no LQRS) takes literally one second -- maybe two for the inexperienced. I know at least one wingsuit pilot that had a few wingsuit exits from below 4,000' feet before he even had 200 total skydives. It's really no big deal.

I think the risk of wing entanglement is greater than that of instability. And like Scott says, if you're really getting out super low -- low enough to need to go right to your reserve -- then your configuration won't mean much. Just do a "student" exit and fire away.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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[ManBird 0]

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For one last attempt at explaining my point, would you have a tandem student hooked up to you via all 4 attachment points at 1000 ft AGL? What about at an altitude lower than you believed you could safley exit the pair of you on the reserve?

Those poor tandem students. They were good folks. Well, at least I got out OK. That's my point.

Edited to add: Emergency procedures for a tandem jump with a student can't be compared to an experienced jumper acting instinctively.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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[diablopilot 2]

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Those poor tandem students. They were good folks. Well, at least I got out OK. That's my point.

Hmmmm, my opinion is that when I take the student's dime I am resopnsible for their well being. I now have to change my survival rules to include them. If I don't accept that I don't jump tandems.

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Edited to add: Emergency procedures for a tandem jump with a student can't be compared to an experienced jumper acting instinctively.

It can. A tandem instructor changes his/her rules for emergency exits just by putting on different gear. It won't open in time if you get out at 300agl for example. My point is most tandem instructors have a plan to ride the plane down in an emergency at less than 1000ft AGL which is why they don't have the student hooked up. Change of plan for change of situation and gear.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[ManBird 0]

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Hmmmm, my opinion is that when I take the student's dime I am resopnsible for their well being. I now have to change my survival rules to include them. If I don't accept that I don't jump tandems.

When you're flying a wingsuit, you aren't taking the student's dime. This thread is about wingsuit emergency exit procedures. Nothing to do with tandems.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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[diablopilot 2]

Please try to see outside your vision on the subject.

When you strap on different gear and introduce different circunstances you change the rules.

Exiting the A/C in a fully zipped up wingsuit at 500 ft AGL in a decent is foolhearty. So would exiting on a tandem rig.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[ManBird 0]

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When you strap on different gear and introduce different circunstances you change the rules.

That's exactly what I'm saying. I think it was just lost in translation. No worries.

As an aside, I personally would get out with a wingsuit at 500' (edit: on my reserve), should that very rare situation occur. The airspeed from the plane is there to get the canopy open, and I know for sure that I can get my hands to the toggles in less than one second, even fully zipped up. Doesn't apply to everyone, of course.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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