skr

>were you part of the Arvin Good Guys in November '67 for the first ever RW competition (10-way star) Yes. If you're wanting to know more about some aspect of this like who or how or why I can check my log book or even my failing memory. Skr

>want to add that 7 seconds might be a bit long You know, I was just thinking that when I suggested using 2000 ft for a bit of margin that maybe I didn't say that strong enough and maybe I should come back here and fix that ... Thank you. Skr

I think it's good to practice the breakup as a maneuver in it's own right. If for example you're pulling at 3,000 ft and allowing 1,500 ft of vertical for breakup you could start at 4,500, turn 180 from your imaginary group, track for 7 seconds, wave and pull and it would be about right. If you're pulling higher start higher. If you want to leave a little margin while you're learning this allow 2,000 ft of vertical, turn 180, track for 7 seconds, stop, check altitude and see how much altitude 7 seconds of tracking really used. It's helpful to get used to these intervals and also how the ground looks while you're doing it. For solos either direction away from jump run is OK, although where you are relative to target might make one direction better. I find it helpful to notice where I pull and where I open to learn how long my chute generally takes to open. Even with rental gear it's a good exercise. The more familiar you get with the bottom end the more comfortable you become. Skr

Theme 2 was that "Follow the first person down" is one of those memes, like "Wait till they're at 45 degrees", that gets into people's minds and sidetracks us from real solutions. "Follow the first person down" as both formulation and algorithm is inadequate, incomplete and misleading. The goal, safe landing / safe separation, gets obscured by the statement of the attempted mechanism, "Follow first down" / "Leave 45 degrees". We can do better. ---- xxxxxxxxxx But right now I can't seem to get into words what I'm trying to say, so I'll just put this much out and see if it comes to me when I get back, and also maybe respond to some of the points made above. Skr

Theme 3 was that the difference in values between swoopers and regular jumpers leads to very different ideas of what a good landing is. Like bicycles and cars they don't mix well and trying to force them into a common mold doesn't work. ---- Not being a swooper I'm only guessing at swooper values but they appear to be along the lines of length, form, assorted toe dragging and other bonus points, maybe the esthetics of the entry. Ideal swooping conditions would be down wind in a meadow at 5,000 meters in the Alps where you could go for about a mile. The actual arrival back on earth is unimportant. The traditional ideal landing is to come to a dead stop, and then calmly place my feet on the ground. If I have to take a step I lose points. If I have to run it out it's a shitty landing. If I have to PLF to survive I really blew it. Mere survival is not the point. ---- Both the end goals and the flying required are incompatible. Due to the historical order in which they occurred swooper goals and values are being forced on regular jumpers instead of recognizing that they are two separate kinds of activity. Just look at what pictures of landings appear in the magazines. It's even built into the current language in such phrases as "high performance landings". Whether performance is high or low depends on the values against which you are measuring it. For speed and acceleration a car is high performance. For an ecological paradigm bicycles are high performance. For me a perfect standup is high performance. For a swooper a great swoop is high performance. So landings are not high or low performance, they are simply swooper or traditional. ---- Now I happen to think that swooping is a very cool development. It looks great, and it pushes our understanding into whole new areas. But forcing of values is not cool. Seeing one as better than the other instead of just different is not cool. So that's that theme. ( Upon rereading this before posting it I realize that ( for me to be championing traditional values is at least ( a case of beer and possibly even a small keg. Skr

OK - I tried to combine 3 themes into one post and it was a mistake, so let me separate them into sub threads with different subject lines and try again. This is stuff I've been thinking for a long time but it's the first time I've tried to articulate it out loud. Seeing people's reactions is very helpful. ---- Theme 1 was largely venting frustration at one of the local dropzones where the wind indicators are minimal and hard to see, swoopers and regular jumpers land in the same area, the custom of flying a recognizable pattern has never been established, the rule is follow the first person down, and people land every which way. That is a local situation which doesn't really belong in the discussion as other than motivation, so let me drop that part, it doesn't contribute to further understanding. ---- Theme 2 was that "Follow the first person down" is one of those memes, like "Wait till they're at 45 degrees", that gets into people's minds and sidetracks us from real solutions. "Follow the first person down" as both formulation and algorithm is inadequate, incomplete and misleading. The goal, safe landing / safe separation, gets obscured by the statement of the attempted mechanism, "Follow first down" / "Leave 45 degrees". We can do better. ---- Theme 3 was that the difference in values between swoopers and regular jumpers leads to very different ideas of what a good landing is. Like bicycles and cars they don't mix well and trying to force them into a common mold doesn't work. Skr

> You ought to come play with us at Lost Prairie :-) With the usual synchronicity of events we are planning to go to Lost Prairie this year. See you there. Skr

Landing Directions Tue 2004-5-11 ------------------ ------------- Landing into the wind has been the normal way to land ever since people started flying 100 years ago, and birds have been doing it that way for much longer. It gives you the least ground speed and softest landings. Recently the idea of following the first person down has emerged. I think that's a bad idea and here's why: Consider how a normal landing goes: - You monitor the wind trends during the day. - Jump out and open up. - Look at the wind socks, wind tees, tetrahedrons, and see how the winds are at this moment. - Start flying from there to the beginning of a pattern for these winds. - Modify this general plan to account for traffic, fly the pattern, and land. With zero or light and variable winds there is either a default direction, or you know that people could be landing in several directions and watch out for it. Now consider how it works when you're trying to follow the first person down: - You jump out and open up. - You start looking around trying to figure out who's going to be first down. - You don't know who it is or what they're going to do, so you can't start positioning yourself. - Instead of watching for traffic you're looking down trying to figure out who's going to be first and what they're planning to do. - You spot a couple possibilities and their shadows. - You start setting your own pattern up based on what you think they're doing. - You glance away for a moment to check for traffic. - One of them does a 180 hook and lands. - You look down and think you know which direction they were going. - Others are fooled by the same thing. - None of it makes sense according to the wind sock. - Some people follow the rule and land down wind. - Others follow common sense and land into the wind. One of the arguments I hear for this is that that's how Eloy does it. But no, that is not how Eloy does it. The general rule at Eloy is to land into the wind. There is only one small grassy section where the landing direction must be one way or the other based on the first person down. And there are lots of wind socks and wind tees and tetrahedrons so you can figure out which way it will be. "Follow the first person down" is one of those things that's easy to say but doesn't make sense when you look at it more closely. It's not like you're hanging around at opening altitude until the first person lands so you then know what to do. You need to start positioning yourself up high, you can't wait till the last minute. It doesn't translate at all to a dropzone where the winds are tricky and the landings could be in any direction. I also hear the argument that you should not put up good wind indicators because if people can see what's going on they will chase the wind sock in light and variable winds. But that really only happens where people have not been taught to read the winds and fly their canopies according to conditions and traffic. That points to better training rather than suppressing important wind information. So, except for special cases like the one small area at Eloy, I think it's better to put lots of wind indicators up and teach people how to read the conditions and fly their canopies. Skr edit to add tags to restore formatting

Good idea. Besides looking around for close neighbors I tell people to look at the ground and rear riser to a good direction too before collapsing slider and releasing brakes. Skr

Bryan Burke wrote some nice articles on this which I put up here: http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/index.html They're about 8 or 10 inches up from the bottom of the page. Skr

> Kathy and Bill have split up. Aaaaeeeee!! Another cornerstone of stability in my world has crumbled ... If I ever hear that Bill has stopped jumping I'm going to get really scared. Why I knew the young lad when he had only 5,000 jumps. The world is getting weird out. Skr

I didn't vote because I've done all of the above. Only you are going to know. There is some chance that you will hurt something else trying to protect your injured ankle. That's happened to other people. But there is some chance you will hurt something else trying to cope with freefall deficiency syndrome too .. being a freefall junkie is no joke :-) :-) Maybe picking a perfect wind day (in Colorado ??) and wrapping your ankle really well and PLFing to your good side will seem to make sense. It's probably more sensible to wait but we are talking skydiving here. Skr

>I was one of the lurkers at Elsinore back in the old daze This is a small world .. I see that we've been jumping the same amount of time, have the same number of jumps and jump the same kind of canopy. Us old farts have unusually good taste, don't we? :-) :-) Skr

>BB waves at skr Who waves back :-) >How did that video work out for you? We've had winter and a long string of weathery weekends, but we'll show it this summer. Skr

>>Riddler >>I had fun today jumping with my friends. > > livendive >Fuck the hokey-pokey, THAT'S what it's all about. But actually there is no need to restrict ourselves to fun. There is a vast range of experiences to be had at the dropzone. Skr

>That's classified Ha! I wondered whether anybody was going to give it away :-) :-) Skr

Hmmm .. I went in once (bounce and live) - July 4th, 1980. There was a moment of extreme dread and "Oh, shit!" when I realized it was happening (I was about 500 ft at the time). Then there was a period of really attuned focus while I tried stuff and then grabbed my risers and swung out flat, kind of a right rear PLF all at once. Then I hit. And bounced. And lost consciousness on the bounce. I thought I was going in but a little while later my eyes opened and I was looking up at blue sky and a circle of faces looking down at me. Hitting the ground didn't hurt, but it hurt like hell for a long time after that. Actually I still have a fair amount of pain in my pelvis, which doesn't stop me, but it slows me down and limits what I can do. I recommend that you avoid it if you can. Skr

> I'm a senior at North Carolina State University, and I have recently become addicted to skydiving Same thing happened to me when I was there! I started jumping between my junior and senior year. Somehow school never looked the same after that :-) :-) I'm a couple thousand miles from there now but I'll join your club in spirit. Skr

>Tell the students what to do, not what not to do. :-) We should print that inside the goggles or visor of all our teachers, it's a really, really important point. It takes effort to re word things in that way but it makes a big difference. Skr

>You and DeJan are the most inspiring people I've ever met! OK - All you guys out there .. Listen Up! If you go down this path it attracts pretty girls! Now what else do you need to know ?? Get moving !! :-) :-) -- Well Kalyne, it was obvious to me that you were already in tune with this kind of stuff. When your ankle gets better lets talk canopy stuff and then make some more jumps. Skr

>and stunt jumpers being fiilmed by the best in the business at that time...(Others , please help here with names and places...) Carl Boenish did a lot of the filming. Jay Gifford, Mike Milts, Garth Taggart, Jerry Rouillard did the jumping and probably some of the filming. I can't remember who else at the moment. Skr

You know, this is a very interesting post. I also put some effort into teaching myself to keep track of altitude. For me it is basically a sense of is it starting to get too long since the last time I checked. It took a conscious effort because freefall is so seductive, I could just jump out and stay there all day. If I had a spare 20 million I'd go visit the space station in a second. Hmmm, maybe I'll go buy a powerball ticket tomorrow :-) :-) I basically treat altitude (or lowness) like a cop in the rear view mirror. I don't fixate on it but I never quite forget he's back there either and I periodically check just to see exactly where he is. When I get down lower, like when he's pulled in right behind me, I check more often and get a little more focused on not spacing out and doing something foolish. Skr

>Is it me? Am I missing something? No, I think it's that a lot of people don't realize that this can happen, so you either stumble on it accidentally, it happens spontaneously, or you just don't get to experience it. To do it on purpose you have to have a DZO and a web of experienced jumpers who want it and know how to make it happen. Even then it can be elusive because you can't just go directly at it or stand around proclaiming that it's happening. You have to kind of open the door for it and then let it. And you have to let it have you too because the very act of trying to control it makes it go away. I didn't realize the first one I was in, it just happened. All I knew was that I was having the best time I had ever had in my whole life. That was Oceanside in the early 60s. Another spontaneous best time was the Gulch in 1975. The first time I really got that you could do this on purpose was the summer of 1976 in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. That was when I realized a really fundamental insight: It's not about maneuvers and hot dives and records and stuff, it's all about how people feel while they are doing it, and all that other stuff is just tools to produce feelings. The fundamental reason we skydive is to feel feelings. Actually I started to put some of this stuff on a web site once. If you go to http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/index.html up near the top, the Oreo Cookie and freedom and frameworks stuff and the next section down, the jumpstart and profile stuff has more on this. I oughta get my butt in gear and finish those sections. ---- As for experiencing it yourself, you know it's possible because other people have experienced it, so maybe if you go looking for it you will find it too. You will know it when you see it. Skr

>is there any thing that we should not do? That's a good question, here's a couple things that come to mind: In freefall if you're feeling rambunctious and wanting to try a bunch of maneuvers, don't go for too long at a time without stopping to check your altitude. If you're wanting to track stay out of other people's airspace. Track perpendicular to jump run rather than up or down it. And keep going in the same direction, don't go back and forth, which means also that if your track is good and you're getting too far away then stop just fall straight down. Under canopy watch for other people. That means don't go spiraling down through the crowd or making turns or even flying straight without keeping your scan for other people going. Also after you open and do your controllability check start thinking ahead to how to set yourself up for the landing pattern. Don't go zooming cluelessly around and then make some stupid last minute maneuver close to the ground. Ask your teachers this question, it's a good one. Down at the bottom of http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/index.html is an article called "Wings Level" that can help you think about your canopy flying. Put some real effort into learning how to fly your canopy. That's where most people are hurting themselves these days. Skr

I was thinking about a sentiment I've heard here and in other discussions in today's skydiving world, variously expressed as: "We are selling a service for $22." No, what you're selling is a human experience, freefall, friendship, feelings, family ... The $22 plane ride is logistics, a means to an end. What people want most is family, feeling included, and self esteem, feeling empowered. You create that the way a gardner creates flowers, prepare the garden, plant the seeds, water the vibes, make it possible, then stand back and watch as the flowers do the growing. There are techniques, prune here, nudge there, but the flowering is inherent in the flowers. It's what they naturally do in any conducive environment. The DZO and her Boogie Mechanics are gardners. The planes and manifest and business are the shovels and rakes and watering can. So, if you don't push the analogy too far, that's what you're selling. That's how it's worked at all the really successful skydiving scenes that I've seen. Skr