Reginald

Okay, there are a lot of interesting opinions on here.

Here is what we teach students:

A. Less than 1,000 stay with the plane unless otherwise instructed by the PIC then if exiting use reserve.

B. 1,000 to decision altitude or “hard deck” exit and use reserve. Note for students this is
2,500. For experienced skydivers this number may be as low as 1,800 feet.

C. Greater than hard deck use main.

It’s not a perfect system, but it is a system and gives the vast majority of skydivers, particularly low timers and fun jumpers, the best chances. Highly current, experienced and knowledgeable jumpers may make different choices based on their equipment, skills and knowledge.

There are some basic concepts this is built on.

First is that students are taught that they should have a landable main by their hard deck or to execute their EP’s. If they are exiting a plane below that altitude they should use the more reliable reserve. Note that student’s reaction times are poor all around hence the higher hard deck the USPA recommends for students.

Second, reserves do open faster than mains. I personally know exactly how long it takes my main to open at terminal (roughly 800 feet) and during the forward throw of a hop n pop (usually 300 to 500 feet). I also know the variation I’ve experienced in both and the sometimes funky sub terminal openings I get. I’ve had one reserve ride and it was the quickest cleanest opening I’ve ever had.

Third, given that most rigs have AAD’s this has to be built into the decision-making. A CYPRES turns on during accent at 1,500 feet. When does it fire and at what altitude? How about the different parameters on a student model? How about the roughly 300 foot variation in its readings due to changes in body position? What happens if the CYPRES fires while a main is coming out of the bag? What are the changes of a simple two out vs. an entanglement? What are the size and type of the main and the reserve? Sadly most skydivers don’t understand the black box attached to their reserve loop.

Some of the advice I’ve seen in this thread given to a person with 25 jumps is just outright bad and worse dangerous. This thread is the reason that I absolutely hate it when students walk in saying they got information off the internet. It’s usually wrong or at minimum wrong for them as a student.

R

PS: be safe out there and remember Orthopedic surgery really does suck!

How many jumps did you have and what was your license, if any? This will largely dictate what you need to do.

The reality is that most DZ's will require you, regardless of jumps or license, to sit through a first jump course and make at least one jump with an instructional rating holder given you've had a 4 year layoff.

He is fine. It is thought that he wasn’t actually shocked, simply that the power lines “buzzed” when he hit them and the local witnesses presumed he had been shocked. He was taken to a hospital as a precautionary measure and released upon arrival.

Below is a review from a wuffo friend that downloaded the game
----------------------------------------------------
"Ehh... not bad but not great.

It's mildly entertaining but the motion control seems
a little too direct. You tilt right, you go right.
You rotate right, you rotate right.

I think it would have been better to make the
motions a little less connected: you tilt right, you
start to go right, etc. You know, inertia and all
that stuff.

Maybe there are some game settings to modify that.

The graphics and sound are pretty good but nothing special.
I guess for 5 bucks you should not expect that much."

The best thing you can do is show up 30 minutes earlier than they asked you to, well rested. Pay attention and ask questions pertinant to the task at hand, not off topic.

Don't worry about the instructors. They are there to help you not the other way around.

So what DZ are you going to training at?

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Canopy course is the answer man.

yea, might be worth a shot. altough, i dont know how good that money would be put to use.. i need to get more jumps in!

It will be the best money you've ever spent in skydiving.

Jim,

It was a good day. And while you are heaping praise on others note that it is people like you that are the up and comers in the sport that also help motivate the rest of us and inject fresh enthusiasm into the dropzone and the sport. Take a second and pat yourself on the back too.

Blue Skies,
Ron

So what's your canopy and wing loading, etc?

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This is one problem that I don't have to worry about anymore. My reserve ripcord "cable" is 1,000 lb. Spectra line.

Bill you showed this to me when I was doing a tour of the UPT factory a year ago. At the time it was not available on V3 rigs. Is it now available?

Maybe the thread should read, "Cypres 2 fails self test and skydivers jump anyway and have misfire"...

Bev

One of the inbound approaches to DFW is over the top of Skydive Dallas at about 12,000 feet. When the DZ is in operation they move the approach several miles to the south. It is not uncommon in freefall to look over and see an airliner on level with you. These are not near misses by any means but can seem strange to people that aren’t used to it. The DZ, ATC, etc. are all in constant radio contact. On rare occasion the DZ will have to circle and hold jump run for a few minutes if an airliner is off course, which is exceedingly rare.

As an instructor I'll give you one piece of advice. Listen and learn from your instructors in person, not from strangers on the internet! Instructors are busy with multiple students so hang around and talk to them after hours if you want more info than you got in your debrief. That said, nice job!

Be thankful this is the bigest problem in your life! You apparently have the health of your family, a roof over your head and food in your mouth. So you're going to let a minor delivery error ruin your day? You will be a much happeri person when you start appreciating the important things in life. This is not one of them.

Well at least you discovered how poor your air skills are.

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Novice jumper has put in a few dozen jumps and is buying a first rig. Body weight is 160 pounds. (Exit weight around 180?)

Which would you say is the best choice for jumps 150 - 200+?

What happened to the 100 or 150 jumps in between the few dozen he has now and 150 to 200 you are talking about? I'd suggest he buy a canopy that is approperiate for him today, not in a year or two when he has more jumps.

Note that not everyone jumps a tiny canopy. There are plenty of people jumping relativly large canopies still.

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I have never been under a reserve thinking "you know, I wish that reserve were smaller"

Well said!

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my major problem is a 4way at 4k, with people on it with less than several hundred jumps.

what was your planned breakoff alt?

Agreed!

The problem Mikhail is that you put yourself in a bad situation by "doing 4 way" from 4K and apparently several times. If you hadn’t started the chain of events with something so foolish you wouldn't have been in a bad situation to begin with. I refuse to even comment on if it was a good idea to chop at 1,300 feet and will tell you the better answer is not to put yourself in that situation in the first place.

Mikhail at a very fundamental level you are asking the wrong question here. I hope you learn what the real problem was and take steps to avoid it in the future.

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I don't know how I managed it but nobody noticed.

Bad news they probably did notice and just never told you about it...to your face...

Just say, "Well, it's not for everyone." It disarms them AND subtlety let's them know they are wusses.

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People wonder why I get defensive when there's no productive/helpful info being given.

There are users posting on here that know me in person and they know that I'm the first person to ask for advice, opinions, what should I do, when, how many etc...

Chris,

The basic lesson demonstrated in these threads relates to your decision making process. That process is what caused you to buy an inappropriate canopy. I won’t comment on the canopy, because that has been beaten to death. However, I’d like to share with you my views on your decision making process. I don’t expect you to change anytime soon but maybe you will reflect on it in future years and make better decisions. I also post it because it is not an uncommon problem in the sport. I can point to several people I personally know that have similar flaws in their decision making logic. Those flaws caused them to make poor decisions that seriously injured them radically changing the rest of their life, for the worse.

Chris, you have been given a vast amount of excellent information form some of the most knowledgeable people in the sport in these threads and you refuse to recognize it. Why?

You are an “opinion shopper.” You make up your mind on a decision prior to seeking input. You then seek advice but when that advice doesn’t agree with your predetermined position you lash out at people and or simply disregard their input. You avoid information that refutes your position and seek to discredit it. You selectively find support for your decision and over emphasize its importance. You ask leading questions designed to elicit a response in support of your position, not fair and balanced questions designed to provide unbiased responses. Most likely you only ask people that you think will tell you what you want to hear. Only when people agree with you do you consider it, “constructive”.

Unfortunately, this is actually the normal human decision making process. This is also the nature of politics, legal debates, etc.

A proper decision making process to come to the most optimal decision involves seeking out information pro and con on a topic and fairly weighing the information. It is actually a difficult art to learn, it is not engrained in human nature.

The problem with “opinion shopping” in the sport of skydiving is that it puts us and others an increased risk of injury or death. In most aspects of our life it does not.

Not to belabor the point but a friend of mine had a similar decision making process. He wanted to downsize his canopy and swoop so he sought out advice from people. He only sought advice from some of the most irresponsible swoopers he knew. He heard exactly what he wanted to hear. He would have done well to seek the opinions of others too. It ended badly for him (just crippled not killed) and to this day he thinks he went about it the right way, by seeking advice before the downsized. Sigh…

I wish you well and hope that you at least give some thought to what I've said.

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As the event got closer and closer, nothing showed up. I made several attempts through a couple of different channels to contact the rep, but never heard back, and the promised box never showed up. Eventually I told the event organizers to remove this company from the list of sponsors.

So, it sounds like you didn't have good communication set up with the person at the company that committed to the event. Do you think part of the fault rests with you for poorly organizing with and communicating with the company's rep? If so is your question even valid?

Here’s how more than a few conversations have gone

Idiot (usually a low time jumper) does something stupid down low under a canopy that he probably shouldn’t be on anyway…

Experienced jumper, “Hey man, how did you feel about X”

Idiot, “I was fine with it I’m trying to learn X”

Experienced jumper, “well, it kind of scared some of us who were watching, you’d probably be better off doing Y, for these reasons..”

Idiot, “Hey man, I’m so tired of people telling me I’m being dangerous. This is a sport of individual choice and freedom and as long as I’m not endangering anyone else what do you care?”

Experience jumper, “because we’re your friends and don’t want to see you get hurt”

Idiot, “we’ll it’s my choice on what I want to do and it only affects me so again what do you care?”

Experience jumper, “because I’m tired of going to funerals. It affects me when you break yourself in the landing area and I have to listen to you scream for your mother as your femur is sticking out your ass. I’m tired of it. And I sure as hell don’t want to have to call your mother and tell her you’re crippled for life or dead. It does affect other people.”

As an AFF Instructor, I HIGHLY recommend you go get a little tunnel time if you are near one. It will do you a world of good and be very helpful in your progression through your student progression.

Just tell the staff at the tunnel that you will be doing AFF next month and they will help you with the skills you need for AFF.

So how much tunnel time are you planning on doing?