GreenLight

A friend of mine went against his doctor's advice not to indulge in sports like this. He had a hard landing and has been a parapalegic stuck in a wheel chair ever since. Not a day goes by that he doesn't wish he had listened to his doctor. Do you have a medical degree? You WILL hit the ground very hard every once in a while. Is it worth the risk? Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Oh! You must be jumping at Elsinore... Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Jim Fee.... Blue Skies, Black Death... Tony Dell... Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Why are tandem customers calle students? Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

This is by far the funniest thread I have read in this forum. The parties have to be the most dangerous part of the sport. Two sprained ankles and a dislocated shoulder from tripping over people who were passed out or trying to pass myself off as a good dancer at the Bomb Shelter. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Agreed. I learned to hit the ground rolling in martial arts and it became quite helpful when falling off things during play and at work. Learned to PLF in skydiving which was pretty much the same thing. HOWEVER.... I found that I made my bed much prettier in the mornings, and folding up my work tarps became a lot easier after learning how to pack my parachute. Any time I'm folding up a tarp I think about packing my parachute LOL... Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Those parachutes look like they were made by someone who couldn't make up their mind. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

LOL... Next year we will be issuing walkers for some of the participante. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

The story, photos and video are up for the 2011 Old Farts Reunion held at Taft. You can view them on the Air Trash Website. http://www.airtrash.com Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Been there and done that. BAD IDEA! Don't even bother seeing your doctor again untill it's healed. And then you still want to see your doctor to make sure it is good and healed. DO NOT JUMP untill it's healed and the doctor says it's healed. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Agreed... It's not the big dirty ones I worry about. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Do you really want to land near one of these things? I generally stop skydiving at the first sign of a dust devil. But what happens when the first sign of one is just as you are getting ready to land? Video by Randy Forbes taken at Perris at 1pm June 25th, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PDlWJMgN-k Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

I have one stent that was placed in my left decending artery (the widow maker) in 2004 and I'm still jumping. However, I waited 6 months after the stent was installed to start jumping again. And I quit smoking and made all the other life changes that go along with a healthy recovery. It's not the adrenaline that will hurt you so much as the fast change in altitude which causes the blood vessels and arteries to constrict. Take an asprin on the morning of your jumps when you do start to jump again and please wait 6 months till after the stent was placed. The tissue around the stent needs to grow over it to hold it in place. It COULD move on you if you don't wait. Again from the suddenly changing pressure from rapid change in altitude. Antother point to consider. No one else cares whether you live or die in the air but it's a hell of a mess to have to clean up after you bounce so please invest in an AAD. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

I have critisized new jumpers for dealing with the slider before doing a canopy control check. I tell them that the proper order of chores after opening begins with clearing your airspace, unstowing the brakes and doing a canopy control check. Once you are done with those chores it's ok to deal with stowing your slider, Dbag and pilot chute and unfastening your chest strap, and for photographers, unclipping your wings. A couple of years ago a photographer went in doing all these things in the wrong order. He had unclipped his wings and unfastened his chest strap first, then found out he was having a mal. Once he cut away he could not find his reserve handle due to the unfastened wings and cheststrap. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

In the early 80's Jim Wallace employed a female dwarf who learned to skydive. Jim had to order custom made gear for her. She was tiny but I don't remember her actuall height. I don't remember her name either but I do remember that she was really good looking and blonde. She also had a license plate that said SMURFET on it. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

OK guys I think I get it and if I read any more my head is going to start hurting again. We are going to go over this info on the ground in a few hours and the chart is what we are going with. If we tried to absorb all that has been said in this thread it could become very confusing. But the basics are there and we really appreciate the depth that the thread has gone to in order to illistrate what is actually happening in most cases. The most dramatic thing I think I saw here was the computer model showing the difference between fast fallers and slow fallers. I have argued that point with the higher ups at our DZ for years and not once did any of them show me this model. Thanks again. You won't see us opening up around your group in the future. By the way, we always count out load before we climb out. We get some pretty goofy looks from the other people in the plane every time we do it. I have not heard anyone else counting since my early days in DC-3s. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Never would have believed it without this motion chart. They have been telling me for years now that "all the computer models tell us that the FF must exit after the SF." Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Question... Is it the GPS that tell's the pilot the ground speed? Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Did you slap him across the back of the head? Or maybe even better, tell the newbie the real deal? By the way, props for posting your mistake. As you said, fortunately, no one died, and it would have been easy to make this a non issue by checking the spot/speed looking out the door. We all can be reminded of that once in a while... I really felt like doing that but I am one of those "old guys" who doesn't have a clue as far as he is concerned. Not having an instructors rating I would be shot down in flames immediately. I was a little leary of posting our mistake for all to see but I really don't want other skydivers to have to learn this the hard way as we did. This could have been disasterous so I'm not ashamed to admit our mistake. I hope we can all learn from this. Now I'm going to download that PDF file, and thanks again for all the info. I will be talking to our DZO about this as well. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

I believe you. Im going to be watching with different amounts of upper winds just to satisfy my curiosity now as I have always relied on the visual effect plus some counting. My group is reading this entire thread along with me and we are going to discuss it this weekend. Sort of an emergency safety day. From now on it's the time calcs that we will be using such as what Billvon spoke of. Thanks all for this thread. By the way. Yesterday I happened to go outside to watch the sunset and overheard one of the packers talking to a newbie and explaining the importance of using the 45 degree rule. What a coincidence eh? Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Actually if the plane had been going backwards we might have had some seperation LOL. Those videos are of the same dive. We all went zinging through canopies on opening. We normally always look at the exit before us. I don't know what happened this time. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

No one actually LOOKED at the ground and said, Um we're going a bit slower than we should be for 10knotts? Exactly... We were second group out of an otter. 4 way including camera. Almost fatal mistake on our part. Obviously no one behind us looked either. We had a little pow wow in the LZ immediately after. Again we were very lucky... Here are both vids to show you just how lucky we were. Watch the canopies come up. We all felt pretty stupid and very lucky afterwards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG99kloOhi8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a9t8Bu0yl8 Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

Thanks for that LouDiamond. I have read the first 7 pages and now have a tremendous headache. I'm interested in this thread due to an incident that happened last week. Scared the bejesus out of the entire otter load as we all opened up in the same column of air barely missing each other and we have lots of video to show it. We are talking lots of near misses of only a couple of feet. After over twenty years of jumping this is the scariest jump I have lived through. 1st load of the day. On the way up we asked the pilot for uppers. 10 out of the west was the answer. It was wrong. He got the uppers at a lower altitude than jump run altitude. At altitude we later found out they were 130 knots. Needless to say we all ended up on top of each other and it was a miricle no one was injured or killed. I have always used my own eyes and my own math to figure out seperation and it has worked well over the years. I tend to go with Bill Von on this one. Of course you need GOOD information for any of this to work. My main point is that no one is too experienced to die and no one is too old to learn. We all made a potentially disasterous mistake that day and if not for plain luck, you might be reading about the most horrific free fall accident in history now instead of this post. So I am very motivated to learn all I can from this thread and others like it. Now for the next 5 pages... Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."

"Wild Bill" Richards, the Blue Sky Ranch boss is on the bottom ... Alan Jacobs is on top. Photo by: CHARD From the pages of Blast From The Past on the Air Trash website. Green Light "Harry, why did you land all the way out there? Nobody else landed out there." "Your statement answered your question."