craig_b

with all due respect, that doesn't solve anything for the hapless jumpers who do turn because they panic. If someone makes a low turn on account of panic, what makes you think they will immediately become calm and clear-headed enough to correct the situation using information they have read here? "Superior pilots use their superior judgement to avoid having to use their superior skills." Or - solve the problem at 500ft, not 25 ft. I'm in the low jump numbers and try and read, talk and listen to everyone I can. I think of this situation a lot and realize I need to practice high quite a bit. But to discard this type of thread because we wont be thinking clearly in a panic situation is all right. What I hope for is that for a clear second I will remember that someone said "pull down on the other toggle". I understand that and will probably remember it. I'm a conservative skydiver anyway but I wonder when someone is going to hook turn down on me and all of a sudden there they are. I hope to be alert, cautious and still seeing all at jump 2000. This is a good site. We do learn and we do remember. Thanks to all that feed us and challenge us. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I see alot of conversation with some good some bad as usual. I think that all of us need to remember one important thing about any skydive..... who is responsible for it? The jumper. I commend you for asking the questions and with your knowledge from being a pilot some of it you can actually judge. Some of the best advice comes from those with the good experience (not me at 52 jumps, look for the bigger numbers!) and they brought up the good points. Is the DZ an USPA Group member? Is the school a group member also? I am like you I tend to analyze things..... but the best advise after you decide is "shut up and jump". The most common phrase heard by a newbie. Have Fun and Blue Skies!! _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

If you are still at terminal at 350 ft. you never did have a canopy out so chopping isn't in the picture. And having only 1.75 seconds to impact isn't enough to even think "damn, this is NOT good". _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I finally found out this past Saturday what the "wind" is and how it is my best friend. I was in a 2-way camp at Perris and those first exits are something else when you first learn about "the hill" and that we must fly it. I was on the inside and my partner was the floater. My partner that day, who has about 2300 jumps, told me a secret..... (this is one that you go duh! on)..... when we are flying belly down the air supports us in flight as we push against it.... well... when we exit and present to the relative wind THAT is the same thing and we can fly it the same way we do belly to earth. We do have to fight for it but once you feel it the whole exit becomes the beginning of a skydive. Hang in there and it will come to you.... have fun with the wind. My heart use to jump into my throat with every exit.... the diving exit was so easy but that one heading into the relative was a tumble every time. Come out presenting and ready to fly it but stay parallel to the wing as long as you possibly can. Have fun..... Blue Skies! _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

Let's see..... I started at the age of 54. So, I figure when the body gives out, I'll come in right on time. Smiling of course. I figure I'm about half way there. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

Once again, being a true newbie here agree completely with this. I had a short but important conversation with my "mentor", one who does have over 2000 jumps, 10 years experience and was the one that I watched that got me interested in this sport. This short conversation revovled around stand-up vs "butt slide". She literally chewed me up. Yes, she will do a slide and said THAT IS COMPLETELY WRONG TO DO and I had better learn PLF and stand up real good. She admitted to her learning errors, passed along her experience and told me to never ever butt slide again. I have not butt slid in since then. I hope this does give the experienced ones here the optimisim that some of us are listening and learning with each word you say. Thank you for ALL the input. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I'm not a pilot and you may already know of the web site but www.diverdriver.com has some good pilot information for all kinds of aircraft including twin otters. Hope this helps you. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I did my packing class..... first jump was great, good opening.... next 5 were ALL line twists.... had an 8 wrap and said no more! I had a packer do them at that point. I mix my packing with packers now and am still getting pointers on the nuances of packing. We need to pack our own and get on with it. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

Tim McGraw..... "Live Like You Were Dying" but I switch to native american indian chants with great orchestration mixed in. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

Excellent point for wind and our experience with cross wind landings! On the another point, all one has to do to understand the real point behind this entire thread is to watch a Big Way come in for landing at Perris. We better learn excellent accuracy and heads up landings. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I'm right there with you. The money, the pressure and bad, bad decisions as students. But I think what the experienced are saying is absolutely a must eventually. Maybe instead of the student jumps being just freefall and very, very little canopy teaching we could get both on each jump? I know it is asking a lot for a student to remember and do but I always felt the jump was four parts anyway. Exit, freefall, canopy and landing. If we could get freefall AND canopy on the same jump I think we just might get a lot more out of it. I had to practice on my own every time under canopy and landing. I think the only comment that was made on a landing was...... "you like downwind landings?". I had to figure a better way to detect wind on the ground from 1500 or so.... shadows, small movement, etc. all on my own... with the help of a few friends after the jump day was over. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

A last note. Point very well taken. I have thought of this many times and in looking at the incident reports, which I do to remind me, I don't see deaths in freefall. I do see.... "under spiraling canopy", "impact with light pole", "collision under canopy", "failure to pull", "hard impact after low level turn", "collision on landing" etc. Our canopy is the only element truly between us and the ground so it should be of primary concern to have the best canopy piloting and landing skills that we possibly can. Thank you again. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I try not to climb into the aircraft unsupervised whenever possible. I was very fortunate to have a friend that introduced me to the sport to insist on coaching after student status. I have a few very experienced skydivers that jump with me to help on freefall skills. At my level solo jumps are, in my opinion, almost worthless if not detrimental because you can develope bad habits without realizing it. As for being stable and pulling at the correct altitude that is not a problem. I am stable and aware. After the pull and under canopy I do well, at least I think I do because I have no one else around to judge that. This is the area I want more instruction. So item #1 will be getting your book and self ground school. We just had a new course open up at my DZ that goes from packing to landing. This is my very next endeavour, to have someone with me or watching my manuevers on set-up, approach and landing. In an overall opinion of the requirements you suggest, I think they are excellent. Our instructor's will need to improve their teaching skills to handle the accuracy landing with stand-ups. If the teaching is good then we the students should have no fear or pressure that some others speak of. We have fear or pressure because we don't fully understand and comprehend the fine techniques involved. ie we haven't been sufficiently taught at that point. Since my B license is within sight, every jump is now a determined accuracy jump for the 10 meter circle. I make the best of the freefall for fun but when I drop into the saddle it is concentration, awareness and performing the job the best I can. I expect with the new coaching available to me that in about 15 jumps I can get the accuracy signed off. Even 10 meters though seems a bit loose when I see 30 or 40 coming in for a landing off of a formation dive. The Big Ways are impressive to me in the coordination, precision and knowledge in the landing. So I too will be constantly improving to the "postage stamp" standup landing. With good instruction, tighter landing areas will not be "harder" or create more "pressure", it will just make us better skydivers. Thank you to all the experienced skydivers that give us the input we need so very much. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I'm newly A Licensed and must agree with the accuracy... we are fortunate to come close to anything. At 40 jumps I still will land either in the student area or off the main landing area because I don't have the fine control for accuracy yet, don't have the experience for an emergency manuever at extremely low altitude and may get rattled with a hot rod doing a 270 right in front of me. I agree that we can and do present a hazard to ourselves and others around us. I personally am having coaching at present in freefall and will be taking a canopy piloting course very soon. I do think that a course in canoping piloting should be mandatory, maybe for B License? I know just getting use to a new canopy is quite the challenge when you are just off student status. Well, that's input from the newbie. I look for all avenues to become better and safer. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I've always liked your input Grant and you are right on the money with this one. I'm at 40 jumps, recently A Licensed off student and the term that was engrained in my head was that the canopy had to be "controllable". That didn't mean that it didn't have a malfunction in process, if you can clear the mal in time don't cut away. As a student I was taught to pull at the correct altitude (for a student) and as you say check it out for any malfunction. Some are absolute immediate cut aways under student status no matter what but most require evaluation, quickly and effectively. The other thing I was taught is to pull, decide, cut away if needed rapidly so you DON'T have an ADD fire and end up with two out. Great respect for that scenerio was once again engrained into my mind. Thank you for your great input and thank you for this topic. Blue Skies! _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I'm a new skydiver myself and must agree with many of the experienced ones here. You were lucky this time and I am surprised the S&T officer didn't talk with you. "A" License minimum opening is 3000 and I got my tail chewed by a Load Organizer, the S&T officer and my friends for a low pull at Perris Valley,CA. You might consider what my best skydiver friend asked..... "At that altitude just how long do you have before you hit the ground?" At 1500 I figure about 7 seconds, right? I am glad you posted because it made me re-think my incident, remember it and go over what I learned from it. I don't ever want to put myself in that situation again and I do all I can to know every step of my dive before I get in the plane. I was told that a lot of skydiving must be automatic and that pulling at the correct altitude is part of that. A new DZ is the hardest for us newbies. We don't have the normal altitude awareness ques that we are use to at our home DZ such as the terrain, roads, buildings to judge by. I always jump with someone very familiar with a new DZ and that someone must also be someone I trust explicitly with my life. I am very glad to know you are okay and get to jump another day. Take care my friend and remember..... Pull, Pull Altitude, Pull Stable and Land Safely. Blue Skies _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I personally want to thank you for your story. I'm completely new here, 40 jumps, and I look for any information on the "what to do" when the shit hits the fan. I'm hoping my altitude awareness by visual ques comes on real soon and even though I just bought a Pro-Trac I will rely on the wrist altimeter more. My home DZ is Perris, CA and they are really hard on Cypress fires now. I had two close ones recently and that is what made me decide to get an audible. Thank you again for your story. I will use what I have gleaned..... if it ever comes up. I want to be ready BEFORE it happens. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I'm fairly new in the sport but come on over to Perris Valley, CA and it is all skydive during the day. Night party is good and still orientated to skydiving with lots of good info flying around if you want to catch it. Head for the city if you want parties. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

Thank You!! I'm newly A Licensed so in reality I'm just off student status and I learned the delta quite well. Delta is for vertical descent and I am desparately trying to learn true tracking, the art of gaining horizontal distance quickly. My "track" is so damn vertical !! So I'm still in a Delta. My jumpmaster said arms back, palms down, de-arch but get the butt up! head up too! I get to try it this Saturday! _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

It is good to know you are okay and lived through it. That's the good part. On my first visit ever to a DZ I witnessed a low hook turn and he died a day later. A few months after that a girl we knew did a low hook turn. She lived a few days more. I have a mere 34 jumps and would never think of attempting anything like that but your point of complacency is a point well learned. I have become complacent with line twist and almost went in myself 2 weeks ago. Being the newbie in here I have read the entire thread because I know the experience of all those participating. I listen and I pray that I learn. I hope that you do the same. We don't need to see your name in a fatal incident report. Heal well. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

I'm just off jumpmaster supervision for a bit, a newbie and learning with every jump, every conversation. On my AFF Level 8 I came out of a skyvan with a diving exit, tumbled, stable, in front of my JM, began an unexpected left turn which became uncontrollable (to me at least) I pitched at 45 degrees and was like a propeller and centrifugal force was gaining. I was taught on level 5 of the "5 second rule". If you are out of control, have tried what you know and by 5 seconds you are still out there..... pull. I did. It was at 9,000 feet from a 12,500 exit. This scared me and brought real doubt but I had to master this. This is what I did. I sheduled a same day wind tunnel and second attempt at level 8. My jumpmaster met me and watched me in the tunnel for my 4-2 minute sessions. We talked, went up and it was the greatest feeling to feel the stability and chase him around the sky. Keep at it. But you must be comfortable to a certain level. Talk with your instructor, practice, and don't be ashamed to pull high or any other time. I've been there, ya, it's embarrassing, but everyone on the ground asked..... are you okay? They know too. _________________________________________________ _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

With all the experienced jumpers comments maybe I am silly here. I am the newbie with just 25 jumps so I am low on the pole. My jumpmaster taught (heck, made me practice) to thow the handles down hard and let go! On the red (cutaway) it was to make sure I didn't have it still in my hand when I reached for the reserve handle. He would turn his back when I was in the harness and listen for them to hit the floor. I agree so much with who gives a damn. How much do new handles cost? Someday I will find out. __________________________________________________ _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

Hi Boris.... I am a "student" at this time, off jumpmaster supervision. There are different progressions as mentioned but they all seem to end up at the same point. You are not "A" licensed without the card completed. You will find that you must have coaches or instructors fly with you in freefall after you complete an 8 level progression. That is where I'm at. So this must be included when you think of the total costs involved. You need a few "RW" jumps. Remember, you are not allowed to jump with ANY other jumpers except USPA coaches or instructors until you are A Licensed. Don't know if that helps, but I hope so. Figure ALL your costs when you try to compare. I was real lucky also, managed to get through the 8 AFF Levels in 9 jumps. Look out for repeats... you get to pay again!! _________________________________________________ _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

It is the social side of the sport and a tradition. I myself don't drink anymore but will buy others drinks. On my first jump I bought the group sodas because it was just before noon and it worked out well for some chatter but with jumps later. I did get tagged just a bit ago for using the term "This is my first......" I did buy beer after the day was over at the DZ bar and we all had some very good discussions and I learned even more. We newbies are like information sponges. _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.

Congratulations!!!! I'm so glad you got to do the diving exit and have that experience. Maybe someday I will be able to try it in a Cessna or other smaller A/C than the Otter. I use that for almost all my exits and even used it yesterday (Sunday) for my A License Hop n' Pop. Keep having fun, good jumps and Blue Skies! _________________________________________________ _________________________________________ once you've experienced flight, you forever walk the ground with your head pointed skyward. There you've been and there you long to return.