Cayce

Hey Shannon, good job man. I'm glad you found your main and free-bag. I was hoping that all worked out for you. The 11 way track was a kick. We'll have to do some more tracking together to practice keeping up with Jojo. See you next time. Cayce

Also check out Starlight Cases. Superior to Pelican in some ways and cheaper in price. http://www.starlightcases.com/

How about a "Grip"? I don't know, all the kids are saying it these days. Or a "Zoo". For some reason I always hear that after we exit...

For some reason this whole thread reminded me of this phone call….strange. http://www.ebaumsworld.com/bk.html

Wow! You guys seem to have hit on all of my reasons and then some. I’m not flying a camera yet and I won’t be for a little while as you can see from jump numbers. But I’ll be asking newbie questions here pretty soon so stay tuned. Also, I was pretty excited to see that Elsinore had a good program to getting camera flyers up to speed. I had a good talk with them last weekend. The reasons I want to fly a camera have all been mentioned: love of media as an art form, personal record, freefly coolness factor, and others. I also see it as being a way to be exposed to other disciplines of skydiving that I don’t have a predisposition to train for. Meaning, I don’t see myself being a RW four way guy but I’ll be happy to film them. Anyway, I’m really looking forward to it in the near future.

I had a similar thought along the lines of what Zoter mentions, and really, I’m just playing the “what if” game here… but here goes. What if I cut the right steering line and went to rears to control the spin. Assuming that’s the extent of the damage it should be able to land on rear risers at that point. Or does having both steering lines gone destroy the ability for the chute to flare?

Sorry, that's what I should have said. I was reaching up to collapse the slider. This is my normal pattern, after looking for traffic, as it gets me looking/reaching up first thing. Collapsing the slider gives a better view for chute integrity evaluation and it puts both of my hands extending to the rear risers for initial heading adjustments. Then I release both toggles for controllability checks. I don't stow the slider because I'm not into performance landings yet so I'm not worried about minimizing drag for a glide (assuming that's the extent of the reason to stow) In this case, just after the irregular opening, and a groan of pain, I reached for the slider while looking up. It took the chute that long (2 seconds) to react to the snapped steering line, so as I reached it went into the initial spin. I bailed on the first step of collapsing the slider and went right to the toggles to counter the spin. That's when the toggle came off in my left hand and I un-stowed the right break as I pulled both. I agree that it's a mistake to waist time dinking with the slider if you’re not in regular flight.

It seems like there’s always a lot to think about after a cut away… That’s one of the reasons I appreciate these forums as it spurs me see things from other people’s points of view and see things I may have overlooked or not focused on at the time. I did release the right steering line at the same time I pulled the left toggle off to find it not connected to anything. It’s my habit, as I suspect it is with most people, to release both break stows simultaneously. So at that point, although I was still in an escalating flat spin, one break line was snapped and the other was unsowed and I had released it so the right toggle went back up to the guide ring. I’ve been in flat spins with line twists on this main before and even kicking out of the twists didn’t bring me to normal flight. I had to counter with aggressive toggle input to stop the spin. I suppose in this case I could have gone to an aggressive left rear riser input see if that countered the spin. It could have bought me a few seconds to further evaluate the opening shock damage if it brought me to normal flight. Honestly, that may have put me in a more frightening position of trying to negotiate a landing on rears, which I haven’t done, aside from practicing up high. Anyway, I went with my gut feeling at the time.

Okay, this is starting to make more sense.

I was doing a solo FF jump at Elsinore this morning, working on sit stand transition skills, great jump until the opening. I got a minor slammer, nothing too bad but definitely not the norm. I look/reach up to stoe my slider and my chute goes into a hard spin. I forget the slider for the moment and go for the toggles to try to counter the spin. The left toggle comes off in my hand with no line attached, I realize that the steering line snapped upon opening and that’s the reason I’m in the spin. As I was now in a flat spin I didn’t bother looking for any more damage, I went to plan B. I went for my EP’s, cut the main with the red pillow, didn’t feel the RSL take up the reserve which surprised me, but I kept on going with the EP’s and deployed the reserve with my yellow pillow. So I get my reserve open, spot my main and freebag, take some visual cues to location, and just barely make it back to the DZ to stand the landing and kept my handles. I’ll strike the minor slammer up to my pack job and maybe a bad body position while deploying as it only hurt one thigh from the leg straps I must have been misaligned or I packed it in such a way that one side inflated before the other, if that’s possible. But the really perplexing thing is that while we were inspecting the pillows/cables my rigger says that the RSL must have hung up because there is a quarter sized loop bent into the reserve cable about 6 inches from the pin. Now this follows my recollection because I didn’t have that nearly instant reserve deployment like I did last time when the RSL worked. And it felt hard to pull the reserve deployment pillow so I definitely pulled the pin manually. So, my questions for those more knowledgeable about RSL’s is this: What does it mean to say that the RSL “must have hung up”? Does that mean that I may have had the RSL connected to my riser and main, trailing me after I cut the main? Was there a risk that I could have deployed my reserve into the main if it was still connected? I know both risers let go but I didn’t look over my shoulder to see if it was behind me, I was more concentrating on reserve deployment and keeping belly to the earth at the moment. I didn’t think to ask my rigger about it at the time as I think I was still coming down from the adrenaline. It was only on the ride back from the DZ that I put it all together and went, “Hay, wait a minute, what do you mean the RSL hung up, that’s not supposed to work that way…what does that mean anyway?” That’s just me talking to myself on the way home. Anyway, before I start answering myself, can anyone else shed any light on this one? Thanks.

Hello all. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I plan for eventual camera use in skydiving. It seems there are many reasons why people fly cameras and I’m curious to hear some of your reasons. There are the employed camera flyers at my normal DZ’s. All of which are pretty much on back to back loads with tandems and AFF’s and seldom jump with the fun jumpers. There are the 4 way team video guys who are always working with their teams. There are the freefly camera jocks who record their own jumps for record and for their friends, some of whom make compilations for fun and distribution to friends. There are the freelance coach guys, not connected to the DZ school, who use the camera as a recording and teaching tool for their students. They sometimes jump with the fun jumpers and fly camera while participating in the big ways. Then there seems to be a gray area of camera flyer that I’m unclear as to the etiquette. Some people sell fire wire downloads after a jump. Some people get paid by participants to video a hybrid or something or get their slot covered during a big way. Some of these guys seem cool and others seem a bit parasitic but maybe that’s just individual personalities. I’m curious what the etiquette is for these situations and I’m curious to hear how some more experienced camera flyers see the above groups. Are there others that I forgot? Why do you fly a camera?

Hey Eric, I'll jump with you next time we're in SD together. Not that I can offer much in the way of coaching but I can hang with you in the speed department and we can do some two way jumps so you can focus on me and work on your fall rate adjustments. Cayce

I've been concerned that my break lines were set for a taller person as I purchased my equipment used. I can't stall the canopy with toggle input. I try up high, even with an aggressive stab and it only slows down but never really stalls. I also feel like my landings should have a little more flare at the end but it's just not there with a full toggle extension. Recently I've been working with my rear risers a lot (up high) and I can fully stall the canopy with rear risers. My question is this: should I be able to fully stall the canopy the same way with toggles? Should I work with my rigger to get my break lines shortened? Thanks.

Okay, I suspect I'm the anvil in question here, am I right Steve? Using the instance above, it was not a fully zp suit but a ZP jacket, and we were specifically sit flying. So in that case the zp just cut the air and had very little surface to deflect the air as it does when we do a tracking dive. So when I switched to the baggy cotton I had more drag. For further comparison wait until you see my new jacket that I sewed last week. Its full cotton, double surface, etc. It really slows my sit down and helps with stability. I'm not sure about the physics of the issue but I know that a double layer cotton top slows me a lot more that a zp top when we're talking about a sit fly.

Now that's the strange thing. I do exactly as you describe and stoe my toggles upon landing, making sure not to twist the lines. Yet I keep accumulating twisted break lines. I don't see how they get twisted up so much.

Okay, so this weekend I had an interesting landing. I did a high hop and pop from 5k, pitched around 3k, in the saddle at 2.5k. Did a control check, turns, flare, visual of the chute, all good. Start to set up for the DZ and get into a landing pattern. At around 1,800 I realize that I've made a few left hand turns and the break line has felt like it was catching at the same place on the turns. I check it out a little more and I see a tension knot that is binding up maybe 2-3 inches of line and the knot bumps as it passes through the guide ring when I flare to about my chest. I mess with the knot, no way it's coming out. I do another controllability check and figure that I can land with this glitch. I just have to make sure that as I use the toggles I lead my right toggle by a few inches to make up the difference. If the line snaps, further binds, lets go, I can always land on rear risers. I practice a few on heading flares to get the lead figured out and set up for final on the approach. Landed fine with a good flare, no worries. So here's what I take away from this one. First I didn't do as complete a controllability check on initial opening as I should have. Because of that I was already past my decision altitude (2k) when I found the problem. Even still I would have chopped had it been binding something like a foot of break line, but at two inches I didn't even notice the heading pulling left at all, with the funky winds we had yesterday it could have been any number of steering issues. So I elected to land it figuring that the possible escalation of the problem could only be to break a line, further bind it, or the knot lets go and it returns to normal. Either of which would only affect me on final in the last 50ft, so I was primed to bail to rear risers in a heartbeat if anything went wrong. Finally I think the causes could have been related to a few things. I have gotten out of the habit of untwisting my break lines on a daily basis, something I will be religious about from now on. So my break lines had many twists before the incident. Also, I didn't pack last weekend before going home at night so I just daisy chained my lines and squished my rig and chute in my gear bag. So after a week of daisy chained lines with twisted break lines the excess between the d-bag and the risers looked like spaghetti sitting in my container tray. Usually it just coils in all nice, but this time it was having a bad hair day and the lines looked all squirrelly while I was packing. So, to summarize, more thorough controllability check, daily break line untwisting, and make sure to pack after sunset load... Anyone else have any observations?

Jump #2, lineover. Stand up reserve landing and kept my handles.

I've been doing the same reserch while planning to take up sewing for much the same reason. Although I haven't purchased from these guys they seem to be highly regarded in the community and they have what you’re looking for... http://www.paragear.com/templates/parachutes.asp?group=347&level=2&parent=193

I can offer some personal anecdotes from having recently experience much the same situation. I think I’m going to refer to my jumps from 50-100 as the dark ages of my continuing progression. Don’t get me wrong, I jumped with some great people, had a lot of fun, did lots of tracking dives, fun exits, formations, hybrids, RW, etc. But I didn’t do any serious training. So around 100 I jumped with one of my AFF coaches on just a 2 way fun jump to work on my sit flying, after watching me flail for the entire jump he says something to the effect of “What the hell have you been doing with the last hundred jumps?” So, I took some action, went up to Perris for a day of personal coach jumps and tunnel time then did the Bridge the Gap over at Elsinore the next day. So I had a weekend of just working on my sit flying with some great coaching feedback. That’s what it took to give me a foundation that I can build on and continue to progress without setting up bad habits and getting an awareness of safety issues with FF so that I am more comfortable jumping with my regular group. Maybe I’m just a slow learner, I mean heck, there’s someone down in the FF forum who looks to have nailed the sit flying in two jumps. Anyway, I seriously benefited from getting out of my regular group, paying for some concentrated one on one coaching, and just concentrating on the skills I wanted to increase proficiency in. It’s too easy for me to be trying to work on something at my regular DZ and someone grabs me and “twists my arm ;-)” to do a series of hybrids or something for the rest of the day when I was set to work on skills progression. That’s why it was good for me to step out for the weekend and specifically work on the skills progression I needed.

I should have paid more attention to this thread when it first posted. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=994391;search_string=wings%20break%20stow;#994391 And I should have listened to my DZO when he saw me packing loose break line stows in my Wings container. Yesterday I had 4 line twists that spun me up pretty hard. I managed to kick out of the line twists only to find that my excess break stow lines had been twisted into a tension knot and was trapping my risers together like a bow tie. I tugged on it until it released. At least I knew enough to keep my fingers together as I knew it could snag a single digit. Anyway, I came out of it, according to the Neptune, after 8 seconds of struggle and right at my hard deck. I had a good canopy and made it back to the DZ with enough altitude for a decent landing pattern. The thing is that I couldn’t find anything in the Wings manual about how to stow the excess break lines so I figured it was safe just to leave it loose. Also, last weekend my DZO saw me packing and suggested rigging a rubber band to trap the excess. I didn’t really understand how he figured to do it so I didn’t pay much attention to working it out. So, there you have it, big lesson learned, I’m going to my rigger to have an elastic band attached to my risers and I had a good talk with my DZO. In the big scheme of things it was a cheap lesson, but it makes a good discussion point.

Okay, I'm in. I'll be down Thursday and I'm bringing my little brother for a tandem as he's staying with me on his spring break. Sounds like a great time, I'm looking forward to a few days of jumping an partying.

I here you. All I meant by that is that in this incident I didn’t even un-stoe my breaks because I was afraid to make things worse. Since then I've heard that a line-over can sometimes correct itself if you do a full flare. I can't substantiate where I heard that (or possibly read it). Is that worth testing if I have the altitude? [insert disclaimer] Yes I will ask my instructors...[/disclaimer out]

I had a cutaway on AFF-2 with a line-over resulting in a spinning main. I might work to fix it better now, but at the time I just chopped because I couldn't control or land with that main. I happened to keep both handles, only because I didn't clear and they were hanging from the housing when I landed. The DZO never mentioned anything about paying for the re-pack. I would have if he had, but at that point I was just so happy to be alive it never crossed my mind. I don't think students should have to be concerned with cost of re-pack. If they need to chop then their only concern should be their EP and surviving. But I also agree, as stated above, that students that are signed off to pack their own should be responsible cut. I’ve done some crappy looking pack jobs that thankfully opened pretty well. But if I botched it on a packing mistake I wouldn’t expect the DZ to suck up a reserve repack.

Hey Nate, I was going to Elsinore tomorrow also. I'll see you there. Maybe we'll catch up with SD on Sunday?

Nice one Nate. You certainly did have a permanent smile for the rest of the day. I'm glad you got a rental and we went out on that three way after you cut. It's good to get the next jump out of the way after a reserve ride. Are you around this Saturday? If so I'll see you there.