azureriders

That has got to be the funniest post I have ever read on DZ.com. To the original poster, if you do not get this joke, do some research on Mr chuteless, then it will make more sense. Hint: the screen name has meaning.

Yes the pictures show an inflated canopy at full line stretch, but look at the body position of the pilot. When you turn your canopy, do you flail like that? OK, bad question, when most pilots turn their canopies, do they flail like that? This very much so looks like the canopy at least partially collapsed, reinflated asymetricaly and abruptly went into a dive, leaving the pilot's body to try and catch up with the flight path after a severe jerk. I would say painting a picture just like the OP described. As said up thread, turbulance can affect a canopy in many more ways than just a collapse, and although it will normally recover in a descently straight line of flight, this is not always the case.

You say the slider was collapsed from a jump last week. This tells me that you normally collapse your slider. You also say you did not notice the collapsed slider until on the ground, or at least that is my interpretation of your post. My question is that if you normally collapse your pilot chute, why do you believe that you did not on this particular jump? Your profile says you have 370 jumps and I would bet you have collapsed a slider on at least 300 of those, so therefore it should be pretty much second nature by now. I would also bet that after a slightly brisk opening and a slider crashing down over your risers, that you collapsed it with out even thinking about it and then your gold fish memory kicked in and you forgot that you had done it. Contrary to what I think you honestly believe, I do not believe that you had a slider collapsed opening without noticing some extreme opening shock. The only way I would even see that as possible would be that you had some type of other mal that slowed the opening way down before clearing itself. Even if that is possible, the odds of it happening on the same jump that a packer forgot to unstow your slider, well I will leave the math on that to you. Still some good lessons 1) Always unstow your own slider, set your brakes, and cock your PC 2) NEVER use a packer that you do not trust to unstow your slider, set your brakes, and cock your PC At least that is my opinion on the matter.

Great job. I have no problem climbing back in on a normal day, but I dont know if I would have concidered it with one hand and a loose helmet. The fact that you did just that, with out loosing the helmet, IMO means that you made the best possible choice. Safety first

hmmm, this could change a great deal depending on the type of jump, but from your discription this is what I think I would do: 1) I would not leave in my slot as the concintration on my helmet may interfer with my flying and send me through the group, not to mention that I probably would not be getting the shot anyway so whats the point. 2) Thinking quick if I did not think I could hold on while everyone else was leaving, I would leave early, get out from under the group before trying to fix anything as I would not want to take a chance of loosing the helmet up through the group. Keep in mind as I was working to fix the helmet that I may become terminally low and have to track away early and far. 3) Best option if I thought I could manage, hold on the plane until the intire group had left then peel and follow a tade late and try to fix the helmet. Now there should be no one above me in danger, I would have longer to work with out worring about tracking, the group would be easier to keep and eye on while working on the helmet. Hopefully get everything fixed and get some footage. edit to add: 4) make a note of how this happened and try to make sure it never happens again

I have several jumps with naked eyes, the highest being from 26,000 ft. Although I will probably do more, I dont think any will be from such altitude again, my eyes hurt for hours after that jump.

Quoted from the SIM. I was only going to site the bold underlined items but after skimming through it I decided the whole section was worthy of being in this thread. Yes it does say C license, so we are now be to forgiving, only gripping about those who do not have 200 jumps, which is only one of the requirements of a "C"??? And I promise you, I have read the book, front to back. I don’t know if that is a good thing, and I am sure I won't get any cool points for it, but I have.

I didn't vote as it would be self motivated for me to say go for it as I would like a chance to give you an estimate on fixing your place for sale, fixing mom's place to live in, and building the new home. I assume Central is the city limits you fall within, if not then you will fall under East Baton Rouge parish codes as Central is the only city within the parish to have a separate permit office. Either way I am not for certain about putting two homes on one lot, although I don’t think you will have too much trouble. Here in Livingston parish, I can put two residences on any lot as long as it is not within a restricted subdivision. I cannot put more than two without subdividing. I can also subdivide any acreage into as many as 9 lots without going through the planning commission or writing subdivision restrictions for the lots. It is simply just a matter of paying a few hundred for a surveyor to set the corners and file the plat at the clerk’s office. As you know Livingston is much more rural than EBR and I am sure that you will have more red tape there, but I still don’t for see it being prohibiting. If you have any trouble gathering the information, let me know and I will make some phone calls for you. I have done a lot of work in EBR and Central through the years, it is just most of it has been with in subdivisions.

depends, are they going to be a distraction? I have had to pull for one aff student, who during early winter was making his first jump with gloves and said they were the reason he could not find his handle. Truth was he was amped up and flailing all over the handle, I knew something was wierding him out but did not khow what at the time. All he had to do was slow down and PULL. After talking to him on the ground it seems he was really nervous about the gloves and just would not say anything. This was a level 5 skydive. I get your drift, if 200 for camera, 200 for wingsuits, how many for gloves, and whats next? However I dont see how it meaningfully effects this debate. Just because gloves are not a distraction to 99.999% of skydivers, does not change the fact that a camera is a distraction to 99.999% of them.

When I look at a visual altimeter and it does not read the correct altitude, it has failed in my opinion. Not a big deal for you or me, the poster that bumped this thread has 80 jumps acording to his profile, I think he should have other things on his mind than pushing buttons in free fall, or under canopy. It is also a bit annoying when you look across at your piece partner and he is pushing buttons rather than taking grips. This does not only happen under canopy and I dont need to know what time it is when I am in free fall Failures that I have experienced with the suntos include: Locking up at some given altitude, requiring the battery to be removed to resest. (2 times) Reading "0" for a few thousand feet then going back to working (1 time) Hard/imposible to read due to lighting angle or lack there of (many times) Buttons pushed/wrong mode (many times) Battery failure with out warning (3 times) Most of these can happen to skydiving altimeters as well, it is just my experience that they are more prone to suntos than they are to altimeters made for skydiving. I know of a few other sunto failures, some of which I was on the jump with, I have only listed the ones that happened to me. I obviously have jumped a sunto a bit, and I will keep doing so and I am not saying that others should not, just be informed that they will fail. All altimeters will fail, have a plan and be prepared for it. Train your eyes!!!

And when you give the radius of the drop zone around the target as required by FAR 105.15-a.2. As long as you give at least 2 nmi you should cover your self no matter which of the three methods you use.

Several times? sure. I have several hundred jumps on multiple suntos and they have failed on me more times than I can count. It is one button push away from not showing altitude at all. It will hang up, just jump it long enough. They are hard to read in some light conditions, ranging from bright light on the face to lack of light. I wear a sunto daily on my right wrist as a watch. I keep is set to 0 when at the DZ. I do this because I have been know to forget me alti-master on the ground. I hardly ever look at an altimeter unless I have a student and it makes it easy for me to forget. When this happens I simply switch hands with the sunto and move on. It does serve me as a good back up but always keep in mind, they will fail you. I could and have said the same thing about ALL altimeters, I just believe thise to be the most common at failure. Train your eyes. Be safe.

Chad, It is a fact that teenagers have been wrecking cars long before they were on cell phones. I totaled a half dozen or so myself before the age of 20 and was 22 when purchasing my first cell phone. It is also a fact that distractive driving is dangerous and even more so for the inexperienced driver. While cell phones may not be causing all of the teen age wrecks, they are a distraction. It is a strong fact that if we toke those phones away, there would be no more cell phone induced teen age wrecks, simply as that. Anything we can do to reduce the number of safety related incidents for novice jumpers is a good thing. Anything we can do to increase the amount of time novice jumpers are spending learning basic survival skills is also a great thing. Thinking about your camera takes time away from what you should be learning. In my opinion, any incident that happens with a camera on a skydiver’s head, the camera is a factor, even if not the leading factor. Notice I said nothing about jump numbers here. If you have a riser break I will bet most anything that the way you look, the direction you tilt your head, the thoughts that rush through you mind, will all be affected by whether there is a camera on your head or not. So even if the camera was not a factor in the cause, it will be in the reaction. 99.99% of the time. So just like teens and cell phones, taking the cameras away from the sub 200 skydivers may not eliminate all their incidents, but it will for a fact eliminate the camera related ones. The above may not have needed to be said for you have agreed and said "I’m in on your cause". You also said "just want good numbers to back it up." which I hope I have expressed above that in my opinion all camera related numbers are good numbers to back it up. Further it should be noted that DSE has put forth a lot of effort to make the video flyers of our sport more informed and more safe. I do not believe that he would skew any list to, nor does he have the need to. Hope to see you soon at the DZ.

Exactly Awesome, but in my opinion that is not a joke, it is more a basic questions that can't be answered wth a 'yes' or a 'no', so it forces them to speak a few more words. If time allows, while the student is off being trained or what not, I like to interview their friends. Bust up in a crowd with a camera and start asking them who knows Billy and what do they think about him jumping and you will get some great footage. It can be the girl friend that is scared for him, a buddy who is bettign that he will back out, or a 3 year old daughter who can't quiet pronounce skydive, but in any case it is good footage. It adds to the length of the product as I am still going to interview the jumper as well. Most of all, it gives the jumper a bit of a suprise when watching his video for the first time.

http://www.naco.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=naco/online/compsys

That was somewhat a sarcastic comment against the title of this thread. In order for geting big to get back to work, then the skydiver (and the canopy) would have to be feeling wind at his back. Two things can be said about that. 1) it is never going to happen in full flight of a properly functioning canopy in routine condtions 2) if it did, the canopy would fly and would fall from the sky

Air speed vs ground speed and flying with the wind or against it can and has been explained a thousand different ways that all mean the same thing. I am not saying that you dont have it right in your head but let me try this: Imagine a fish swiming across a tank at lets say 2 mph. Now the water is obviously sitting still so his water speed (air speed equivilant) would be 2 mph. The tank is also sitting still, so you could compare the fish to the floor and and say that his ground speed was also 2 mph. Now as the fish swims, pick up the aquraium and pack it across the room and lets say that you are walking 1 mph. The water in the tank is niether pushing not pulling the fish and his water speed is still 2 mph, but if he happens to be swimming in the same direction as you are walking, then he is moving across the ground at 3mph. His speed plus yours If the fish is swimming in the opposite direction that you are walking, still with a 2mph water speed, he is only crossing the ground at 1mph. His speed minus yours. When you pack the tank, the water with in it is now moving across the room, however the fish does not feel that. This is the same as wind moving across the earth, the canopy does not feel it and flys the same speed through the air in any direction. Logic would tell us then that any thing you can do to make a canopy fly faster, flater, further, steeper, etc. in one wind direction, will work exactly the same in any wind direction. HOWEVER, some times some things are more important than others. If the fish wanted to get to one side of the room, but you were packing the tank towards the other side (almost need to think of the tank as bigger than the room) he is going to have to swim his ass off. This would be equivialant to your flying your canopy into the wind. You need to do everything you can to make that thing fly. This would include getting small and tweaking the canopy with riser input for its best glide. Or lets say the fish wants to cross the room and you are packing the tank in that direction, well he can just be lazy and enjoy the ride. This would equate to you going with the wind to get back to the DZ, at which point all you may need to do is apply a bit of breaks, stay up in the wind as long as possible, and ride it home. Remember, tweaking the canopy for performance will do just as much going with the wind as it will into the wind, it just may not be as important at the time. This is the point that started this whole thread but the wording was more like ~get small to go into the wind but you shouldn't have to if you are going with the wind~ some of the students then translated that into getting big to go with the wind. I hope that explination helped, if not you can go back to your DZ and tell eveyone about the idiot on DZ.com rambling about a skydiving fish.

I was a terrible student with a drastic spinning problem. As for weahter, well hurricane Katrina made land fall right in the middle of my AFF progresion. So yeah, it took me 15 jumps and over 6 months, but I graduated AFF and now I teach it. Hang in there, it will all work out.

I was on a formation dive where that exact situation killed a friend of mine Good advice.

Three fairly intelegent women find a genie lamp. The genie offers them one wish each. The first woman knowing that she could have anything she wanted beyound this wish if she was smart enough. So she wished that she was the smartest woman in the world, and it was done. The second woman was not happy with this at all, but knowing that she could not negate the first woman's wish, she simply wished to be equaly smart as the first. Now they were the two smartest women in the world. The third woman is now irate. She had always been the smartest of the three and she did not care how it affected the first two wishes, she still wished that she was as always, smarter than the first two. He turned her into a man.

6 cut aways, 4 of those spining in some fasion or another, 2 of those on semi eliptical loaded close to 1.6 : 1, with mini rings and one hand on each handle. I have never had any trouble pulling a handle.

+1 I dont drink it, I dont buy it. Unless she is cute, of age, and asks me to nicely. (buy it that is)

for what its worth as I was the only one here that actually knows the parties involved, from my stand point you both are very correct. Evaluation may be the last phase of teaching, but it does not need to be skipped. Early on, as in a FJC, there is NO EXCUSE for not propperly evaluting your students to know that they have the information and have it correct and can properly perfrom the tasks. I think we can all agree that a student who can not properly perform his EPs when needed is not all the students fault. When teaching a course to a higher experienced group, the same applies especially if the subject is a safety issue. If if not about safety, the instructor still owes the same evaluation as it is part of the teaching process that he is offering in return for his pay. However, I think we can agree that skimping on an agreement is less evil than skimping on safety. When teaching a FJC, the student either gets it, or hopefully is not allowed to jump until he does. To the experienced group, if you have a yoyo in the class, it may come a time when you feel that you have excedded your commitment to him and he refuses to learn?? I do not think that was the case in this thread. Now, for the part that I saw that you didn't. The guys that missed the information were the less experienced in the group. I get the feeling that the instructor may have been moving the class at the pace of the average, and therefore a couple got left behind. Then as mentioned earlier, they talked amoung themselves instead of to the instructor. It would have even been better if they would have talked to some of the more experienced ones taking the class. Is this still a short fall on the instructors part. Absolutely! Personally I like to think that every thing my students do wrong is my fault, it keeps me keen and in search of better techniques at all time. Should we never let him back again and say he is not a true teacher, well I say not unless it happens repeatedly or unless he did not care about the situation. I can assure you that was not the point, when I contacted these guys they were as concerned about the problem as I was. Both of you have very good stand points from my point of view. Good discusions here.

Here is a spread sheet that will give you what you need, very accurately provided you have the lat/lon for both the VOR and your landing area. Those numbers should not be hard to get, but if so, hopefully someone will get some use out of this. Be sure to enable macros when opening the file. No viruses, I promise

depends on the FSDO. Some will check EVERY DETAIL OF YOUR 7711-2 and expect extra documentation. I have seen 7711-2's rejected because of faulty numbers from the nearest VOR, and the numbers were "close" to begin with. It helps is you can include the Lat & Lon of the LZ. The FSDO that I normally am dealing with, who is very detailed and will check things out, really likes it when I include a satelite image of the LZ. On the image I mark off the actuall landing area and The radius of the drop zone around the target expressed in nautical miles.FAR 105.15-a-2.