fred

Last fall, I came back from a pretty lengthy break. I'm nervous at strange times. I'm extremely nervous getting into the plane, because I'm clumsy and awkward and its hard enough to get 5 people into a Cessna without somebody like me. I get nervous climbing out of the plane, especially if I'm first out, since again I'm not coordinated and suspect that I'm going to kick people in the face. But mostly, I get nervous on the drive to the dropzone because I have to socialize, and I feel like the socially awkward nerd trying to hang out with the cool kids.

You might consider attending the First Jump Course and jumping out of an airplane before you read these books. The books have a lot of information, and you don't want to be overwhelmed. Otherwise, make sure you realize that these books can only supplement your knowledge. They can help you ask the right questions. Your instructors will tell you what you need in order to live, even if they dumb it down a bit from what the books say.

My wife is pregnant. So in the next few months, I'm considering buying a video camera for taking videos of the little one to preserve them for posterity, and probably upload to youtube or other video sites for sharing with the family. I'm also a skydiver, but nowhere near ready to jump with a camera. But I realize that in a few years, I may want to strap this thing onto a helmet and jump with it for recreational (not professional) use. I'm thinking HD would be nice, and I see some really inexpensive HD cameras out there, but don't know enough about them to know (a) if they would be good enough to take good videos of the baby, or (b) if they would be the right size to strap on a helmet in 2-3 years. Since y'all seem to know about cameras, are there any relatively inexpensive cameras that would serve the purpose of both home video and possibly being used for skydiving video? I've read the FAQ, and have done some searches, but most recommendations I find are 3-5 years old. And current recommendations for HD seem to be for professional grade cameras. Any recommendations on a camera that is not too expensive, would take good home videos (Internet ready?), and might serve as a good plaything in the sky in a few years?

I watched every episode of Doogie Howser as a kid, so I'm pretty certain I'm prepared. Seriously, though, the only thing I would do in such a case is try to help with crowd control. I'm not in any position of authority, but I know that if I experienced high impact trauma, I would not want a bunch of people crowded around me, and I really wouldn't want somebody trying to remove my helmet to try to help me breath. I'm of the 'stay back', and 'try to make others stay back' camp. But Doogie was awesome.

I find that people who complain about statistics are usually people who will say, "You can make statistics say whatever you want them to say." People who understand statistics are the people who extend this by adding, "... by asking the right question." Whenever you see/read/hear statistics, you have to pay attention to "What question was being asked?" You can skew the final numbers quite a bit by changing the question very slightly. Ask the simple question: If a person is going to jump out of an airplane tomorrow, what are the odds that he/she will suffer a fatal accident. The answer is simple. It's about 1/100,000, or 0.01%. From this, you could read that skydiving is very safe. But change the question: If a USPA member is going to jump out of an airplane tomorrow, what are the odds that he/she will suffer a fatal accident within the next year. When I run those numbers, I come up with an answer of about 1-2%. If you try to refine that question further by specifying an active jumper (however you define 'active'), or by discipline (student, swooper, CReW, FF, tandem, etc), it's a lot harder to find the numbers. My educated intuition is that the numbers are lower for students/tandems, and higher for the other disciplines, with a significant spike for swoopers. My rough calculations say that the average non-student USPA-registered jumper has about a 2% risk of a fatal accident if he jumps an average amount during the average year. This is, admittedly, much higher than I expected. But I expect that if you sample the dz.com population, you will find that they are better informed and generally safer than the skydiving population as a whole. 2% is not outside the realm of possibility for the general population.

(warning: low jumper here) I was taught to first make sure that I have a good canopy over my head. To me, that means making sure that it's there and square. I'm pretty sure I was taught steerable, but that would involve releasing the brakes. I open, and watch it open and make sure everything looks okay. And then immediately look around for traffic. Assuming everything looks clear, I'll release the brakes, do minor controllability tests, and then try to find everybody else who was on the load (I'm at a Cessna DZ, so I try to find 3 other canopies). I'll then do practice flares and the remaining controllability tests. My new (beer) rig has a collapsible slider. I expect I'll collapse it before I do practice flares. I'm not really sure if I should bother collapsing it. (Edit: This inspired me to do a search on collapsible sliders, and I'm now convinced that I should collapse it, even if I don't care about the performance)

I just bought my first rig, and one of my sages said, "Find out if it's an articulated harness, as that affects the value." My other sage explained it more to me. He said that when he first got an articulated harness, he didn't realize what the big deal was. But a few weeks after he bought it, he went back to his old (non-articulated) rig, and it felt stiff, uncomfortable, and constraining. I can interpret this two ways. The first is, "If you don't have it, you won't miss it." The second is that, "If you do have it, you won't want to be without it." Given that it was one of the things I was told to look for in buying a new rig (and therefore affects resale value), I'll probably always want it.

Is there further analysis of this video here? It looks to me like the malfunction started because one of his toggles came detached. Or is there another explanation for why his sharp turn suddenly became line twists? It doesn't look like he let go with either hand, but the sound and reaction of the canopy makes me think that one of his steering lines was released. He does something else very well. After he cuts away and his reserve inflates, he spends a bit of time trying to organize his handles. That might not have been the best idea. But once he realizes that he doesn't have time, he uses his rear riser to turn. He then pulls his reserve toggles, but doesn't let them up. He does a flat turn and lands. He could have been in much worse shape if he'd let his reserve toggles go back up as his canopy would have likely dove into the ground. Seems like a couple things went wrong during this landing, and he did a bunch of things right, from my amateur opinion.

When I was a student, my home DZ was the nice, friendly civilian style training. I did SL there, and wasn't really getting it, but the instructors were supportive and encouraging. I honestly believed them when they said, "I really wanted to pass you, but..." After doing a number of 10 and 15 second delays and not getting better, I had the opportunity to go to Eloy and do AFF. They had me start with a single instructor (I think they called it a L3 jump in AFFI), and he held onto me and I did circle-of-awareness and so forth. On that first jump, I had the same problems as I was having on my 10 and 15 second delays. Slow turns and some dolphing (rocking back and forth). When I got on the ground, my instructor, who was a former Golden Knight and military trained, took me in the back and made me practice my arch. He wasn't ruthless or anything, but a lot more strict about it than anybody at my home dropzone had been, and definitely not the easy-going friendly style I was used to. And this really worked (for me). After the debriefing, the rest of my jumps went very smoothly. Both because he was able to find and fix the problem (even if it hurt my stomache muscles holding that arch), and because he established authority and trust early on.

I hope I didn't come off as saying otherwise. I have a lot of respect for Bill, which is why I asked the question. He seems very responsible and safety conscious, so I expect he's thought about this. I have the utmost respect for bill, which is why I was hoping he'd rationalize his choice. I think it's a matter of accepting the risk, and I'm okay with that.

Quote-Make sure my leg straps are tight and "up in my crotch" before exiting airplane I'm a low level jumper, but I'm pretty sure a lot of more experienced jumpers will advise against making gear changes in the airplane. Tighten those straps on the ground while you've got room to move around, adjust everything, and make sure they're even. Make the legstraps tight and comfortable while you're in an arched position on the ground. Once you board the plane, you can make sure that the excess is still tucked in, but don't make adjustments. Your position is going to have changed, and they may seem a little loose, but it's probably worse to have them uneven. Under canopy, sit back a little in the harness and cross your legs. You'll find it a much more comfortable way to fly. Uncross your legs and get ready for landing before your final turn. I had some pretty nasty bruises on my inner thighs when I was a student. At one point, they were so bad they went from the top of my knee all the way up in a big ugly purple bruise. Having jumped the exact same rig many times since then, I'm pretty convinced that the cause wasn't the equipment or the packer, and I was doing something on opening to cause them. So pay attention to your openings... Make sure you're on heading (not spinning), and not in a dive or other high speed position. But standard disclaimer applies: I have less than 100 jumps, and am not an expert. Talk to your instructors.

I've never met you, Bill, but I know you're very experienced, and from your DZ.com posts, I think you're very safety conscious. I'm a much less experienced jumper, so I hope you'll take this as a question rather than an attack. Assuming you're an average sized guy, aren't you loading that PD143 reserve at 1.3 or greater? While that's not aggressive for somebody who's an advance canopy pilot, Is it really safe for landing in adverse conditions? There are a lot of things that could happen that would require your reserve. You could have partials or totals that allow you to release your reserve and land happily. But there's also the risk of something more severe. You could break or dislocate an arm or a leg, or worse, be rendered unconscious. Assuming your AAD activates your reserve in such a circumstance, would a 143 sq ft canopy actually save you? It just seems to me that we should have large reserves to cover all bases. Certainly they should be larger than our aggressive mains, but probably larger than most people have.

I contacted a number of "Used Gear Resellers" with information about what I wanted for a complete system: ZP main between 190 and 210 sq ft. Reserve same size or larger. Container AAD ready RSL preferred. Pretty popular request, I know. Most used gear dealers I contacted never responded. Ralph at least said "Currently nothing in stock."

Newbie question: If this is a correct statement, then I either understand my gear or the physics involved properly. I would appreciate some of the experts clarifying. Wouldn't a smaller slider slow the opening more and a large slider make it worse? Here's my logic: A slider prevents line spread. If the slider wasn't present, then when the canopy opens, it would "pop" open and pull all the lines taught to the rig. This would happen fast. So we put a slider on. The slider groups the lines together, and when that canopy tries to pop open, it restricts it. The canopy can only pop open to as big as the slider is. The slider then "slides" (hence its name) down the lines, more gradually allowing the canopy to spread out. If you use a larger slider, that initial pop would be greater, and the slide down the lines less significant. Is this not right? Would a larger slider easy the opening? If so, can somebody explain where I'm going wrong in my thought process?

Perhaps it would be more beneficial to have some instruction on what we should or should not do if somebody has a bad (or terrible) landing. I'm not a medical professional, but it seems like instructions of "Don't remove gear, don't let them move, wait for the paramedics" is good advice. I went through basic CPR training, but we never really talked about what to do if there might be a spinal injury.

I thought about developing an application for linux, and contacted L&B about writing one. They thought it was a great idea, and happily sent me the specs. This was a few years ago, and I've since gone into networking rather than development, so my skills dropped, and the project fizzled. I don't feel I've been overcharged for anything from L&B. Read the forums, and their customer service is fantastic, and if they need to get a little income by selling the jumptrack software only to those who want it, then I'm okay with that.

She should talk to her hospital's counsel about Good Samaritan laws, and possibly "Duty to rescue". Most states would protect her from liability if she attempted to help, and a couple states would punish her since she refused to help, despite her training.

So is that it? You're giving up? Are you going to try again? What went through your mind this time? What made you decide that you couldn't go out that door and onto the strut?

Be careful. I got in trouble a few years ago when I asked all my friends to vote for me in a on-line karaoke contest. Mind you, I can't hit a note, and my entry was pretty clearly the worst one. I didn't cheat myself, but I asked everybody I knew to vote for me, and they ran with it. Some of them bent the rules a bit, and figured out ways to vote repeatedly. Even with my cheating friends, I came out in fifth place. I should have been last. Just saying, don't stuff the ballot box. Vote once per day like the rules allow.

I believe the way to induce line twists is to do a sharp turn followed by a sharp turn in the other direction, and this is start of the ISP sign-off. Why wouldn't you do this? When I got recurrent, I practiced flares until they were familiar to me, and then played with stalls. Stalls scare me, so I can see why they should be avoided when low, but on a new canopy, you need to know when/where/how they occur. Same thing applies to self-induced linetwists. You should practice them up high enough so that know what's required, so that you don't do them low. And imo, you should do this early in your progression, because higher wingloadings are less forgiving of them.

Oh, I hear ya. I was so frustrated during my 10second delays. All I had to do was fall and pull. And repeatedly I'd fail. And when I passed to 15second delays, I think the only reason is that the instructor felt sorry for me (or felt that more freefall might give me a chance to fix things). What can be simpler than falling? Well, the falling part is easy. I'd place a big bet that you do that successfully every time you get out of an airplane. However, falling and remaining in control is a lot more difficult. And on top of it all, you're expected to deploy and then pilot a parachute to a safe, unhurt landing! There's a lot to figure out. Don't feel bad if you don't "get" it the first time. Are you ready? When you get your license, the next step is getting your own gear. For me, skills were hard to develop, but I started when I was in a low-paying job, and then transitioned to unemployment. The A license dropped costs a bit, but suddenly people expected that I had my own gear. So you're still renting, and it's still expensive. And there's nobody to guide you! Don't rush to get your A, some things are easy as a student. Take a step back to reality. You are progressing. Even if you were completely overloaded with fear and sensory overload, you're one (big) step closer to being a good skydiver. Regardless of how big a step forward you took, you're still responsible for the costs of the airplane, instructor, gear, and DZ. I'm generally very relaxed on the ride to altitude. I sit down close my eyes, visualize the skydive, and at times, nearly fall asleep. Not so long ago, the idea of falling asleep on the ride to altitude seemed crazy, but eventually you realize that there's nothing you can do other than visualize and take deep breaths. Eventually deep breaths seemed pointless, and the dive was visualized, so I could lay back and relax. When the door opens, (or actually a few minutes before, when we're approaching altitude) I'm still nervous as hell. At this point, I've probably gone over in my mind what I'm going to do, what could go wrong, and how I'd likely react to those situations. So I take more deep breaths and move to the door, and do what I've planned to do. Skydiving will never be cheap. Student jumps are expensive, but one you're not a student, renting gear is still expensive. And then buying gear is a hastle and a half, and now, rather than having to come up with a couple hundred dollars for the weekend, you have to come up with a couple thousand dollars in one shot. And then you have to maintain that gear. I'm still shopping for gear, so I don't have direct experience, but I know I'm going to have to pay for repacks, relines, and batteries/checks for an AAD. Cut costs where you can (do you really need cable television? can you switch to PLPD on your car insurance? can you get away with not buying beer for that first?). Most people I know who skydive regularly live paycheck to paycheck, and it's not that bad a way to live. (Edited to add two things: (1) I don't have that many jumps, so standard disclaimer applies: talk to your instructors about your issues, most of them are helpful. (2) Stop being hard on yourself. It's tough stuff to learn.)

Mark me down as a techie/geeky student. I read it and a few other books about skydiving when I was a student. I should reread it, though.

This was a hypothetical discussion at a dinner I was at a number of years ago, and I'm curious what the rest of you would do. Here's the situation: You're on a 4-way, and things are going great. You're turning points, and things seem smooth as can be. You're so into the jump that you (and the 3 others) lose altitude awareness. You look at your altimeter and you're at 1200ft. Your audible must've malfunctioned or you didn't hear it. You're in immediate proximity (probably in grips) to the other 3 jumpers. Do you: A) Pull immediately (includes pulling reserve immediately) B) Wave off, then pull. C) Turn to face away from the others and pull. D) Turn, track away, and pull. As I'm a lowish jumper, I'd like to hear experience levels too, and if that would affect your decision.

I believe that you're in more danger of damaging your hearing on the ride to altitude than the fall back down. A lot of the people at my DZ keep their helmets strapped to their cheststrap during the climb, but I prefer to keep mine on. I find it works like earplugs: deafens the background noise while still allowing me to hear what I need to (In fact, my hearing is such that without it on, I can't understand a word people on the plane say, but with it on, I can catch a portion of it). My helmet fits comfortably, so it's not a big deal to me to leave it on. As far as the pressure, I think you'll naturally learn to adjust. On my first dozen or so jumps, I was practically deaf for 10 minutes or so after I landed, usually because my ears were plugged. I could improve my hearing by doing the plug-your-nose-and-blow thing, but now it's unnecessary.

Wow. I'm very jealous. I'm not very experienced, but I say go for it. Do enough tunnel time to learn to fall stable, do turns, and basics. I (in my low-jump-numbers-non-instructor opinion) would suggest you don't do too much, as you don't want to get too far ahead of the progression. There are a lot of skills in skydiving that aren't taught in a tunnel (altitude awareness, landing patterns, canopy control, exits, landings). And those are as, if not more important in saving your life than knowing how to fly your body and turn points. If I had it to do over again, and had a tunnel nearby, I'd do enough time to feel comfortable, but not overly confident.