bcmin

Yes, I posted originally because I was hoping to see the video. Yes, I also appreciate the advice that was given. Major Dad especially did an excellent job summarizing the important take-aways. CSpence, I've read a lot of good stuff that I've taken to heart from this thread, and I'm certainly not going to argue with you on any skydiving subject. I really hope that you consider adjusting your tone when you try to educate, so that your message doesn't get lost. That would be a real shame. That's all.

Warning, I wrote too much! Once you get me started I can be long winded. If you have a short attention span, the third (after this) and last paragraphs are the most worth reading, I think. Damn, I just made it even longer. CSpence, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're "being the asshole" because you simply don't know a better way to get your point across. Given that you have almost 7,000 posts, I'm not going to try to help you there. You're at the point that if you had any interest in learning, you would have already done it. That said, I've gone ahead and mentally removed the "assholeness" from your post, so that I can respond and we can have a mature conversation. I only have 32 jumps, so I'm obviously not an expert. The first thing I did after this happened was talk to some instructors about why it happened, what I did wrong, and how to fly better in the future. I don't feel like writing all of the conclusions out here, but if you're particularly interested, send me a PM and we can chat. I learned one lesson very well. You can drill something into your head over and over and over, but when the shit really hits the fan, catches you by surprise, and you only have a moment to think about it, you may not react the way you'd planned. When I saw the line twists and the parachute started spiralling, I looked at my altimeter. It read 1,000 feet. 1,000 feet, I remembered, was the minimum altitude recommended to deploy a reserve. I had a fraction of a second to make a decision, and I decided that it was not worth it to wait and ponder my EPs until I could pull it back through the adrenaline. Just like I decided it wasn't worth it to try and fix the line twists and then potentially fall too low to open my reserve. I saw the altitude, and I executed the best EPs I could come up with that quickly. I know you didn't criticize my decision here, but I thought I'd explain it a little more thoroughly just to clarify, because it might shed some light on my attitude now about the reserve handle. Now, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt once again and assume that you aren't so presumptuous as to believe that you can completely understand my reaction to the event from a post I wrote in 30 seconds two days later. So, since you've expressed an interest in my current state of mind after reflecting on it, I'll indulge you. I can't predict how I'm going to handle a high stress situation. Sometimes I'm perfectly calm when I should be freaking out, sometimes I freak out when I need to be perfectly calm. I can't go back and change what happened, so I've accepted the events as they unfolded. When I made my first AFF, I lost A/A halfway down and my instructor had to deploy for me. Since then, I've been extremely anal about maintaining A/A on every one of my jumps. It goes back to that "fool me once" adage. After all of my reflecting, I've decided that I'm glad things turned out the way they did. I'm ok, and I've taken a huge step towards keeping myself safe in the future. One question I've asked myself many times is "If the RSL hadn't operated correctly, would I have deployed in time?" I don't know. I like to think it would have just taken another second for my brain to kick in and move my hands to the reserve handle, but there's no way to know for sure. I will say that the next time I have to use it, I'll be a lot more likely to get it right.

Yep, I had an RSL, and it was a good thing too, cause in the excitement of my first cutaway, I didn't pull the reserve handle! I probably had the reserve out by around 500 feet.

I learned that one the hard way! Thanks for the tip!

I brought down almost to my knee over the course of about a second.

Nope, I went from just cruising forward to a right spiral. The parachute lasted about 270 degrees before it went haywire.

It's a Sabre2 190, loaded about .95. I didn't even know it could do something like that! I guess it was a fairly hard turn, but I made 4 or 5 rotations higher up at the same input and it was fine. Oh well.

This Saturday I had my first cutaway at Eloy. The parachute collapsed while I was doing a spiral at 1,200 feet and went into line twists. I looked at the twists, looked at my altimeter, now down to 1,000 feet, said screw it, and chopped. It was intense being back in freefall so low! The reserve came out fine, and I had a nice graceful faceplant for a landing. Anyway, I think there were a few people videoing the landings, and I was wondering if anyone caught it. It happened at the alternate landing area at Eloy around 4:00 PM on saturday. I had the black and gold main. Thanks!

I have a Mirage G3 M6 with a Sabre2 190 right now, and it fits fine. The question is, when the time comes (not for a while, but it doesn't hurt to think ahead) to downsize, will I be able to put a 170 in it, or would that be unsafe? The sizing on mirage's website doen't go smaller than a 190, which is a medium fit.

In the tunnel, the wind is going vertically, but in the plane it will be going horizontally at first. So no, you will not exit the same way, and yes, the first few times, it'll be way more intense. In a good way!

I don't get it. What makes this one a scam?