remko

Last weekend the last European WR2007 CF selection and training camp was held north of Berlin. The camp was very well organized by Peter Pfalzgraf (Peti) and hosted by Mike Vetter, the DZ owner of Gransee. Christophe Balisky took care of formation design, jump organizing and debriefing. The camp was combined with the German Cumulus Convention, which is traditionally focused to bring beginner, intermediate and expert CF jumpers together in a 3-way roundup competition. This year some of the talented beginners got an opportunity to join in on formations as big as 20-ways! Watch 'The List' as I am sure some of the participants will appear on it! For pictures visit: http://www.0800tandems.de/cms/community/skydiver/sprungplaetze/cf-trainingscamp-in-gransee.html -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Preface 'Soon, the planets will align again.' (I borrowed this line from Kevin K.) And the time has come for the final preparations. This article is targeted at the 2007 CF Word record team planning to build a 100-way diamond, and anyone that has an interest in participating the build of very large canopy formations. It consists of general and background information, technical details, practical techniques and last but not least, safety procedures. Planning The planning is done by the pilot(s) and often one or more interested wings. Designing a nice stable fast flying diamond is an art by itself. It can be a very complicated puzzle involving the following peaces: Number of jumpers, their capabilities and experience, canopy size, wingload, drag and sink. Number of jump planes involved and their capabilities and other factors like whether. Some of the key ingredients are: a pilot with a big fast floaty (new) canopy, big fast canopies around the top and center of the formation and skilled wing flyers accompanied by fast lockers. So, if you find yourself being switched around, or even taken of the load, this can have a million different reasons. Dirt dive Usually the dirt dive starts with a look on the board to find your position in the formation. Key points to look at are: Who is exiting before me, and who is supposed to exit behind me (This might not be clear until the jump plane plan is briefed). Who am I following in the echelon, and who should be following me. Who am I docking on, and who is my locker docking on. Who am I catching, and who am I handing the catch. If you have a good understanding of the flow, it will help you identify problems during the build and maybe present you with an idea of a solution. In case of problems while in the formation, know who you can expect to be shouting at you to be dropped, and know who to shout at to be dropped yourself. A mere 'Drop me, drop me!' can have disastrous effects. A drop call must always begin with a name. Experienced CF flyers are trying to memorize all this, and even for other contingency backup positions they might have to fly (plug a slot). It makes bigway CF a very sociable sport! The next step is walking outside and actually putting all the people in their place. This is the time to ask peoples names (again) and find out their canopy colors. Have a good look around you and label your key persons. A wing for example will need to identify the point of the diamond (it might come from the opposite side) to know when to start the approach. If the locker does the same, (s)he can anticipate, and will not be surprised. Now we board the virtual plane(s). See who is with you in the plane and have a good look at the exit order. I personally prefer a plain stagger. That means the left and right echelons are mixed one by one. Sometimes wings and lockers are kept as pairs for the exit. Beware, sometimes jump plane formations do not enable complete echelons to be in the same plane, and sometimes left and right echelons have a plane for themselves. Now the whole dive is being walked out. It enables you to mentally rehearse the complete dive including as many details as you like. Make good use of your time here because it is well known in aviation that once airborne, most of your brain power stays on the ground. Make sure you are up to the job. If you have any questions find time to ask them. The pilot who designed the formation might not know your capabilities and over task you, or he has to solve a problem in the design and is forced upgrade you to something new. If you find yourself in this position let him and the people around you know. The awareness and a proper explanation might do the trick! The planes (Additional nice to know information, skip to last paragraph if you like.) Big formations require big planes, anyone can understand that, but actually CF has some particularities regarding jump planes. Ideally CF flyers would like to be dropped right next to their slot and dock. We all know that is not possible, but the organizers do have this in mind. For CF bigways having more and smaller jump planes is far better than one big one. It enables flyers to be brought to the formation while it is building. Let me explain some of the details. In 2003 it was already practiced to have the planes in about a two mile trail to keep the echelons shorter. One of the problems we still faced was the big altitude difference flyers had to loose before they could approach the formation. This led to dizzy people from excessive spiraling or very hard terminal openings. Since the formation is descending during the build, the idea was brought up to stagger the planes vertically and start a descent during the drop. This is how it works. Once the 4-way is built the formation starts to descend around 1200 feet per minute. We asked the jump pilots to drop us in a descent of 500-1000 feet a minute, to minimize the accumulated altitude and still provide for a buffer in case of slow or low openings. This proved to work very well. Further more there is no need for the trail planes to climb all the way up to exit altitude and the descend again. With the two minute spacing we used they could stay 2000 and 4000 feet lower to begin with which enabled us to stick with supplemental oxygen for the lead plane only as well. One thing to keep in mind though is that the trail planes will fly slightly offset over the formation in between the echelons on their run ins, expecting the echelons to be out to the side. The jump plane pilots are thoroughly briefed on what to expect and have a good lookout for lost CF flyers, but flying around in that area is potentially dangerous. The Exit A proper exit is very important from a safety point of view. Unfortunately we have lost more than one dear friend during this part of the jump. I do strongly believe, but this is a personal opinion, that exit spacing and exit delay are trivial factors to exit collisions and can not be used to prevent them. The key factor is watching the deployment of the next jumper and avoiding collision. So the right sequence of events is, first concentrate on a nice stable exit yourself. A good upright arch will be an important contributing factor to an on heading opening. While you pull, watch the exit and opening of the next jumper in front of you. You can influence the heading of your own opening with harness steering. By now you will have identified any opening and heading problems of the following jumper and must be ready to avoid collision with rear riser, toggle or front riser. The echelon Now turn to the side 90 degrees and access the situation. Let's assume you are on the left side of the formation, so you turned to the left. The formation is 90 degrees more to the left, the jump plane, leaving a string of canopies, is 90 degrees to your right, and the person you are following would be somewhere about 45 degrees to your left. If you are a locker, all you have to do is follow the person in front of you and you will be OK. If you would like to know a little bit more than that, read on. There are two things you need to be looking at (besides the people around you). How much time do I have (to kill) and how much altitude do I need to loose. Typically you would start out with a couple of spirals, then back to a heading perpendicular to the formation and repeat this until you are level with or even a little below the formation. Do this first, while you work your way to the outside of the formation. Loosing altitude later is very hard, to almost impossible. The other thing you have to access is how much time you have before it is your turn to dock. Arriving at the formation early means you have to wait a long time in a crowded area, while working your way down with the formation. This can be very tiring. Arriving late is bad, obviously. So you can choose between turning towards the formation and flying straight at it, or flying to the outside, giving you room and time for adjustments. This way the echelons are formed, close to the formation tightly spaced, people ready to dock, Further away with more space, giving people more room to maneuver. The bigger the formations get, the more important orderly echelons are. To be continued... -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

I had a completely lime green canopy (bought it used). That can be confusing for people sometimes. Especially when things get hectic during fast sequential stuff. Then during the WR training camp in Empuria my #3 cell got ripped to pieces. My rigger didn't have the lime green, I didn't want to wait for it, so now I have a big white patch on the #3 cell which confuses the hell out of people who don't know my canopy :-) Target panels are great or clearly discernible end and center cells work good. The 'all one color' or 'rainbow color' canopies are less optimal. -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Having center and outside A-lines red is very nice. Also having easy to spot outside and center cell colors can make a catchers life easy(er). Welcome to the dark side! -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Hmmm... :-| Looks like Dean got hold of a cell/line close to the center trying so salvage a `less optimal' dock. When that happens, the (in this case) left part of the docking canopy will collapse when it hits the burble of the adjacent canopy. Best not to touch anything except for the end cell/line when catching a dock. Greetings, Remko -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

I understand. Be careful though. Taking a bicycle onto the highway can be just as dangerous as taking a formula 1 car into a pedestrian zone. Before you take a canopy into the mountains it would be wise to be well informed on the subject before you do so. Do you know what mountain waves are? rotors? valley wind? Do you know how to predict dangerous turbulence around ridges? Do you know where to expect down drafts? And there are legal aspects involved as well. Will your insurance cover your helicopter flight to the hospital when something goes wrong? Make sure you hook up with someone smart, not just someone with a cool video. Have fun! -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Why not try paragliding? In stead of doing a 2 min or so glide you can pick up a thermal and fly around the mountains for hours! Seriously, thinking about groundlaunching got me into paragliding and got me hooked. Gliding down the hill is boring. Flying into a thermal and taking the `elevator' up 3 meters per second is really exciting! Have a go at it. I'm sure you'll like it. Gr, Remko -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

[rude mode on] So you think They just pulled that 78 mph out of their ass or maybe they did some testing before they came up with that number? [rude mode off] -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Not to step on any toes I will rephrase myself. It takes a highly skilled skydiver with special gear to pilot a canopy in such a way that it will exceed CYPRES firing parameters. CYPRES was specifically designed not to fire during a wrap, entanglement or spinning mal, so it is not very likely that it will. That said, for CReW, your money is much better spent on a Tertiary. In this particular case (referring to the original post) trowing the Terts could have released tension on the entangled arm to help free it, or at least stop the spinning and provide more time to free it with a knife. Guys, try to be constructive with your postings. -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

No, CYPRES will not fire in that situation. Any fabric out will keep CYPRES from firing. That's why you don't need one for CReW. Love & Peace -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

And some pilots will make these run-backs deliberately `inconsistent' in both altitude and distance, to force people to asses the formation before or while turning back and practice level awareness. -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Three of these canopies look familiar. The magenta with black stripe in the middle. I haven one like that and they could be from an old Dutch team. The white one looks like the one I jumped in the 2003 WR, so it could be Dutch too. But then again, they might not... Post on [email protected] maybe someone knows. Gr, Remko -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

That's one of the reasons I love CReW so much, you never grow to old to do it! Happy birthday Russ -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Jim, you are a master with the oculus digitalis... Is is cybernetic? -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

I 2nd that, and the rest too!

That is my strong side, but also my week side. I'm aware of that. -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

That is exactly how I show newbees how to get to a formation, but normally I don't get into detail, just tell them where to go and what to look for. This article, and one or two more to follow, are meant to explain exactly what we are looking for and why, while we intercept a formation. I hope both. I know it hasn't been discussed much, and not in this way. And although it becomes more important when the formation grows, It can be practiced one on one too and is a lot of fun to do. I plan on applying the new terminology in some practical examples in the next article, to further explain their relationship. It can be used to explain a student how to set up a pin-base, but my goal will be to work towards clarification of the flow of the 100-way next november. -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

It's a bit technical, but give it a try. Latest version can be found here: http://bigrock.com/~remko/crew/Intercepting_the_Big-way_I.html or http://cluebox.org/~remko/crew/Intercepting_the_Big-way_I.html Enjoy Intercepting the Big-way part I Introduction This is supposed to become a small series of articles about CReW. Most CReW articles deal with what to fly and how to fly. These writings will be about where to fly and why, in relation to a big big-way. Mostly, it will be the glue around some pictures I will draw. These drawings are really the most important part, and I intend to introduce some new terminology along with them, so we know what we talk about, when we don't have pictures around to clarify. This stuff comes from my background as a fighter pilot, but it is applicable to any being wishing to join a moving object and continue the journey together. Being it two cars crashing at a junction, or a puma catching a rabbit in the desert. Our objective will be not to crash though, and not to get eaten in the process. Keep in mind that all this is related to the last part of a large big-way jump. From getting out of the aircraft far ahead of the formation, up to arriving near the formation in echelon. I was inspired by Rusty Vest, who kept bugging me to reproduce the chalkboard scribbles I put up during a briefing for the 2005 Canopy Formation World Record in Lake Wales. And much inspired by Chris Gay's enthusiasm during that and other events. OK, here we go, the fundamentals of interception... The cross roads (Have a look at the picture) In this first picture we see two cars A and B approaching a junction. We assume they both drive with the same speed. If both cars keep on going, this otherwise uneventful situation will result in a collision at point C. Intercepting is all about angles, and there are more of those than you think. Lets have a closer look. The first one we all know. Heading (H) Car A is driving towards the North Pole. His heading is 360 degrees. Car B is going to the West coast. His heading is 270 degrees. Heading says something about where we end up if we keep on going that direction. The next paragraph explains how the heading of car A and B relate. Heading Crossing Angle (HCA) The difference between the two headings is called Heading Crossing Angle. It is the angle between the two headings. In the picture it is 360 - 270 = 90 degrees and marked as HCA. Heading Crossing Angle says something about the severity of the collision. Imagine car B coming from the North and driving on the left side of the road heading South. The HCA would be 180 degrees (360 - 180) and the collision most severe. If car B would drive along side car A, also heading North, the HCA would be 0 and there is no collision at all. In other words, on two objects traveling at the same speed, HCA determines the closure, the speed at which two objects close in on each other. It is an important tool in the final stage of the intercept. It determines if you crash or shake hands. Antenna Training Angle (ATA) `Antenna Training Angle' is a difficult name used for the simple fact that we want to point out our target to someone else. Imagine that car B is a police car with two officers in it, on the road to write speeding tickets, and the driver wants to tell his buddy to point his ray-gun at car A. He would say: `Your target is 45 degrees to the left!' So the Antenna Training Angle is the angle between your heading and the direction the antenna of the ray-gun is pointing. In the picture it is 45 degrees left and marked as ATA. Notice that the ATA can never be more than 180 degrees and has a direction associated with it (left or right). As a side note, ATA can also be expressed in clock codes, 12 o'clock being 0 ATA also called `On the nose', 1 o'clock equals 30R, 7 o'clock is 150L and so on. Antenna Training Angle says something about the position of the target in relation to yourself. But it can give us more information than just that if we look at how ATA changes over time. Again, look at the picture while you read. Imagine that you are in car B. Suppose car A is a little closer to the junction. Lets say the ATA is 30 degrees to the left (30L). We know from experience that car A will pass in front of us. Now try to picture what happens with the ATA while car A drives past our nose. ATA becomes smaller and smaller until car A it is exactly in front of us (picture yourself pointing that ray-gun). We would say: `He is on my nose.' (ATA=0). It is important to realize that there will be no collision! Now imagine that car A starts further away from the junction, say 60L. This time car A will pass behind us. To fully grasp the essence of ATA, it is important that you play this as a little movie in your head, while you concentrate on the ATA. It will become bigger and bigger. When we cross the junction in front of car A it is in our 9 o'clock position, ATA is 90L. It moves toward 150L and when car A finally crosses the junction exactly behind us ATA is at it's biggest, 180. Again, no collision. So, what happens when ATA remains the same?... BOOM! The nice thing about ATA is, when we fly aloft, not bound by roads, we can easily change it by turning. When we turn towards our target, ATA decreases and we will pass behind. This is also called lagging. When we turn away from the target ATA increases and we will pass in front. This is also called leading. When we steer to keep the ATA the same, ultimately resulting in a collision it is called steering CATA (Collision Antenna Training Angle). It is the fastest way to join a formation from a given position (not necessarily the safest way). Aspect Angle (AA) The opposite to ATA is Aspect Angle. It is not the position of the target in relation to yourself, it is your position in relation to the target! Aspect Angle is historically referenced to the tail of the target, because that's where fighters, and basically any predator, wants to end up, behind the target. So, the Aspect Angle is the angle between where the targets tail is pointing and the side you are facing. In the picture it is 135 degrees right (135R) and marked as AA. If you find it easier, you can remember it as `Ass Angle'. Anything I have written about ATA applies in a similar way to AA, except the reference is now the target and not yourself. This leads to one big difference though, you can not easily change the AA. If you are far away from the target you will have to fly a long way to change the AA by a few degrees,and it is easily negated by the target with a small turn. Aspect Angle says something about how fast you can get to your target. If the AA is 180, you can meet it head on and be there in a heart beat. if the AA is 0, you could be trailing it forever... The Aspect Angle is the most important parameter of an intercept but also the hardest one to control. Heading Crossing Angle and Antenna Training Angle are the tools to work on the Aspect Angle. Conclusion We had look at the different angles of an intercept. Next time we will see how they can be useful in catching that big big-way. -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Oeps, RTFP. No, next year, end of may of course. See you then! -- My thoughts just took hold of me, up into a sunset load, remembering, talked about it sunday with Gerben too. Wanted to share that with you...

Too bad you can't make it over there, who's going to pick me up from the bus station now? -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Go jump with him :-) -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Caren, you beat me to it! I was gonna post something but couldn't get the pics off of my mem stick. Some people do sequential, but that gets old, so we do bi-plane sequential :-) The line-up was Eward, who did all the hard work of getting people together, Tom Brand, who did most of the organizing, Tom Kan filled in for me on Saturday, Herman, Gerben, Peti, Viktor, Susan, and let's not forget Caren with her excellent Camera work. We did `only' 6 jumps in two days, but as said all from 14k. All of these were multi point hi-quality dives. Rock hard, including multi point bi-plane sequential :-) Good stuff. Greetings from sunny Germany! (PWI) -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Well, you will learn that the only person that has any business being behind the formation is the cameraman

I made my first one in '96 with a squadron buddy. It was jump #84. The earth was covered in snow and it was freezing cold. We used the team radio's and he was going to let me see `some' moves. So he docked me in a stack, planed to a bi-plane, pulled me down for a side-by-side, turned it into a downplane and separated. Then he talked me though a dock as well and we did the same routine again. For desert we landed out, since that was a prerequisite ass well. I haven't written it down in my log, but remember it like yesterday. Then I did as you are doing, hungry for information, polling the newsgroups, browsing the www, trying to figure out what a tailpocket is, and how to freepack, and what size Lightning would fit my container, and what wingload to fly and, and, and! And last week I taught at a newbe camp, and got to share the excitement of my student when she flew her first 3-stack on a sunset jump-in BBQ. Good to see your enthusiasm! Lovin' it, hope to see you in the 100-way next year ;-) -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

Edited cross-post from the CReW-dog mail list. >> What I do know is I have had several occasions where I set up next the >> formation and find myself to be very floaty and: >> 1) you are in echelon and are way too high relative to the formation but not >> far enough in front to do repeated toggle spirals. In this case you are using 2:1's to correct for a mistake that was made during your set-up/echelon. Try not to make this mistake in the first place. I notice that often people end up to far aft when the build takes longer than expected or, when the formation turns due to a hard dock and then the pilot puts it back on heading. This is why we want people to be IN FRONT of the formation on the 45 degree line. If you are looking back at the formation over your shoulder behind your arm out of the corner of your eyes you are in the right spot. Now when you work your way down with the formation you will slowly drop back towards it as well, but make sure you stay IN FRONT until it is time to dock. No hanging on the front risers to catch up! If you have to do that you are fixing an earlier mistake. >> 2) when flying a wing, I will usually transition to my 2:1's after things >> have settled out. The mistake I see people make is that they go straight for >> their 2:1's and neglect their flying during the process. I rarely will take >> the time to transition until after I am locked up. The mistake I often see here is that people use TO MUCH front riser on a wing. This pulls down that side of the formation and requires the other side to use more front riser as well! In a nicely balanced and flown diamond you should hardly need any front riser during build and none at all after it has pointed out. Unfortunately they are not always like that, but your objective as a wing is to always work towards letting up on front riser as much as possible, only adding when absolutely necessary during surges or when it is taking hits, then slowly letting up again, as much as possible. Sometimes you will find out that a pinch of B-line is necessary to keep things steady. >> Personally I like my risers clean. I have blocks front and back. And because equipment gets swapped around a lot during camps it is practical when they are standard. But, nothing wrong with shopping around a bit and trying different and new set-ups! Now that we are talking about the CRew toolbox, make sure you master these as well: Warp or Cross-control: Pull inside toggle and outside riser (Inside is where the formation is, this is important). This will make you sink straight down. It can be used next to a diamond and also during docking. It will slow your dock down a bit. Also a nice tool for 2-way if the other jumper has a disadvantage. Frontriser step: Pull both frontrisers down for one second. It steps you down without much acceleration if you are a bit high on approach. Can also be used repeatedly. Toggle snap: Yank both toggles down briskly and let them back up right away. The quicker the better. This will also slow you down a bit. Can be used in combination with the frontriser step. Rear risers: Use half an inch to max one inch of rear riser to float up. Pull your legs up to decrease drag. (If you need this you are fixing an earlier mistake, but it can come in handy during transitions or a rebuild without a runback). Here is something else to think about. Are you letting go of your toggles when you riser or do you keep them in hand? Either way is fine and will be more or less effective depending on your toggle set-up, long or short toggles with loose or tight brakeline setting. Make sure you can grab without looking and untwist when packing. Have fun! -- Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.