tphilpin

Education???? The majority of people who are killing themselves and others are not ignorant of how to fly a pattern or control their canopy. The people are making bad decisions or exceeding "reasonable" boundaries. Bad decisions can be eliminated through the use of restrictive procedures. Procedures and boundaries are only effective if enforced.

Re: [MakeItHappen] Fatality - Eloy - 31 December 2006 [In reply to] Edit | Delete | Quote | Reply What I think, some people are failing to realize is that what Tom did was TOTALLY PREVENTABLE AND HAS BEEN THAT WAY FOR MANY YEARS and THAT is why I am so angry about this incident. Segregated/ separate landing areas for swoopers and non-swoopers have been in existence for many years, especially at the larger DZs, such as Eloy, Perris, Elsinore, Crosskeys, Skydive Chicago. Someone tries to put the 'oh-you have your own area to land in, type landing into the this is our landing area' causes an accident. Friends of the deceased try to explain away the incident, by saying he did that time and time again at home without a problem. That is true, but Eloy was NOT his home DZ. He had not jumped there for a year (or more). And this was at a boogie too! People try to explain away this incident by saying swooping is here to stay and will not go away. Swooping is a National event on the USPA calendar. I know it is here to stay. I also know that the swoops are done in cleared airspace, NOT in a congested boogie airspace. There is a time and place for swoops. Boogies are not the time or place for 270s or other such radical swoops. As one friend of mine says '270s are a big dick maneuver, nothing more, nothing less'. . How many USPA members need to die or have close calls before the USPA members and officers will act to protect their members from others and themselves? When might USPA members and officers require group member DZs to establish remote designated landing areas for swoopers, at least during boogies or big way events and enforce their use? When might USPA members and officers require and empower a safety officer to protect the lives of its members at boogies and other events? When might the USPA members and officers hold members responsible for unsafe behavior that is unhealthy for its membership and the sport"? Canopy collisions, and hook turn accidents are on the rise. The USPA takes DZ reports on those accidents resulting in death. Neither the members or USPA officers have any idea how many are actually injured, or had close calls in order to make an informed decisions about accepting the risk or policing the sport. Does anybody else think more needs to be done to preserve the lives and limbs of the membership and skydiving as a sport? If people are making bad decisions, than the freedom to make those bad decisions needs to further restricted or eliminated for the good of all. At one time opening altitude was a personal decision, and that only affected the decision maker. As a fixed wing pilot I have standards and procedures during phases of flight that must be followed or I risk losing my right to fly. FAA officials attend and make their presence known at air shows and fly-in events, supervising operations. The FAA will also create special procedures and publish them for special events. Pilots file reports of near misses for scrutiny of operations. NASA has a confidential reporting system to report personal safety lapses without consequences to the reporter. The FAA's primary mission is public safety while considering efficiency. Seems as though the FAA cares more about me than the USPA, a "membership" organization. (Replies to this post belong in another forum, although the contemplation of the ideas applies here.)

NPR's Noah Adams was at Bridge Day and interviewed Brian before his jump. A fairly accurate and sensitive story about the event was broadcasted Monday. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6369946 During the interview Brian described his jump at El Cap, Brian talked about having time to deploy even after getting stable. Thought the statement was telling. I find it interesting that there seems to be some demand for standards and minimum requirements, aka BSRs, for the BASE community by the media / public (expected) but also its participants.

TDog, I understand your natural interest to defend the conclusions of your post. Realistically, if a skydiver fails to pull at the proper altitde, than fails to pull the reserve when below 1500 ft. what are the chances that the same skydiver will be able to assess, manipulate and respond correctly to a two out situation? Focus on the performing the first two procedures. The two out scenario has many permutations based upon the size of the canopies involved, their position, and rsl attachments. (See PD's study on their website). Most skydivers are along for the ride at this point. Deploying the main at the bottom of the skydive should never be a habit but rather a conscious decision. Perhaps a better mindset to have is " Always deploy your reserve unless you determine you are above 1500 feet"

TDog, In my opinion, what you should have learned from #24 is: Go directly to your reserve below 1500 feet! Your main probably takes 500-1000 ft to open. The cypress arms by 1,000 ft and fires at 750 ft. A deploying main puts you in the cypress operating window. Below 1500 ft - go directly to the reserve. Below 1500 ft - go directly to the reserve. The reserve must open by 300 ft to be TSO certified. Having an open canopy sooner will give you some time to sort out your landing and give you a few more outs. What is the downside? I don't think there is any. Waiting to have your reserve repacked will give you some time to think about what caused you to pull below 1500 ft to begin with. It will also let you think about life. The repack cost? Think about it like a bank account. You deposit $60 in your account with a repack. Every day 50 cents gets deducted from your account for your rig being in date. If you pull your reserve before your account balance reaches zero (120 days) you lose the balance. Your reserve repack may be a lot cheaper than you thought. So why not blow the account balance to save your life. You have probably spent more on a Friday night. Pulling your reserve takes the AAD out of the picture. It also gives you something you can't buy... some extra time to get it sorted out and land safely. Blue skies.

The heading "Malfunctions" is misleading in this incident context. Only #11, & 16 of the malfunctions described, in and of themselves, would have caused the incident regardless of what the skydiver did. Poor procedures in dealing with "a situation" resulted in the deaths of the rest. Malfunctions suggests that the equipment is unreliable. In actuality, it is the skydiver that malfunctioned. The heading "Pilot Error" may be more applicable to these incidents and most of the others with a deploying or opened canopy.

Sorry Dave, better brush up on your sidespin knowledge. I was suggesting that your examiner initiate a side spin while you, the student tandem master, perform the proper procedures to arrest it. No I am not suggesting you jump with the the laterals loose. I don't suggest you practice with a student. An examiner can arrest the side spin if you are unable before it gets too bad. Dave, It's my understanding that you would be mistaken if you think you can just dump your reserve out of a developed flat spin. You have been operating with a false sense of security. In a developed flat spin you are likely to be unable to pull you arms in to pull anything and are likely to black out after three or four turns. Yeah your cypress will probably fire, but I would count on having a canopy sound enough to land two under. In the interest of operating with complete knowledge, may I suggest you contact Strong himself or review the video where he experiments with the how and why of side spins. with all due respect, Tony

Make sure your examiner tells you how to avoid and get out of a flat spin situation before it becomes unrecoverable. Make sure you understand what he told you. Then have the instructor have you recover from a spin induced by a student or loose connections in the air before jumping with paying customers. Flat spins are one of the few things that can kill you and your passenger, even if you do everything right within your control. If you don't respond promptly, or correctly, it is not recoverable. View the video records of actual flat spins, scary stuff.

Thanks for the advice and info. Have located a ParaPlane manual which should sort out the packing details. Plan on jumping with the rings and ropes, but have heard about the problems mentioned. Who would have info on the size and mods required for a slider? I heard this was popular, but I think the slider may stumble of the shrink tubing on the cascades and the 1,000 lb lines. Appreciate the help, Thanks to all Tony

Hello Old Timers, Looking for any and all information about Para Plane Clouds. Have a clean, apparently airworthy example in a Pioneer 3 pin container with the PCR reefing system and twin pilot chutes. Poynters already examined for info. Hoping to find particulars about packing issues, flight characteristics, etc for the combination. Thanks Tony Philpin

Don, With that additional information, I definitely suggest the XXL Tshirt trick or even sweatshirt over your jumpsuit. That will even things out. Your arch may still need to be fine tuned. Strive for the proper boxman rather than an all out "get back stable" arch you may have used in AFF. Your arch should be in the middle of your range, make sure you can arch more, the sweatshirt may put this to the test. Arm position is also important. Many instructors encourage their student to fly in a "lazy W" or "think of string connecting your hands going in one ear and out the other". This is not a good advanced position for maximum controllability. Arms should have 90 bends and hands ahead of your ears, so you can dock without reaching for another's grips and not bump heads. Instructors sometimes give students bad habits that have to be corrected later. Blue Skies, T

Hi Don, Let me make a few suggestions based on two scenarios. Case 1. You perform a linked exit with another jumper and after coming off the hill, you break grips and fly inches apart. If you find you are falling away from the other jumper, check to be sure you a flying in a strong neutral boxman position 90 degree bends in the arms and lower legs extended into the air stream. Your arch should be in the middle of your range, so you have range to flatten it or arch more to make small adjustments. If you body position is good, and you still fall away, you simply have a jumpsuit problem. I suspect your suit is undersized, especially lacking grippers, and you may compensate for it simply by wearing an xl or xxl t-shirt over your suit. In extreme cases, a sweatshirt will be needed. If this solves the problem, a jumpsuit designed for your body size and weight is in order. Caveat: Check to make sure your partner is not the problem!!! Case 2: If you can fall without grips with your partner, but sink out on your horizontal approach I would check your technique: You should not be bringing your arms in to generate forward movement but rather extending your lower legs. To generate forward movement some of the air normally supporting you vertically gets deflected to generate forward movement. As a result, less air remains to sustain your old fall rate on the vertical axis and you will sink relative to the stable partner. With proper technique you will be able to move horizontally without increasing your fall rate. Extending your lower legs adds to your surface area while withdrawing your arms does not. The additional surface area compensates for the deflected air and your fall rate will not increase. Good luck, Tony WT04

Ditto what Ron says, with the following addition. It is not a question of either landing into the wind or downwind. Get this out of your head before it makes a home. You can land safely in ANY DIRECTION, all 360 degrees of wind angles, as long as the canopy is level and you anticipate a PLF (most importantly feet together and knees bent). That's all you need to know. Landing into the wind is preferable, but not necessary. LANDING WITH THE CANOPY LEVEL IS NECESSARY!! At many DZs with a landing strip of grass for a landing area, crosswind landings are the norm. Skydivers of all experience levels get into trouble trying to land "into the wind" when they misjudge a pattern, are forced to alter their course due to another jumper or obstacle, or are forced to land off. The choice is not into the wind or downwind. Land in any direction, canopy LEVEL, and when you get a chance, seek and instructor's guidance and practice crosswind and downwind landings with student gear. Any direction partially into the wind will slow your approach. Crosswind is like a no wind landing. It will neither speed your landing up or slow it down but will require that you fly with the upwind toggle lower than the other. A downwind landing will add some portion of the wind speed to your approach (depending on the angle) but in the lower wind ranges, can still be stood up. When the wind is light, and the windsock changes direction, then any direction will work (if you all agree) and ignore the windsock. Lastly, learn and practice flat turns whenever you are on base or final to land. That way when an alteration is necessary, you are in the flat turn mode. Blue Skies, Tony

Perhaps there was nothing wrong or unusual with the line stows and rubber bands at all. A comment about an unreleased line stow, taken out of context, when the uncocked pilot chute is actually to blame. An uncocked pilot chute in tow is not expected to release proper line stows, complete line stretch, release the locking stows, and have a satisfactory deployment. The larger band may be a red herring.

Mouth, The best way to handle a horseshoe malfunction is to prevent it. Horseshoe malfunctions can be caused by both equipment and procedural problems. Equipment: Prevent broken closing loops: Replace your closing loops when showing signs of wear. Don't wait to break them when packing. They are easily replaced and cost little. Prevent loose pins: Make sure you closing loop is the right length requiring some effort to close. Easily closing containers, wrong length loops, or changes in packing effciencies (humidity) make for loose pins, which can be jarred loose in the plane or on exit. Eliminate Procedure Problems: Disciplined pilot chute throw: Don't become lax and casually toss your pilot chute, causing the bridle to wrap around your arm. Deploying with good body position: Prevent the pilot chute and bridle from wrapping on legs, feet, etc. Horseshoe Malfunctions should be avoided at all cost. Don't plan on just reaching back and deploying your pilot chute and cutting away. The drag from the d-bag etc, may lift the bottom of your container off your back, placing it in unfamiliar position and possibly out of reach. The load is also likely to ball your pilot chute up in the pouch locking it inside. Evaluate your plot chute packing, see if you can ball it up yanking up on the bridle. Don your rig, lay on your belly and have someone lift the bottom of your container off your back.... determine where it might go. What do you think will happen to your freefall position while you struggle to remove the mess??? A spin? A tumble? Good luck, glad your thinking about what can go wrong and how to handle it. It is the downside of our sport.