MagicGuy 0 #1 June 17, 2006 I went down to the local DZ today. I was bored and I'm going for my AFF in about a month so I figured I'd go down and watch some tandems. I could hear the plane in the sky so I looked up and a couple seconds later I see one of the tandem pairs deploy. A couple seconds later, I see the other tandem pair deploy. Both canopies looked fine, and then all of a sudden, I see one of the canopies collapse and start falling. I'm thinking "Oh shit, what is going on". A few seconds later, I see another canopy open up, and release a sigh of relief. The pair that had the cutaway landed basically on the runway, and it looked like a hard landing. 15 minutes later I see a guy and a girl walking into the spectator area of the dropzone. I asked "Did one of you two have the cutaway?". The guy turns to his girl with a stupid look on his face and says "Yup, she did!". I was really surprised at the fact that she was hardly fazed by it, and actually wanted to make another jump the same day! I gave her some serious props for that. If I had a cutaway on my first tandem jump, I don't know if I'd ever want to jump again. I hate to say it, but I'm glad I got to see a cutaway happen. It let me know that these things do happen, and reminded me to make sure that I go over my emergency procedures a lot so I know how to react in this kind of situation. I never did find out what kind of malfunction it was... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TrophyHusband 0 #2 June 18, 2006 most of the time the tandem passenger has no idea that there has been a malfunction. as a first time jumper, you have no frame of reference as to what its supposed to feel like so you will have no idea that something is wrong. malfunctions are a common enough that you will see more and if you stick around, you will have one. its really not as bad as you think. in fact, i got a huge rush out of my cut aways. i do what i can to prevent them, but when they do happen, i enjoy the jolt. "Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama www.kjandmegan.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MagicGuy 0 #3 June 18, 2006 Yeah, that makes sense. It was only scary to me when I saw a collapsed canopy falling down to the ground. It wasn't until I saw the reserve canopy delpoy that I realized I was watching the cutaway canopy fall, not the pair itself. Like I said, it was a good experience. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AggieDave 6 #4 June 18, 2006 Only one of the 3 tandems passengers that were with me for my 3 tandem chops knew something was amiss. That's because we weren't spinning violently when we chopped, so we went back into "no shit freefall" awaiting the reserve to fully deploy. The other two thought it was all apart of the normal experience and I had to show them the chopped main falling away from us for them to believe it. Of course the family and others on the ground that were watching thought I was some sort of super jumper hero. The one that knew we had a cutaway went to manifest and tried to get her money back because we didn't do any spirals under canopy. --"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
