exit order//canopy traffic//fatalities

[stevo 0]

Exit order where i jump is Flat then Vertical followed by more Flat fliers. by having the FFers exiting after RW groups we have more people in the pattern than when FFers used to exit first, in the past FFers would be on the ground sometimes before the first RW group even opened due to the fact that they get to opening alt. 20-30 seconds faster and are typically on small/fast canopies. let's face facts, more traffic equals more deaths. has there ever been a fatality from an Belly Flier stiking a FFer in freefall who exited before him? if the largest RW group exited after the FFers shouldn't they have enough experience and knowledge to give them additional separation? the Flat fliers that currently exit after the FFers sure don't and who can blame them they only have 40 jumps, but it's OK because they are pulling high, yeah right! anyhow Mr. Burke says vertical separation is unreliable. so is this about safety or about who gets the most coveted seats in the plane? the incidents over the past 6 years prove Bill Booth's point that skydivers are not concerned about safety. we solved a problem that never existed with a solution that still has one group of belly fliers exiting after the last Vertical fliers at the same time adding to a problem that does exist, more canopy traffic, canopy collisions and fatalities. if drift in freefall is the real factor for the exit order, then Vertical fliers should exit after ALL the flat fliers, but they don't, it's politics and it's BS and it's getting people killed. i vote we change it back.

[bodypilot1 0]

It isn't a freefall discipline issue.
There are alot of RW jumpers flying fast canopies.


Be safe
Ed

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[DSE 5]

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the incidents over the past 6 years prove Bill Booth's point that skydivers are not concerned about safety.

I disagree. I think the incidents prove two things:
1. People think "It'll never happen to me."
2. Shit happens.

No one EVER jumps out of an aircraft, I'll wager, that is thinking "F@#! safety, I'm just gonna do this..."
Habit, complacency, lack of sleep, too much caffiene, not enough caffiene, momentary lapse of good judgement are all the causes of incidents.
I'd submit that Burke's fairly in-depth study, along with those of others, demonstrates a more controlled level of risk.
If everyone is dumping at 3 grand in my opinion, the issue of exit order is minimal once the various canopy configurations come into the quotient.

[billvon 3,179]

> Exit order where i jump is Flat then Vertical followed by more Flat fliers.

Scary!

>has there ever been a fatality from an Belly Flier stiking a FFer in
>freefall who exited before him?

I've come quite close on a few occasions due to people who do not understand exit order issues.

>if the largest RW group exited after the FFers shouldn't they have
>enough experience and knowledge to give them additional separation?

Not usually. Not many people can calculate the 20-30 seconds of separation needed when you reverse the exit order like that. Most skydivers are barely saavy enough to realize slower groundspeeds require longer separations (no matter what discipline they're in.)

> so is this about safety or about who gets the most coveted seats in the plane?

Safety, at least in terms of separation at opening time.

>if drift in freefall is the real factor for the exit order, then Vertical fliers
>should exit after ALL the flat fliers, but they don't, it's politics and it's BS
>and it's getting people killed. i vote we change it back.

OK. I would too.

[LouDiamond 1]

I think you are confusing several things by lumping them together and not looking at them for what they are. Horizontal seperation during opening and how to do it has been discussed here ad nauseum and a quick search can provide you with hours of reading. The method commonly used works, period.

Even though we spend 3/4 of the skydive under canopy(time wise), one would think there would be better canopy pilots out there, unfortunately thats not the case. More often than not the canopy is flying the person and not the other way around. Canopy collisions or landing accidents have and are occuring roughly in the last 300 feet and according to USPA account for 35% of skydiving fatalities last year. Exit order has nothing to do with this part of the skydive, it is a seperate issue. Trying to attribute these things to one another as a casue and effect is fundamentally flawed. The real issue here is canopy piloting or lack there of during a specific situation but more precisely the lack of exercising sound judgement when attempting to land ones canopy with others in the sky. This is magnified exponentially at boogies by several factors.

Bill Booth is correct, the average skydiver spends very little in the way of ensuring his /her safety by examining their actions before, during and after the skydive. You can witness this every single time people stand up in a skyvan and they all move towards the ramp despite the warnings written all over the walls. Skydiving is a very selfish sport when you examine all aspects of it. Everything is about the individual having a good seat, a good spot , a good dive, a good opening, a good landing , a good place to pack, the next jump, making the next load. Not enough people stop to think about the other guy not just for their concern but how the other guy may be a risk to them in some way. As much as I hate to say it and I know many will scream "swooping isn't a crime", but HP landings combined with bad judgement, even when there is only one other person in the immediate vicinity has proven to be 1 person too many and people have died because of it. Landing patterns, rules, people enforcing rules, etc all exist but that doesn't keep skydivers from knowingly breaking them on a regular basis which IMO is a wanton disregard not only for their safety but for others. As long as we have people all trying to land in the same small area, there are going to be collisions,its a given. However, adding the complexity of a HP landing into all of that only compounds the likely hood of it happening.Thats what is getting people killed, not the exit order.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[speedy 0]

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> Exit order where i jump is Flat then Vertical followed by more Flat fliers.

Scary!

A question, where you jump, do freefliers exit before or after AFF students?
AFF level 1 is not much different that a 3-way RW group.
Tandems tend to exit after FF'ers. What are your thoughts about this? I do not notice much difference between the freefall speeds of most Tandems and RW Groups.

Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

[voodew1 0]

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A question, where you jump, do freefliers exit before or after AFF students?
AFF level 1 is not much different that a 3-way RW group.
Tandems tend to exit after FF'ers. What are your thoughts about this? I do not notice much difference between the freefall speeds of most Tandems and RW Groups.

Tandems open high so not really an issue -- puts them out last after the AFF

AFF students take a long time in the door giving the needed seperation and they open higher than normal freefallers

Wingsuits and Crew out last if on the load also -- and we sort that out between ourselves

The pimp hand is powdered up ... say something stupid

[speedy 0]

The height at which AFF and Tandem intend to deploy only gives them a better chance to get back to DZ on a long spot.
It does not give them any extra margin of saftey. A freeflier that jumps before them can still have a premeture deployment and the Tandem/AFF can still have a mal that puts them lower than expected.

AFF can take a long time to exit, tandems can be very quick.
Wings suits can be so all over the place that they should plan their flight to avoid other jumpers.

CREW can exit anywhere during the jump run, although it is normally first or last.

Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

[rehmwa 2]

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Exit order where i jump is Flat then Vertical followed by more Flat fliers. ....... the fact that (FF)get to opening alt. 20-30 seconds faster and are typically on small/fast canopies. let's face facts, .

Holy Cow!! A lesson in freefall drift is needed here. Do a search on the why's.

Free flyers are "typically on small/fast canopies"? compared to who? RW? That's a really uninformed stereotype and dangerous today. The only time I see egos in play is when today's current jump order is switched around.

Canopy flight has nothing to do with freefall discipline. Today, there are more and more new skydivers taking up freeflying VERY early in their experience - I hope these newbies aren't jumping little specs at 80 jumps just following their flailing attempts at sit and headdown.....

I completely agree that we can't count on vertical separation - it is unreliable. Though I do consider tandems to be clearly more reliable than newbies.

If you want to argue for cross wind jump runs, that's a different animal which can give us more flex in exit order based on things other than freefall drift. If not, that was a scary post and, unfortunately, not that uncommon.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[rehmwa 2]

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You can witness this every single time people stand up in a skyvan and they all move towards the ramp despite the warnings written all over the walls.

shit - I hate that. and, also on takeoff, you ever do the count back of the stripe? Call it out, and you get blank looks, Those in the back also won't sit in the aisle during loading (gotta sit on the bench), so the first out group typically sits in the aisle from the gate to the cockpit........

skydiving is very selfish sport? I think it's more that people are oblivious

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[JohnMitchell 16]

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has there ever been a fatality from an Belly Flier stiking a FFer in freefall who exited before him?

I've personally witnessed a near collision due to this. I hope you can get your DZ to stack the exit order a little more responsibly.

[AFFI 0]

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The height at which AFF and Tandem intend to deploy only gives them a better chance to get back to DZ on a long spot.
It does not give them any extra margin of saftey.

???

[Tonto 1]

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???

I think he may be talking about a mal, etc.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[icevideot 0]

If you think belly fliers jump large canopies just visit the next 50 way or larger event and watch the swarm in the landing area while they are all looking for an open piece of grass.

As for the risk of collision, I have pretty much boycotted one dz due to too many instances of me tracking toward freeflyers who zoomed down and opened and were now flying toward me. Tracking toward canopies suck and most freefliers I know don't usually open low. I prefer not to open low myself for that matter.

My vote is belly before freefliers and it has everything to do with safety and nothing to do with a seat on the plane. It is winter now so who wants to sit by the door?

"... this ain't a Nerf world."

[speedy 0]

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The height at which AFF and Tandem intend to deploy only gives them a better chance to get back to DZ on a long spot.
It does not give them any extra margin of saftey.

???

Extra margin of saftey in respect to exit separation.
Does that make it clearer?

Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

[rehmwa 2]

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Extra margin of saftey in respect to exit separation.
Does that make it clearer?

Even Clearer ---> the mechanism being - opening higher will (on more windy days) mean the tandems will wait quite a long time before exiting - thus creating the additional exit separation. This is HORIZONTAL separation in addition to the "unreliable but planned" opening separation natural to tandem activities

the days with windy uppers being those the relative freefall drift is more of a concern

I've chased tandems where, on a good windy day, the tandems waited as much as a minute after the Freeflyers bailed out before exiting the airplane. (we made it back every time - even when the "fun jumpers" were yelling GOGOGOGOGO and exiting on the tails of the others and doing narrow misses on opening - there's a lot to said for safety when leaving last and opening higher - it's one reason why it's so completely ridiculous when you hear a tandem master screaming GOGOGOGOGO right next to his customer's ear).

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[kallend 2,231]

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You can witness this every single time people stand up in a skyvan and they all move towards the ramp despite the warnings written all over the walls.

shit - I hate that. and, also on takeoff, you ever do the count back of the stripe? Call it out, and you get blank looks, Those in the back also won't sit in the aisle during loading (gotta sit on the bench), so the first out group typically sits in the aisle from the gate to the cockpit........

skydiving is very selfish sport? I think it's more that people are oblivious

I've been in Skyvans a bunch of times, but these have always been during big way events and the discipline has always been very good. Draw whatever conclusion you like.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Remster 30]

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shit - I hate that. and, also on takeoff, you ever do the count back of the stripe?

Thats pretty much dictated by seat belt location in the planes I've flown recently.

Remster

[AFFI 0]

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The height at which AFF and Tandem intend to deploy only gives them a better chance to get back to DZ on a long spot.
It does not give them any extra margin of saftey.

???

Extra margin of saftey in respect to exit separation.
Does that make it clearer?

"does not give them any extra margin of saftey"

Of course it does...

[rehmwa 2]

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I've been in Skyvans a bunch of times, but these have always been during big way events and the discipline has always been very good. Draw whatever conclusion you like.

I normally see Skyvans during boogies. More experienced loads have been better loading instincts - so I agree with you to that extent. I'll hold onto my conclusions, very up jumpers are a special subset that I appreciate quite a bit and are much more fun to jump with.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[rehmwa 2]

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Thats pretty much dictated by seat belt location in the planes I've flown recently.

'seat' location isn't the end all

the skyvan includes the center floor which is blithely ignored

I like it, but since I'm usually on big ways, I sit on the floor on the ride to altitude and then, on jump run, have to climb past all the jumpers that got on the plane ahead of me but didn't understand how to load a skyvan. (little hint, if you are the 5th two way in the back of the skyvan, you might want to consider the deck up by the pilot rather than sit on the bench down by the tailgate........)

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[speedy 0]

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The height at which AFF and Tandem intend to deploy only gives them a better chance to get back to DZ on a long spot.
It does not give them any extra margin of saftey.

???

Extra margin of saftey in respect to exit separation.
Does that make it clearer?

"does not give them any extra margin of saftey"

Of course it does...

If they are relying on vertical separation it is an accident waiting to happen.

Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

[billvon 3,179]

>you might want to consider the deck up by the pilot . . .

FYI, at least for the Perris skyvan, the deck by the pilot is off-limits during takeoff and landing. People there have to sit on the floor.

[rehmwa 2]

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>you might want to consider the deck up by the pilot . . .

FYI, at least for the Perris skyvan, the deck by the pilot is off-limits during takeoff and landing. People there have to sit on the floor.

christ - naval term "deck" is the "floor" and that's what I meant - on the floor, behind the cockpit between the other jumpers on the benches

if you mean the raised deck, then that is off limits almost any van I've been in - I don't blame the pilots either for that.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Remster 30]

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'seat' location isn't the end all

the skyvan includes the center floor which is blithely ignored

I like it, but since I'm usually on big ways, I sit on the floor on the ride to altitude and then, on jump run, have to climb past all the jumpers that got on the plane ahead of me but didn't understand how to load a skyvan. (little hint, if you are the 5th two way in the back of the skyvan, you might want to consider the deck up by the pilot rather than sit on the bench down by the tailgate........)

I didnt refer to seats, but seat belts. For take off: are you suggesting no using the seats and belts as they are configured, and double up or sit without a belt?

Remster