Would you ....

[D22369 0]

or have you..... ever taught a student to in a panic situation (low altitude) just flare or go to very deep brakes? *ie> just before stalling .... whether its a stationary obsticle or another jumper. (I have always stressed that avoiding a situation requiring a low emergency turn is better than doing one, that being aware is best....and if you need to turn to do a flare turn, but I am now thinking that teaching a "when in doubt... Just flare" might just be an acceptable technique.... broken legs heal, death is pretty permanent...

How much do you stress to your students that the wing has to be level when landing.....

Panic turns seem to be taking too many jumpers ... irregardless of wingloading....

The fatalities that occur from a inadvertent hook turns make me very sad.

Roy

They say I suffer from insanity.... But I actually enjoy it.

[rsibbald 0]

We teach students *only* to make minor heading corrections when low to the ground. We drill into them not to take any one toggle below shoulder height when making a low turn. If they are unavoidably going to hit an obstacle or something, then flare fully, 15ft away from it, be that distance horizontal or vertical.

[bmcd308 0]

Very similar to us. If you are going to hit something, hit it going as slowly as possible, and hit it with your feet first.

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www.jumpelvis.com

[Liemberg 0]

Quote

have you ever taught a student to in a panic situation (low altitude) just flare or go to very deep brakes?

If I didn't it must have slipped my mind...
In a 'standard course' I get to the point 'When things don't go as planned when steering the parachute' - that’s where I usually mention this.

But first: How do I start.... (Peter's canopy control lesson for the absolute clueless - abriviated ...)

I start with 'the purpose of this lesson'.

The purpose of this lesson: Get you to an unobstructed 'lane' where you can land the canopy without hurting yourself.
It would be nice - but not absolutely necessary - if this 'lane' is 'against the wind' - Now since this airfield here is the largest piece of real-estate in the whole neighbourhood it is also nice to land here, on the DZ, where the task of finding an unobstructed lane is grossly simplified... (like: to find an obstruction in your landing path, over here you really would have to look for it...) It would be even nicer (say extra extra nice) if you landed right there beside the flagpole where your friend is holding the videocamera, shooting great footage to send all your other friends over the internet and stills grabbed can be used as desktop background...

Hence: Steer the canopy but do so conservatively...

Conservatively?

You should have a plan and the plan should be that if anything unexpected happens (weather? You "reading the wind without full knowledge of the alphabet"?) it is better that your mistake gets you in another meadow - with only a longer walk to enjoy - and not in the centre of the local village where it is difficult and sometimes almost impossible to find an unobstructed lane to land the parachute and enjoy your walk afterwards...(not to mention the DZ pissing off the neighbours who don't like any disturbance in their quit little village...)
If between 2000 and 1000ft you are not 110% sure you will make it back and you have to cross an unfavourable landing area, start considering alternative options.

When you - despite all your wonderful plans and good intentions - end up over an unfavourable landing area, think about driving a car down a mountain road. In that situation going in full brakes / lower gearing slows down the surrounding and facilitates the decision process. ('zig' when the road goes 'zig', 'zag' when... etcetera...)

(On brakes: pulling something to end a freefall isn't a bad idea either - but apparently we got that out of the way, already...)

With open parachutes it is likewise. When you 'hit the brakes', the surrounding are slowed down which facilitates the decision process.
However - parachutes don't come with a pause-button or only a pause-button with a limited capacity. Can't park them by the side of the road to catch your breath and re-evaluate, while enjoying the view over the valley.

(And the rewind function also seems to lack with parachutes, "now one more time, from the step..." - not in real life. Basically you are landing an aircraft that is in the same position as one that has just lost its engine - except, you never had one to begin with...)

High tension wires can add an extra flavour to the equation, but I must say I don't really miss them on my little island.

Anyway - did you know that with a modern, highly loaded elliptical shaped sport parachute as used by the experts with thousands of jumps*) it is possible to hit the water so hard that you bounce back up more than six feet during your panic-flare and land again some 30+ meters from where you originally hit the water?

I wouldn't have believed it either had I not seen this before my own eyes.

Then again, with some wind, over the village, under a docile and large canopy that is braked to the point where it goes down straight over the village - chances are that it will be like stepping of an elevator in someone’s back garden if its not your bad hair day... And the funny thing is that even those tiny little high-speed parachutes always have a lot more capacity for going "straight down" against a little wind than one would expect after seeing them in full high speed flight - just keep them under control and straight above you and don't stall them when landing.

Walking (OK limping maybe) is almost guaranteed.

Granted, the smaller the parachute, the more forward speed you will have to cope with, but villages have roads and this may be your lucky day.

Besides, limping a little brings out the Florence Nightingale / Albert Schweizer in the opposite sex - what more do you want?

*) makes your mouth water and wish you were one of them, doesn't it?... But "do not trust the Greek when they bring presents" Please do remember through al your decision processes that – with these babies - when you miss the water and panic-flare, you can also land 30+ meters from where you originally impacted. This, as a rule, makes it hard to impossible to enjoy your walk...

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci
A thousand words...