aad/cypress

[nacmacfeegle 0]

"Yup, I was taught under 2000' pull silver. Isn't that the general rule of thumb, or am I off?"
Its a good guide, and 2000 is probably most peoples "action altitude" in the event of a mal. OTOH if I had a CRW rig (packed for a fast sub term opening), I'd be tempted to go main, unless the AC emergency ocurred way out over some nastiness such as a wide river, woods etc.
As with anything else, its better to be flexible and know what the issues are, that way you can assess your options, and make an educated (hopefully correct) decision..
At least, that's the way I like to think.

[alan 1]

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Alan,
That was perfectly fair.
I did not want to be overly technical in my answer, which in hindsight was a bad idea. My line of thought was that since the quesion was very basic, a less technical answer was appropriate.

It's OK Andy, but my concern was not with you keeping the answer simple, that is a good idea, but with the fact that it contained wrong/innaccurate information. Somebody says, my Spectre takes 1200 feet to open, some newby hears that and pretty soon, theirs takes 1200' to open. Pretty soon, just about everybodies Spectre takes 1200' to open. I have never meant any of this as a personal attack on you or Skyrose7. I just want to see, ultimately, accurate information presented here. Take care.
alan

[alan 1]

Mary (Skyrose7)
E-mail me if you do not know the answers to the last questions I asked, or if you have any doubt about what you may have been told. Keep learning, it is how you stay alive in this sport.
alan

[alan 1]

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My thoughts about going for the main at 1500 has nothing to do with saving 50 bucks, it's just I'd rather be under a bad main at 1200 feet with the option to cutaway and go to reserve than a bad reserve at 1300 feet with no options left.

And now we have come to why I introduced the RSL issue in my previous reply to Mary (Skyrose7). It is not about you should/shouldn't have a Cypres and/or RSL. It is about making an informed choice and knowing what to do with what you have and why.
alan

[billvon 3,085]

>It's OK Andy, but my concern was not with you keeping the answer simple, that
> is a good idea, but with the fact that it contained wrong/innaccurate information.
I read his answer, and did not think it contained any inaccurate information.
What is a cypres designed to do? At its most basic level, it opens your reserve if you forget to pull. Next level of detail - it measures altitude and speed and fires your reserve if you go through a preset altitude at terminal velocity. Next level - it deploys the reserve by firing a cutter, which cuts your reserve closing loop, if it senses a speed above 78mph at an altitude above 750 feet.
I think most skydivers would agree that all the above are correct, they just contain varying levels of detail. One could argue, of course, that none are correct - technically, it does not sense altitude, but air pressure relative to the time it was turned on.
The important question is - how much do you have to know? If your procedures are to always pull above 2000, to pull the reserve if you get below 2000 without anything out, and to always bail out on your reserve below 2000, explanation #2 will probably suffice. It is, of course, better to know as much as possible about your gear, but as with most things it's often important to try to strike a good compromise between too little and too much information, especially when your task is to present a lot of information in a (relativelty) short time.
-bill von

[alan 1]

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I read his answer, and did not think it contained any inaccurate information.

"if you pass through a certain altitude at terminal velocity."
"if it senses a speed above 78mph at an altitude above 750 feet."
I considered "at terminal velocity" to be wrong/inaccurate because it did not give any hint as to the true published firing parameter of sensing a speed above 78 mph. How much do you have to know? Enough to stay alive. I think it is important to know this much or I wouldn't have posted my comments, which BTW were also intended to spark an exchange of information.

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The important question is - how much do you have to know? If your procedures are to always pull above 2000, to pull the reserve if you get below 2000 without anything out, and to always bail out on your reserve below 2000, explanation #2 will probably suffice. It is, of course, better to know as much as possible about your gear, but as with most things it's often important to try to strike a good compromise between too little and too much information, especially when your task is to present a lot of information in a (relativelty) short time.

My thinking is that with more accurate and/or detailed information you can make better choices for what your procedures are as opposed restricting yourself to simple scenarios such as you present above. You have long been a proponent of, your procedures are based on the gear you have on and the circumstances of the jump. I think one of the problems we have today, as evidenced by Skyrose7, is that too many Instructors feel their task is to present a lot of information in a (relativelty) short time so they keep it simple to the point the student misses out on a lot of information they should be getting. We could debate forever as to how much and when.
alan

[Remster 30]

woohoo.. now we have moderators flamming each other! j/k gyus, its a good debate.
Remster
Muff 914

[billvon 3,085]

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I considered "at terminal velocity" to be wrong/inaccurate because it did not give any hint as to the true published firing parameter of sensing a speed above 78 mph. How much do you have to know? Enough to stay alive. I think it is important to know this much or I wouldn't have posted my comments, which BTW were also intended to spark an exchange of information.

I think that the important issue for a new jumper is that freefall speeds will fire it and malfunction speeds may not. It is extremely difficult to fall slower than 78mph with nothing out, even if you're a light jumper in a very floppy suit. Hence, I think the "fires at terminal velocity" is pretty accurate. If anything, I think it is _more_ helpful than the 78mph thing for a new jumper. Not all jumpers know their terminal velocities.
>My thinking is that with more accurate and/or detailed information you can make better choices for what your procedures are
>as opposed restricting yourself to simple scenarios such as you present above.
Agreed, if we're talking about an experienced jumper. However, we often purposely simplify procedures for students. A good example is the simplified, one-size-fits-most reserve procedures most dropzones teach. It's true that there are scenarios where one-hand-per-handle procedures work better, but they are rare for students - hence the simplified procedures.
Newly graduated jumpers are in a gray zone where they are starting to learn more and more, but are still relying on a lot of what they learned as students.
>I think one of the problems we have today, as evidenced by Skyrose7, is that too many Instructors feel their task is to
>present a lot of information in a (relativelty) short time so they keep it simple to the point the student misses out
>on a lot of information they should be getting.
I think that is true - but, as I mentioned before, knowing that a cypres fires at 78mph isn't notably useful before you know what the range of possible freefall speeds are, and _that_ information isn't notably useful until you know how to control your fall rate. That's one reason I'm an advocate of a graduate program - you teach them a carefully filtered, specialized set of information sufficient to allow them to do coaching 2-ways using school equipment, then cover the more advanced material (like RSL/AAD choices and dangers, high performance canopy flight, and changes in emergency procedures) once they graduate and have the background to understand the new information.
-bill von

[freeflir29 0]

"we often purposely simplify procedures for students"
The first rule of teaching or public speaking. Know your audience! Thats the difference between a guy that stands in front of people and talks and a GOOD INSTRUCTOR! You have to get to know your students as much as possible and teach them to their abilities.
"It's the cans..they're defective. Stay away from the cans"-Steve Martin
Clay

[billvon 3,085]

>The first rule of teaching or public speaking. Know your audience!
That's an extremely important point, one that often gets missed even in JCC's. You have to adopt a different teaching style based on your audience. A class of four 22 year old Navy divers, a class with five surfer dudes, and a class with two 40 year old couples all require different teaching styles. For example, saying "If you turn too low you're going to die a messy death" will generally have about the same effect on the Navy guys as saying "It's important for your safety not to turn below 200 feet" to the 40 year olds. In effect, you have to change what you say so they hear the right message. It becomes even more challenging when you have a mix of those people in the class.
-bill von

[freeflir29 0]

"You have to adopt a different teaching style based on your audience"
That's usually not as easy as it sounds either. Takes nothing short of LOTS of experience. I had a hard time with that in the military. I tried to apply my knowledge at that stage in my career to my students. Well....seems I took things a little more seriously than most. Most times the guys knew half what I did when I had been in the job the same amount of time! Of course....I had already been in the military for 3 and 1/2 years by the time I learned to control air strikes. I was 24 years old. Seems I had a little more interest than most of the 18 year old Airmen and Privates I was trying to teach. Ahh...yet another reason to work in Special Ops...Working with grown ups....
"It's the cans..they're defective. Stay away from the cans"-Steve Martin
Clay

[alan 1]

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I think that the important issue for a new jumper is that freefall speeds will fire it and malfunction speeds may not. It is extremely difficult to fall slower than 78mph with nothing out, even if you're a light jumper in a very floppy suit. Hence, I think the "fires at terminal velocity" is pretty accurate. If anything, I think it is _more_ helpful than the 78mph thing for a new jumper. Not all jumpers know their terminal velocities.

I agree with you, but we all have different perceptions of what consitutes a new jumper or experienced jumper. For me, someone with an A license and is out buying their first gear is not the same as a student (although, in a sense we are all students as long as we jump, or should be). In this case, both Mary and Andy, although relatively new jumpers, are experienced enough to where I consider it important that they start going beyond the simplified student versions. Hence my reply.

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Agreed, if we're talking about an experienced jumper. However, we often purposely simplify procedures for students. A good example is the simplified, one-size-fits-most reserve procedures most dropzones teach. It's true that there are scenarios where one-hand-per-handle procedures work better, but they are rare for students - hence the simplified procedures.
Newly graduated jumpers are in a gray zone where they are starting to learn more and more, but are still relying on a lot of what they learned as students.

I couldn't agree with you more. My feeling was/is Andy and Mary are in that grey zone and thus needed to be taken beyond the one size fits all stage of learning.

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I think that is true - but, as I mentioned before, knowing that a cypres fires at 78mph isn't notably useful before you know what the range of possible freefall speeds are, and _that_ information isn't notably useful until you know how to control your fall rate. That's one reason I'm an advocate of a graduate program - you teach them a carefully filtered, specialized set of information sufficient to allow them to do coaching 2-ways using school equipment, then cover the more advanced material (like RSL/AAD choices and dangers, high performance canopy flight, and changes in emergency procedures) once they graduate and have the background to understand the new information.

We still agree. Where we digress is in the assessment of our audience I guess. Since Mary was buying her own gear, I thought the 78 mph was important. She may have been jumping student gear with an AAD type/brand that could have had firing parameters that would allow for a reserve deployment with a malfunctioning main still above her or during the more aggressive canopy manuevers she may want to try with her new gear, it is not just about fall rate. Maybe I was wrong in thinking that a new graduate with new, non-student gear was ready for correct information. I didn't anticipate it becoming an issue over semantics. Something that has gotten lost in this conversation was my stated concern over how mis-information spreads. Somebody says; my Spectre takes 1200' to open, somebody else hears it and repeat it, pretty soon it becomes common knowledge that a Specre takes 1200' too open, when in fact it, except for rare cases, is a myth. Pretty soon, we''ll be hearing that the Cypres fires at terminal velocity, that will become common knowledge, and a lot of new jumpers will slip through the cracks not knowing it fires at speeds above 78 mph when they do need that knowledge. When I made my comment, I had no way of knowing if Andy knew the actual parameters or was just simplifying or repeating what he had heard. I said it before, we could debate forever on the how much and when. I stand by my comment.
alan

[wildblue 7]

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It becomes even more challenging when you have a mix of those people in the class.

Been there, done that, got the polo shirt.
You know most adults actually have a shorter attention span than high-school kids? Not to mention their brain hasn't been in "learning mode" for god-knows how may years. Then add to that that most adults don't really like being lectured (especially if you happen to be half their age) ... that whole "Adult Learning Theory" crap.
Ahhh... sorta glad I'm not doing that anymore, it was exausting.
This thread sure has been all over the map...
Anyway, back to the main point (or was it the second main point?) - at what point do you go back to teaching students? And who's responsibilty is it? You can't try to teach them everything in their first 5 jumps. Should there be like a after graduation class? Where you go into the more specifics of Cypres and RSL, how to buy gear, one size doesn't fit all emergency procedures, canopy wraps, difference in different deployment methods, etc etc. Or do you just hope they take it upon themselves to talk to experienced jumpers? And hope the experienced jumpers don't accidently give wrong/inaccurate information. I don't think this new training program addresses that. Have to pay a coach... phhht... we need mentors, not coaches.
Did you know that "if" is the middle of the word "life"?