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Scoby

Pro-Track Deployment Altitude?

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I just got a Pro-Track and am pretty thrilled with it. However, I noticed that the deployment altitude recorded is significantly lower than when I throw out. Is it actually recording when the parachute opens? I intentionally set my breakoff warning low (at 4,000)so if I heard it, I'd know that I screwed up. I was deploying at 4,000 also, so I'd hear the warning as I was throwing out the PC. Yet my recorded deployments were 3,300 feet. Is this normal?

As an aside, I was surprised to see that my average speeds on my belly were about 125 mph. I've been going by the delay time chart in my logbook to figure out freefall time, but I'm guessing that all my skydives have been a few seconds shorter than I thought.

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my understanding is the Pro-Track registers when you are nearly completely under canopy (or otherwise slowed enough to trigger its threshold speed)

maybe someone else knows what that speed is??
____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

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The Pro-Track has no way of knowing that you've thrown out your pilot chute. It only knows three things; time, temperature and barometric pressure. From those things it figures out your speeds and altitudes. When the Pro-Track figures you're going so slow that you could only be under canopy (I don't know the exact speed at which it does this), that's what's recorded as your opening altitude. I prefer to think of it as "in the saddle altitude".
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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When the Pro-Track figures you're going so slow that you could only be under canopy (I don't know the exact speed at which it does this), that's what's recorded as your opening altitude. I prefer to think of it as "in the saddle altitude".



That all makes sense. I could imagine a device might be able to guess the start of deceleration after the fact, but that would be complicated and perhaps not reliable. I was thinking that the couple of extra seconds of freefall would affect my freefall totals in my logbook, but it is probably offset by the fact that I'm falling faster than I had assumed.

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The Pro-Track has no way of knowing that you've thrown out your pilot chute. It only knows three things; time, temperature and barometric pressure. .



I'm pretty sure mine knows when I'm having too much fun and smiles like I do...... It told me so. Glen

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