obelixtim

Cost a fortune in wrecked AADs, altimeters and radios. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Good move on the reserve pull. First rule of survival: Problem in freefall? Stop the freefall! Avoid tandem terminal. Drogue entanglement would likely set up a wicked spin. Not a good place to be, for both of you. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

I think this was the plan. One big misstake was made: the weather data was incorrect. During the day the winds were pretty strong, these values were used to calculate the exit point. But we jumped just before sunset, when the winds became almost zero That's why I said, plan your jump, jump your plan. If conditions change, new plan. Its not unusual for winds to die down in the evening, in fact they can often change 180 degrees, as the land cools, especially if there is a large body of water nearby.... Something your "planners" didn't take into account. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

They should have access to met data, which is usually updated at 4 hourly intervals. They pass local information to pilots. Get your pilot to ask the tower jocks where he can access updated local weather information. We do it on the phone.... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Yep. Like any unusual jump, planning is required if you want to be successful. A: From ATC obtain a list of wind velocities and bearings for every 1000 feet of altitude to your planned exit altitude. You'd be surprised by the sometimes quite wide variations in wind speeds and headings at different levels. B: On a map plot the mean wind direction, using the bearings given from ATC for every 1000 feet. C: For every 30 knots of wind, allow 1 mile of ground travel per 1000 feet, upwind of the DZ. (With a tailwind + canopy speed you should travel 1 mile) and work out your average wind speed from exit altitude to ground level. D: On your map you can now calculate your exit point upwind from the DZ. So you should allow 1 minute of canopy flight per 1000 feet, and 1 mile of travel per minute if you have an average wind speed of 30 knots. Its not difficult. I've done quite a few cross countries from 12 grand, and travelled 12 miles or more, to land back at the DZ. Never missed once. A couple of other considerations to think about: Have a chase vehicle under the exit point, to follow the load home, and to pick up off landers/lost gear/injuries. The load(if more than 1 jumper), need to stay together for the whole flight. Carry phones. Land near a road if landing off, for ease of pick up. Have a plan if someone has a mal and has to chop, and someone has to follow the jumper down and watch the cutaway gear and freebag, and to land with the reserve rider. (It is NOT a good idea to ride a malfunction down to lower levels in order to retrieve cutaway gear) Have the jump pilot verify all jumpers have opened OK after exit, and communicate information to the ground crew. Plan your jump, and JUMP YOUR PLAN. If conditions change, make a new plan, don't stick to the old one. Include everyone in your briefing, jumpers, pilot, ground crew, chase crew. Advise ATC and your local police, in case any whuffos report plane crashes with bail outs (this does happen and the cops won't go off on wild goose chases, if a simple phone call has alerted them of your intentions) So there..... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Boy, was it ever... Incidentally, the experienced people with their handcherchief-sized mains all landed 7-9 km off. I'm not disagreeing with you though; 3.5Kft is the best exit altitude for SL. Did anyone actually know how to calculate the exit point for a high altitude opening/cross country jump? It takes a little bit more than guess work.... I would have let them walk home.... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Those two are a lot more believable. And of course with witnesses and photos. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

I listened to the tape for about 5 minutes and then gave up - I'm 'double handicapped' here since I have trouble with the sound quality (as everybody else) but also I'm not really good in Australian accent. ***I would want more details about the circumstances and how it was reported and documented, before being more certain about any conclusions. So would I but all I managed to find with the help of 'google' was another website repeating the one I gave in my first post on the subject. Not really helpful - for it is typically (IMO) the kind of story people want to believe to be true - without any real knowledge of 'the physics of parachute openings' like one develops with a few 1000 jumps and a few decades in the sport. The thing is that for instance the Alkemade story - complete with Germans not wanting to believe him, the incredible odds of hitting a snowy slope, etcetera has been around as long as I can remember - I even saw it pictured in a cartoon magazine when I was a kid while this story which is as remarkable I had never heard of until this week. No cartoons, no film - nothing, as far as I can tell. That and countless 'Mr, Bill' jumps made by the skydiving community makes me verry skeptic... And for the 'incredible strenght at the moment you are holding on for dear life'? In 1997 in the Netherlands a pilot bailed out of a cripled C206 without an emergency rig, holding on to another jumper who pulled immediatly. The pilot lost grips and fell to his death... Last observation: But why would he tell such a story when it wasn't true? Beats me but I know that people tell bullshit stories all the time for all kinds of reasons... The Alkemede story was disbelieved, until a Luftwaffe pilot examined his harness and proved that he had not used his parachute. The liftwebs (risers) were tacked to the harness, and on opening would break the tiedowns so the jumper would be suspended from the shoulders. The risers were found to be still tacked to the harness, proving he could not have used the parachute. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

) Jeez, I never would have thought of that....... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Jumping in China, that was actually true. Clear skies, but you couldn't see the ground through the coal smoke layer. You could smell it as you went through 6 grand. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

We had a big hole, Didn't you see it? "What civil twilight? The sun was still shining at 15 grand" My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

What clouds? One of my old jumpmasters used to have a saying: "Clouds don't have teeth". And yes, we did lots of stuff that would be frowned on today. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Tiny Broadwick did a lot of jumps back then.... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

I think your bullshit detector is working OK. I would say false. With the adrenalin overload these guys would have been experiencing, even if they did bump into each other, I doubt they would have had the reaction time to do what he claimed. We all know how difficult it can be to pin a newbie in FF, and that's with them briefed, falling reasonably stable. Two newbies experiencing FF for the first time. probably at night....no chance. There was also a WW1 story of a pilot that claimed to have fallen out of his plane at the top of a loop in a dogfight, the plane continued the loop and he landed back in the cockpit at the bottom of the loop, and successfully landed the plane. Apparently he was believed, and maybe even decorated for it. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

I doubt FAA have a "Cloud Czar", and unless there is an incident, I doubt they'd be interested. If they go after anyone, it would be the pilot. Having said that, it is almost impossible to prove what the jumpers could or couldn't see from the plane, much less prove it was deliberate. Even if you can see the DZ, free fall drift can take you through cloud, so proving intent is almost impossible. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Ah, but I had no control over what the tandems do - they make their own decisions. As for the newbie girl, my decision was affected by her inexperience, trying to keep her safe and teach her to make correct safety decisions. I would have done the same thing with a 100-jump male. On the other hand, if my partners had been highly experienced, yeah, we would have jumped. 100 jumps is not THAT inexperienced. When I started, 100 jumps was almost skygod status. I would have jumped, and let her jump too. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to allow people to do something slightly different...it builds their experience. If people are only ever exposed to perfect conditions, it puts them at a disadvantage when conditions are less than perfect, e.g an emergency exit for whatever reason when there is a lot of cloud around. Now I'm not advocating doing stupidly dangerous things, but in your case things were reasonably benign...GPS spot, cloud layer reasonably high, open spaces below. As for the FAR violation, the tandems did it anyway, plus its extremely rare to be pinged for it, because an observer on the ground can never prove that you couldn't see the DZ. The pilots exit calls on the radio would alert other air traffic, if any. Technically, you were correct, but at 90% of DZs around the world most people would jump. If you decided to descend, why not a run in at 5 grand and a hop and pop? Geez, we used to do that at 2 grand..... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

For many years, jump aircraft didn't have doors. It was never a problem. In fact it meant that you could get out of the aircraft quicker in an emergency. Apart from comfort and a quicker climb rate, the only advantage a closed door mitigates is that of a parachute accidentally going out the door. But that can still happen when the door opens on jump run and people are moving around in the plane. I prefer an open door, but that is what most of my early jumps involved, so I am used to it. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Pffftttt.....prosthetics these days are almost better than the real thing. Plus you can invent a great campfire story involving battles with an alligator/croc/great white shark. The chicks will be all over you. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Which is why bowling is the alternative action sport. Why am I thinking our mate Bamber is a kid? My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Thanks everyone for the opinions! As far as weight loss method, I have done a considerable amount of research and believe I have found the fastest method that does not involve starving, pills or steroids while retaining lean mass. It's called Ketogains, I highly recommend it, they have a facebook group and a website. I was down for a few weeks on antibiotics, but am starting the gym back up this week. I do 4 days lifting and 2 or 3 days HIIT. As much as I love nature and trails, it is not a super effective workout. Plus steady state cardio takes away from lean muscle gain in the long run. But I will be adding muay thai back in shortly one day a week, and that will help a lot. I will be at 220 before the end of October, and past that I really can't put a time frame on getting to 205 because it gets much more difficult once you reach a lower BF%. I was planning on doing a jump a week until I complete my license, but I think it would be better if I saved my money and did my license in a week or two. This will also give me time to bring the weight down to a moderate level as well There is one tandem instructor at my DZ that is on the muscular side 205-215 if I had to guess. But other than him everyone is fairly thin, which I'm noticing is a trend. So theoretical question: If two jumpers are equal skill level but different weights, the heavy jumper could fly and track faster but would have a more difficult time varying fall rate? Of course the quick and simple weight loss program involves a chainsaw. If you have a high pain threshold and don't mind being a bit shorter than you are now...... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Doesn't seem accidental to me... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

You could do a SL jump from any altitude, no problem. The problem for a student being under canopy at that altitude is: Where you will end up landing. With the wind behind you, you could fly 7 or 8 miles. No one is going to let you do that. Actually... I've been on a three caravan cross-country hop 'n pop where they'd let the staticliners with a few jumps under their belts join in. The spot was waaaaaay long, so the person who ended up landing closest to the DZ was a staticliner. He landed a mere three km short of the DZ. That was a crap effort whoever determined the spot.....but the 3 kms illustrates my point perfectly. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

You could do a SL jump from any altitude, no problem. The problem for a student being under canopy at that altitude is: Where you will end up landing. With the wind behind you, you could fly 7 or 8 miles. No one is going to let you do that. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

So, how do the pilots get away with that? My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

If its not the container, how come there seem to be a number of similar incidents, with one common factor? There have been quite a few fatalities over the years where people have deployed reserves too low or not at all after wasting altitude trying to get stable. Chopping a high speed spinner can easily put a jumper on their back. An old adage is: never sacrifice altitude for stability in an emergency situation. I expect my reserve to save me whatever attitude I deploy in, and if there is a rig that won't do that, its a rig I would never jump. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....