unkulunkulu

Isn't it like skydiving? One waits for good weather at the dropzone (a saying here in Russia, not sure if I translated that correctly). Not guaranteed but a reasonable chance to have an unforgettable experience. I would totally give it a shot.

Forgot to thank thank you to all of you who gave advice. Will try to implement it. Surely a chance to revise altitudes and a new canopy control course is in order now that I'm more familiar with this canopy, last one I took was just when I transitioned to it. Riser turns are no problem and of course I use it regularly after opening as well as later, it was just unexpected that it will require that much more input to make a difference in this situation. Some excercices come to mind that may teach me to know the canopy better in this regard. Untwisting lines, yes, getting that into habit after landing. When I was packing myself more frequently I used to untwist them during packing but now that I'm more often give it to the packer I have to introduce new procedures. especially considering that I didn't manage to untwist that one, which I guess might mean that the harness shift was more serious. I used to jump a safire2, that one would not make it in 200m too. But the odyssey looks similar to pd pulse for me: quick but soft. Not really sure when neptunes switch indication from 0.8 to 0.7: I guess 750m would be correct. I don't know what frequency of linetwists should be considered too common. I would say that since the first linetwist cutaway around jump 500 I had a total of 3 or 4 occasions of linetwists. This cutaway is first occurrence on this canopy (on-heading openings are only about 50% of the time though tbh).

I think that the problem is with the definition of "clear". Disclaimer: I'm not that experienced in FF, have only been to my first (duh) 30way camp recently and mostly have been jumping in smaller groups (4-6 ways) before that. So I'm not a source of advice, I just communicate my understanding which is subject to critique and corrections from anyone. For me the story goes: 1. Belly jumps: you turn 180 degrees and track away. You don't do barrel rolls not only before pulling (the topic we mainly discuss here) but you don't barrel roll before turning away either! A point that will become important in my reasoning below. 2. FF jumps: you track on your back first. Why? I understand this is because when you transition from vertical to horizontal you can too easily create a very big speed difference and someone who is possibly high just before breakoff will have little chance of avoiding collision (i.e. giving the right-of-way to the lower person). That's why we have this exception to the lower person having the right of way here. 3. Once you made sure you will not hit anyone above you by transitioning to flocking/tracking from vertical you fullfilled your duty as the lower person starting to track away and can from there on transition on your belly, continue tracking, and watching for lower jumpers. So my understanding of "clear" in this case is "clear to safely start fast tracking". At the end of the track we're interested in "clear to wave off and pull" and this could be achieved by the good old low person having the right of way rule and procedures.

If you really follow this strategy, you will deploy higher than agreed upon too often. This could create very unfortunate surprises for your jump partners This is not getting into the question of whether you really want to snivel next to another canopy without control over the situation or just turn a couple degrees, track away and deploy at normal altitude. Actually, quite the same for me, a friend of mine was grounded for a month following a low pull after a similar incident. He described this as "two persons trying to move past one another constantly trying to guess the direction the other one will choose, I turn right, he turns right, I turn left, he turns left". I don't see this happening should the low person look below him unknowingly and just follow a straight path, wave off and deploy. The higher one could then easily avoid him and deploy at normal altitude. It's like pedestrians walking into the bicycle track in the park, hesitating and then jumping under the wheels confused. I prefer overtaking them from behind, this way they don't see me and have no time to react inadequately.

Wow, what a complicated failure mode! So the reserve free bag first pulled on the red skyhook lanyard which resulted in disconnecting the left riser and then (after the full cutaway was performed) the skyhook lanyard got off the skyhook, otherwise the departing main would just pull on the bridle back and just deploy the reserve? But what does it mean to be "dangling from the skyhook" now that the skyhook lanyard is gone? What am I missing?

When I was already confident in packing my canopy, I discovered that it's as important not to make the cacoon too narrow, because it will be too wide in the other direction after the s-folds (too "thick"), this improved the neatness of the pack job. So I adopted "to a width _really_ approximately the same as the opening of the bag". But it's beyond the point of this thread, just wanted to put it out there :)

Oh, good to know, missed that.

I was going to ask this question for some time now. I see those chin mounts around and I have some concern about them. If a line catches on a "top-of-the-helmet" mount, you have a bad day, you better have a helmet cut away system or other efficient means for getting rid of the camera/snag point. But in the time frame between catching a line and cutting away you will experience some forces on your neck/spine. As I see it they will mostly be in vertical direction, pulling up. But if you have a chin mounted camera, wouldn't it be quite probable for the forces to have a torquing effect on the neck including rotating it sideways which could be much worse? Is it tested somehow?

Actually neptune does change its indication to higher precision, i.e. under canopy it shows 445m etc. But probably it changes indication based on vertical speed but not quite sure. I thought that something needs to change with my EP execution/practice Good advice is welcome in this regard. Or are you talking specifically about RSL reliability?

Uploaded video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFsz3W_KkWk

My RSL is actually of the brass kind, like in this photo: http://blueskiesmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TonyHathaway-RSL-.jpg Probably looks white on one of the photos as a consequence of the photo being a picture of a screen showing the video. I was told by a rigger afterwards that the RSL could be in a "not completely closed" state. Will check it more thoroughly from now on. I was in fact disconnecting the rsl the previous evening along with the three rings to check the length of the white loop on the risers as I read an article on this recently. Good point, I thought about differences between the ways to attach the RSL but didn't think about that.

Hello, everyone. I just wanted to share my experience with you and hear your thoughts and suggestions. So here goes. Jump #703, first of the day, 20th since January. Main canopy Odyssey 130 (elliptical canopy comparable to Crossfire) wl 1.6, 40th jump on the canopy, previous experience about 250 jumps on Sabre 2 135. A bit cold outside at about 0 C on the ground, so using winter gloves with additional thin gloves underneath. 1. Breakoff at 1300m, pitch at 1000m 2. Line twists, altitude about 800 (neptune shows 0.8), decided to work on them. 3. Actually worked out of them at about 600m (in the video neptune shows 0.6, the audible is silent, set to 600m), but the canopy continues rotation. Trying to stop the rotation, gather that my riser input doesn't help, hoping to get the toggles unstowed before hard deck. [I'm waiting for the audible here, not looking at the alti :(] 4. Only have time/mental capacity to unstow one toggle, time to cutaway. 5. The helmet shield is fogged up, hindering the ability to clearly see the toggles. Getting one hand on each toggle, but not sure I grabbed the cutaway handle firmly enough, use the left hand to assist in cutting away. Forget/unable to LOOK at the reserve handle, cutting away 3 secs after the decision to do it was made. 6. From experience of two previous cutaways (both from partial mals on the same system), start A BIT TOO LAZILY looking for reserve handle, thinking 'nah, the RSL will beat me to it'. In the process understand that RSL doesn't work for too long, starting to look for the reserve handle MORE ACTIVELY, unable to clearly see it, find it along the MLW, pull it, in the saddle by about 200m. Took about 5 secs from cutaway to pulling silver. 7. Assess winds, make sure the power lines on the right don't continue invisibly to underneath me, land into the wind. The reserve loop is not cut however the CYPRES did fire probably during saddling. Well, a lot happened on this jump. Talk about chains of events/decisions. On the RSL subject: found the rsl shackle open and still attached to the reserve risers. Found a snapshot from a video from a friend in the plane, shows RSL attached when I'm out of the door. Some conclusions I drew (a better word would be better understood the training) for myself, hopefully in the order of importance: 1. RSL's really do malfunction! They don't lie on the FJC! Don't count on them/relax because you know you have one/wait for them to activate. Make an objective to pull silver as quickly as possible after the cutaway. 2. More attention on explicit altitude awareness, had I seen 0.6 with my own eyes, I would have cutaway good 100m higher. 3. LOOK silver, lock it in the vision prior to cutting away (if using two hands on the handle), the objective is to pull the silver at the highest possible altitude, not cutaway ASAP and then spend time in freefall looking for it. 4. A weird idea to 'get in actions' before cutaway altitude. Somehow I thought that trying every trick I know before cutaway altitude is a good idea. Now that I think of it just unstowing the toggles in itself just before cutaway altitude is counterproductive: will probably increase canopy rotation speeds and not enough time to stop the rotation anyway: better concentrate on correctly performing EPs. 5. Spend more time in a hanging harness, I had two cutaways almost in a row two years ago, went quite well and fun, slacked a bit on this since then, probably used the hanging harness 5 or 6 times. 6. Reinforce the sensation of the cutaway handle in thicker winter gloves, not just 'simulate' cutting away and be done with it. Would have helped with performing the EPs more confidently. 7. Spend less time after breakoff and before pulling in smaller groups, quickly flare, wave off, deploy, saves a bit of extra altitude. 8. The thing with the canopy continuing rotation after clearing the linetwists. The 'input' on the rear I made is clearly not enough in this situation, if I count on it stopping the rotation I should do it much stronger and probably concentrate on eliminating any weight shifts in the harness from before. An interesting catch with the toggles is that if the canopy is rotating to the left it's arguably more important to unstow the left toggle, on this jump I instinctively thought that once the right rear didn't do the job, I should unstow the right toggle. Probably the correct objective is to unstow both. My action of just unstowing the right one probably only made things worse :) Don't really know what exactly to do with the fogging up visor during the execution of the EPs, probably know how to find the handles with limited vision, but this comes from my own experience, I think now I know how to do it, not a universal advice... While the video is not as dramatic as can be found on the internet, this jump opened my eyes on a lot of things. Getting the cypress to fire on a jump is not a good idea I guess. Hopefully my experience and mistakes could be useful to someone. Any advise/corrections are welcome, thanks for your time :) Will upload the video in 12 hours, having a slow upload link here. Attached photos in the plane, rsl looks connected.

Might be a good idea to get outside video? Go for a jump a do a couple of tracking then stopping and really see what happens? Make sure to get an experienced jumper who would keep up for sure.

Thanks! I heard about SDC Rhythm XP and the fact that they implemented a tracker on Skydive Radio, somehow forgot to look for it on their website. Will look in to it, thanks!

That didn't sound patronizing at all, thank you :) We did participate in a couple competitions, not in this discipline yet. We have our goals set for upcoming competitions though.

Surely we're training with a couple of coaches experienced in vfs. This doesn't negate a need for performance analysis to help us and our coaches allocate our training time most efficiently. Flying time is quite a limited resource for amateur flyers, training efficiency must be very important. Integrating a judging/scoring system is an interesting option, we were considering this. Probably a huge overkill and unfeasible for first versions though.

Blue skies everyone :) We started training our first (duh) tunnel vfs team. It's a vfs 2way for now: https://tunnelflight.com/skills/static-pro/2-way-vfs-open-dive-pool We want to be able to log and analyze our performance: which formations and blocks we fly, transitions between them, time of transition. As software engineers we quickly jumped to the idea of writing some software, but then decided to go and try to find something that has already been done out there. Do you have any suggestions, maybe you have your own (possibly non-automated) system or you saw or heard about something like this? Arguably, one of the most important parts would be a quick and pain-free system to supply data from the last training to this system, i.e. list of formations and the respective transition times. Important information we hope to gather from this system is the areas of improvement that will give the most feedback in terms of performance.

Weird and probably dumb question See, I ran across this article http://www.skydivemag.com/article/speedfly-safety-1 Here is the part that confuses me: So does the author mean the literal golf swing, like, in golf? I mean, it really looks out of context this way (does it to you?). Or am I missing something? Search didn't reveal anything. Thanks

Or... you could just go jumping http://goo.gl/Gk11WH

Some complicated incidents are discussed very actively without really new information coming out, then someone posts new information in the middle of the thread, which changes the direction of discussion severely. Could we have some way of navigating among such posts? Moderators could mark posts as 'substantial factual info' or something like that and we have a list of those posts accessible somewhere in the thread. Can be used to simplify some older important incident reports.

I don't question the statement itself. On the contrary, I want a credible source for this statistic (around 15%) to use in conversations. People should know that using reserve-activation-accelerators so to speak shouldn't lead to getting relaxed about executing proper EPs.

Can you provide a credible source to support this claim? Thanks.

Hey, congrats on walking away from this. Was it on your Hornet 150 at 1.1 as in your user profile?

It was kind of a joke, there are only two known rules and he invented skyhook, so, you know, he might as well invent a rule about it.

Booths law #3?