diverdriver

Deuce. Damn. wtf man.

I was jumping a Cobra 150 (similar to a Sabre 150). I had modified velcroless risers. I opened up in line twists. I couldn't kick out of them like I thought I could. When not kicking the canopy had a slow turn. I didn't think why that might be happening but I grabbed the rear riser opposite the turn and hauled on it. It slid the entire line group which steared the canopy out of the line twists. Once out of the twists I realised a brake had fired on opening causing the twists. I saw that I would land off the airport and realised I had ridden the twists down below 1,000 AGL. VERY DUMB!! What if I had not gotten out the twists. I did not have a landable/controllable canopy below 1,500 AGL and I should have chopped. It worked out for me but I definitely felt later that I should have chopped and it made me understand how easy it is for people to ride slow malfunctions too long then chop too low to the ground and die. I was a fairly experienced pilot even at that time and should have known better. I had cutaway experience before so wasn't afraid to do it. Hard deck. It's there for a reason no matter how minor you think it is. Really give it some thought as to whether you can land it safely or not. In my case, landing those twists would probably not have killed me had I been in an open area. But I definitley couldn't control it to avoid obstacles if need be. I should have chopped. I personally think slow speed malfunctions are worse than high speed malfunctions. Yet high speed malfunctions seem to get everyone's attention. It's probably human nature. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

That sounds like a good idea. I might just go up one day to hang out. It's better than sitting around stewing in my own miseries. Scott, I'm not a psychologist I'm a pilot. I've seen some shit in my days too. I will suggest that you do not try to force the thoughts out of your mind. Fighting it just might make it worse for you. Have you gone to a DZ to talk about it with friends? You might find something from that conversation that you can not get with a therapist. Not saying going to a therapist is a waste of time. But I think you are asking to be given an answer (just the way I read your post) and a therapist can't give you the answer. They can only ask you questions so that they can draw out your own feelings on it and you answer the question yourself as Bozo said. It's in you to answer. I almost quit the sport when after Sandy Wambach died at SDC. It was the 3rd fatality in 3 weeks. I witnessed the first from the plane (SL student) and then a CRW guy did a handstand in the risers and got entangled. Then Sandy went in on the first day of the world record attempts. We sent her back in the back of a CASA while all the jumpers lined the runway. It was a touching moment. It was near sunset. But I was tired of people I knew dieing in the sport and at such an alarming rate. But, the circumstance of the falities were that they had nothing to do with each other, other than geography. A SL student entangles with the main and goes in. An experienced jumper tries a stunt at a low altitude and pays for it. A highly experienced jumper (Sandy) runs into another highly experienced jumper in a dive knocking herself out and she goes in. The proximity of time of the accidents also played into it as it seems to be doing with you too. 3 fatalities in 2 days? That can play with your head. You hadn't had time to really absorb the first one then you were faced with more. You're not a robot and can't be expected to be emotionless about it so don't demand that of yourself. However, you have to accept that there is nothing you can do to change what has happened for the people it happened to. But you CAN change things in the future for someone coming into the sport when you share your knowledge and experience. And when you do that you are making a difference. Choose to come back or to not come back I respect you for your post and putting it out there. Takes guts to say what you did in your original post. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

#2 Prodigy = Breathe Breathe the pressure. Come play my game I'll test ya!

Marissa, I'll remember you too. Thank you for taking me out to the memorial and spending a couple days talking to me about all this.

You could crash if you have an engine failure on takeoff and the drag causes the pilot to lose control. We all might be thinking of the Twin Otter at Sullivan but I have my opinions about another crash that involved jumpers leaving during an engine failure. It was a 205 and people tried to leave at about 400 feet or so. The CG shift, the open door I believe all played a part in the pilot losing control. It's not just twin engine aircraft I'm worried about losing control. C-205 Fatal Celina, OH May 9, 1999 http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X18790&key=1 Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

Close, the wouldn't bend while in use. They would heat up during use and since the shaft is so long it would bow slightly after shut down. That's why you see pilots pulling the props through after shutdown. This pulls cooling air through the engine which cools the shaft bringing it back straight or preventing it from bowing to begin with. Not sure how much myth is associated with it but that's what I understand. Oh yah, Garretts....ewwwwwwww!!!! Had a skyvan not come off the start locks after starting and the pilot tried to takeoff. Ran off the side of the runway and instead of aborting then he tried to keep going, tried to rotate and realised he wasn't going anywhere THEN he aborted. Over ran the runway at SDC (2000) and snapped the nose gear off. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

It absolutely makes sense. You are taking away distractions from your periferal vision (right seat pax, window frame, dash lights, etc..) I'd say it is a natural instinct. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

For those that know me... here's a little update on my rugrat. ...he is officially too cute. See attached. Oh, and he pulled himself up to a standing position today. He just started crawling really a week ago! Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

Yes. It killed Chris Martin from TN.

"I was just sitting here contemplating the words of Socrates: I drank what?" [singing]everybody...wants to rule the woooooorrrrrld.[/singing] -Tears for Fears

Been to two Dr. Who conventions in St. Louis. Yep, nerd. Anyone else like Blake's Seven?

It's is a "trapped" dream. When we feel trapped by something/someone we can have similar dreams but they manifest in activities or scenes we are familiar with. When I was flying 182s with no end in sight and living in the office and being owed a lot of money by the DZO I had a recurring dream. I dreamt I was in a 182 flying just above cars on a side road. I could not climb because of wires running above the road. I could not land because of the cars. I had to pull hard turns to stay flying as the road turned. And yah, I've had the go-in dream and then walk around like nothing happened. Very sureal. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

Yeah, well, they can't even spent "monthly" correctly. Obviously, there is more supply than demand. I don't understand the attraction, if the money isn't there. It seems like a pretty boring job to me, often with undesirable hours. Actually, enrollment in flight schools is significantly down. The pool of pilots is going to dry up in a few years if this continues. Things will turn around. But the days of old will not return. No more pensions promised as no one will believe they will be around. And no more W-2s approaching 300K. That's pretty much gone for good I suspect unless we start flying LEO planes.

350K!!! Bullshit!! And even those that might get to 300K those were only the most senior (maybe 5%) top seniority pilots. After all the bankruptcies there ain't no 300K pilots flying for the airlines in the USA anymore. That was very short lived. Lots of people are stuck in the regionals now which is where we went after we did all that time building. I'm lucky to be at the regional I am. And I'm not by any stretch of the word rich. That's after spending 7 years after college flight instructing, doing aerial photography, and flying jumpers full time for 4 of those years. Rich airline pilots... I laugh every time I hear that. The general flying public has no clue what we really make. Reporters took the FAA max hours allowed per year of 1,000 and multiplied it to the hourly rate pilots might have made and that's how they reported 300K. In reality, I think I know of one pilot in one year who actually got close to 1,000 hours of block. He still didn't break 6 figures. And I'm flying out of every major/busy airport in the nation every day. Oh... that just got my blood boiling.

I'm not Winsor but I'll argue this... Show me how you are going to educate everyone on this subject effectively so they will never make this mistake again? What form will your education take so it is clear and unambiguous located in a central place for all to see and know? You can't without putting something in writing in a place that all are required to read and know. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

Once again skydiving is trying to reinvent the aviation wheel. Traffic patterns have been established and rules on traffic pattern behaviours have been put in place. THERE'S A REASON ACROBATICS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN! IT'S F'N DANGEROUS! A landing pattern is meant to be standard, predictable and repeatable. Yet, skydiving (an aviation activity) insists on rewriting the rules because it is somehow exempt from the laws of physics, human nature, and human limitations. Folks it's not. And if people can't stop doing 270s in the pattern taking people out as they go then anyone wishing to do them should be grounded or restricted to a 270 only landing pattern away from the general landing area. I love the people who argue that any rule, guideline or regulation that doesn't 100% fix a problem should never be implemented. Come on people. Fix what you can and work on the rest. If people can't control themselves from killing unsuspecting people then they should be grounded period. You have the right to skydive. You don't have the right to ignore my safety and kill me. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

Your posts are a beacon of rationality in this thread, I'm finding hard not to agree point by point. It is pointless imo to legislate in response to streaks of incidents. Any worthwhile legislation stands on its own, and does not need a string of incidents to justify it. I start to wonder when a series of incidents is used for any legislative process whether the rules created in reaction may well be irrelevant in a years' time when probability has given us a new series of incidents to legislate. I can't think of one Fedearl Aviation Regulation that wasn't written in blood. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

I would have a look at the SDC website and contact some of the instructors there to talk about issues may or may not have. Giving them the heads up will let them think about the situation and give you good advice. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

While I get your drift is that really going to show something? I don't know. But at boogies we are jumping the same size planes we usually do just more back to back loads. Are you thinking it's the "atmosphere" around a boogie that leads to a change in behaviour leading to accidents? Quite possibly. But I think back to the two canopy collision I saw and they were both NOT at boogie events. One ended in a double fatality and the other a single fatality. This was year 2001 and 2003. The warnings went up then. It was broadcast that you can't do S-turns in a crowd or have people flying opposite patterns swooping without increasing your risk of collision a lot. We are 6 years removed from those events and it doesn't seem we have learned anything. We have failed to educate the young and old in the sport as to what behaviours lead to reduced margins of safety. And it will take people talking to people at risk and forcing the issue to get it changed. But I fear the general attitude in skydiving is "you can't impede my God given right of freedom to do whatever I want consequences be damned!" It's pervasive in this industry and people have been trying to overcome it in all aspects for decades. We've just reached a point of velocity under canopies that poor attitudes and training that we got away with your decades are now resulting in fatalities at a regular rate. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

To answer your question... Yes, I think that I have seen people suffer from PTSD in skydiving. And I can't think of a single one that got help for it. I don't think they even realized that's what was going on. Some people labelled them as "burn outs" when in reality they were just trying to deal with the pain of something or somethings that had happened to them in the sport like witnessing one or more fatalities or losing a close friend(s) in the sport in some other accident. How people deal with stress can come out in different ways. Most ways is normal and expected and healthy. But there are those that don't recover normally and really could use some help but just don't get it in my completely untrained in psychiatric care opinion. I'm not talking about people going up and being stiff after a cuttaway. I'm talking about people making poor personal choices and self destructive behaviours (example: heavy drinking) to deal with the pain of the trauma they have experienced. Again, just my opinion.

No sprinkles. Sprinkles are for sissies.

Coffee? Pah!! Where's my frapicino grande with whipped cream and chocolate syrup drizzle?

I quit. My wife quit. I had 10 years in the sport. Too many people dieing after running into each other under perfectly open and functioning canopies. I had 2 friends die in 2001 in a collision. Neither was swooping/hooking. It was a 10-way team landing. In 2003 I had a friend die after his canopy was collapsed in a collision. That pretty much took the wind out of my sail for this sport. I love to skydive. I'm not afraid to jump. But I don't trust anyone anymore to do the right thing and not run into me under canopy. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125

Seems like. But they won't. Why? Because it's the United States PARACHUTE Association. I have tried to get interest in USPA higher ups to make jump pilot training mandatory and standard to some degree but the response I get is "planes and pilots come under the FAAs jurisdiction." When I talk to individual FAA inspectors about the idea I get "Skydiving is self regulated." And thus, we are left with no improvement across the industry. Zig, I agree that we should focus on the 3-5% of operators having accidents. Can you identify which operator will have one ball up in the trees next? I sure can't. I sure can't spend my time going from DZ to DZ doing inspections. I am one person. This is a system problem. I'll make one last comment about the jump plane accidents in regards to the King Air at Salt Lake. You say it doesn't have anything to do with skydiving. I say it does since it was a jump plane going between two dropzones for the purpose of skydiving. It was equiped for skydiving. NOT for IFR flying. And by the way, the pilot tried to fly a MADE UP APPROACH!! The weather conditions at the field were reported as one quarter mile visibility with heavy snow. What skydiving plane do you know of have equipement and training to fly in those Wx condidtions? Not any I know of. That accident had everything to do with skydiving. I take each report and look it individually. I really do. I ponder it before listing it. I have reports that I never post or pursue due to the circumstance. I am not sitting behind my keyboard salivating at the next post I can make. Having lost so many friends over the years due to jump plane accidents alone it twists my gut each time I see something new. Will we ever reach zero accidents? Nope. Well, if we never flew again with jumpers then maybe... That isn't realistic. But I tell you we should not have another 182 run out of gas. We should not have Twin Otters hitting mock-ups doing fly-bys with a full load on board. We should not have pilots who do not know how to recover from a stall spin (or better yet prevent getting into a stall to begin with). This takes education. This takes an admission by the industry to accept that we need to do better. March is the first spike month of the year. I pray I have nothing to do. Chris Schindler www.diverdriver.com ATP/D-19012 FB #4125