bclark

High Performance Landing: A hook turn done correctly. Hook Turn: A high performance landing done incorrectly.

Don't get caught in a dust devil. Nice thing about them is that you can usually see and avoid. If per chance you do get caught in one, for instance if one forms directly beneath you at low altitude, FLY YOUR CANOPY. I jumped for 6 years at a drop zone where dust devils were very common and BIG. I have never flown into one but have seen it several times. The first thing you usually get is lots of lift. Then, if you are flying into the upwind side of the vortex, it will usually bounce you around quite alot, collapse a few cells, then spit you out at which point you usually drop out of the sky like a ton of shit. If you get caught in the downwind side of the dust devil it will lift you and accelerate you like crazy. Once again, when you get spit out you start to fall out of the sky, but are hauling a lot of ass. Here are two examples: A C-182 Hop n' Pop load. Jumper w/200 jumps on a Monarch 135. Gets into the downwind side of a dust devil which accelerates him and slams him legs first into the side of a trailer. He bounces off of the trailer and reimpacts a window on the same trailer. His legs go through the window and he ends up severely lacerated with 2 broken ankles. Example 2: A very Mormon skydiver falling off the side of the bandwagon making a topless jump on SUNDAY off all things. God reaches down and smites her with a dust devil at about 20 feet. The dust devil takes her back up to about 40-50 feet and collapses her entire canopy (spectre 150). She completely quits flying her parachute, but it miraculously reinflates prior to her impact in the LZ. She pancakes out on her tits in the grass uninjured. The dust devil is still present so we are all yelling at her to cut away so that it does not pick her back up. She responds by immediately pulling her reserve handle. Thank god she has never had a malfunction.

1: What Happened? I executed a low 270 front riser turn. I left myself with no outs and had to choose between finishing the turn or impacting into the fuel farm on the airport. I finished the turn and then stalled my canopy when I realized that I was FUCKED! 2: Canopy? Stiletto 120 3: Wing Loading? 1.5 : 1 4: Canopy Experience: 100 Pegasus 120, 200 Sabre 170, 700 Stiletto 135, 50 Sabre 120, 25 FX 104, 150 Stiletto 120. 5: Number of Jumps: 1400 6: Damage Done: Spraigned Ego, Sore Back 7: Cost: My Pride 8: Down Time: 1 day Lesson Learned: I had been getting very agressive with my swoops, doing fat 180's and starting to experiment with 270's. I had become so sure of my own abilities that I stopped thinking about outs, and had gotten in the habit of making the turn even with a bad setup. I learned that the earth is big and hard, and no matter how much you try you cannot fit the whole planet up your ass.

1: Precautionary landing in a Beech 18 due to a strange engine vibration. 2: Took off in a C-182 filming a tandem, landed due to quickly approaching thunderstorms. 3: Landed due to discovering a misrouted 3-ring on my tandem rig that I had missed during pre flight inspection. 4: Landed due to a tandem student refusal to jump. 5: Landed per request from air traffic control due to a runway closure. 6: Landed due to our DZO forgetting to securely latch the copilot side above wing door in a Twin Bonanza. 7: Landed immediately after rotation and while still in ground effect because the T-Bone blew a fuel pump and the left engine quit. I think there might be one more but I can't recall what it was.

Skydiving is the superior parachuting publication. I refer to Parachutist as PARATISSUE because all it is, in my opinion, is glossy papered ass wipe. Skydiving still carries informative and educational technical articles. Parachutist is now about 75% advertisement and coverage of boogies etc... Also alot of public interest crap. If I could be a USPA member and get a discount for NOT getting parachutist I would.

I put 700+ jumps on Stiletto 135 and now have about 200 on my Stiletto 120. I recently demo'd a Crossfire 2 109. The Crossfire opens BEAUTIFULLY. I put about 30 jumps on it and it never whacked me and only occasionally dove off heading. Flight characteristics were not notably different than my Stiletto 120. I felt comfortable hooking the Crossfire after about 5 jumps on it. The Crossfire changes heading faster and dives more in a front riser turn than a Stiletto. It has a noticably bigger recovery arc than a Stiletto. The Crossfire has a bigger control range and more powerful bottom end flare than a Stiletto. I liked the Crossfire 2 but I still like my Stiletto more. My next canopy will probably be a Stiletto 107. I just get better swoops out of my Stiletto. Probably just what I am familiar with.

I stepped down from a Sabre 170 to a Stiletto 135 when I had 200 jumps. The Stiletto is an awesome parachute, but I had quite alot of trouble with it for about 100 jumps after I got it. The control range ( effective flare ) is very high in the toggle stroke and is much shorter than many other canopies. I slapped my feet time after time until I learned where the effective flare on my 135 was. THEN... I loved the fuck out of it for 600 more skydives, learned the basics of high performance landings and got myself a Stiletto 120. They do have some funny characteristics, such as oversteer, off heading openings etc... but I am a devoted stiletto driver.

We have a Strong SET 400 main with a 6 grommet slider. It is a relatively new canopy (maybe 200 jumps on it). We have had 3 cutaways on this canopy in the last year. All of them have been due to tension knots. There have been a couple of times that the problem has been cleared without a cutaway. It seems to me that the 6 grommet slider is more prone to problems. "never pet a burning dog"

Yes I do have it on video, and you don't have to turn it up too loud to hear the screaming.

The awards I like are the SCR / SCS. I think the USPA awards represent signifigant achievments, but I thinks the awards they send you are so god damn worthless and cheesy that they are not worth your $$$. For the USPA awards, I think knowing you earned them is as good as that crappy piece of paper and that tomb stone shaped pin they send you.

At least once a day on average. More than that on the weekends.

Trackin right for my DZO's car.... either that or the PULL sign on top of the hangar at our old DZ.

Yep, Did one in January in Utah. 4000' C-182. I think I heard someone said, " who is that ugly bitch?"

I like the mini flex z's too. They are relatively cheap. They are really comfortable because they are very flexible. I go thru about 2 pairs a season at $16.00 a pair. I make them last longer by running a bead of super glue around the edges. Here's a goggle joke: Whenever you see anyone with those SORZ goggles. Hey dude, YOU HAVE SORZ ON YOUR FACE! HAHAHAHA.

I have seen this also. One of our homegrown tandem instructors quote "bullied" his mother into coming out and doing a tandem on mothers day. About 8000' she started saying she didn't want to go. She started shedding tears shortly thereafter. Although she was not sobbing, it was fairly obvious that she did not want to skydive. I was flying camera, and one other jumper (WINGNUT) was coming to do RW with the tandem. I was spotting and started climbout a little early, anticipating that it may take a while to get this lady out of the plane. I climbed out on the camera step of the T-Bone and Wingnut was on the wing. The Tandem pair got to the door and about half way out when mom locked up on the sides of the doorframe like a cat being flushed down a toilet. After approx. 60 seconds of trying to wrestle this poor woman out the door, the instructor gave up and made the decision to ride down. Wingnut and I did an impromptu freefly jump and both pulled high because we were 3/4 of a mile south of the airport by the time we left. Happy Mother's Day.

Thanks, that is exactly the kind of feedback I am looking for. You are right, it would take more time to get hooked up in an emergency, but I don't think it will take any more time than it will take the pair in the back. They also have to get on their knees, and the student with their back to the pilots seat has to do a 180. Also there is that common occurence of having to fight the students feet out the door while sitting back to dash. I would guess that all things considered, it ends up being about sixes. On the CG issue, you are absolutely correct on that one. The CG is further aft. It has yet to present an issue in practice at our DZ, as our 182 is very nose heavy when empty. Not to say that it could not.

Just thought I would query some fellow tandem I's as to their procedures when taking 2 tandem pairs out of C-182's. I prefer to have one tandem pair in the back of the plane ( student back to pilot seat, Tandem I in the back ) and the other tandem pair in front seated facing forward w/the Instructor next to the door and the student in front. The front tandem pair hooks up in a kneeling position and exits from there. PROS: I get a better hookup in kneeling position and I have more awareness of aircraft position / spotting when I am on my knees and can see outside. I also have more freedom to check my handles, particularly the drogue when I am kneeling. I find it almost impossible to check my drogue handle sitting on my ass facing backwards with a student on my lap and the drogue jammed up against the hump with the fuel selecter on it. Also, facing forward in a kneeling position the Instructor in the back can see the back of my rig and make me aware of anything bad BEFORE I leave the airplane. I am much less likely to dislodge something on the reserve container or main container if I am not leaning against the dash. Also there is that pain in the ass procedure of trying to get your students legs past the rear end of the door if you are facing backwards. CONS: Your students feet are near the rudder pedals on the co-pi side and you must brief them not to touch the rudder pedals. Hooking up on your knees is uncomfortable. Getting on to your knees from a seated position in a climbing attitude takes practice. These are my thoughts, how about some of yours?

Here's my vote FOR a seperate tandem forum. Blue skies.

I think having a tandem forum is a swell idea.

I bought a bomber freefly suit after I got my Tandem rating. I got reinforced ass and knees and it has lasted me for several hundred tandems with a couple of real minor repairs. I like the control it gives me with those "less than perfect students". I have done tandems in a tank top and shorts and there is a noticable lack of authority there.

I wear a frap hat when doing tandems. 450 tandems out of a variety of aircraft (182, 207, beech 18, T-bone, DC-3, Caravan) Never had a need for a hard helmet yet. No banging my head in the plane, getting head butted by students, riser slaps, bad landings.

Sorry I voted blank, but I have never been slapped. 450 tandems on Strong gear w/ SET 400's. Only 2 jumps on Vector during cross training. I have seen other people get slapped.

In 450 tandems: 2 pukers (more like dry heavers, no serious chow) 2 passed out (one big guy who woke up before we landed, and one little girl I had to land passed out). One guy who started to side spin me, thankfully we were drogue side up and I tossed the drogue.

I had a great day on Saturday. We were hot loading our T-Bone all day with plenty of tandems for all. On the last load of the day I took this big guy Eric on a tandem. After a great skydive I signalled him to pull the ripcord, and he was all over it. As soon as we got line stretch not one, but both of his shoes immediately flew off. It was a nice snivelly 1000' SET 400 opening, so his shoes went UP as we were still snivelling. One of them came to rest up against the bottom of the slider, then took off past the canopy as we continued to snivel away. I was a little concerned about getting hit with a shoe after we saddled out, but it didn't happen. We both got a great laugh out of it and had a good stand up landing in his socks. I havn't heard of any broken windshields or other property damage.

The Dante's Inferno test sez I will end up in level 7, but I think I have been damned to a far worse level of hell.......UTAH.