PWScottIV

So I just got my A-license yesterday at 25 jumps. I'm still renting gear from the DZ, and on the last couple of jumps someone else was using the rig I usually jump (Pilot 188, loaded @ 1.17). So when speaking with my instructor (9000+ jumps) about the situation, he recommended I jump a smaller canopy (Triathlon 175, loaded @ 1.26). The two times I've jumped it so far I felt "safe"... I had very nice soft stand up landings which were both pretty accurate (one was within 10 feet and the other 30 feet). Also, so you have a bit more info about who I am... I'm 31, pretty athletic and have been involved with "higher risk" sports like Rock Climbing (21 years), White Water Kayaking/Rafting (2 years), Car Racing, Caving, Snowboarding, and Surfing. I feel pretty confident in my ability to assess risk (at least once I've been involved with a particular activity for a decent amount of time), but I've only been skydiving for a short period of time. Previous to this event, I have pulled high on several occasions specifically to work on my canopy skills, including flat-turns, braked flight, rear riser turns, front riser turns, etc. All of my landings have been solid stand-up, except for one occasion where I PLF'd because I needed to do a down/cross-wind landing. I have also been doing staged flares for the last 20 jumps or so. I am usually accurate within 50 feet. Even though I've spent a little extra time working on my canopy skills and I feel confident landing and controlling my canopy, everything I've read says I'm destined for death or serious injury with this wing loading combined with my very low number of jumps. I'd like to hear the opinions of other jumpers and instructors with respect to my current wing loading... If I do my best to be aware and safe, then will I probably be OK? Or is there a very high likelihood that I'm gonna kill myself soon regardless of how careful I am? Basically, I feel safe so far, but am I fooling myself? Gravity Waits for No One.

There is an official statement supporting your arguments: http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:fKbgg5fOqNIJ:https://www.uspa.org/safety/safetyday/SafetyDayGuidelines2006.pdf+tandem+exit+o but this was a real case and you might find yourself in such situation. That is the reason for this poll (I just found the document yesterday) Yeah, that's what I thought... I know others have made a strong argument for almost the opposite order... But I wonder what the safest method is? I've been attempting to create 1000ft (1500 for groups) horizontal separation based on estimating the horizontal clearance between myself and the last jumper/s. I've been trying to do that by looking back and forth between straight down and the jumper/s. It also does seem to end up being somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds. The 45deg rule doesn't seem to work though, because I've never seen a jumper move fast enough backwards to ever get near 45deg, maybe 30 or so, but never 45, yet... I only have 21 jumps though, so I'm just about as inexperienced as they come... Gravity Waits for No One.

That's fuckin hilarious! That guy is definitely, without a doubt, completely flamin. Ok, so I guess he hates himself. And god hates him too... Especially now that he wasted a whole two minutes of gods time. lol Gravity Waits for No One.

Ok, well I know you mentioned you wanted people answering to have more experience than I currently have, but I've recently put in some time researching the subject... So if you'd like to ignore what I say, I totally understand. Likewise, I'd definitely appreciate hearing the opinions of more experienced jumpers if my logic is incorrect... 1. Does anyone find it to be a little strange that the tandems are leaving first? That means probably everyone else on the load has the potential to freefall through the tandems' canopies. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the most important factor in ordering the load was deployment altitude. Followed by average freefall speed (belly, freefly, tracking, etc.), and then group size. Am I totally off here? 2. I agree with everyone else so far that says they'd request a go-around... If I couldn't see below before I needed to jump, I'd just get out of the way to let anyone else by who wanted to jump. 3. Just out of curiosity (because I really don't know), what is the passenger limit for a 208? 17 passengers seems like it would be pretty damn crowded... Maybe even to the point that the CG would be too far back? Gravity Waits for No One.

Holy shit! Un-fucking-believable. With how big that was it's amazing the kid was still alive... I would've thought blood poisoning would have killed him by that point. Wow. Gravity Waits for No One.

"non-rotating skydiver", my ass. With a reverse arch like that, he'll be rotating back-to-earth in a couple seconds. Gravity Waits for No One.

Yeah, that's true... lol Gravity Waits for No One.

Thats how i started jumping, met a guy who jumps did a tandem, did my AFF then he decided we werent suited go figure Yeah, I got into it because an ex-gf had always wanted to fly and had expressed an interest in skydiving someday... So for her next birthday I surprised her by bringing her to Byron, CA for her FJC and AFF1. Yeah, I got a lot of crap for that... Never again! But it got me jumping, so it didn't turn out to be all that bad... Gravity Waits for No One.

Hell Yeah! Hey, that's a new A-license! Congrats! Gravity Waits for No One.

Yeah, I don't know what these textbook publishers are thinking... I mean for how much I paid for this damn book, they could have at least given this guy a better body position... No stability at all! Lol, maybe he's working on a new position called the monkey... Or maybe he's just distracted and thinking, "Oh shit, I just crapped my jumpsuit!" See attachment... Gravity Waits for No One.

Witherspoon Waterview ... Definitely rolls off the tongue, no? lol My name might suit a hotel chain better than a porn star. Gravity Waits for No One.

I asked a girl I had dated a few times if she wanted to come and try a tandem the next weekend and she never called me back after that... lol Gravity Waits for No One.

I wonder why the entry for 4:20 on wikipedia is so short... lol Lazy bastards... I know you don't smoke weed, I know dis, but I'm gonna get you high today, cause it's Friday, you ain't got no job and you ain't got shit to do. Gravity Waits for No One.

For me, the thing I believe helped the most was to saturate myself with knowledge. I read the SIM (almost twice now), a book called "Skydiver's Survival Guide", read every incident report (including descriptions and much of the discussions), and many, many posts on this website. I think it's helped me a lot to know what's likely to go wrong, what mistakes people have made in the past, and what I can do to minimize my risk. I know I have a huge amount I can still learn, but I feel that I've done my best to inform myself. And if I still end up dying for some freak reason, then so be it... I mean you can go on worrying about everything for your whole life and never end up feeling alive. And then get hit by a truck or dying of cancer or some shit. I'm definitely not recommending that anyone develop an "I'm not gonna worry about dying" mentality... I just think that if you're going to participate in any activity where you assume higher risk (including things like walking across the street), then thoroughly educating yourself about the associated risks, determining methods of mitigating those risks, and keeping them in mind during the specific key moments of the activity is an effective way to both stay safe (relatively) and have fun (not dwelling on "I could die right now"). Although I'm new to skydiving, I've been rock climbing (traditional and sport) for about 21 years now... I think my experience with climbing helped me to quickly adjust to the skydiving environment, at least with respect to my comfort level from a safety standpoint. To me, not knowing what can hurt/kill me is waaay more scary than knowing what can, especially if there are things I can do to to mitigate the risks. I hope my track record with skydiving can be as good as my climbing career... As I've only had two sprained ankles in 21 years... Interestingly enough, I've actually been way more scared being run-out 30 feet on a climb, than I've been on any skydive... Probably because the rock was gonna hit me sooner, lol. I'll have to let you know if that changes WHEN I have my first cut-away... Gravity Waits for No One.

Thanks a lot for the feedback! I agree with all of that. Gravity Waits for No One.

I know what he was saying... I was just joking around with him about not knowing what happened, because he WAS actually on that load with me... Gravity Waits for No One.

Yep. I've just about read it twice too. Good book. Gravity Waits for No One.

I actually just dedicated a whole 13k jump to just that question. Ok, I know I'm a newbie (that's why I tried it), but I actually found it to be pretty easy to control my attitude and rotation while holding both my hands on my cutaway handle for about 10sec and then both hands my reserve for about 10sec. Back and forth a few times. I found bending my knees so my feet were at my butt did a pretty good job of keeping me level, and all I had to do was twist a bit at the waist to counter the asymmetry created by having both hands on one side... Now, whether or not this will actually help me be more stable in a real total mal, I have no idea, because I'm probably gonna be thinking about things other than being super stable... Like FUCK! and dumping my reserve as fast as humanly possible... Gravity Waits for No One.

I agree, that does sound like good advice... But the DZO is the pilot and I think he's the S&TA as well... As far as spotting goes I didn't find him to be very approachable (mostly because he's so busy, I think), which is very disappointing, because I'm sure he has a huge amount of spotting knowledge/experience. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I'm not just thinking about myself here, if I'm at the door, I'd like to make sure I don't wait too long and screw the end of the load (especially considering that they're typically the tandems) Gravity Waits for No One.

Yeah, that's what I wish would happen. I feel sort of screwed with respect to that. I know I have sooo much to learn about spotting (and I've been trying to read what I can and talk to whomever I can about it), but when I hear things like "Jump on Green" I'm like what the hell! If you want me to get out at a certain place (and I'm gonna be at the door spotting), then please let me know what your thoughts are... Not just "get out of my plane now!" Gravity Waits for No One.

I did that once (my calculations were correct) and that's when he said "Just jump on Green". We ended up pretty far downwind at least partially because I wasn't "allowed" to wait as long as I wanted to for us to push further upwind. To some extent I can see his concern though, I mean I only have about 20 jumps and I think he probably has thousands, so it's a difficult situation. And if I were to wait too long I could screw up the jump run for the tandems at the end of the load, which would really suck... Gravity Waits for No One.

You have no idea of what happened... You sound like you think you were there or somthin... lol Ok, so maybe you were, lol. I know I should have known where we were and I was trying to look out the door for recognizable landmarks, but for whatever reason I wasn't able to... I'm sure part of it was that I was sort of stressed about exiting so low. I usually begin to pull by 4k, so exiting at 3.5k was definitely weighing a bit on my mind. In the end everything was ok, but I was just wondering what others would think, regarding me leaving the plane without knowing exactly where I was... And if it was typical to not have any pre-jump or in-flight communication between the first person exiting and the pilot... Any more than "Jump on Green"... Gravity Waits for No One.

I feel comfortable spotting without assistance, but in this particular situation I think I should have asked the pilot where he was planning my exit, so I could look at the aerial images for references ahead of time. Gravity Waits for No One.

First, if I felt like I was in true immediate danger I wouldn't be jumping there. I think they're very safety conscious in general, but I'm just a little bit concerned about the DZO/Pilot having 100% control of where I get out... Also, I haven't been jumping for very long, but I've never heard the expereienced jumpers/instructors ever communicate with the DZO/Pilot in advance about the spot... Is that normal? Or is there usually some sort of quick, "it would be best to start the jump run here" conversations at most DZs? This the first time I haven't known exactly where we were when the door opened. I have studied satellite images, but I didn't see any recognizable features on that particular jump (see the satellite image I attached to my last post). Gravity Waits for No One.

There were three main factors at play that made it difficult for me to see the spot. 1. We were about 10k lower than I'd ever spotted at, so I wasn't used to the scale of everything I saw. 2. We were traveling at 360, which was surprising to me because although the uppers (6k-12k) were at 360, 3k was at 280. And the airport and landing area runs along 280, so I was expecting to see at least some part of the airport (.8mi long) or a riverbed (several miles long). But, now both were back behind the plane, not at all what i expected. 3. Most of the time (I've only jumped here about 15 times) the jump run has been somewhere around 280, even at 13k, so that was sort of disorienting too. I've attached a satellite view of how things went down. The door is on the arrow side, just to give you an idea of what I could see. Basically if I had expected the airport to be way behind us, I might have been able to see it if I had looked that far back... My question is, if I had no idea of where I was at (but the airspace was clear), should I have jumped? Gravity Waits for No One.