Baksteen

[hijack] We still use ripcords for our students and we too teach to throw away the main ripcord before cutaway AND to throw away both handles. We teach a two-handed reserve procedure. 1) We do not want the student wasting time stowing away their main ripcord when they need to do their reserve procedure. 2) from personal experience: once the main is released, the cutaway cables can interfere with grabbing the silver handle. I extrapolate that this also goes for the main ripcord cable. We want to provide the student with as few choices as possible: - after opening you check for malfunctions. If not --> cutaway and go for reserve. - If ok check for the inconveniences - at 2k an inconvenience becomes a malfunction -->cutaway and go for reserve. - If you find you've been dicking around too long and you're already at 1k --> just pull your reserve ripcord. The sensory overload and malfunction scenarios are complex enough (to the student) without adding secondary worries about if and when to throw away which handle. And then some folks would like to make it even more complex by adding stuff about not cutting away closed-container malfunctions or distinguishing between lineovers you can clear and lineovers you have to cut away from, brake line fires and spinning mals and what have you...... The KISS-principle is widely advocated in our sport - so why not apply it in the reserve procedure, when stress skyrockets (even more) and time is (even more) limited? [/hijack] "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

HEY @$$HOLE!! "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

That has nothing to do with the best or most comfortable exit for a hop n pop.

Too right! I remember that first scary, long, slowly flat-sprinning freefall from 12k all too well To the OP, personally i have never managed to nail a solo floater exit from side door aircraft (Caravan, C206, Otter). I prefer to jump sideways from within the plane. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

Like the others said, you have enough time to make a nice, unhurried exit.

You missed out on Spear of Destiny? I remember getting really frustrated with Wolfenstein in the higher levels, with the stupid mutants. They were soundless and numerous which took all the fun out of it. In Spear there were all these stupid Ghosts in the higher levels, also soundless and numerous - with the added spice of being actually unkillable. Sure, they required only a stab with a knife to kill, but they would respawn after a few minutes. After Doom II I moved on to other things. I didn't like the monsters (especially the cloaked demons and the fireball-shooting one eyed floaty ball thingies) and I didn't like the guns. So now I'm into the Elder Scrolls. More generally speaking, I hope this fad of having to sign in to some asinine community (ie. Uplay and Steam) online before being able to play the game you actually went and bought quickly goes the way of the dodo. Especially since there are all these nice hacks floating around with which you have a true standalone game. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

IDDQD (god mode), I think you'll find. IDKFA was the way to get all the (improved) guns and ammo, without fully healing you or resetting your score to zero, the way MLI did. I played that game way too often.. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

According to Terry Pratchett in Discworld, everyone has a near-death experience. It's called living. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

This is old-school thinking to me

I'm apparently getting lost in translation somewhere. KimEmerson defines S-turns as 180's - I agree there's no place or that kind of turn in any pattern. We teach: "Pull down your toggle until you change heading and go back to full drive. Repeat if necessary in the other direction and then turn back into the wind." We call this shashaying in Dutch. But I thought the English wording for this was "making S-turns". Mea culpa As to braked approaches, that will work only if there is a relatively stiff headwind. There is no effect (or even a negative effect) if the student got confused and is landing crosswind/downwind, or when the wind is variable or there is no wind at all. Also, we teach that the basic toggle position in the pattern is 'full drive' (or whatever it's called in English). Students are inclined to fly in slight brakes as it is. I don't want students to fly the final leg of their pattern in half-brakes (or deeper) as that will limit the flare performance of their canopies. I especially don;t want to risk the student to have their canopy surge downward just above the ground because they are flying in heavyish brakes but want to flare from full drive. Lower man has the right of way - but as an experienced jumper you probably originally were coming from above the student. If an experieced jumper cannot handle being in the pattern with inexperienced jumpers, they're welcome to either: - land off. - land away from the student - keep from doing HP landings (ANY front riser input) - (at bigger DZs) stay away from the student area. I'm sure that's a good approach with novices, but you can hardly expect a FJC student to show the kind of insight necessary for such decisions.

When i teach the FJC I emphasise that S-turns are only OK on final, not in any other leg of the pattern and only as a means to correct for overshoot (into the cornfield for instance). Once they get a little more canopy time, the S-turns are phased out because the student is learning to fly their pattern actively, instead of waiting to reach the ground. The reason for S-turns is two fold: On one hand students cannot be expected to make an accurate estimate of where they are going to land. This is not a problem if you haver the luxury of a huge obstacle-free landing area. If you do not, you have to offer an alternative to hitting the fence or landing in a ditch once the student overshoots their landing area. S-turns are better than panic turns, IMO. The other thing that might lead to students having to perform S-turns is our own fault. Student canopies are huge and of course lightly loaded. Unless you actually jump a student canopy from time to time, I think it is very easy to underestimate the distance students can travel under their Mantas. Hence, we might be inclined to brief patterns which are on the tight side. No problem so long as a student actively flies, but a possible factor anyway. I recently found this out first hand when I made a SL-jump on a student canopy when a fellow instructor was being checked out for dropping SL-students and decided to stick to the briefing I'd given to the real students. Had I done nothing, I would have overshot the landing area by quite a wide margin. So yes, I teach S-turns. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

This isa problem, but with an obvious solution. We simply require our students to leave their mobile on the ground. Can't believe you didn't think of that. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

Our static-liners who proceed to freefall without doing any AFF-jumps all use ripcords. In the Netherlands, you have to prove that you can (generally) regain stability in freefall, as wel as remain stable during deployment before you are allowed to jump throwaway systems. AFF-students perform these tests during their course, and if all else fails there's an instructor there to deploy for them. I suppose the reasoning is that a springloaded PC will launch itself away from a student who is unstable, whereas a handdeployed PC will only get caught in the burble and thus complicate matters in an already stressful situation. On the flip side, hesitations occur regularly with a springloaded PC when the student is stable. But that is only a minor inconvenience which students are taught to expect. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

I'm using Google Chrome and after following an external link to the Longmont-trial all the text on DZ.com went blank. ETA: later today it also happened following another link. DZ.com opens links in a new tab. Upon viewing te content and closing that tab, the text is gone. Images, emoticons and some random characters in the Articles section are still displayed. Refreshing the page had no effect. This happened two days in a row, a total of four different occasions. The issue is resolved by closing and restarting Chrome. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

Then again, you're placing yourself into a situation for which you have no frame of reference at all. The first jump 'happens' to many people, it takes a second (third, fourth...) jump to actually experience the jump. Some people actually get more scared for the second (third, fourth...) jump, as they now know what they're getting themselves into. So now you have developed your skydiving skillset. You learned to reckon altitude and have trained your EPs and hard deck until they are almost second nature. And there you are. Preparing to jump with unfamiliar equipment from an altitude which according to all your training is way too low for a fully opening parachute. Sounds pretty scary to me

Some points should go to the pioneers of the Camera discipline; the people jumping the huge cams from way back when. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

I was very tred of Firefox - till they forced me to use Chrome at work. That happens to me too occasionally, when Firefox needs an update but for some reason cannot auto-update. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

Welcome back!

I'm a bit leery of this function. Seems to me that there is a very narrow window between a descent in the plane and a quick clear & pull. Especially for parachutes which open relatively quickly, such as dircect-bag Static-line systems and CReW canopies. I'd be worried that the AAD couldn't tell the difference. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

"Prince Albert" "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

General comment, and perhaps slightly off-topic: I have difficulties with 'you'll be okay if you only use it occasionally' - which I've heard in several contexts from several people for widely varying scenarios. Specific to this case, a high speed deployment could still occur on one of those infrequent usages. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

You're never too good to die in this sport - or to take risk-mitigating measures, I might add. "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

Common sense (not directed at you personally): "If you're good enough to handle that pocket rocket you're so current on, you should also be good enough to handle this nice and stable Spectre, which is 170 sq. ft. and three times the size of your regular canopy. But feel free to do a few solo's on the Spectre to get the feel of the canopy before you get to the FFC." "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

I've been sorely tempted to add fuel to this fire by posting the Dutch WS-rules.. and now I can resist no longer: And there is another, rather vague, requirement: Flame away "That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport." ~mom

I respect you and the quality of your posts, but it so happens that the "last chance to live"-comment is one of my pet peeves.