parachutist

Actually there have been arguments made that Slinks (for main canopies) maybe should be designed to break at lower threshold because as they are right now they'll take more stress than metal links. So if enough force were put forth to break a slink, your body would be damaged badly. In case of such a horrendous opening, it'd likely be better for the slink to break, cutaway the damaged main & then deploy the reserve. In other words I wouldn't worry about the slinks if you're handling the hard openings & willing to jump again

Sort of like a certain badass swooper of the same company and coaching team...Scott Miller. And don't leave out John Leblanc. He was in the first swoop meet that I watched (Daytona 5000), swooping with a Vengeance soon after their introduction. He was showing that you can swoop and get some good surf without radical input.

If they wern't turned on, then why not? Cypres may not be all that important for CRW, but it won't cause any harm. We use radios in the large CRW formations and some people have concerns about radio frequencies causing unexpected behavior with AADs. This is one reason, there are a few other reasons people have... it's always about possibility of misfire seeming greater than possibility of the AAD saving someone in a CRW formation

I was in a big-way a couple years ago. 70 jumpers in the formation. There were 3 or 4 AADs... I'm not sure how many of those were turned on.

That's a bargain for coaching along with vid. have fun :)

Yes the cameraman is just fine.

I do agree that the 3-ring release system works well with 1 hand. But in order to activate the 3-ring release, one must remove the cutaway pillow from its velcro attachment point first.... and this is not so easy for some people to do with 1 hand. That is strong velcro on some new rigs, and while they should be familiar with the idea of peel-and-pull, they're not always going to do this under stress of a cutaway scenario. Some people just pull. Give them 2 hands to do it and I believe they're more likely to get that handle pulled completely. Chris Warnock

During AFF the rule is taught: Decision altitude is 2,500 ft. This means that by 2,500 you decide whether your canopy is good or whether you need to cut away. "Decision altitude" means that you need to decide what you're going to do by this altitude.. you still have time to execute emergency procedures after you have made your decision. This decision altitude will need to go lower for some jumpers later in their skydiving career because they may be pulling lower. For example if someone deploys at 2,500 ft., as some do, then you've already blown through the decision altitude before your canopy is even out of the bag... so that 2,500 altitude wouldn't work as your decision alttitude anymore. Another rule taught in AFF: No cutaways below 1,000 ft. This altitude can't go much lower later in a skydiving career... so that one is good to keep as a general guideline no matter how many jumps you have. Chris

I watched his approach, his flare and his hard right turn into the hill. To me the canopy seemed to be flying as one would expect it to fly when right toggle input is given. Landing pattern seemed planned and functional: - Downwind til approx 500 ft (my estimate) - 90 degree left front riser turn (initiated and completed with plenty of altitude for recovery) - This left him headed cross-wind straight down the beer line for final leg (toward the hangar). Everything seemed normal up to this point, except that I thought it was a little too close to the hangar and should have been done with more room to spare.... but it was far enough away that minor adjustment was all that may have been required. At this point the canopy was coming out of the dive on its own and coming more toward level, though still descending and flying forward fast. - At what I estimate was 35 feet, the canopy made a hard fast right turn into the dirt hill. This happened at the altitude at which I was expecting him to start giving some toggle or rear riser input to start planing the canopy out. Some people have thought it may have been turbulence, but I believe the canopy was flying as you would expect it to when a right toggle was pulled. I think the most likely cause for the hard right turn: started flaring and accidentally dropped left toggle. A more unlikely cause: Could have realized that he was heading toward hangar at high rate of speed and made a panic turn. This wouldn't make a lot of sense though because the turn to the right aimed the canopy downwind and toward the tarmac... while there was open green grass to the left. Minor turn to the left would have put him in an empty landing area, heading more into the wind. Whatever the cause, I do hope Mr. Brightwell recovers well; I hope he can discuss this with us all to let us know what really happened. Chris Warnock

Stu, There are more unexpected anomalies that you are going to discover if you continue learning CRW under high performance canopies; some of it will not be so easy to correct for. I sincerely suggest learning with CRW canopies because they're designed for it and they give you a safety buffer while you're learning. Something about HP canopies and CRW that could be fatal, but that is not so obvious: trailing pilot chutes. When someone disrupts the airflow in front of these they can start whipping back & forth, going forward farther than you'd expect. They can catch a line easily on either canopy and cause a serious mess of tangled people/fabric/lines. (Sharp small lines) blue skies & soft grass, Chris Warnock

B license requirements looks a bit empty. I think a good addition at this stage would be: Jumper must explain the "accuracy trick" and show that he/she fully understands how to use it for accuracy from 2k ft AGL (this will help eliminate the get-home-itis because jumpers will learn to calculate where they're going to land. 'Oh yes... if I continue flying straight ahead I will land in those trees') PD's explanation of this "Accuracy trick" is available online and it's a very useful learning tool: http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/survival.pdf

A more realistic analogy to driving would be: You are saying that it's ok to tailgate, as long as they are taught how to dodge the other car's bumper at last minute. In reality they should be taught to avoid putting themselves in a bad situation: They must plan ahead. ie: do not tailgate... do not put yourself into a situation that requires hard turns at low altitude. As students are taught from the beginning, minor 5-10 degree turns are ok and they will allow you to avoid most obstacles that may be noticed last minuute. With a little precaution there is no need for turns greater than 10 degrees below 100 ft, and attempts to make such turns would in majority of situations cause more problems than if the jumper were to fly straight ahead and make the best of the situation. Something that I think you do not realize, because you have about 4k jumps under your belt, is that low-timers have not trained their brains to interpret data that is incoming from their senses yet (air speed felt on the skin, G's felt through the leg straps, ability to judge ground speed and altitude accurately via vision). So while you can teach them the theory of how to do safe low turns, you can not really get the knowledge into their heads until they have plenty of actual practice. This is why I say low-timers have no business doing low turns. Also low-timers do not have a good feel for turbulence and the effects of it. Best way to get through turbulence is arms up til time to flare. So once again simple is best here for low-timers.. teach them something that will get them through a majority of bad situations: Down to 100ft? Arms up... wait, wait, wait... flare. Chris

That's confusing to newbies: teaching them one thing for safety, then making them unlearn that and retrain to a new safety path. People are easily confused when they're scared, and if they have something to go back to, something that they've learned from day 1... then they'll do that when concerned. I see very few incident reports of jumpers who were injured because of no turn... the vast majority are caused by turns at low altitude that they didn't recover from.

Teach them from the start to be afraid of low turns. I was an example of an extreme downsizer at too few jumps, but a few rules kept me safe during landings: 1) No matter what may be going through your head, arms all the way up at 100 feet. 2) No more turns at this point. These rules instilled me with fear of low turns and so whenever I was doing an approach and felt uneasy about it, I'd go to neutral: Arms all the way up, fly straight.... flare. Low turns came later. These rules got me safely through some extreme downsizing at low jump #'s with no broken bones. 1.9 WL at 400 (stiletto 120) and 2.3 WL at 550 (VX97) Have you tried to teach someone who started this sport doing tandem progression how to do a PLF? The first thing people learn is ingrained into them. No matter how much you drill them on the ground about PLF'ing when they come in, at least half of them are gong to go back to their first basic training when actually landing: Feet up, land on butt. So yes, you can teach someone to have more fear of low turns than of whatever they may see in front of them come landing time. You can train them that straight-in approaches are the way to safety and they will soak it in, if you teach it from the beginning. Eventually they should learn more about low turns during landings... but their base training should be - down to 100 ft? Arms up and prepare for landing. This is a good neutral Low-timers have no business doing low turns. Make them fear the low turn from their first training and they will only approach such turns when they are confident of the outcome... thinking three steps ahead before committing to it. Plan the approach so that there are no surprises at the last minute (Much like planning to avoid being in the corner)

I watched the guy hit the pavement last weekend: I had just spent a few hours with 2 students teaching them most of their first jump course for AFF. We were taking a break, standing out on the tarmac watching landings, then *thud*. Approx. 1 hour before this I had been explaining to the students "the most common cause for injury in this sport today is turns at low altitude". Pro WL BSR folks are barking up the wrong tree in their attempt to prevent these landing injuries. People who make hard turns at low altitude (via riser or toggle) have much more potential for injury than those who fly the canopy straight in, no matter what the wing loading. The WL is not causing the broken bones... low turns are causing the broken bones & fatalties. I ask my students: "Suppose you're landing off the airport in a cow field... at 50 feet above the ground suddenly you notice there's a barbed wire fence in front of you... What do you do?" Answer: Continue on your current path. It's better to run into that fence and deal with the cuts/bruises than to turn at low altitude trying to avoid it, finding yourself in ambulance because you made a low turn. Jumpers need a healthy fear of turns at low altitude instead of new WL restrictions. No panic turns. No HP turns until they've passed a training course. Chris

Before I started skydiving I was riding motorbikes quite a bit, and at that time I noticed that I was much more confident in hard turns when turning to the left... lean way over no problem... but a similar turn to the right and I was more nervous.... less willing to dive into it. Then I started skydiving and noticed that I favored left turns when swooping as well. (I'm right handed too) Chris

Your USPA SIM recommends a class A license as prerequisite to doing CReW. I think this is a good idea, because there are some basics that a student needs to focus on in order to pass the requirements for an A license (such as very basic accuracy)... and I think the student should have those skills before going into CReW. It looks as though you're right at the # of jumps to be acquiring an A license soon so I think you're probably almost there.

To save a bit of clicking & hunting around (because results are on Omniskore again, not on the WPC20004 site), go to this page and use the links on the left side of the page "CF Sequential", "CF Rotations", "CF Speed" to view competition results: http://www.omniskore.com/comp/2004/WPC_FS_CF_SA/index.htm So far Russia is producing some impressive times in 8-way Speed. It's so early in the game though... anyone can slip up. USA is off to a great start in Sequential, leading the pack in first 2 rounds.

Henny, do you have any info about what canopy JC was flying, at what wing loading, and what approach he made?

September 24-26 Skydive Carolina (Chester, SC) Organized by Frank Fowler If you're a jumper who would like to try out CReW and learn the basics, come on over and spend the weekend with us. Details about this camp are online... and you can sign up for the seminar online as well. Just go to this web address for info and registration: http://www.funjump.com/chester/ If you're an experienced CReW Dog who'd like to help coach some new folks, you're welcome to participate as well. Please visit the web page that's listed above and sign up using the online form. Thanks! Chris Warnock D-25468

September 24-26 Skydive Carolina (Chester, SC) Organized by Frank Fowler If you're a jumper who would like to try out CReW and learn the basics, come on over and spend the weekend with us. Details about this camp are online... and you can sign up for the seminar online as well. Just go to this web address for info and registration: http://www.funjump.com/chester/ If you're an experienced CReW Dog who'd like to help coach some new folks, you're welcome to participate as well. Please visit the web page that's listed above and sign up using the online form. Thanks! Chris Warnock D-25468

Quote Is watching the horizon really enough to see if the canopy starts turning?Quote Even better because you can stop a turn as soon as it begins. For example: imaginge that you just deployed your pilot chute... your canopy comes out of the container, then lines stretch.. then the canopy comes out of the deployment bag. At this point the canopy will begin to inflate, and more than likely one side will inflate fater than the other (no matter how carefully you packed it). So if the right side inflates faster than the left, then there will be more drag above you on the right side and the right side will begin flying forward, while your left side is still more in freefall and not flying forward yet. That means a left turn is starting. So if you are watching the horizon, pitch out the pilot chute... feel line stretch and initial pull of the canopy out of the bag... keep watching the horizon.... if the horizon is high on the right side, then sit on the right side enough to bring it level again. This will prevent that left turn that was about to start happening. *********** By the way... this method worked fantastic with my Stiletto, and with several other canopies I've flown... but then I tried carrying it over to my X-braced canopy and it was better to just act like a sack of potatoes (thanks to Kolla for that advice). So this weight shift technique is very helpful for some canopies but isn't best for all of them. ***********

PD answered that question: http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/stiletto.pdf Counteract the turn to make it stop... but give just barely enough weight shift to stop the turn. It's easy to overdo it and end up turning the other direction fast. Sometimes you'll have to shift right, then left, then a little more right. How to do weight shift: If the canopy's turning to the left, just "sit" more on the right side. When it starts to go right just sit more on the left. Looking up at the canopy is not a good way to figure out where to shift your weight. Intead watch the horizon all the way from deployment and keep the horizon level.

The "Pendulum Effect" was explained to me years ago in a canopy control class, and I think it explains the reason for this lack of flare very well. When using a brake toggle to turn, one side of your canopy slows down. After you let up on that brake toggle, that side of the canopy will speed up (surge forward) to match the other side of the canopy. This means the pilot swings back (like a pendulum) as the canopy accelerates forward... then the pilot's weight won't stay back, so the pilot swings forward (swing #2 of the pendulum)... now the pilot swings back again(swing #3) into normal position under the canopy. After swing #3, the pilot's canopy recovers back into normal flight and the pilot can flare. High performance brake toggle landings are done with the intention of swing #2 happening at ground level, so that the weight swinging forward is part of the flare process. But if the swing #2 (the pilot's weight goes forward) happens too high, say at 30 ft .... the next step is the pilot swinging back and the canopy surging forward toward the ground. There is no flare for the pilot at this point. And if the pilot needs to flare during swing #1, he's very much out of luck because there is negligible flare... the canopy is surging forward and that's all it's going to do during this stage. Too low. "Pendulum Effect" for Front riser dives: Front riser turn is initiated and pilot's weight swings back... air speed increases and pilot's weight stays back. Let up on the riser and pilot's weight swings forward (swing #1). Then the weight swings back into normal position (swing #2) and recovers to normal canopy flight. So the pendulum effect has fewer steps when doing front riser dives. 1 less step in this pendulum effect than when doing toggle turns... simpler is easier. High performance front riser landings are done with the intention of swing #1 happening at ground level, so that the weight swinging forward is part of the flare process. Using the front riser dive offers much more room for error in this department than the brake toggle turn... because if the pilot comes out of the front riser dive too early, he can prolong the time during which his or her weight remains behind the canopy (by using double front risers to go straight ahead). The pilot who uses a brake toggle to induce speed does not have this luxury... he can continue the turn so that his weight will stay behind the canopy, but this endangers others because he'll end up landing off the wind line, possibly colliding with others. Supposing the pilot realizes that he's low in his front riser dive? He can flare and have a much quicker recovery than the pilot who used brake toggle turns. The front riser dive only requires 1 swing for recovery, and that swing is in the correct direction. For the brake toggle turner two stages are required, as mentioned above: The canopy surges forward.... then after this stage the pilot's body swings forward and he can flare. Timing is not very forgiving for low fast toggle turners *************** Those are the dangers of the Pendulum Effect.... of course if either of these methods is used at low altitude, there is a high risk for severe injuries, so they're both very dangerous and canopy coaching is the best way to learn. Trial and error is painful

Another downside to toggle turns for inducing speed: It's easy to put a high performance canopy into line twists by giving it quick toggle input. Up high it's an annoyance, but down low it can easily be fatal. Front riser input with modern canopies does not create line twists... so there's another point in favor of front risers for high performance landings.