davelepka

Take it from a guy who's made 90% of his jumps with a camera, that you really don't know how long things take. When I say I jump with a camera, most of them are dedicated camera jumps, so I review all the footage after the jump. I literally can't count the number of times that an event during the jump that seemed to take a significant amount of time turned out to be nothing more than a blip on the radar in 'real time'. The other factor is that the terms 'high speed' and 'low speed' are ambiguous. You don't know how fast you're actually going, so basing your decisions on time is not a valid measurement. I would suggest that it's far more accurate to look at your altimeter, and get a concrete answer as to your altitude as opposed to guessing at the length of time it's been and with your actual speed being a mystery. Furthermore, I would suggest that giving yourself only 1000ft between break off and pull altitude is cutting things a little close. Once you factor in the time it takes to turn and begin your track and the time to wave-off and pull, you can see that you're left with something like 3 seconds of actual tracking time (and for the start of that you're just getting up to speed and not covering much ground).

The way you do that is not by posting a pic on the internet and fishing for comments. What you need to do is get a rigger in your area to be your 'buddy' on your all of your gear purchases. First, consult with your instructor as to what size main/reserve you should be looking for, and then forward all of the 'maybes' to your rigger. If they think an ad looks good, get the ball rolling on getting the gear to your rigger for an inspection. If the seller send it without payment, great and if not make sure you have a good 'return policy' if it doesn't pass fit or pass inspection. Used equipment needs to be inspected by a rigger to be sure it's airworthy and up to date in terms of mods or recalls. No exceptions.

To be fair (to me), I do say 'it's good, short of unstowing the brakes'. Meaning that everything else looks good, and it appears to be a good canopy as it sits. At that point, you can move to the next step, which in my opinion would be to pull the slider past the stowed toggles, and then (as I mention) you complete the controllability check by unstowing your toggles above your hard deck. Please note that I used the word 'faster' this time, not easier (even though the ease leads to the quicker action). The key to this is not my personal time/effort/feeling, it's as it relates to the net altitude loss during the maneuver. What I'm looking for is the quickest path from PC toss, to flying my canopy in the 'landing' configuration. That's where you will be the most aware, and have the greatest ability to effectively 'fly' your canopy with regards to traffic and the LZ, and the sooner you can get there from the PC toss (in my opinion) the better. Another poster made a great point, and this will vary from person to person, but some canopies at some loadings really fall out of the sky in full flight. My Velo, for example, at about 2.0 WL will loose a good deal of altitude if I have to drop the toggles for even 15 or 20 seconds to pull the slider down and stow it. Even in brakes, it's not real 'floaty' and the sooner I can get on the toggles and haul them down to 1/2 brakes, the sooner I can get to a 'reasonable' descent rate. Again, that's a factor that will vary from person to person, and indeed a drawback of the canopy type and WL I jump, but it's a trade-off I make for the performance of the canopy. Overall I'm glad to see your admission that the back-and-forth is not for our benefit (you and I). Neither one of us is about to change the way we operate in these areas, but the discussion is for the newer jumpers who may not have considered any of the points you or I have made.

One point you seem to be missing is that with your method you do a full controllability check, and then you reconfigure your rig for landing. As evidenced here, the reconfiguring itself can negate that controllability check. So if you have to slice up the tasks to maximize the safety factor, stowing the slider first has more advantages than not. It's faster to pull it past the stowed toggles, and the canopy is going slower. Net altitude loss or ground covered would be less during the maneuver. If you do your full controllability check first (meaning you unstow the brakes), you're starting to work on your slider later, it's going to take longer to pull past the toggles (when the toggles are unstowed, you have to thread the nose of the toggle through the grommet on each side, when they are stowed and held tight to the riser, it's a non-issue) and you'll be losing altitude and covering ground at a greater rate the whole time. More or less there are two things that can go wrong, there could be a problem with the brakes unstowing manually, or you can create a problem trying to pull down the slider. By pulling down the slider first, the process of setting the slider and unstowing the brakes happens faster with less altitude loss. When you unstow the brakes first, you prolong the seconds step of stowing the slider and induce more altitude loss at the same time. Once again, this is a 'big boy' maneuver in any sense. If you are not capable of checking your canopy with the brakes stowed to a 100% certainty that it's good short of unstowing the brakes, then pulling the slider down is too much for you. Once you accept that you are going to introduce the extra risk of pulling your slider down (it would be safer not to)you might as well follow the method that is quicker and with less net altitude loss in the process. On top of that all, the chest strap should always be last. This way, if you do have a brake problem, your handles are where you expect them to be. Once everything else is done, with the toggles still in your hands, you can reach down to either end of the chest strap, keeping your hands even and maintaining level flight, and loosen it as much as you wish.

No, you should not sacrifice safety for ease of use. The point is that it's safer to pull your slider over your toggles while they are stowed. They are held tight to the risers, and your forward speed and descent rate during the process will be lowered. I'm not sure of your experience with this, but I have been pulling my slider past my toggles for 1000's of jumps. I have also had the occasion to do the same (or attempt to do the same) in the wake of a brake fire on opening. I unstowed the other brake to get the canopy under control, and then proceeded with my 'normal' routine, and it was not a good situation. Let's face it, there is no requirement to pull your slider down past your toggles. If a jumper is going to adopt the practice, they need to be experienced and aware enough to do it properly (before unstowing the brakes) and still maintain the same margin of safety as someone who is not pulling their slider down. The way to do that is to check your canopy as much as possible without unstowing the toggles, then handle your slider, and then complete your controlabity check, all above your hard deck.

I'm not shocked by it, just not going to participate in it. A guy who knowingly makes the very poor choice of starting to swoop with 80 jumps in the 'information age', to me, is not a good candidate for a student for something along the lines of swooping. Consider BASE jumping, for a moment. A guy asks a BASE jumper to mentor him, and the mentor says, 'I don't think you're really ready for BASE, and I'm not comfortable teaching you at this point', and the 'student' decides to go out and BASE jump on their own. Do you really think the mentor will reconsider and start teaching that guy? What happens when the mentor says the weather is bad, or the object is too 'hot' to jump that day? Is the 'student' suddenly going to start listening then? Ditto for swooping. I tell a guy he shouldn't be swooping, but he does anyway. So I start to teach him, what should I expect when I tell him that he's not ready for the downsize he wants, or that he shouldn't be moving up to 270s or 450s just yet?

No, you're wrong. If someone lacks the experience or skill to be swooping, the right thing to do is to refuse instruction until they are ready to move to that next step. If, in light of that, a jumper is so determined that they disregard your judgment (remember, 2 min ago you were the guy they wanted to teach them) and proceed to swoop anyway with no instruction, they are demonstrating a complete disregard for common sense, and as such, no good would come from enabling them with any sort of information at all. If you tell them how to do 'x', but not to do 'y' because they are not ready for that, they'll simply just do 'y' anyway based on their general disregard for common sense or anything that doesn't give them what they want and when they want it. I have no obligation to anyone on the DZ. I don't have to teach or help anyone with anything. If you tell a jumper they are doing the wrong thing and in over their head, it's not my responsibility to instruct them properly, it's their responsibility to consider the advice, consider the source, and make an intelligent decision. If they can't do that, that's not my problem and I'm not going to make it my problem by putting in my time and effort to enable them onto a path that stands a good chance of ending in injury or death. I'm not the one making a mistake by withholding instruction from someone who lacks the experience or skill to start swooping, they're the one making the mistake by not realizing their limitations and the consequences of that failure.

This is incorrect. If your housekeeping includes pulling your slider past your toggles, you do not want to do that with the brakes unstowed. It makes the job 100% more difficult, it takes longer and requires more attention, all the while you're moving though the sky at a much higher speed. The procedure would be to open up, check for traffic, and use your rear risers or harness to point yourself in the right direction. Just getting to that point, you have already done the first half of the 'experienced jumper' controllability check. Your canopy is open, square, flying clean and responding correctly to rear riser or harness input. For all intensive purposes, you have a 'good' canopy, short of unstowing your brakes. Now would be the time to play with your slider. Collapse and pull it past the toggles while taking great care not to dislodge a toggle. You need to look at what you're doing, and move each grommet over the toggles with great care. Once that is done, you unstow your brakes and complete the controllability check. After that, loosening your chest strap can be done with the brakes unstowed and the toggles still in your hands. THE CATCH IS - everything has to happen such that you can unstow your brakes and complete your controllability check before you pass your hard deck. If you have a hung brake or knotted brake line, you do not have a good canopy and want to be above your hard deck so you can pull both handles as a solution to the problem. A note along those same lines, when you unstow your brake, pay attention to what you are doing. Look at your toggles, make sure they appear to be properly stowed and everything is as it was when you packed it. Be sure that you grip the toggles properly, and that there is no loose or excess brake line in your hand or wrapped around anything it should not be. Many, many jumpers have created a problem by putting their hand through the excess brake line, or having it wrapped around something before unstowing their brakes. If they had looked, and been careful, the problem could have been avoided and most likely would have resulted in a clean brake release. It's a popular theme among skydivers that the skydiver isn't over once your canopy opens. They are generally referring to collisions with other canopies or landing problems. However, we can see here that simply dealing with your gear can cause problems as well. You wouldn't rush to gear up, or toss your rig on without looking at what you were doing first, but people will rush through or give no credence to their procedures once under an open canopy. Take your time, and be careful with whatever you do, act as if a mistake could cost you your life because it could. Just because the canopy is open and appears 'good' does not mean it will stay that way, especially when your plans include changing the configuration of several components.

FYI - these prices are for a brand new rig, built to fit you and the canopies you specify. These rigs are short on options and sometimes color choices, but you will get a solid rig built to order for those prices. Add in some used canopies, and you can be in the air for under $3k in a brand new harness/container. (Truth be told, you don't want new canopies anyway. You rarely see your reserve, and new mains are just a bitch to pack)

Sorry I'm the disappointment here, and not the guy who started swooping with 80 jumps total, and now some 200 jumps later is just asking some very basic questions. It's the dumbest of dumb, and anytime someone has to preface their question with, 'I don't want to hear your opinion on my experience or WL, I just want my specific question answered', you know it's because they are acutely aware that their experience or WL could very well be called into question. I can barely tolerate those who ask question they should already know the answer to, or who are simply farming for the answers they want. When they have to go the extra step, and include that they don't want to hear about any of the very poor choices they have made on top of that, I follow suit and throw all my good sense out the window as well.

So twice in the last week we;'ve seen reports of two jumpers who severly busted their hard decks, and one of them ended in a fatality, with the other as close as it gets to a fataility. Both jumpers were experienced, high time jumpers, and they both rode malfunctioning main canopies down below 1000ft, and then pulled the red handle. In light of this, let's quickly review what the 'hard deck' is and what it means. More or less, this is the bottom line in terms of pulling the red handle. It's the lowest altitude you want to cutaway, and the way you determine your own hard deck is to start at the ground and calculate up from there. How high do you want to be under an open reserve? Let's say 500ft is the lowest you want to be under an open canopy. How long will take from pulling your reserve ripcord until you're under an open canopy? In a perfect world, it should be less than 300ft, but factor in a PC delay (spinrg loaded will do that) and let's call that 500ft. How long will it take you to go from cutting away to pulling the reserve handle? You would hope it wouldn't be very much, but you might be spinning/flipping, your chest strap might be loose, you don't really know your descent rate under your malfunctioning main, etc, so give yourself 500ft. So with that rough math, you come up with a 'safe' 1500ft. Note that you don't factor in anything like an RSL, AAD or Skyhook, as those are back-up devices, and if you use them in these calculations, you make them primary devices where their failure could cause you your life. If you plan for them to fail, when they work you end up with more altitude under your inflated reserve. So you come up with 1500ft (as an example), and the idea now is that you need to be under a flying, controllable, landable canopy by that altitude or you need to take action, which of course, is doing your EPs. Now what I mean by 'landable' is that you are fully configured for landing in that you are not going to make any other chnages to your rig/canopy before landing. Slider is collapsed/stowed, brakes are unstowed, chest strap has been loosened, wings/swoop cords have been released, and anything else you do after opening and before landing is complete. You are essentially ready to land above your hard deck, so if you run into a problem configuring yourself to land, you still have altitude to cutaway. Now what do you do if you have a problem under your hard deck? Well, one thing you don't do is cutaway. What you can do is pull your reserve handle and go for the 'more fabric out' plan. If you can get a clean reserve deployment, you might find that the 'problem' with your main becomes less of a problem. At the lower airspeed provided by an inflated resereve, the main might sort itself out or swing free of the rererve (downplane, or similar) at which point you can then pull the red handle. Another option might be to reel in the main, and stuff it between your legs to keep it clear of the open reserve. In any case, the hard deck needs to be (in your mind) hard like cement. You need to build your entire skydive up from there, much like you built up to your hard deck from the ground. So if you have a 1500ft hard deck, and your canopy takes 800ft to open, you can add in time to indentify a mal, so call it 1200ft, and you can see that tossing your main PC much below 2700ft is going to start to put the squeeze on your plans in the altitude dept. So with a 2700ft pull altitude, you can then add in the altitude you need to track away from your buddies. So 1200-1500ft for a smaller group, and closer to 2000ft for a larger group. What you end up with is a break off between 4000 and 5500 ft based on the group size. The moral of the story is to remember that what you do in freefall is a game. It's a time-waster until you get down to the real business of saving your life, you need to leave the plane with your 'end-game' being your top priority, and everything you plan needs to revolve around that. Have a hard deck, and respect the hell out of it. Leave yourself time to work and make mistakes like a human, and still have time to act above your hard deck. Remember that in a high speed mal, if you decide to cutaway at your hard deck, you're going to be well under by the time you actually clear your handles. I had a good friend hit the ground with a partailly infalted reserve a few years back. He did not survive that impact, and if he had even 100ft more altitude, I'm confident his reserve would have been fully open and he would still be here today. Don't paint yourself into that same corner where your very survival comes down to a matter of feet.

You shouldn't. What you should do is complete your controlability test above your hard deck. Most jumpers don't do the 'student' controlability test of left 360, right 360, and flare, but the truth is that you don't know that you have a controlable canopy until after you release your brakes. Just because it's open and flying straight does not mean that the brakes will release clean. Sure, you could land a canopy with the brakes stowed, but you don't know there's a problem until after you try to unstow them and one releases clean, and the other not so much. The idea is to unstow your brakes and confirm that all is well somewhat above your hard deck. Give yourself room to have a problem and attempt to resolve it before you reach your hard deck. If you get there without a controlable canopy, perform your EPs. The other side of this story is to keep flying the canopy. If the jumper in the video had applied opposite toggle (in this case, to the right) the canopy would have flown straight (and at a brakes-stowed speed). It would have given the jumper far more time and altitude to work the problem or decide to cutaway.

Provided that the other DZ uses a similar program and that you can move freefly between the two without having to repeat anything, go to the other DZ when your 'home' DZ is closed. If they're only open 3 days per week, they can't really blame you for going elsewhere Mon thru Thurs.

I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but the rig you bought is the exact reason you want a riggers opinion before buying anything. Vector II - in great shape, a VII is worth $500 at best. PD 170 - this is an F-111 canopy, and if you weigh anything more than 150 lbs, this canopy is too small for you. F-111 cannot be loaded up more than 1.1 or 1.2 to 1 wingloading when brand new. They lose performance as the jumps on them add up, and it would be a very bad idea to load one at anything more then 1 to 1 at this point. So if you weigh 150 lbs, plus 20-ish lbs for gear, there's your 1 to 1, if you weigh more than that, the canopy is too small. Top dollar for a very low-jump PD-170, again about $500. 178 reserve - hard to say about the reserve as I don't know the model. Generally, the older designs you don't want to load more than 1 to 1 at the most, so again, unless you're 150/155 lbs body weight, this reserve is too small for you. Probably worth $500 or less. Again, sorry for the bad news, but it is what it is.

A quick search reveals that Doncasters Inc produces turbine fan blades, and I'm guessing provided the ones in the failed engine. However, I seem to recall that the engines were well past TBO, does that ring a bell? How is it the company can be held responsible for the failed components when they are used outside of their intended purpose? To the tune of $28 mil? I guess it's anothe case of 'deep pockets'. My search revealed revenue of '$1000 million' (I always thought that was 1 billion, but whatever). I would guess that between that and the monster insurance policy that goes along with being a billion dollar aircraft component company, they had the deepest pockets.

These are skills that should have been covered both during your AFF and coach jumps. Cat F and beyond all feature tracking as part of the jumps. Consult with your instructors or coaches as to why these skills were not taught/confirmed. On the whole, what you're describing is basic instability. When learning to track, you do not need to sweep your arms all the way back to your sides. You can hold your arms partly swpet back to keep them wide and provide stability. As you gain experience in a track, you can sweep your arms further and further back as stability allows. It's similar to the arch. As a new student, you are encouraged to arch 'hard' to be stable, and as you progress and become more comfortable and balanced in the sky, you'll relax that arch for a more neutral body position. Overall, as an unlicesed jumper, get with your instructors or coaches if you have questions or concerns about your skills.

Look man, your other thread is all about BASE jumping and proximity flying a wingsuit. If that really is your goal, add becoming a strong swimmer to your to-do list. Many BASE jumps happen off bridges and cliffs, two things that generally go hand in hand with a river or fijord. Not to mention you're going to need to learn some climbing and rope skills. In the end, if a diving board and public pool with a lifeguard present are deal breakers for you, you're never going to make it to your goal of wingsuit BASE. If you can't overcome those irrational fears (and yes, they are irrational as a public pool and 1 meter diving board are 'safe'), how do you expect to overcome the very rational fears of jumping out of planes, doing while wearing a highly constricting suit, climbing and jumping off of mountains and tall structures, and doing the same in the constricting suit?

Now you have two things to learn, skydiving and swimming.

I'm willing to bet that's not going to be the case.

You are getting way ahead of yourself. Be aware that your instructors will not let you go until they are confident that you can be stable and pull on your own. They will not let you jump on your own until they are confident that you can be stable and pull on your own 100% of the time. The AFF program is designed to build your skills up on a jump by jump basis. If you don't seem to 'get' a certain skill on a given jump, you will get corrective training and repeat the jump until your instructors are happy with your performance. It is not a 'one size fits all' program, it's a 'can be tailored to fit all' program. On top of that, your opinion counts, and if you want to repeat a jump or work more on a certain skill before advancing, just speak up and your instructors will oblige. Your first 'solo' is at the end of a string of jumps that involve probably 10+ hours of ground training, and an increasing level of freedoms on each jump. Before you ever jump 'solo', you will jump with two instructors both holding your harness for the entire jump, two instructors holding you for part of the jump, one instructor holding you for part of the jump, and several jumps with an instructor not touching you at all but just hanging out and keeping an eye on you. With all of that said, none of it is going to happen or matter until you make your first jump. Worry about that one now (but don't really worry). Take it one step at a time, and sign up for a First Jump Course at a local DZ. Also, do yourself a favor and limit your online 'learning' before you take the class. Realzie that anything you read online may or may not be correct for the way that the DZ will teach you and the equipment that they will use. Be ready to walk in the door a blank slate on day one, and let them tell you what you need to know. They have taught many students, and know far better than you exactly what and how to teach it.

Because she doesn't want the rig, she wants the money. Follow my advice from above. You need a rigger to be involved in just about any used gear purchase. You're going to need a rigger to pack the reserve anyway, so you might as well get their 'stamp of approval' on the brand, model, and combination of canopies and container. Another aspect is that some gear is considered 'less then desireable', and some gear has recalls or required mods in order for it to be airworthy. A rigger would know about these things and you might not. You could end up with obsolete gear, or a rig that needs several hundred dollars worth of work before it can be jumped. So go find a rigger, set the rig down in front of him and tell your story. See what he thinks your best option is and follow it. I just don't see you as having much recourse with the seller in this deal. Unless you have a written return policy (an email or text would be enough), then there was no return policy. You got a rig that the seller described to the best of their ability, and without you being specific about things like the harness size, you really don't have anything to complain about. Maybe the seller did lie about the size, but at the same time you never bothered to ask the actual size of the harness. Maybe the seller thinks the rig is in 'good' condition, but maybe the seller only jumped student gear before hand. and this rig was better than that stuff? Again, without some sort of defined standard (such as a rigger who could call it 'airworthy' or not), you're really just up against a he said/she said deal. Even if you had a 'case', it's proven to be tough to enforce interstate, private party deals gone bad. There are plenty of cases where the buyer got nothing, or something that wasn't even close to what was advertsied, but couldn't even find a way to get their money back. At least you have a rig that you can either modify and jump, or sell to recoup your money.

Did you do any research at all? How about doing a search on this site about how to buy used gear? Did you ask anyone about this rig? A rigger? Instructor? Experienced jumper? As much as I hate to say it, unless you specifically asked about a 'return policy', I don't think there is one implied. If the gear is the same make/model that was advertised, it's hard to argue that you didn't get what you were promised. About the harness size, did you just ask who it fit, or did they tell you the actual size of the harness, which you could then cross-reference with the manufacturer? If the seller told that she jumped it, and her husband who is 6ft tall, did she mention what size she was? If her husband is 2" slimmer in the shoulders, 10 lbs lighter, and has a shorter torso than you, he might have very well worn the rig. He might have also worn it and just been uncomfortable. Your solution, in my opinion, would be this - consult with a local rigger. Take them the rig, and see what they think about the rig, it's condition, the size, and if it's even a good idea for you in the first place. Based on the riggers assesment, you have some options - 1. Send the rig to the manufacturer for repairs, and a harness resize. It will add to the cost, but then it will fit right and be in 'good' shape. 2. Sell the rig as-is if the condition allows. Try to recoup most or all of your money, and try again to find a rig. This time, get the rigger involved before you send any money to anyone, and be a smarter shopper. 3. Have the rigger make repairs to bring the rig into 'sellable' condition, and proceed with step #2. In any case, good luck.

Higher airspeeds makes loose clothing even more of a problem. Any sort of dock or linked exit can also be a problem with loose/street clothing. Grabbing a jumpsuit sleeve will usually not be a problem. Grabbing the sleeve of a long sleeve T or sweatshirt can pull it out from being untucked, or at worse, pull it right off your arm and pin your arm inside the sweatshirt. Street clothes were not made for freefall, jumpsuits were.

I gotta ask, once you left the plane and realized it was down, any reason not to reach up and lower it?

Funny you should mention that, he was one of my big concerns. While the two guys swooping may or may not have pre-planned the 'team swoop' through the woods, it put them at 90 degrees to the direction of landing, and cutting right across the LZ. I'm willing to bet that your son was not part of the plan, nor has the skills to fly accurately enough to even be considered as part of the plan. Just to be clear, I feel that he did have the right of way, and their actions were not what I would want to see out of 'highly experienced' jumpers when it comes to swooping and traffic.