davelepka

I'm a firm believer that the slider is the #1 key to getting a soft opening, and that quartering it is not optional. Grommets to the stops, push down the center and quarter the edges, every time. As far as rolling the tail goes, that the 'sloppy' way to keep things together. What you realyl want to do is learn to coccon and fold your canopy without destroying the pack job/slider placement you just did. Even if you think your canopy opens slow, quarter the thing. You can always reach up and tug the rear risers to get it to come down faster if your opening is taking too long. It you get slammed, you just get slammed, nothing you can do about it, and evrey canopy will eventaully open hard.

The Spectre has a taper, so does the Sabre2 and the Pilot. Those are probably the top three 'first' canopies on the market. Like I said above, the Spectre probably has the best openings out of all of them. The others are good, but just not as good as the Spectre. In general, the performance or size of a canopy has nothing to do with the quality of the openings. Most of the X-braced canopies, the highest perofrmance wings available, have extra slow openings. In today's market, a hard opening canopy would just never sell, nobody would want that. Any of the three listed above would work. Avoid any original Sabre or Monarch canopies if you're looking to buy used. Some of them were OK, and some not so OK, and you never know which is which. An RSl or Skyhook is a great idea as well. They are an obvious safety benefit, but in your case could prove extra useful. In the event of a cutaway, any delay between cutting away and pulling the reserve will only increase your airpseed and possibility for having a hard opening on your reserve. The RSL or Skyhook will get the reserve out ASAP after the cutaway, keep the airpseed to a minimum.

No, I didn't read it fast, you stated your needs in terms of your shoulder condition as being 'reliable soft openings and not fully eliptical'. I'm not sre what your impression of eliptical canopies is, but the only problem with them (in your case) is their control sensitivity. Without a few hundered jumps of experiecne to fall back on, that sensitivity can bite you in the ass. Apart from that, there is no added risk to jumping an eliptical canopy. In truth, the Stiletto and the Crossfire, both eliptical, have great soft openings and are a pleasure to fly.

How about something that's not fully eliptical so you don't destroy your whole body? I don't care if you have 3 good shoulders, a fully eliptical canopy is not appropraite for anyone with less than a few hundred jumps. Beyond that, the Spectre is known as the king of the soft openings, and is popular with the camera flyer crowd for just that reason. Something to keep in mind - any canopy can, and will, open hard at one point or another (even the Spectre). Even if the Spectre behaves itself, your resereve is likely to open hard in the event of a high speed or total malfunction. Be aware of this when jumping with an injury or chronic condition, it becomes an added risk factor.

Canopies are getting faster, and jumpers are not. The faster a canopy gets, the more room you need to fly it, and the last time I checked, LZ are not getting any bigger. As other have mentioned, flying a pattern is the first step. If everyone is flying the same direction, it's tough to have a 'collision'. You may end up with a 'bump' or a 'graze', but a full-on collision requires the type of speed differential you can only achieve by two canopies flying in two different directions. If everyone was flying in a single-file line, using common turn points, collisions would be much less likely, you just wouldn't have the closing speed to 'collide'. To take that idea one step further, you need to be GOOD at flying a pattern. If you set up your pattern incorrectly, now you have to either cut the corner or swing wide to make it work, and thus you are exiting and entering the pattern, creating a speed differential. If you want to look at the LZs, and consider that we are flying unpowered craft, you would need to make provisions for jumpers who cannot make the pattern area, like a zone on either side of the main LZ where you can approach from either side without using the pattern. The truth is that there would just be an alternate type of pattern in these areas, more of a straight-in type of pattern, but seeing as soemtimes you can't make the pattern, there either needs to be an alternate area for you, or again, you'll be entering the pattern from an odd angle and creating the speed differential that can lead to collisions. Of course, as the USPA has already suggested and some DZs have already done, swoopers need their own LZ as well. If you want to talk speed differential, the swoopers have the market cornered. The DZ I jump at has a high performance LZ, but it's tight, and no place for a guy new to swooping, so we end up with the new swoopers out in the main LZ with the general population. So to review, what we need is jumper training and discipline, segregated LZs with a main pattern zone, two alternate zones for straight in from either direction, and a zone for swoopers. Does that exist any any DZ anywhere in the world? The answer is no, and that's why we keep colliding.

The majority of the Dzs money comes from tandems and students, so in order to 'boom', you have to bring in a volume of those customers. They bring in $100+/slot, and that's what it takes to pay for any kind of airplane. $400 a load for a 182 or $4000 a load for an Otter, either way, those are the bucks that keep the ball rolling. Fun jumpers are another story. Yes, you need them for the 'vibe' and it's nice to grow your own instructors, but tandems and students don't know what the 'vibe' should be, and you can always attract instructors if you have enough work. Think about how much revenue a fun jumper brings to the DZ (not including referrals). If you make 10 jumps per weekend, the profit to the DZ is going to be under $100, probably closer to $60/$70. If they offer free beer or pizza, knock 10% off of that to cover those costs. So you're there most of the day Sat and Sun, and you bring in less than one tandem and take up 5 times as many slots. If a DZ is flush with AC capacity, and they only half fill an otter with tandems and students, you're an asset by taking up previously unused slots. If the DZ is short of AC capacity, you're $60 has become a liability by possibly interfering with the tandem and student business. The 'success' of a DZ is a matter of perspective. There are a bunch of tandem factories that fun jumpers dislike, but they have been in business for years, and probably will continue to be. There have also been a bunch of 'fun' DZs, where they promoted themselves as 'fun jumper first', that couldn't stay in business for more than a few years. I think the key is to focus on the tandem/student business, and try to keep your aircraft capacity far enough ahead of your student/tandem needs to leave room for the fun jumeprs. The fact is, if people know your plane will be flying all day, and there will be open slots for fun jumpers on every load, fun jumpers will take care of themselves. They show up, they'll organize skydives, they'll buy beer, and they'll make a vibe.

I hear what you're saying, but the OP has 40 jumps, and there's a strong possibility that he's jumping with others of similar experience. One of them leaving in the middle of the jump and deploying is likely to create confusion and initiate who knows what sort of response from the others. Plan the dive and dive the plan. I'm not sure about your jump numbers, but with 6 years in the sport I'm willing to bet you have at least double or triple the experience of the OP. You're approach may be appropriate for you, but we're not talking about what you should do. Sometimes I jump with buddies who have 1000's of jumps and we don't plan anything. Head down, RW, tracking, pulling high, pulling low, whatever. We just get out last to keep it 'safe', and have at it. While this works well for us, I would not reccomend it to others with fewer jumps or fewer jumps with those specific jumpers.

I tend to hold that advice for more experienced jumpers. More important than landing near a road is landing in a clear area with no obstacles and a clear path upwind to avoid object/wake turbulence. Setting up a proper landing pattern will go a long to way ensuring that you touch down where you want. Adding the convienience factor to that list is setting the bar a little high for a newer jumper dealing with the added stress of landing off. Eventually, yes, it does help to land near, or just within sight of a road. It makes it easy for yout o get out, or easy for the 'search party' to see you as they drive down the road. Otherwise, all good points. I'll add a couple, when you get picked up, make sure your canopy and lines are all 'in' the car before you shut the door. If you get picked up in a truck and are asked to sit in the back, beware of anything (tools, paint, etc) that might damage your equipment, and then be sure you have your stuff well contained to prevent the wind from infalting your canopy as you drive down the road. You would be surprised at how fast a well meaning civilian will drive to get you back to the DZ. Along those same lines, be aware if you put your stuff in the trunk of a car that there is nothing harmful in there.

I already voted againt that option. The scenario presented was of a group jump, and the others in the group have an expectation that EVERYONE will follow the plan, to include break off and pull altitudes. As others have mentioned, this could create a hazzard for jumpers from other groups. Regardless of right and wrong, when you break off from a jump at 4500ft, you can only track for so long because of the ground. If you left a group at 6k or 7k, the tendency would be to track off a little longer, creating a possible conflict with subsequent groups out of the plane. None of this is mentioning tracking dives or wingsuiters who might be on the load. In the absence of an 'emergency' the best plan is to stick with the original plan, the one that every other jumper in your group is counting on. I would hardly call a long spot an 'emergency'.

If you do open up, and are in doubt that you can make it back, now you have some choices to make. Let's say you're on the borderline of being able to make it back, you need to evaluate your path back to the DZ. Are there good landing areas along the way that you can divert to if you don't make the progress you anticipate? It would be a big mistake to try to overfly a dense forest to try and make a distant DZ. Your better option would be to select a good out much closer to your current position. If you are looking toward the DZ, and not seeing anything that makes you happy, just turn around. You don't need to be facing the DZ, or land anywhere near the DZ, you just need to land in a safe, clear area. Orient yourself to the DZ so you can determine the wind direction, and use that info to select an alternate. You should already have a landing pattern and direction of landing at the DZ in mind, so if you know where it is, you can use your pre-planned flight info to determine a good alternate LZ. A wide open field with 100ft trees on the upwind side on a windy day is not a good chioce because of the turbulence off the trees. On a day where the wind is opposite to that day, maybe it's a good choice, but not on this day. Once you locate an alternate LZ you are happy with, locate another. Many of the obstacles you might encoutner while landing off are difficult to see from opening altitude, but might come into view the closer you get, so have an alternate alternate. Keep in mind that you want to select a field you can make by your apttern entry altitude, not a field you can just barely make by flying stright in. The pattern is even more important when landing off because the downwind leg gives you one last, low altitude look at the LZ so you spot obstacles. Even things like a swampy area or a thicket of thorn bushes can ruin an otherwise good landing, and the downwind leg is a chance to spot these things. If you should spot an obstacle on the downwind leg, you can use your base/final turn points to adjust your touch-down spot to avoid whatever it is you saw on the downwind leg. This is why it's important to pre-plan and use a pattern on every jump at the DZ. It gives you the experience in using a pattern to allow you to put it to practical use. By adjusting the turn points, or lenght of each leg, you can select almost any touch down point on a field coming off of the same downwind leg, but only if you practice it on every jump and keep your skills sharp. Lastly, just PLF. Taller grass then you thought, a gopher hole, or even just soft ground can result in a twisted ankle. Aside form the fact that now you just have to lay there and wait for someone to come help you, you can't jump for the next month. Just roll it out, stand up, and hike out to the road. You'll be back in the air in less than an hour, and no hospital bills.

So you waited 5 hours for a rig, and then just left without jumping becasue nobody would jump with you? You've got a lot to learn. One third of the jumps I made this weekend were solos, and from a 5000ft. How is it that I put my time into learniing to fly my canopy better, but you would rather just go home than do a solo? You might be missing the point here, freefall is a game. It's a thing you do to pass the time before you get down to the business of saving your life. Making a safe parachute descent has very little to do with freefall aside from the fact that you need to be stable for deployment (and even that is negotiable). Not matter how poorly you perform in freefall, if you pull at the right altitude, and fly your canopy down to a safe landing, that would be condsidered a good jump. In the last week alone, 3 jumpers have died trying to safely land a canopy. Two of them were in a canopy collision, and one of them made a low turn. Both things you need to learn to avoid, and both things you could have worked on doing a solo. Just quit jumping now. What a tool, "Nobody would jump with me, so I went home". Get a spine, and stop looking to others to instill purpose in your life.

It's easy - dirt dive. You're going to plan the climbout as far as who gets out first, second, etc, and what grips everyone will have, so include checking the spot as part of the climbout. You may need to adjust the exit positions of others in the group in order to put a 'qualified' person as the first out, but that's what it takes. Make sure this person is someone familiar with the DZ and surrounding area, and that they know what the winds/spot/jumprun is for that day. In terms of taking a dip in the river, if you plan your opening for a reasonable altitude, you should have more than enough glide to reach the shore of any river in the continental US. If you happen to be jumping over the exact center of the widest part of the mighty Miss, then you might get wet, but why the hell would you be jumping there anyway?

You stick with the plan, whatever that may be. When you agree to jump with others, and agree on a dive flow, you need to follow through with that because that's what the others are expecting you to do. So just ride it out, and complete the skydive. Don't short your track to pull higher, either. Proper seperation on opening is way more important than the spot. In truth, if you have planned your break off and opening altitudes correctly (appropriate for your jump numbers), and you have chosen your canopy correctly (appropriate for your jump numbers), then landing off should be a non-issue. You'll be open high enough to allow yourself time to locate a good alternate LZ and plan out your landing pattern around said LZ, and your canopy will be forgiving enough that you can land it with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Are you guys running that plane non-stop from sunrise to sunset? If not, making it faster isn't going to do anything but waste money on airplane upgrades. Making your operation more efficient in terms of manifesting and keeping the prop turning will net you more slots per day for free. Look at it this way, if you can hop-up the plane to knock five minutes off of a turn around time, that's great. Now, if the plane sits on the ground for 20 minutes, all the money you spent on the upgrades is lost for the next four loads. All that aside, keep your eye on the market for mid-time -520 and -550 engines. I know of a DZO who stumbled upon a great deal on a -550, and managed to sell his -520 for equal money. All he paid for was the labor to swap engines.

That's my point. If you look at the fatality reports, it only tells you about fatal incidents with open canopies. If you consider the other problems that could occur with an open canopy, such as personal injury, causing injury to others, and close calls, you can see that the data available only reports on a small percentage of what problems could occur with an open canopy. Anyone using that data as their sole source of information when considering this topic is ignorng the majority of what could go wrong when people fly canopies above their skill level.

What that will tell you is the number and nature of open canopy fatalities. What that won't tell you is the number and nature of open canopy non-fatal incidents, incidents caused by low jump-number high-WL jumpers resulting in injuries to others, and close calls caused by low jump-number high-WL jumpers. While those events might not be as dire as fatalities, I, for one, would like to see those eliminated or reduced as well.

Brian Germain literally wrote the book on modern skydiving canopies and their use. It called 'The Parachute and it's Pilot' (I think), and it contains all the info you're after, and is written and illustrated such that it makes it easy to understand a whole bunch of complicated info. Well worth whatever it costs these days, most likely under $30.

I'm sure you haven't read my other reply yet, but again, this example is flawed. The reason a LO can vet the jumper they are orgnizing is that it's a very contained situaiton. It's limited number of jumpers on a specific load (or series of loads). That job pales in comarison to that of checking every jumper on every load on the DZ. When you factor in fun jumpers, occasional jumpers, visting jumpers, and new jumpers, you get into a large number of poeple. Expand that to consider that there would be a need for the CP LO to be at the DZ every time a load flies, and you have an even bigger problem. Remember that FS LO can monitor who is on their jumps because it's just that, their jump. This implies that they are present and on the skydive, making it practical for them to keep track of who's who. Let me ask this - Do you expect a FS LO to keep track of every FS group on every load during the day they are orgaizing, or just the groups they are organizing? In order to make your comparison complete, the FS LO would have to approve every jumper in every FS group on every load.

That works for bigway organizers because they are vetting a limited number of jumpers for a specific time period on the DZ, the week of the bigway camp. Additionally, the bigway organizers have other motivations for checking references, such as the safety of the other jumpers and the success of their event (which leads to future events), all of which contributes to them making money. It wouldn't work on a local level becase you can't provide that type of oversight for every jumper on every load at the DZ, it's just not possible. When you add in the fact that this would be an unpaid position, how would you suggest you attract people to this thankless job? As I already pointed out, even a jumper who follows the max WL to the number is still going to represent an easy and conservative approach to downsizing. The numbers on the chart don't represent the max WL that might possibly be safe for a jumper of X jumps, it represents a conservative WL that should be applicable to the majority of jumpers with X jumps. Those jumpers who's skill lags behind the conservative progression of the chart should certainly recognize this at some point during their first 100 jumps (the interval before their next possible downsize) and proceed accordingly. Maybe they keep their current canopy, maybe they seek additional training, who knows. Even if they downsize anyway, this reveals the weakness of a system nobody ever suggested was 'perfect', just a good place to start. The reality is that a jumper who would downsize because that had hit X00 jumps, despite a poor record of performance during the previous 100 jumps, would obviously be displaying a lack of judgement, and would be making poor choices BSR or no BSR. Even if there wasn't a chart telling them they could jump X canopy, they would most likely make a poor choice on their own, with no outside influence.

Why? If you told the guy to have 'someone' watch him pack, the responsibility is on him to locate an appropriately skilled jumper to observe his pack job. If he chose not to, it is at his own risk. Even if you told him that 'you' would observe his pk job, but were busy during the time he was packing, again the responsibility falls on the jumper to either wait until you have time to obsereve him, ask you to reccomend another jumper to obsereve him, or again, pack alone at his own risk. I see nothing wrong with your actions, quite the contrary. You gave good advice involving a simple and easy course of action for the jumper to follow. This is obviously more than anyone else had ever done, indicateds by the fact that he had 'always stowed his brakes that way'. What the jumper does after you ofer up some adivce is not your responsibility.

Are you suggesting (as others have) that the USPA would be liable for anyone being hurt under a canopy that falls within the suggested WL? Is the USPA liable for any jumper hurt pulling above the USPAs min pull aititude? Is the USPA liable for any jumper hurt jumping in winds below the USPA max wind limitation? The answer on both counts, and to the quesiton of liability in regards to WL, is no. The BSRs are intended for jumpers to use a guidelines for making a safe skydive. Evey BSR in the book applies only to those individuals who have already made the decision to jump. These BSR are not intended to lure non-jumpers into the plane with the implication that follwoing them will guarantee a safe skydve. They are intended to be followed by properly trained jumpers seeking to make a safer skydive, with the key words in the sentence being 'making a skydive'. The jump, and the risk, is already going to happen, and the BSRs help to make it a safer experience, but they in no way suggest or imply that there is a gurantee of safety. There is no added liability, or cost to protect against said liability, by adding a Wl BSR.

What exactly is 'the job'? The S&TA is not intended to be a babysitter, nor to monitor every activity taking place on the DZ. The S&TA is there to adivse jumpers and instructors on the issues of safety and training. If you as a jumper have a question about a safety issue, or have seen what you believe to be a safety violation, the S&TA is your man (or woman). If an instuctor has a question about a training issue, or have seen what they believe to be improper actions on the part of another instructor, the S&TA is your man (or woman). If you are in need of signatures for a rating renewal or license application, or need someone to conduct live water training or a night jump briefing, the S&TA is your man (yes, or woman). That really it, though. The S&TA is an experiecned, qualified representative of the USPA who is elected to administer and advise as to the policies of the USPA. They are the USPAs 'line in the sand' at a group member DZ, and are there as a 'check and balance' to the DZO, who also serves many of the same purposes. They are not now, nor were they ever, nor will they be anytime in the near future intended to 'babysit' the jumpers at any DZ, and monitor each and every action at the DZ. They are not paid for the work they do, and as such are not, and cannot be expected to be present anytime there are jumping activities taking place at the DZ.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any sense at all. Are you suggesting that people who want to go fast would simply be happy to jump a smaller canopy and not swoop, but if they were limited to their larger canopy that they would be forced to swoop to satisfy their 'need for speed'? People who want to swoop are going to swoop, and people who don't want to swoop are not. What they jump has no relevance in that area. The truth is that people who want to swoop will downsize and swoop to go REALLY fast, hence the existance of stock canopies under 75 sq ft. Welcome to reality, that's what we have now.

No, that's the downside to rolling this issue into a new rating for canopy control coaches. Creating a BSR representes almost zero cost to the jumpers or USPA.

It's not hard to specify that a WL chart is a maximum allowed WL at whatever number of jumps, and not a reccomended WL for that number. You could even make that the title of the chart itself. What would be infinately more difficult, and hugely subject to personal preference/perception is the idea that every load on every DZ needs to have a dedicated person to monitor the gear of the involved jumpers. The only argument I hear against these type of regulation is from the 'effected parties', who claim that they personally have abilities beyond what the B Germain WL chart woud indicate, and that they have the full support of local instructors who know them and their abilities. I can accept that situation (in most cases), as a rated jumper 'in the know' has signed off on a certain jumper, but the problem is that no instructor or load organizer would sign off on a jumper they don't know well and have trust in their abilities. So what you end up with is the local NGs getting one level of 'organizing' and any other jumper not personally known to the LO being restricted to a more conservative WL or canopy. How then, does a jumper travel to another DZ with their rig? How do they know that the local LO won't ground them with their canopy of choice? What would they do then? Having a basic, jump number based WL chart is the best, most uniform way to ensure that jumpers take an easy, progressive path to building their canopy piloting experience. Even if a jumper was to downsize every 100 jumps as the chart allows, I think that putting 100 jumps on a canopy, and then upping your WL .1 is a sound plan. 100 hops on a canopy is a fair number to get the hang of things, and .1 is avery modest bump to a WL. Possible inadequate labeling of the chart aside, I'll ask again, what's the downside to this type of arrangement?