davelepka

This is an issue I brought up with the management at my DZ this winter. We will do static line, but it's never offered and not advertised. If a customer calls up and already knows about SL, and is set on that, they will do an SL class for them. I think we did about 4 SL students last year. With the state of the economy, I couldn't help but think that offering the SL course up front would be a good idea. For half the price of a tandem, and 1/3 the cost of AFF lv 1, you get a customer onto the DZ and they get to make a solo jump. A big issue people throw around is retaining new jumpers, and turning them from 'customers' into 'jumpers'. My opinion is that the investment in time and personal accomplishment involved from taking the FJC tends to push people more in the direction of making a second jump, however with AFF, the cost of lv 1, and the return jump is close to $500. That's a steep price for two jumps. With SL, you could just about make three jumps for $200. Not only a big savings, but more importantly, it represents additional return trips to the DZ, and additional opportunities to involve these new jumpers in the 'DZ family'. I started with SL, and had to make 5 SL jumps with three good dummy ripcord pulls. I was then cleared for an AFF lv. 1 style jump. Seeing as I had five SL jumps, the training for the first freefall was limited to freefall stuff, so the cost was far less than an actual AFF lv 1. With this type of program, the $500 that gets an AFF student two jumps (and two trips to the DZ) would get the SL student the FJC, 4 additional SL jumps, and a modified AFF lv 1 (totaling 6 trips to the DZ). Now I understand the argument that skydiving is expensive, and if you can't afford AFF you can't afford to skydive, but there's also merit to the thought that you need to get somebody in the door, and show them what skydiving is all about. Once they have handful of jumps, and see what the deal is, they might be more likely to spend more their money on skydiving. I'm not the least bit surprised to see the younger guys with 100 jumps who spend every cent they have on jumps, and can barely afford to eat. I'd more surprised to hear that a tandem student spent every cent they had on their first jump.

Funny you should mention lower altitudes, because I've seen a better BASE chain of death as well. This one is on Thread the Needle 2: A Finer Thread, and it's two jumpers, with jumper A being PCA'd off this bridge while he is PCAing jumper B who leaves at the same time he does. Since they are falling right next to each other, jumper B's rig remains closed until jumper A reaches line stretch and jumper B falls away from jumper A. I know the guys in the pic have three in their chain, but that was from 900 ft. The bridge in Thread the Needle is (I think) 240ft. Jumper B ends up with a very short canopy ride.

Thank you for posting the details of the situation. I know that I listed several responsibilities the jumpers/organizers have in a situation like this, and from what you've mentioned, they were all met. I was laying out the different possibilities for how the type of situation could transpire. I wasn't suggesting that all of them occured in this instance, but that these were the things to consider when going into a similar situation. In terms of the pilot, while he is responsible for maintaining sifficient airspeed, in no way was I suggesting that he was sloppy, or intentionally let the stall occur. You mentioned that the base was an 8-way chunk in the door, and that you had done this exit many times in your 'regular PAC', leading me to believe that this was not your 'regular PAC' nor was it the pilot you were used to. This comes back to the idea of not assuming that anyone just 'knows' anything. Through no fault of his own, and like many jump pilots, he may not have any experience with groups of that size out of that plane. Even a high-time jump pilot may have spent 80% of that time in a 182, and 20% in a turbine at a DZ where the turbine only flies when there are tandems on board (limiting the size of the RW groups, and number of people in the tail). It sounds like the pilot reacted the right way during the stall, on the ground afterwards, and on subsequent jumpruns, and that's all you can ask of him. As a pilot he has no say over what type of experince he'll have during jump operations, that's simply a function of where and who he's been flying. Mistakes do happen, but by handling it properly, and using it as a learning experince, he's just become that much better at flying jumpers. Again, between you, me and some of the other more experienced jumpers on here, what I'm saying is old news, but for those who are hearing about this for the first time, I'll include the details of how and why things work the way they do.

I fully understood all of this from your first post. However, just because you're doing a 12 way, that is no reason to crowd the door. Figure if you have 4 or 5 floaters, and you can squeeze another 3 drectly in the door inside the plane, that leaves at least 4 or 5 jumpers who will be nowhere near the door. These jumpers can remain forward in the plane during the climbout. There's nothing they can do until the jumpers inside the door leave anyway, so until those jumpers begin to move, the divers can stay forward. With a left side door, have the divers line up single file along the right side of the plane. When the door is clear, they can single file it right out of the door. This is basic organizing, and something the oragnizer of this dive should have set up. This alone would have put 1000lbs further up the cabin, and from the looks of it, over the wing itself, as opposed to behind it. The organizer should have also communicated the situation to the pilot. The more weight you put it the back of the plane, the more elevator you need to keep the tail up. The slower you fly, the less control authority you have, so adding a few knots would have given the elevator a lttle more 'power' and possibly kept the plane flying. Addionally, if you have too many floaters outside the plane, especially in a low-tail plane like the PAC, those jumpers create a burble which may blanket the left side of the tail, further reducing it's effectiveness. Again, more speed would provide additional airflow, and additional control authority.

I'm not a TI, but I wouldn't think it's a great idea. If there was a mal, you now have a main and freebag drifting around at 10k+ ft. Tandem rigs are business assets and their purpose is to make money. Lose a canopy, and you're out big bucks, and down a rig until you can replace it. The tandem student harnesses do not fit everyone in a 'comfortable' manner. It would be a shame to find this out way up there, with no choice but to ride it out.

It's interesting how you selected one line of my post, made in bold print, and responded as if that was my entire post. I'm pretty sure that if you read the rest of my post, it is directed squarely at the situation you described, the errors that may or may not have contributed, and some additional points intended to prevent this same situation from repeating itself. To more directly respond to your follow up post, you stated that experienced jumpers were on board, and that the pilot was also a jumper, and I wanted to point out that the presence of these people does not guarantee that these types of things will not happen. Unless specific, proactive steps are taken (such as informing the pilot of the intended exit plan, and making sure divers know to stay forard in the plane) then you cannot assume that just because certain people have certain qualifications that things will go smoothly. Let's remember that there are a fair number of low time jumpers who read these forums, and that information should be presented in a complete and thourough manner. To assume that anyone 'knows' one thing or another would be making a mistake, a bigger mistake in my opinion than including too much detail or information. I'm not sure why you want to avoid finding fault. The stall did not occur by itself, it was the result of human action or inaction. The only way to prevent is to fully understand the actions and circumstances that led to the problem, and avoid them in the future. I would hold the pilot responsible for not maintaining sufficient airspeed. I would also the jumpers responsible for contributing to the stall by not informing the pilot of an exit plan that would be a deviation from the normal jumprun, and that could effect the CG of the airlpane.

There are several factors that make these points moot. If the very experienced jumpers are floaters, then the less experienced divers may not know that they should not crowd the door, and remain forward in the AC until the exit has begun. Even if the more experienced jumpers are divers, if the bigger jumpers in the group are floaters, this adds more weight to the tail, and more drag outside the plane. Even with the divers well forward, the big boys can drag the tail down. Regradless of the pilots experience, if he is not informed that the entire plane is one group, then he may not be ready for the amount of weight that will be shifting rearward. If a pilot is flying back to back loads and not present for the dirt dive, or not a jumper not aware of the dirt dive, then they will have no cause to alter their jumprun procedure. Anytime there is a bigger or heavier group exiting the plane, the pilot should be informed and few extra knots on jumprun should be requested. We have several jumpers at my DZ who are 250 lbs +, and they tend to jump together. I make it a point to inform the pilot that he'll have 1000 or 1200 lbs hanging outsdie of the plane on jumprun on that load, and he'll keep the speed up accordingly. One last point in looking at this problem is the jumpers themselves. It's important to make sure they know and understand the concept of aft CG, and stalling on jumprun. They should be able to recognize the situaiton, and realize that they need to contribute to the recovery by letting go of the plane.

I've seen a VHS transfer of an 8mm movie of the real way to do the chain of death. You take five guys, all wearing T-10 static line rigs (with chest mount reserves). You take one guy, and give him a ripcord. The static line guys all leave the plane with their static lines in their hands. The first guy docks in the dude with the ripcord, and hooks his static line to the ripcord guy's harness. Guy three docks on guy two, and hooks his static line to guy two's harness, and so on. When guy six is in place, Mr. Ripcord gets the party started, and you have the real chain of death. The trick was that everyone had a spring loaded pilot chute in their rig, and if things went bad, you could just pull your own static line. The video I saw was a success, I'm not sure how many times they did this, or if things ever went 'wrong'.

Yeah, they have. The deal on F-111 was always that you needed to flare high because the canopy would take a few seconds to respond and slow down. You also needed to use a strong, powerful flare and once you started there was no stopping without losing all of the 'power' from the flare. The newer canopies respond much quicker to input, and don't have much of a problem if you pause in the middle of the flare. Even if you start the flare high, you can stop, and finish it when you get a little lower. Just remember that once you start the flare, you cannot put your hands back up. You can stop where you are, and then finish, but never put your hands back up. There's two things you'll want to think about. The first is bringing down the height you start your flare. I don't know how high you're starting it now, but if you just bring it down one or two feet at a time, eventually you'll get where you need to be. Baby steps, baby steps. Another thing that should help is using the two step flare. The first step will level out the canopy, and should be about shoulder or chest level with the toggles. Once the canopy levels out and begins to sink again, just finish the flare. Exactly how much to flare for step one will work itself out as you bring down the height you start your flare. Like any new skill, ease into it and you should be able to safely modify your technique. Don't try for, or expect a 100% change in one or two jumps, give it 10 or 15.

Good for the DZO. Between him and the 'senior jumper', the DZO was the only one thinking with a clear head. There's no way that 450 jumps could prepare you for a 1.9 WL on any canopy or jumping an X-brace at any WL, let alone the combination of the two. If you figure that the first 50 or 100 jumps are surely spent on student canopies, or just getting the basic concept of flight into a jumpers head, you're looking at 350 to 400 jumps at best realy 'learning' to fly a canopy. So what did she do, spend 75 jumps between downsizing, or just make huge jumps in downsizing? Either way, neither of those two approaches will make you 'more than qualified' as the 'boyfriend' agrued. Can one of the locals please pull this girl aside and explain to her that her 'boyfriend' doesn't have her best interest in mind. Her experience vs. her size and type of canopy are so far off base, and so far outside anything that would be considered 'safe'. The fact that her equipment choice got her thrown off of the DZ should be a clear indicator that she's making a mistake, but I'm sure that the 'boyfriend' has convinced her otherwise. This is a bad situation, and one that is likely to get worse. What I can't understand is that if this is already her boyfriend, he's already fucked her and should be well past the stage where he's trying to impress her with all of the skydiving 'opportunities' he can provide her, and should be at the point where he's trying to protect her, and make sure that she's making good choices and staying safe.

Selling a lift ticket to a jumper who has a license and their own gear is one thing. Training a jumper, where the DZ is providing the student gear, and they have rated instructors who will have to jump with said jumper, is another.

I'm down with the concept of short brake lines, and their effect on flight. What I was talking about was making the lines too long. Even when the lines are bowed, they are exerting force on the tail, and influencing it's position. Having the lines too long would allow the tail to sit too high if a certain type of canopy was so inclined to react that way. If you think about it, as speed increases, and the pressure differential between the top and bottom skins becomes greater, the tendency for a 'loose' tail to rise should increase. Once the tail reaches it's higest point, it would 'stall' and drop back to it's original position, only to begin to rise again. If this happens fast enough, now it's flapping. This is first hand info I recieved from John LeBlanc in a series of very informative e-mails after I requested extra long lower steering lines on my Velo. Again, this was in refernce to a standard Velo with vectran lines, and was at least a year or two ago. Please be sure to post whatever PD finds out is the trouble with your canopy, I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in what they determine the problem to be, and their solution.

I was under the impression that PD uses a specific length for the brake lines on the Velo. This is why the loops for attaching your toggles are fignertrapped and sewn down at the factory. The idea was that the even at full flight, the lines apply some tension to the tail and help to hold the tail in a certain position. If you use a longer line, the tail is not held in the correct position. This is what I was told after a request for longer lower steering lines during a reline last year. This was for a regular Velo with vectran lines, and may or may not apply to the comp Velo or HMA lines.

My tone would be entirely different. If this jumper had been injured on his first low pass at that DZ, and not been briefed on the type of jump run flown, or the type of exit required, then I would hold the DZ (or pilot) responsible for the incident. I cannot see any reason for any jumper to be aware of the special circumstances surroudning a no-cut climbing jump run. Many planes can fly this type of jumprun without creating any problems whatsoever, and many DZs do provide a full cut and lowering of the nose for low passes. For these reasons, I would not consider the technique (or need for a technique) for dealing with a no-cut climbing jumprun to be common knowledge. Especially for a jumper with 100 jumps, or a short time in the sport, I would not be the least bit surprised to find out that they had never encountered such a jumprun, nor considered any special requirements for such a jumprun. In this case, however, the jumper did have prior knowledge of both the type of jumprun, and what was required to safely exit the aircraft during that jumprun. According to the reports, that information was shared with the jumper on the previous day, so it certainly should have been fresh in his mind. Skydiving is a dangerous sport. If you are advised of a safety concern, it should absolutely be first and foremost on your mind when making any subsequent jumps.

On your first point, I agree, the jumper should have performed a proper exit for the conditions. On the second point, I agree, and according to some reports, the other jumpers mentioned this both on the ground and in the plane. On your thrid point, in this specific case, I disagree. The pilot did exactly what he said he was going to do. The jumpers boarded the plane with an expectation of performance from the pilot, and the pilot followed suit and performed as expected. The no-cut, climbing jump run for the low pass was the SOP at Lodi. The pilot boarded the plane with an expectation of performance from the jumpers, and one of them failed to perform as expected. This jumper had proir knowledge of the SOP for the low pass, and that a specific type of exit was required to maintain safety. It's no secret that a cut and lowering of the nose would have created a different circumstance for exiting the AC, but if given proir notice of the AC configuration and the performance required to exit safely in that configuration, the responsibility falls to the jumper to perform as required, or decline to exit on that pass. Helicopter jumps are a great example. You cannot exit a helo by launching yourself straight up off the skid with all of your might. In order to avoid hitting a rotor blade, you need to exit in a certain way. Even with this hazzard, we continue to jump helicopters, we just do so with an expectation of performance from the jumper.

As other have said, if an opening is hard enough to casue pain, you'd feel in other places as well as (possibly) your back. On your thighs from the legstraps, and maybe the front of your shoulders from the harness. If it's only in your back, that's odd. My only thought is this, you said these were your first jumps to terminal, is it possible you're arching too hard, and that even a moderate opening is effecting your already stressed lower back? It's not uncommon for students to over-do the arch at first. No instructor will tell you up front, but you don't need to do the 'max' arch that you can. If you're a reasonably felxible guy, you only need to arch at 50% (or less) than your 'max' flexibility. Even a slight arch will push your hips forward and have you stable on your belly. Arching any harder than that just makes you fall faster (and the openings harder). I can't say for sure if this is your problem. You may have a back problem and need medical care, this is just something to think about.

1. Tell him to grab a student rig, and prove that it can be done ten times out of ten. 2. Then shove the student rig up his ass, and tell him to keep his 'bright' ideas to himself. 3. If you choose to skip step two, go straight to the DZO/manager/senior instructor, and make sure they know what sort of nutbag they have on their staff, and what sort of things he's considering telling their students.

To me, this is the key to who is at fault in this circumstance. In the grand scheme of skydiving, this jumper did not have alot of experience, the reports are from 80 to 100 jumps. But in terms of being able to understand the concept of a no-cut jumprun, and the need for a specific type of exit, I would say that he had more than enough expereince. Let's keep in mind that the required action to exit safely is actually a lack of action. You need to NOT do a poised, jumping exit. You simply need to roll or dive out of the door. I could understand if, say, you need to do a poised jumping exit in order to go over the tail, in that instance additional performance from the jumper is required, and mayeb 100 jumps isn't enough to ensure that one make it up and over the tail, but that's celarly not the case. All the jumper had to do was put LESS effort into his exit, and he clearly failed to do so. I've got about 1000 jumps out of a Twin Bonanza, and there are a few ways to ding the tail and the wing flap on that plane. Jumpers told about what you could, and could not do, and expected to follow those rules. You can't expect every exit from every plane to just be open to whatever the jumper feels like doing. There will be times where the situation dictates certain action or inaction, and you as a jumper are expected to follow suit.

southparkstudios.com It's run by the guys who created South Park, and they have every episode from every season available for viewing free of charge. The best part is that they are uncensored, so you hear all of the dialog, not just the stuff Comedy Central let on the air.

As per the intended topic of this post - tellign somebody they may be injured or killed skydiving is not a 'scare tactic' it's the truth. Telling a kid he'll go blind from beating off too much - that is a scare tactic. If you disregard the generally accepted guidelines for things like what type of canopy you jump, and at what WL, the result of a mistake while flying that canopy will most likely be severe injury or death. Somewhere on here there is a thread where people posted their x-rays from when they made their 'mistake'. It really is a shockingly big collection of nasty, nasty x-rays of all sorts of fractures. Injury or death is what happens. I'm not tyring to scare you. Beyond that, I'm more interested in your ass-backwards plan for downsizing. Wl aside, the Katana is a high performance parachute at any size. It is designed to fly fast, turn fast, and dive like a mother. It is a very poor choice for anyone with less than 500 jumps, and even then those jumpers should have been on a structured plan of downszing and training for the lest few hundered jumps. It is not a canopy to be taken lightly. As far as your plan to lose 40 lbs in order to make the downsize 'sensible', I'm sorry but could you be more full of shit? You think this course of action proves you're serious? Look friend, if you have 40 lbs to lose, and it never occured to you to lay off the ice cream and cookies until you decieded you wanted a Katana, that does not make you appear 'sensible'. Like any jumper who ever factored a weight loss into equipment choice, I'll give you this advice - FIRST lose the weight, all of it. SECOND - learn to fly your current canopy at the new weight. LAST - once you are proficient at the new weight, look into moving down one size with the same model canopy. That is what I call 'sensible'. Another thing to keep in mind, being a 'bigger' guy, how fast do you think you can run? If your canopy is faster than you are, you stand a good chance at going down trying to run out a no wind landing. When was the last time you ran at full speed, and went down like a sack of potatoes? What will happen when you have a late flare, or have to land in a turn to avoid an obstacle or collision? You just took all that extra 'mass' that you have and wound it up to a good speed, how do you think your skeletal system will fare when you hit the ground. Let's face it, more of your body mass is fat than bone, so you'll reach the point where the fat wins the battle much sooner than a guy who is leaner than you are. Just like the little 100lb. girls have different rules when it comes to canopies and sizes vs. experience, so do the big boys. All of the conventional wisdom about canopies and sizing is based on an 'average' guy, maybe 5' 10", 175 lbs. The further you go in either direction from that height/weight, the more the rules change to suit your 'special circumstances'.

I agree that the AC could have been configured differently, but the tipping point for me is the reports that the jumper had a near miss with the tail the day before, and was informed at that time of the SOP for low passes. At that point, I think the onus falls on the jumper to perform in a way that conforms to the SOP, or if unable, seek further instruction or cease exiting on a low pass. If the near miss and subsequent discussion had not occurred the day before, then yes, I would agree that the mistake would be that of the management, but if the events of the previous day did transpire as reported, how can the jumper not be held responsible for his own actions? He was aware of the problem, he was aware that his performance from the day before was not acceptable, and he went on to exit in a similar manner on the following day. Say I went to a new DZ, and on my first jump swooped right next to the hanger, only to be told that swooping next to the hanger was not allowed as that area is open to spectators. If I return the next day and swoop next to the hanger, and hit a spectator, who is at fault?

No sir. I agreed with you that you cannot listen to very word from every poster on this board. You don't know who's legit, and who's a 13 year old kid killing time. I pointed out that the experts you were not listening too were not 'mystery' people, but folks who have been recognized as experst by the majority of jumper, namely Bill Von and Brian Germain. Again, you would do better in these informational threads to read carefully, and pull the facts presented out of the presentation.

I'm in agreement with Frost about blatantly disregarding the opinions of 'experts', namely that of Bill Von and B Germain. I understand that you can't take every word of every poster to heart, but these two have been widely accepted as experts by the vast majority of jumpers, and their advice should not be disregarded. I also have to say that being nice, friendly or social is not the point of this thread. That is what the bonfire is for, this in an informational thread. Like it or not, Frost made serveral valid points that could prove to be valuable to anyone willing to read them for the information they contian, not the delivery of said info. As much as I hate to continue to agree, he's right about deleting your post. You should stand by your position, no matter who opposes it. In my view, it really supports that fact that Frost is correct because you deleted it. For those that missed it, the gist of it was this - He's already ahead of the generally accepted curve when it comes to canopy selection. Even though he's aware of the Bill Von checklist, and the B Germain WL chart, he's planning to do 100 jumps this year and wants to downsize again at the end of the year. He also jumps during the winter, indicating that he will remain curent all throughout the years. Sorry to bust your nuts pal, but if you're going to be dumb, you had better be tough. Tough enough to stand behind what you say, and tough eough to take the hit when, or if, you pile in one day.

Here's another thing - don't confuse Luigi's silence about your canopy choice or Wl as an endorsement. Luigi spends his time going from DZ to DZ teaching these courses. He is not there to 'police' canopy or WL choices. If you had performed well on the days he was present, he would have no reason to speak to you about your choices. Unless you said to him directly, "I have 50-some jumps, and am currently jumping a 135 at a WL of 1.3, do you think this is a good idea, and is it appropriate for my experience?", then I would not go around speaking as if you had his endorsement. Keep in mind that you may have preformed well on the days he was present, during the controlled circumstances of the canopy course. This is what we call the 'best case scenario'. Please do not believe that you will continue to perform that way when you encounter the 'wost case scenario', when all factors are working against you. This is where your choice of canopy can and will dictate the outcome of whatever it is you've gotten yourself into.

Many good points have already been made. You are in over your head, and no, there is no chance that I'm wrong about this. A further point is your desire to see a video over the internet before jumping a certain canopy. Even seeing one flown in real life will tell you very little about what you need know when you're the one hanging under it. No offence to other Triathalon jumpers, but that's not the greatest canopy around. You have come to a massively incorrect conclusion that the increase in your satisfaction was a result of the change in size. There are many canopies available that will give you performance similar to your 135 in a size more appropriate for your experience. Look at it this way, anyone can make a 500 Hp car go fast around a racetrack. Be careful in the corners, and leadfoot it on the straights. It takes a talented driver to go as fast with a 250 Hp car. Right now, you are the novice with a 500 HP. The difference is that if you make a mistake, you don't spin out or over-run a corner, you get broken or killed. Jump a canopy more suited to your skill level at a WL more suited to your experience.