Some Fundamental Skills Common to all Jumps

Main Page      Skratch's Skydiving Stuff      DJan's Evolving Theatre      Other Skratch Stuff

A Framework of Fundamental Skills Common to All Jumps     Skr 99-6-2
--------------------------------------------------------------------

I watch the weather and the loads in front of me so I have an idea of
what winds to expect on my jump. When we take off I notice whether we
go east or west. While we are climbing I keep rough track of our position.
The mountains, Boulder, Longmont and the diagonal are good landmarks.

At 8,000 or 9,000 ft we are usually east of the diagonal, heading north,
getting ready to make a 90 left onto jumprun.

It is just like with my openings. If I know what is normal then I am
alerted when something else happens.

As the plane turns on jumprun I look at the airport through a window or
the door so that when we level out I know we are heading right at it.

When we are even with the diagonal I know that the yellow door light
should come on in 30 or 40 seconds, maybe 60 seconds if there are high
uppers. It is time to pull my goggles down, feel my handles one more time,
get up on my knees if I'm sitting in back, and any other final fidgets I
need to do.

As the groups in front of me go I count seconds between exits because
exit separation is a big deal to me and I like to know what other people
are doing with it.

When the group in front of me goes I stick my head out the door and look
down. Are we west of Airport Road? On a no wind day I can get from Airport
Road to the target, but there is nothing but expensive airplanes and good
old boy pilots between here and there so I like to be conservative about
getting out too short.

Are we east of 75th street? On a no wind day opening at 2,500 ft I won't
make it back to the target from 75th. But it's open out there and landing
west of the target is not as great a sin as landing on the tarmac barely
missing someone's pet airplane.

We are usually not too far north or south anymore but if we are too far
north I will not go and will ask the pilot for another jumprun further
south. That is not easy to do since the official line is that the pilots
know what they are doing and the GPS never fails. But when I decide to
leave the plane I am the pilot in command of my own flight and if I land
on Zweck's it is my own fault.

If we are a little too far south I will go anyway since we can land south
of the runway.

It is better to look first, and then go or not go, than to discover part
way down that we're too far out and have people suddenly start tracking
or pulling high. That is too uncoordinated and dangerous.

When I stick my head out the door and look down I am mainly looking at
where the previous group got out. We have a 4800 ft runway and I want to
exit the plane at least a quarter and preferably a third of a runway across
the ground from the group in front of me. We need that much separation at
the bottom end when we are opening.

Horizontal separation is crucial, and you have to look at the ground to get
it. Counting seconds doesn't work because it is a different number of
seconds for every upper wind. I do count seconds in the back of my mind
as a backup check, but looking at the ground is the only way to be sure.

The 45 degree rule where you go when the group in front of you has fallen
to 45 degrees behind you is basically correct on a no wind day, and it is
certainly better than staring off into space counting some fixed number of
seconds. But if there are uppers then you have not gotten the horizontal
separation across the ground when they get to that 45 degree place.

I also check the 45 degree ness of the group in front of me while I'm
counting seconds in the back of my mind, but those are backup techniques.

Looking at the ground is the only way to be sure.

Looking straight down is a visual technique. You can't use your body
sense because the floor of the plane is not level, you're usually on
your knees crouched over in an unfamiliar position, and if the plane
is turning at all that throws you even further off.

I divorce myself from the plane completely and just look out at the
horizon. When my mind and eyes are level I drop my eyes straight down.
Do this 3 times in a row in rapid succession and you will have a good
idea what you are over. With a little practice you can become very
accurate. For me now it is all one motion. My eyes pass through the
horizon as my head is going out the door and I just look straight
down.

If we are diving out I look out and down maybe 3 or 4 times while we
are moving a third of a runway across the ground. Just before we get
there I start the count. If there is a climbout involved I have to
guess how long it will take, and if we climb out much faster than I
expected I look out and down while hanging there as a floater and wait
until we have covered the distance across the ground before starting
the count.

Sometimes the uppers are stronger than I realized and I don't catch
it until my out and down check outside the plane. It is hard to hit
the pause button at that moment, but I make the effort because separation
at opening is so important.

                (insert your favorite freefall stories here)

Upon opening I have my hands on my rear risers ready to dodge in case
I am close to someone.

If my group got out short of the target I don't turn towards the target
until I spot the group that followed me. I don't want to fly up under them
if they got out too close behind me.

I riser turn towards the target, spot the tetrahedron, visualize the
three legs of the left hand pattern I'm going to fly when I get there,
and plot a very approximate course from here to the beginning of the
pattern. Then I collapse my slider and undo the brakes. If it is a windy
day I start noticing right away how fast I go when running with the wind
and how well I can hold when facing into it.

Sometimes I like to spiral and horse around with my canopy if I can do that
and still make it back, but I do that much less now than I used to. The sky
is more crowded and canopies are way faster than they used to be. Other
canopies appear out of nowhere if I don't keep my head on a swivel, so I
look at the scenery more now, which is actually pretty good here in Colorado.

There are a couple useful things to practice up high though.

One is to make a few practice flares just to get the feel and timing
of the canopy.

Another is turns in deep brakes. When you're a student they tell you not
to turn close to the ground. At that stage it's good advice because it's
easy to turn too hard too low and really bust your ass.

But eventually you will need to know how to make a 90 degree turn at 50 ft
and land gracefully. A car or a person may run out in front of you, or you
may suddenly realize you've used some bad judgement and gotten into one of
those awkward situations.

The way to do it is to first go into deep brakes - half, three quarters,
or even right on top of the stall depending on the situation.

Then use one hand slightly lower and the other hand slightly higher to make
a slow, flat change of heading.

And then if you were really at 50 ft when you needed this, just land.
There is no time to let back up, build up speed and flare.

Letting up from deep brakes close to the ground is tricky. The canopy gets
out ahead of you and you build up downward speed quicker than you realize.

It is better to land cross wind or even down wind than to hit some sharp,
pointy expensive thing, or to turn too hard trying to miss it and spiral
into the ground.

To find out how slowly you have to let the toggles up when you are close to
the ground, set up your pattern so you land off to one side, go into deep
brakes at a couple hundred feet and just hang out for a bit, then at 75 or
100 ft slowly let up and see what happens. You can let up a little faster
each time you do it until it gets scary and then you will know what you can
do.

Another thing I do on my way from opening to entering the landing pattern
is to notice how the ground looks at 1000 ft. Back before the skies got so
crowded with fast canopies I used to let my toggles up and put my hands on
my cutaway and ripcord handles and feel the feelings of "what if". But I
never take my hands out of my toggles now. Instead I keep my hands in the
toggles, which puts me at about three quarters brakes when I'm touching my
handles and looking at the ground.

Another way to practice this is right after opening just before releasing
the brakes put your hands on your handles and just hang out for a while
feeling where they are.

As I get closer to target and the landing pattern I start trying to guess
where the other people are planning to go. If the pattern is forming well
I will join in, but if people are all over the place I will adjust my pattern
to land off to one side or the other. People get real tunnel visioned around
the target. I must too because I get caught more often than I like by that
"Shit! Where did *he* come from?".

If I was so far out that I can barely make it back and can't get to the
beginning of the pattern, then I merge with which ever leg I can. It is
just like merging onto a freeway. There is an established flow of traffic
and I do what I have to to fit in to that flow. If I can't do that I just
land off to one side, but I never go against the traffic in the pattern.

Sometimes I'm in the pattern and realize I'm too high. In this case I
usually go into a certain amount of brakes, keep flying the pattern,
let the altitude bleed off, and then let back up. S turns don't seem
like a good idea since I want to stay in the traffic flow and be
predictable to the other jumpers.

Sometimes people fly different shaped patterns or a faster canopy over
takes a slower one. It is easy to land in parallel if one person will
take one side of the target while the other person takes the other.

I believe the tunnel vision comes from either focusing on the target
or from coming in so fast that you have to really focus on just when
to flare. That's understandable but it is important to make the effort
to learn how to land well *and* watch the traffic around you. Try glancing
90 left and then 90 right in the last few seconds before the flare.
At first those glances may be very perfunctory, but if you keep doing
it the skill will come, and you will find that you feel more relaxed
and in control during landing.

Flaring is an art that I am still mastering. On my current canopy,
a Spectre 170, the top part of the flare is medium speed. That
levels me out. At the magic moment I do the bottom part of the flare
a little faster and harder. That brings me to a dead stop with my
feet about an inch off of the ground and I can calmly place my feet
on the ground and feel very smug about how good I am.

I know that is possible because sometimes I can do that. With a few
miles an hour of wind it is a piece of cake, but on no wind days it
often eludes me. I know I will get it eventually because over time
the runouts have gotten slower and the pop ups have gotten lower.

The more wind there is the lower you flare and the less you flare.
That is because the first part of the flare levels the canopy out.
If the wind speed is canceling your canopy speed over the ground
that is all you need. If I am barely penetrating then I do only the
top quarter or third of the flare only a foot or two off of the ground,
touch down, and immediately haul in on one toggle to force the canopy
nose down into the ground and start collapsing it.

You will notice that some people build up speed and do a long surf
across the ground. I think it looks neat and I've certainly had my
relationship with high speed dirt over the years. If you are attracted
to that, talk to Brian Germain or the Wild Humans or someone else who
really understands how canopies work.

The final part of canopy control is learning how to PLF so you can
keep on jumping while you are learning. I have made it through numerous
unlikely, dangerous, and just plain stupid situations over the years
because I'm really good at it. The last time I needed it was only a few
weeks ago.

With the butt slide technique you risk painful bruises if you hit a
rock, a stab wound from a small stick sticking up, tail bone injuries,
wearing out your jumpsuit, and various commentary from your fellow
jumpers.

The feet, knees, face plant technique on the other hand is not only
undignified, but when you try to break your fall with your hands you
can easily break a wrist or injure a shoulder.

People have known for thousands of years how to roll with the flow of
the motion.

You start a front (forwards) PLF by putting your feet and knees together,
pulling your arms in close to your chest and tucking your chin. When your
feet touch the ground twist right or left towards your favorite side,
and then roll across the ground on your calf-knee-butt-back-shoulders.

It is kind of hard to describe it in ascii but if you find some crusty
old timer who is still walking around, packing their chute and making
jumps then they know how to do it. Ask them to take you and a little
plastic stool a foot or two high out to the peas and show you how.

Then do it on a few jumps - even if you don't need it. Do it until
it feels comfortable. Then when you need it you will have it. And you
*will* need it sooner or later, if you keep walking around, packing your
chute and making jumps.

----

These are the next set of skills to learn just off of AFF.

The way I would teach this is to have the plane come across the drop
zone at 4,000 7,000 and 10,000 ft on a standard jump run except with
no lights - no door light and no green light. And I would have them
looking out and down telling me when we're over or even with various
landmarks and getting out at an appropriate place and then practicing
all this canopy stuff.

You wouldn't even have to stop climbing except maybe the King Air should
level off to keep the tail out of the way.

I believe that 20 or 30 jumps spent practicing these skills right off
of AFF would yield great dividends in terms of people not landing out
and doing sensible things under canopy.

Also the freefall part is open for them to do whatever they want as long
as they practiced the canopy stuff.

So this is a pretty rough first draft just sitting here letting it come
out. What do you think?

Skr