Calhan Post AFF Coach Handout (ver 01) Wed 2002-6-12
-------------------------------------- -------------
Note:
I tend to use words like recess and playground to counter the
feeling you get from the official USPA formulation that skydiving
is nothing but a bunch of dry requirements and licenses.
Cass thought that words like "Advanced Training Program" would
sound better on brochures and stuff meant for the public so this
is now officially the Calhan ATP :-) :-)
----
The structure of the Calhan coach program is:
- A set of skills to be learned
(The proficiency card plus the Calhan enhancements)
- An order in which to emphasize them
- A set of techniques for teaching them
- A very strong intent to put as much effort into the student's
experience of skydiving as into the learning of the technical skills.
Without going to far afield here it seems odd to me
that we coaches, who are supposed to be dealing with
human nature and learning and teaching, are furnished
a program by USPA that focuses on the dry technical
skills and completely ignores the most important aspect
of the whole deal.
Reality is people and airplanes and sky and ground and
feelings and friends and stuff. The license structure
is like a transparent overlay on certain aspects of that.
We have to honor that overlay because it's a little piece
of reality too, but it's not the reason people come out to
skydive, and it's not what keeps them coming back.
One representation of the skill structure is this:
------------------------------------------------------------- Jump
| | | | Numbers
| Canopy | | |
| Control | | | |
| | | |
| Exit | | | |
| Separation | | |
| | | | |
| Packing | | |
| | | | |
| Manifesting | | \ /
| Gear Rental | | |
| | |
| |-------------------| |
| | | |
| Freefall | Cessna | | |
| Recess Playground | | |
| | | | |
| Spotting | | |
| Tracking | | |
| | | |
| | | \ /
| (Moving students from being told) |-------------------|
| (every little move to being able) | |
| (to take care of themselves ) Freefall | |
| | Docks | |
| Swoops | |
| | Exits | |
| | |
------------------------------------------------------------- \ /
| ----------------- > ----------------- > ------------------> A License
| Proficiency card requirements + Calhan enhancements
When they first come from the AFF hangar to the coach hangar
I explain this general plan to them so they know what to expect
in their next 10 or 20 jumps (visualize Fandango :-).
On their first few jumps after AFF (the Freefall Recess stage)
I show them
- How to rent the appropriate gear
- How tickets and manifest work
- Dirt dive the canopy part of the jump
- Draw a runway in the dirt or on the rug
Winds and probable jumprun and opening point
Use the aerial photo on the wall
- Some kind of exit and freefall - either whatever
they want to do or nudge them to try something
- No large horizontal movement
(stay out of other people's vertical column of airspace)
- Don't lose sight of the ground for too long at a time
if they're going to do a bunch of maneuvers
- Open - Rear riser away from jumprun or towards the drop zone
- Unstow brakes and check controls
- Large scale canopy strategy
- Watch other canopies
- Get up wind of target
- Fly a landing pattern
- Practice brakes and braked turns
- Pattern and various traffic what ifs and hangars and winds
Various ways to guage the pattern
- How to get better at flaring
- What to look at
- Two stage flare
We actually walk through this, pulling imaginary toggles,
dodging clueless canopy pilots, various ways to guage the pattern.
- Watch them gear check until I'm sure they've got it,
and then tell them they're on their own for that,
although I do a quick once over before they get on the plane.
- If I'm not actually going up in the plane with them I connect
them with an experienced jumper for any questions on the way
up and especially for exit separation.
- If nothing else is going on I will follow them out and watch
from about 300 ft above (it tells me a lot about what I will
be saying to them when we get to the freefall maneuvers), and
then pull just before they do so I can follow them around
under canopy which gives me a lot of insight into what they
are thinking in their strategy of get from here to upwind of
the target and fly a pattern.
From the ground it's hard to tell what they're seeing but from
above you can tell them what to try next time they're in that
situation.
- Start introducing them to the denizens of the experienced hangar.
Before too many jumps have passed I work in a Cessna Playground.
Now .. that's the general pattern. If someone wants to get on with
the freefall requirements then we go for it, but I make clear that
canopy control is their main goal in life until they show some signs
of getting it.
We do get the driven personality types, but I find that a lot of people
already have enough stress in their weekday life and just want to make
a few solos and feel the wonderful world of freefall.
And I figure why not? As long as they work up a sweat pulling toggles,
why not? At that stage just making a jump of any kind is a huge dose
of experience.
Most of them stay within the guidance bubble, but once in a while
someone heads out on their own (visualize young male :-) and I have
to rein them in a little and make sure that before each jump they
tell a coach what they are planning to do and get connected with
an experienced eyeball for exit separation.
I point out to them that once they know the system they could easily
slip through the cracks if they wanted, rent some gear and go make
a jump without telling anyone, but that they shouldn't do that because
there are things they don't know yet. The whole point of this 10 - 20
jump coach phase is to get them to that point.
They are learning to guide themselves, and it is easier to enlist
their help than try some parent/police approach which would only
inspire them to find some way around it anyway.
This freefall recess is a phase they pass through and after 3 or 4
or even 8 or 10 the benefits of finishing the A license and getting
out of the cage of student restrictions get clearer and we go up and
do the docks and swoops and whatnot and finish them up.
----
Packing:
Start with Cass's video
Then do hands on until they can do it with no help
Include replace closing loop and stow band
pull cutaway handle, flex risers, re assemble 3 rings
RSL - disconnect, connect, trace routing
connecting main canopy
continuity check
cocking pilot chute
uncollapse slider
reserve repack cycles
storage conditions
clean/lube cutaway handles
The heaviest burden in this early phase is the packing. Teaching it
takes a long time and it's a lot of work. Sometimes it's easier to
use the packer (which the gear rental covers) and get them up in
the air and do the packing after jumping.
Some kind of scheduled packing classes or something would really
help the weekend flow of keeping them in the air.
----
Exit separation
1,500 ft across the ground (for small groups)
1/4 to 1/3 of Calhan runway
Looking straight down
(look at horizon - drop eyes straight down)
45 degree technique
Works in low winds
Good backup technique
Counting
On a no wind day, 75 knot IAS jumprun = ?? TAS
takes ?? seconds to cover 1,500 ft
With high uppers and medium lowers it's a different
number of seconds each time and it's too complicated
----
They need to know that developing judgement and control under
canopy is not particularly easy to do, there are a zillion
variables, and the combinations are different on every jump.
This can require endless patience on the coach's part to keep
working with them and keep encouraging them. Sometimes it helps
to pass them on to a different coach who may see something you
are not or explain something in a different way.
If you need a reminder of how long it can take, go watch a couple
loads of experienced jumpers land :-) :-)
----
Cessna Playground
We gather all the spotting, tracking and clear and pull requirements
into this three jump sequence out of the Cessna. Each person gets
their own pass. On each jump the coach follows the last person out.
Jump 1 - 5,500 ft.
For each person this starts about 3 miles from the drop zone
on a random heading (usually just southwest of town).
They guide the plane back to the drop zone using large corrections
90 left, 45 right etc, then guide the plane around a left hand
pattern, 90 left, 90 left, 90 left onto jump run which is one to
two miles long. On jump run they do 5 left and 5 right to the spot
and jump out.
While the next person is moving to the door the pilot goes out
about 3 miles and then the next person starts guiding the plane
back to the drop zone.
Jump 2 - 11,500 ft.
This jump is about spotting from higher altitude and about how to
experiment with the tracking position.
The jump run starts from 2 or 3 miles out. The student does 5 left
and 5 right to some exit point, then experiments with the tracking
position and pulls somewhere up wind of the target.
The point is not only the details of the tracking position but also
thoughts about where am I trying to get to over the ground.
When the student leaves, the plane goes out 2 or 3 miles and does
a 180 (or actually a 90 and then a 270 so we don't get too offset).
Jump 3 - 3,500 ft.
This is just back and forth jump runs as in jump 2 and a clear
and pull.
It's important not to let them turn onto jumprun too close to target.
If you do then they don't get a chance to watch things develop and do
the five left five right part of the jump.
The most common mistake I make on these playground jumps is letting
them turn in too soon. You need to go away from target until it is
at least 45 degrees down.
==================================================================
If I've been jumping with someone, I already know where they are at,
and I use the ingredients
- Where are they on the canopy control, separation, packing,
cessna playground, freefall maneuvers spectrum
- Do they need something special for reasons of confidence,
fear, currency, tiredness, inspiration, fun, challenge
- Do they want to try something (standard or nonstandard)
that they've heard about or made up
Sometimes I have to say "OK, we're going to do that but
it will take you about 100 jumps to work up to it, so
let's start with ... "
- What do I feel like doing? Long term organizers have to
organize for themselves as much as everybody else on the
load or they eventually burn out
to cook up a nutritious jump for them (and me).
At this early stage there are only a small number of things they
should be doing, but even here I try to get them involved in
designing some parts of the dive - do you want to be front float
or rear float, why, do you want to take a grip with your left
hand or your right hand, when we break do you want to track towards
denver or calhan or ...
It's part of the effort to move them from being told every little
move to deciding things for themselves.
Also, even though the choices are pretty limited at this early stage,
there is more than one nutritious jump.
Focus on how much better any coaching at all is than the black void
that students used to find themselves in, and don't worry about being
some mythical, perfectly optimized super coach who does exactly the
right thing at all times.
Feed them nutritious jumps, move them in a good direction, and know
that with a little experience you will find your art and personal
style. I'm coming up on 40 years at this coaching and I'm still
finding new moves and ploys and ways of talking to students.
----
If I haven't jumped with them then I ask them what they did on
their last few dives and look at their proficiency card to see
what's been filled out.
It's important to get specific about what they actually did.
General questions like "how did you do?" don't tell you enough.
The way they show you and tell you indicates how they are doing,
and is also a clue about what ingredients to build the next dive
out of.
I also ask them if there is anything they want to work on or do.
It makes them part of the process and moves them towards guiding
themselves.
Use "Show me ..." for debriefing the past and briefing the future.
Sometimes I still find myself falling back into math teacher mode,
standing there with a piece of chalk in my hand talking at them.
But getting them actively, physically engaged is more effective.
It also helps to learn some of their background. I talk to dancers
and gymnasts one way and engineers another and use canopy analogies
with pilots and so on. Relating skydiving things to stuff they
already know works pretty well.
And finally it helps me to keep perspective. This person may be
a famous brain surgeon or concert pianist who is just having a
little trouble finding their legs in freefall or guaging when
to flair.
After a few hundred jumps we tend to forget how complex and
intimidating skydiving really is.
----
There is always a bit of guess work and evaluation even with
people I already know, but they all get a reasonably nutritious
dive.
Actually I get fooled by fall rate more than anything else.
----
In some ways teaching skydiving is really easy. These guys are
already motivated by three very powerful factors:
- Desire to be included in the group - the coaching group,
the experienced jumpers, the skydiving world in general
- The whole self esteem, empowerment cluster - it feels good
to get good, to master new techniques, to overcome fears, etc
- Skydiving itself - It's fun to do and you don't want to get
hurt - You want to say "Aw, shit" as few times as possible
It's not like we're at work trying to motivate them to do some
dubious project that nobody wants to do.
They already want to and we're just helping them learn how.
----
And finally, remember when uncertainty and weirdness arise, that
we have each other and all the AFF guys in the other hangar to
help us out.
Skr
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