“Hard landing in strong/gusty winds” fatalities

[chuckakers 425]

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If you land without injury, you made the right call.

Given your logic, a jumper would be encouraged to use what could just be dumb luck as the benchmark for future decisions.

Please tell me you don't teach that insanity to the noobs.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[fasted3 0]

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If you land without injury, you made the right call.

Given your logic, a jumper would be encouraged to use what could just be dumb luck as the benchmark for future decisions.

Please tell me you don't teach that insanity to the noobs.

You're right, that statement was poorly worded. My thinking was to point out that some do jump safely in winds a bit higher than my personal limits. It is difficult to judge just exactly where someone's limit is by their posts on the internet. I did mention that my own philosophy on the subject is to err on the side of caution. If asked, I will discuss it with anyone at the DZ, but I don't instruct anyone, or go out of my way to inflict my standards on noobs or anybody else. I sometimes mention that most of the accidents I've seen have happened during borderline weather.
I hope this clears up my earlier statement.

But what do I know?

[Beachbum 0]

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The wind does not have to be "strong" to be dangerous. Of course that word is very subjective however it's the gusts in particular that are dangerous. I have my limit to less than 10 mph steady wind to gust differential. In other words if the wind is steady at 2 mph and it's gusting to 12 it's no less dangerous than the difference between 15 and 25 as far as canopy collapse risk goes

Someone straighten me out if I'm out in left field here, but I'm not sure I agree with that entirely. Even given the same differential between low/high end, wouldn't the odds of non object related turbulence increase with the stronger winds?

As long as you are happy with yourself ... who cares what the rest of the world thinks?

[riggerpaul 1]

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The wind does not have to be "strong" to be dangerous. Of course that word is very subjective however it's the gusts in particular that are dangerous. I have my limit to less than 10 mph steady wind to gust differential. In other words if the wind is steady at 2 mph and it's gusting to 12 it's no less dangerous than the difference between 15 and 25 as far as canopy collapse risk goes

Someone straighten me out if I'm out in left field here, but I'm not sure I agree with that entirely. Even given the same differential between low/high end, wouldn't the odds of non object related turbulence increase with the stronger winds?

Sure, higher speed winds are often more dangerous than lower speed winds.

But that doesn't mean you MUST have high winds for there to be significant danger.

Even low winds under just the wrong conditions can be deathly dangerous.

For example, in the summer in Byron CA, we often have very hot temps with pretty low winds. At these times, however, we can have problems with dust devils. These are relatively small (compared to say, tornadoes, that is) cyclonic events that can toss a canopy and jumper around as though they were a feather. Canopy collapses of an extreme nature are possible and have happened. The resultant injuries required airlifting the victim out to the nearest trauma center.

So don't just go happily thinking that low winds means everything is just fine.

[phoenixlpr 0]

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Well, we can review this after some years an another 1000 jump....I might not be right, but alive and jumping is enough for me.

And that’s fine for you, if you are willing to subject yourself to the additional risk. But should you put it out there as good advice for the younger jumpers to follow? I don’t think so.

Sparky

There are thing hard to measure like thickness of splitted hair or additional risk.

Have I told that any younger jumper should jump at any certain condition? I don't think so.

How can they jump anyway because conditions can change to bad in no time and they might take some additional risk too.

[billvon 2,990]

>conditions can change to bad in no time and they might take some additional risk too.

Yep. But the really smart jumpers can avoid 99.9% of those risky conditions. Course, you actually have to think.

[popsjumper 2]

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Have I told that any younger jumper should jump at any certain condition? I don't think so.

Have you never heard, "Hey! If he can do it, I can do it too!"

Be careful what you put out to youngsters.
Leading by example is a good thing...IF you are setting a good example.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[popsjumper 2]

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>conditions can change to bad in no time and they might take some additional risk too.

Yep. But the really smart jumpers can avoid 99.9% of those risky conditions. Course, you actually have to think.

Yep...there's catch to it all.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[Beachbum 0]

No doubt about the dust devils. I haven't seen any while at local dz's here, but have seen them more than one year at Lost Prairie ... nasty stuff. The first year we went up there, we were sitting filling out waiver forms and watched one roll half a tandem canopy under. TI pumped like mad, and it came back open in time ... student never had a clue I don't think. They're not TOO bad as long as they go over something they can pick up to make them visible, but once it was all nice and green, and they didn't pick up hardly anything so were very difficult to spot.

As long as you are happy with yourself ... who cares what the rest of the world thinks?

[DARK 0]

maybe it would help if the people debating what is ok to go in or not put up the wind speeds they are talking about

for all we know chuckakers sit down speed and phoenixs' are the same

were i work the tandems take a 1 hour stand down if the wind hits 30mph no matter what, if it hits 30 again that resets the hour. some ti's will have sat down before this anyway. if 3 sit down then the plane is grounded

students are kept on the ground if it goes over 10mph

licence limits generally start to come about somewhere between 20/25mph

if its gusting thats a different story and its judged on a case by case basis. it could be 10mph gusting to 20/25 and everyone will be on the ground

we had ridicolous wind conditions at our biggest boogie last year and all the locals were on the ground enjoying the other activities of the weekend but there were still visitors sending up loads. most of us chose not to watch those loads

[Skyper 0]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tgVyJ2bmqE

[DocPop 1]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tgVyJ2bmqE

That was f...king scary.

Very odd to see someone on a 98 sq ft x-brace come in so conservatively though. I think there is something more to this story. If he was worried about the winds he flew his canopy completely wrong (ie. all the toggle inputs).

"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

[Skyper 0]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tgVyJ2bmqE

That was f...king scary.

Very odd to see someone on a 98 sq ft x-brace come in so conservatively though. I think there is something more to this story. If he was worried about the winds he flew his canopy completely wrong (ie. all the toggle inputs).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e70RDItSTe8

[phoenixlpr 0]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tgVyJ2bmqE

That was f...king scary.

Very odd to see someone on a 98 sq ft x-brace come in so conservatively though. I think there is something more to this story. If he was worried about the winds he flew his canopy completely wrong (ie. all the toggle inputs).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e70RDItSTe8

Whole thing started with flaring high. I could not see his left hand.

[jumpdude17 0]

so what is the best way to handle strong winds should I hook for speed or should i do a straight in approach??? i have been jumping a cross brace for the last 200 jumps but still have trouble with the strong gusty winds....i have heard the a higher wing loading is better for strong winds, should i wear weights to help with the conditions???

[hookitt 1]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tgVyJ2bmqE

That was f...king scary.

Very odd to see someone on a 98 sq ft x-brace come in so conservatively though. I think there is something more to this story. If he was worried about the winds he flew his canopy completely wrong (ie. all the toggle inputs).

Doc, I jump in very windy conditions regularly. Conditions where I jump often change but most of us simply grow accustomed to it.


What I'm going to ask is, what's completely wrong with just using toggles?

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[DocPop 1]

What I saw on that video was a lot of unnecessary toggle input between the final turn and the flare. This robs the canopy of speed and therefore stability. That's what I meant by it being flown badly for the conditions. The pilot should have let the canopy fly in full flight.

Having said that, I don't there was anything that would have helped in this case as it was so severe.

"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

[Mr.B 0]

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What I saw on that video was a lot of unnecessary toggle input between the final turn and the flare. This robs the canopy of speed and therefore stability. That's what I meant by it being flown badly for the conditions. The pilot should have let the canopy fly in full flight.

More speed / higher internal canopy pressure certainly helps in most cases with "unstable air", but I think that in this case, the fact ,that the jumper was flying with a little bit of brakes applied, might have actually saved him/her some bones. I imagine, that if the canopy was in full flight, a forward surge after collapse would be greater, and it would cause a greater altitude loss during recovery (unless a jumper would apply brakes just before collapse recovery, but the whole "event" happened so fast, that the jumper probably wouldn't be able to react so quickly ).
One thing for sure - someone was very lucky

cheers,
Bart