First AFF Jump Tonight

[kootmando1979 0]

I went through the ground training on Sunday, but due to rain couldn't jump. I am going back tonight to make my first jump!!! I am very excited and very nervous at the same time. I have run through everything 1,000 times in my head. I am just worried about the landing. I cant PLF worth a darn. I did finally stop putting my hand down, but I still keep falling only on my hip. I am going to practice that some more when I get out to the dz tonight. Any thoughts on how to improve my PLF or is that something that just gets better over time?

[AFFI 0]

Talk to your instructors about any advice you need not the internet...

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[rave4funn 0]

I had to PLF for about my first thirty jumps. I definitely got better at it with practice. For the next twenty or so jumps I became very proficient at sliding them in on my butt. Come to think of it, I dont know why it took my so long to get the hang of landing.

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http://www.myspace.com/rave4funn

[SivaGanesha 2]

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I went through the ground training on Sunday, but due to rain couldn't jump. I am going back tonight to make my first jump!!! I am very excited and very nervous at the same time. I have run through everything 1,000 times in my head. I am just worried about the landing. I cant PLF worth a darn. I did finally stop putting my hand down, but I still keep falling only on my hip. I am going to practice that some more when I get out to the dz tonight. Any thoughts on how to improve my PLF or is that something that just gets better over time?

I agree with AFFI who said that your instructors should be your primary point of contact with questions--however, sometimes the view of someone closer to your own experience level can be helpful providing you always give precedence to what your instructors say.

So here are my two cents worth if you haven't gotten in the air yet--but hope you have by now!

I jumped for awhile in the 80's using round canopies and am now starting again, essentially from the beginning, with AFF after 20 years out of the sport. In my view, the PLF is mostly a holdover from the days of round canopies. With rounds, they didn't want you to attempt to judge when you would actually land--they felt that a first jump student risked injury if they did so. Instead, once you knew you were coming down in an obstacle free area, you would point your canopy into the wind, put your feet and knees together and slightly bent, and look out at the horizon. Then you'd wait for gravity to do its part--usually gravity obliged ;)--you wouldn't necessarily know exactly when you were going to land, but you would have the perfect body position to fall and roll as soon as you did.

With modern square canopies, there IS a lot of emphasis placed on judging when you are going to land so you can flare at the right time. With squares, IMHO, flying a good pattern, approach, and flare is far more important than the PLF. If you do a good flare, the landing is going to be pretty soft regardless...and if not, well, it may be another story entirely. The PLF is available as a backup if it looks like it may be a hard landing, and you should certainly approach with your feet and knees together and ready to do a good PLF. But the best case scenario isn't to do a good textbook PLF. The textbook PLF is really designed for use with round canopies.

Back in the 80's, I had some difficulty with the PLF as well, and my instructor spent a fair bit of time working with me until I could do it at least respectably before I got in the air. I'm not sure if your instructors will spend quite as much time, because these days it is a backup to doing a good flare rather than the primary landing method. The key, IMHO, is just to let yourself fall. If you are positioned correctly, with your feet and knees together and slightly bent, you will naturally fall to the side and then roll if you just let yourself fall. But of course there is a resistance to doing so--to break your fall in some way with a hand, etc, that just takes practice to overcome.

One thing they used to do in teaching the PLF, that they may or may not do as much now given that they seem to spend less time on the PLF, is to have you put a piece of paper between your knees. If your knees remain together throughout, you should be able to complete the PLF without the piece of paper ever coming loose. Focusing on using your knees to hold that piece of paper between them seems to help a lot in keeping you in the right position throughout.

Anyways good luck with your jump--and, like I said, take anything I say with a grain of salt if your instructors say something different.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[AFFI 0]

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IMHO, flying a good pattern, approach, and flare is far more important than the PLF.

I have seen students fly a very good pattern, flare and fracture there coccyx that put them out for 8 weeks, and I have seen students fly a lousy pattern and not flare at all - perform a good PLF (feet first and roll it out) and be on the next load.

Like I said, listen to your instructors, the internet has well intentioned skydivers offering advice that will undermine what it is your currently rated instructors will teach you...
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Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[SivaGanesha 2]

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I have seen students fly a very good pattern, flare and fracture there coccyx that put them out for 8 weeks,

May I ask why? Was it a good flare? What position was their body in? Something must have gone wrong in the flare for them to have broken something. Why was a PLF necessary and why didn't they do it if it was necessary?

I'm not disputing your experience but the way it reads it sounds like they did everything right but still had a negative outcome. What is the missing piece of information--where was the human error?

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[SivaGanesha 2]

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I have seen students fly a very good pattern, flare and fracture there coccyx that put them out for 8 weeks,

May I ask why? Was it a good flare? What position was their body in? Something must have gone wrong in the flare for them to have broken something. Why was a PLF necessary and why didn't they do it if it was necessary?

I'm not disputing your experience but the way it reads it sounds like they did everything right but still had a negative outcome. What is the missing piece of information--where was the human error?

It sounds--from the nature of the injury--that they may have flared too high and a better flare might have saved their ass (no pun intended ;) ). To me this underscores my point that the flare is the most important part.

It is true that someone could always, on every jump, come in with half brakes, land into the wind, never flare, and if they did a good PLF every time, and they would be fine. But that's not the goal of the sport and that's not what students are taught--students are taught to flare from the very first jump. (Yes, if the OP was taught something differently at his DZ, he/she should go with whatever they were taught.) Once you've decided you are going to flare, the first priority needs to be doing it right.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Any thoughts on how to improve my PLF or is that something that just gets better over time?

Your PLF won't naturally get better with time because you usually shouldn't need it. Should be a 1-in-1000 jumps sort of thing just like a cutaway.

BUT not PLFing when you need to sucks. With about 600 jumps under my belt I had a bad landing that I stood up (hooked a Stiletto 120 too low, bailed out, popped up in the air, stalled hard) and it hurt to walk for months.

So you might practice a little more.

[AFFI 0]

That is why it is important for students to obtain their training from instructors in person, and not from (well intentioned) individuals on the internet because these aspects of what may or may not be important on student landing is not fully understood by many, even those with "24" years of experience...
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Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[SivaGanesha 2]

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That is why it is important for students to obtain their training from instructors in person, and not from (well intentioned) individuals on the internet because these aspects of what may or may not be important on student landing is not fully understood by many, even those with "24" years of experience...
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I agree that their own instructors should be the PRIMARY point of contact for advice.

I do not agree the instructors should be the SOLE point of contact for advice. Sometimes the point of view of someone who is only slightly further along can be helpful because sometimes the perspective of a peer is helpful to have. Sometimes instructors (in anything, not just skydiving) forget what it was like to be students.

My own background is what it is--many years, few jumps. I do not pretend it is anything other than it is.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[DSE 5]

Perhaps a different way of looking at it:
Dr. Laura, Dr. Phil, and Dr. Demento can easily dispense with platitudes, homeopathies, and advice because they bear no responsibility for their listeners well-being. DZ.com is kinda like that; I can't begin to quantify what I've learned reading thousands of posts here.

But at the end of the day, I still go see my doctor for health problems, even if I can find the symptoms and remedies online, simply because my doctor can see me with her own eyes, and have an almost instant grasp of what's wrong vs me or an online community second-guessing based on experience, book learning, or suppositions.

In other words, good as all this advice may sound, at the end of the day, it's your ass on the line. Do you want to take advice at this critical point in your skydiving career from a bunch of nyms on the web, or from an instructor who is right there with direct focus on only you?

[SivaGanesha 2]

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Do you want to take advice at this critical point in your skydiving career from ... from an instructor who is right there with direct focus on only you?

But the instructor ISN'T "right there" when you are landing on an AFF jump, although they may be "right there" in freefall. Their advice should be given the respect it deserves but you alone must make the decisions re the landing from the very first jump. When I'm in a position where I'm going to have to take responsibility for an important decision (and, again, this applies to other things as well as skydiving) I like to seek out multiple points of view in advance, rather than relying on a sole individual, no matter how qualified.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[tdog 0]

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But the instructor ISN'T "right there" when you are landing on an AFF jump, although they may be "right there" in freefall. Their advice should be given the respect it deserves but you alone must make the decisions re the landing from the very first jump.

By that logic process, after AFF 2 - you need not pay attention to your instructors. On level 3, you are going to be let go. By the time you get to 4, 5, 6, 7 you are going to be doing flips, turns, rolls - all things that could cause pretty good separation - and in rare cases, so much your instructor cannot redock... So, you must make decisions as if the instructor is not there - because they might not be...

I have no problems with my students reading stuff anywhere and everywhere about skydiving... However, I also expect them to ask me before they deviate from my advice or rules.

I think in a thread like this - where someone has NO JUMPS and is asking for advice - they are asking for moral support, not technical advice.

I would simply say - "It is not very hard to land a parachute. Don't worry. Remain calm. Do what your instructors told you to do. You will do fine - as every skydiver had to do their first jump - and due to the canopies for students being big and docile, they are forgiving for mistakes. Before you jump, simply ask your instructors for more help to build your confidence in the landings, and/or watch other experienced and student skydivers to fully understand what you need to do."

See how you can build confidence to a student without compromising their training in giving technical advice?

[DSE 5]

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Do you want to take advice at this critical point in your skydiving career from ... from an instructor who is right there with direct focus on only you?

But the instructor ISN'T "right there" when you are landing on an AFF jump, although they may be "right there" in freefall.

They're not? Perhaps our DZ's have very different AFF programs.
Either way (to the original poster) as an instructor, I strongly urge you to absorb as much information from as many resources that you are comfortable with absorbing. However, your instructor isn't vicarious; he/she is with you, aware of you, and looking out for you based on visual contact, verbal communication, and body language during the landing process. Regardless of any thing else, your instructor is your single best resource at this point in time.
If you have concerns about your PLF, get to the DZ early and voice those concerns. While your instructor may or may not be able to address them, he/she will find someone who will. Everyone there wants to help you achieve a successful exit, freefall, and landing that has you jumping for joy as the last bit of fabric touches the ground.
Now that it's "tomorrow" from your original post, it'll be nice to hear how your first jump went.

[jeremy_o 0]

kootmando1979,
Ignoring all the bitching above me here...how did your FIRST AFF jump go?

http://planetskydive.net/ - An online aggregation of skydiver's blogs.

[kootmando1979 0]

OH MY GOSH! It was wonderful! My PLF was total crap, but I now know what I did wrong and I will fix that for Thursday. Knees weren't completely together.

I got out to the dz an hour early to practice the PLF and did get better at it. But, when it came to landing there was a slight hill and I hit it a bit hard because I didn't get my flare all the way down. Stopped at the half way point (dang it!). My practice flares under the canopy went well, I think it just takes me a little longer to complete them. I will talk to my instructor about that tomorrow.

I freaked a little at the door...didn't think I would be able to hold on to the strut. But holy cow, that isn't hard at all. (Now I know for next time) My freefall went fairly well. I was rock stable as my instructors said. (The next jump I am only going with one instructor because I was so stable) My circle of awareness went alright. I paused in between checking in and test pulls. My mind just went totally blank for a second. Waved off 500 feet late and pulled. Lost the rip cord, so I owe them $15 and a case of beer. The wind directions had changed so I was a bit away from the dz. Missed my 1000 foot mark, but made the 600 foot. Then I was radio'ed the rest of the way in. I talked about the landing above. Under the canopy I was beating myself up for dropping the rip cord and the delay in my test pulls.

The instructors said that I did really well. Can't wait to go again on Thursday.

I know to verify with my instructors anything that I read on the internet. I was just looking for pointers from others on how they PLF'ed.

Sorry this was so long. My family doesn't really understand, only my mom would listen to the whole run down.

It was amazing though. Thursday is going to seem like forever away!

[AFFI 0]

Congratulations!

Practicing the PLF is ultra important, so practice away and I am sure your instructors gave you pointers as to what to concentrate on practicing to prepare you for your next jump, no one knows better then they do at this point.
Sounds like you are doing everything right!

You will continue to improve with time, don’t beat yourself up, learning how to skydive is supposed to be fun, so relax, take it easy - and it is a lot of fun isn’t it?
My family did not exactly get it either, they were just happy I found something that I found so fufilling.
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Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[Zipp0 1]

My instructor told me to flare a bit early on my 4th jump as I was coming in to land, and a good PLF made the landing fun instead of painful. I'd much rather have a good PLF ready and not need it than need it and not have it.

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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.