Ground rush

[jraf 0]

I had a awkward moment this weekend. I was diving a 3 way. The jump went great. We broke off as planned at 3,500 feet. I tend to Get out of Dodge pretty religiously, so the track was flat but long. As I was about get ready to deploy, still in track I looked around to make sure that the air is clear. Well sure enough, here I see someone in a completely unstable track coming towards me quite fast. This meant getting out of Dodge again. I pulled at 2,200 feet. I know it is still OK, but the houses looked quite large. I make a habit of not pulling below 3,000 on a normal jump.
What I found out was that the kid (not licenced yet) did a tracking high solo. He tracked along the line of flight chasing my group. Why I don't want to know. He claimed he saw me, but if I dumped as initially planned, I am pretty sure he would have wound up in my canopy. I must say I was real nice to him, we talked, analyzed the incident together and both learned our lessons.

jraf

Me Jungleman! Me have large Babalui.
Muff #3275

[chachi 0]

Sounds to me you did a good and smart thing looking around. However, I am confused, you say you were breaking off at 3500 ft. and you don't like to pull below 3000 ft. By the time you turn and start tracking you are most likely below 3000 ft. You should plan your breakoff higher if you like to be open above 3000 ft. More like 4500 ft. It is good to hear you both are ok and have learned things from this incident.

~45

[SkydiveMonkey 0]

I've seen a few people who only leave 500 feet to wave, turn, get a good track, wave, and pull. There's no way you can do all that in 2.5 - 3 seconds.

____________________
Say no to subliminal messages

[Kris 0]

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I've seen a few people who only leave 500 feet to wave, turn, get a good track, wave, and pull. There's no way you can do all that in 2.5 - 3 seconds.

Agreed! A 500 foot track is nowhere near long enough. I have a minimum breakoff of 4500 for a 3-4 way freefly and 5000 for a 4-8 way freefly.

Is that extra few seconds of freefall really worth the potential trouble caused by poor separation? I don't think so.

Stay safe, Jraf.

Kris

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[alan 1]

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We broke off as planned at 3,500 feet. I tend to Get out of Dodge pretty religiously, so the track was flat but long.

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I make a habit of not pulling below 3,000 on a normal jump.

You do realize that you are travelling vertically at about 176'/sec when you break off as planned at 3500'? Better do some simple math and you will realize how unlikely it is for you to track "flat but long" or get out of Dodge religiously and still open at 3000' Turn, track, check air, wave off, and deploy all in less than 3 seconds???

That being said, it sounds as if the unlicensed jumper made a serious error and you handled it well. Does the other person have a "Coach" or Instructor? Maybe a gentle and discreet mention of it to them would be helpful to someone else down the road.

alan

[JPA 0]

It seems as if the voices of reason have spoken so it must be time for my nonsensical bleatings...ground rush at 2200 is fun but it's better at 1200...just don't roll the nose as much and turn your cypres off

[jraf 0]

Sheeesh, seems my typo created a lot of confusion. Guys, my mistake - we broke off at 4,500. 3,500 was the planned dumoing altitude. Sorry.

jraf

Me Jungleman! Me have large Babalui.
Muff #3275

[Casch 0]

I know the student made a serious mistake...unfortunately it's not uncommon...I did it too. I wasn't even trying to track, it just happened and I never saw the 4 way above my head. They ended up breaking up early and tracking away from me and I dumped at 4k. Tom Heelen had some words for me...I'm sure he was holding waaaaay back though. Tom -> me ->

[skygirlpc 0]

I just wanted to say (from someone relatively new to the sport).... Thanks for being nice to the student! While I haven't made this same mistake I have had someone with more skydives come over and really give me a hard time about something! Being a person that really doesn't like confrontation, I have a hard time with this! Thanks again! The only way for us to learn is for those of you that are more experienced to take the time to teach us!

[TomAiello 26]

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It seems as if the voices of reason have spoken so it must be time for my nonsensical bleatings...ground rush at 2200 is fun but it's better at 1200...just don't roll the nose as much and turn your cypres off

1200 Feet?!

That's not Groundrush!

1200 feet is exit altitude.

300 feet is good, conservative pull height.

Groundrush starts when you're still in freefall at 250 feet.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[PhreeZone 20]

>300 feet is good, conservative pull height

To half the people I know... 300 is a good Exit height...

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[jraf 0]

Well I am no skygod, and a skygod once tried to bark at me...once! He was really sorry he did. I dont' take shit from anybody. The best advice I have received was a discussion about what happened and friendly advice how to avoid it - that is the way civilized people communicate.

jraf

Me Jungleman! Me have large Babalui.
Muff #3275

[steve1 5]

I think you did the right thing by keeping your cool, and talking with this student. I'll bet knowing that he endangered both your lives was enough. He certainly needs to know that he messed up though, so that it doesn't happen again.

And I know what you mean by someone getting in your face and hollering. I can't handle that either. I go ballistic real fast in such cases.

Last Christmas, at Perris, we had two guys that almost had a collision. The guy on top was at fault. This resulted in a huge confrontation in front of the rest of us. There are better ways to handle this, even though a person is really pissed.

I know of a couple other jumpers who had a collision and survived. I think both of them were at fault. Neither seem to me to be very safe. One was tracking directly over the other and the guy on the bottom gave a very short wave off. I refuse to jump with either now. Steve1

[Ron 10]

OK...
Long time Ago in a DZ (ARK) far from where I am now.(FL)
I had a friend show up and he wanted someone to video his 300th jump. He was going to video a Tandem, and he wanted me to video him. Seemed simple enough, hell I had over 200 jumps and was a "Master"...No really my D license said so!!!

They got me some video gear. We got in the plane, and started to climb to altitude. It was the last load of the day, and it started to get darkish. The Tandem Master decided to bail out around 7 instead of going to 10,000. Thats cool. I didn't have an Audible, (the "Timeout" was not even around yet, only the old style Dyter) And this was a 15 min. thrown together helmet. The Tandem Master pulled. My friend fliped on his back (I thought COOL I will do that for him). He flew up and waved then dumped....I fliped on my back to video him.

Thats when I saw it.....Horizon moving fast by my feet!!! Oh ,this is gonna suck! The Tandem Master jumped from 7 grand, but I guess he wanted to give the student more freefall for his money. (Or he had problems getting the handle I was not looking at him, but at my buddy). I timed it awhile ago and the Tandem I an guessing deployed around 2,500. My buddy around 1800 ish.

I rolled over and saw what I hope most people will never see. One spot on the ground, that does not move....The ground all around that spot however was moving away from that center spot at a very high speed. That non-moving spot was the place my head was going to hit.

I of couse died on impact.

Well not really. I had done a half roll to the left when I saw the horizon flying past. I was thinking "PULL THE RESERVE!!!!!" I was thinking this, and reaching for the silver handle when my main snapped open. Back then where I was a Raven 2 was the hot canopy. I am glad I didn't have a Stiletto/Velocity back then, I would have been dead. I guess I instinctivly threw the main as soon as I started to flip over.

I made one 90 deg turn and flared.....I did get my friends landing,and then the Tandem.

Looking at the video, you can see my Altimeter on my hand as I reach for the toggles....it was hard to see the exact Altitude, but the people on the ground and the video of the altimeter seem to point to around 400 feet AGL.

Thats ground rush!!!!

Well, I was lucky.

Don't just "Do" something new....work it out before. Employ every saftey device you can....the most important of these is a good plan.

Ron

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[billvon 2,998]

>I was thinking "PULL THE RESERVE!!!!!" I was thinking this, and
>reaching for the silver handle when my main snapped open. I guess
> I instinctivly threw the main as soon as I started to flip over.

Yep, and that's one of the reasons I don't even try any more to push 'go for your reserve below 1500.' It just won't happen - that instinct to open your main is too strong.

[Jimbo 0]

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Yep, and that's one of the reasons I don't even try any more to push 'go for your reserve below 1500.' It just won't happen - that instinct to open your main is too strong.

Maybe it won't happen all the time, but it does, or at least it can happen some of the time. I know of one jumper this year who for reasons that aren't important to this discussion found himself under 1000ft with nothing out, he had never gone for his main, but instead straight for the reserve. This is a very experienced skydiver, not a 100 or even 1000 jump wonder. I just wanted to point out that it _can_ happen, and even occasionally does.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[billvon 2,998]

>I just wanted to point out that it _can_ happen, and even
>occasionally does.

I think it _can_ happen. But I think it's very rare.

My favorite example - an AFF-JM planned a 4-way. We were exiting low (4000) and we planned to pull off a 4-way. He had his cypres on. I asked if he would use his main or reserve if he got low, and he said he'd pull his reserve if he was near 1000 feet. He pantomined pulling it once to 'prove' this to me.

We jumped, we broke off too low, he opened his main below 1000 feet, and his cypres fired. Here was an example of a current, experienced _instructor_ who both taught emergency procedures and had recently (just before the jump) practiced them, who was aware he might have to do it, and had decided that he would go for his reserve. Afterwards he told me he still couldn't make himself do it. I think this is the norm - our instincts are just too strong to break in emergency situations.

[wmw999 2,452]

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...I rolled over and saw what I hope most people will never see. One spot on the ground, that does not move....The ground all around that spot however was moving away from that center spot at a very high speed. That non-moving spot was the place my head was going to hit.

Man oh man oh man. I hope I NEVER get that T-shirt! Impressive, and thanks for sharing it.
Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[jraf 0]

Ron, I'm happy you are with us and I am NOT looking forward to re-living your experience - pretty hairy!

jraf

Me Jungleman! Me have large Babalui.
Muff #3275