1st Tandem Cutaway

[flyer299 0]

Well, 1,000 jumps, several hundred Tandems, and I had a cut away yesterday.

I often wondered what goes through your head when you look up and figure out that you can't land the canopy you have over your head? I wondered if there would be any hesitation or if there would be any fear at all. There wasn't.

The opening seemed normal, about the time I started to stuff the rip cord into my shirt (Vector 2 Rig), The canopy started a real good left turn. My 1st thought was break came loose, so I reached up and pulled on both toggles. 1st pump seemed to make the spin faster, Second Pump made it even faster. I didn't hang around to see what the 3rd pump would do. At this time it felt like a faster turn than I ever saw on my Velocity 120.

I looked down, Touched Right, Touched Left, Peal and punch, Peal and Punch. Only a few short seconds and I had a good reserve over my head.

The whole time, my Passenger was talking about how cool the skydive was. When I chopped, I just said, "Hold on a sec". After we were under the reserve he asked, "Did something just happen?" I turned to face the cut away and pointed, "See that over there, that was our first canopy". His head sunk down and he said, "I feel queasy"

Landed in the center of the landing area with out any problems.

I will be making a trip the to liquor store this afternoon, Case of beer for the guys and a bottle of the good stuff for my rigger.

Blue Skies All!

[entropothic 0]

That's awesome. Good student reactions. I'm kinda curious myself about having a tandem cutaway. I have to have a regular cutaway before i can get my rating this spring... i'm kinda curious actually how i'll react to both. Glad to hear that it was second nature to ya.

[Adrenalinejunky 0]

When I was learning to skydive, it was drilled into my head to practice my emergency procedures before each skydive to keep them fresh in my mind. With almost 1200 jumps, there hasn't been a single skydive that I haven't practiced my procedures more than once before exiting the airplane. The one and only time so far that I found myself needing that knowledge, it was second nature. I didn't even think about it. Since becoming a tandem instructor, I have often wondered if I will handle my first tantem cutaway in the same manner. Before I get into the plane, I always touch all of my handles and go through the same routine as I did before. I hope that when it comes time for my first tandem cutaway, practicing my procedures before every tandem jump will prepare me as well as it did in the past. It is good to hear that someone else has had the same thoughts as I have, and good to know that everything went well.

[flyer299 0]

Touching your Handles several times before every jump is something I teach all of my students. And I live by it myself. For me (jumping back and forth between Tandems and Sport Gear), it is a good way to say, "Hey Brain, these are the handles for this jump!"

Once I saw the canopy wasn't going to work, there was no time delay for me to think, I went straight for the handles and it was done before I knew what happened.

It was interesting, on the very next jump... Yes I landed and they said, congrats, here is another rig try and keep the main this time. I did a good gear check, and all was ok. I touch all my handles on the way to the plane and all was good. After I hooked my student up, I did my last round of handle touches and guess what... A DROUGE RELEASE WAS MISSING! Needless to say, I let everyone else exit and we road the plane down to correct the issue. I never did find that missing handle. My best guess is that it got caught while I was getting into the plane. We are borrowing a 206 from another dropzone while our 182 is getting a new engine. So we are still working on figuring out the best seating, and the plane was VERY tight. But if that isn't a reason for checking your handles MULTIPLE times before you jump, I don't know what is.

[jheadley 0]

Quote

Touching your Handles several times before every jump is something I teach all of my students. And I live by it myself.

I'm a compulsive gear checker and handle toucher, but then I realized a little while ago that I would never actually pull my handles while on the ground or in the plane... so now I still touch my handles in the plane but on every solo skydive I do, I practice touching them in freefall, and I always touch them under canopy immediately after I open and turn to clear airspace.

It's kind of funny, I was taught the two-hands-on-each-handle method of EPs but I decided to switch to the one hand on each handle method about 150 jumps ago, so I've been practicing that, but the first time I practiced touching my handles in freefall, about 40 jumps ago, I instinctively went to the two hands method.

[ShaggyFord 0]

Quote

Quote

Touching your Handles several times before every jump is something I teach all of my students. And I live by it myself.

And it's also a requirement, at least for Strong, to do a handles check in freefall too.

My first paid tandem was a cutaway (its in another post). The cutaway went smooth, except the cutaway handle I needed two hands to strip it from the velcro.

• Quote

[packerboy 3]

There was a tandem student at our dropzone last summer who's reaction to a cutaway was "Wow, that was awesome, can we do it again?"

--------------------------------------------------
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. ~ Thomas Jefferson

[entropothic 0]

Quote

There was a tandem student at our dropzone last summer who's reaction to a cutaway was "Wow, that was awesome, can we do it again?"

I actually remember hearing a student tell one of our instructors that had a cutaway on his jump that it was awesome because he got "2 freefalls for the price of one"

[flyer299 0]

You know, 1,000 jumps and almost 4 years before my 1st cutaway (as posted above).

2 weeks later and about 10 tandems later... Cutaway #2. Turns out our Drouge was in need of some TLC and was giving us some really long trap doors. Cutaway #2 ended up in bad body position in the trap door followed by line twists. 1st I thought I would just kick out of them, then I found my self looking up at the horizon. I didn't like that too much, so Chop!

The snivle on my reserve was MUCH longer than my 1st cut away, but other than that it was picture perfect.

[flyer299 0]

Oh yeah, my student was happy he got 2 freefalls for the price of one. He got on the ground with his friend (also did a tandem on the same load) and was bragging that he got a 2 for 1 special.