Swoopers vs. Non-Swoopers in the Pattern

[AggieDave 6]

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IMO ALL PILOTS should be actively flying their vertical and horizontal seperation from opening until landing.

I mentioned that in my earlier post, but people are getting hung up on the side effects that I mentioned.

Basically this thread and the others like it are proving to me that most people don't give a shit about other people in the landing pattern and only think of themselves. Not just the swoopers, but others too. "Who cares if I don't fly a pattern." "Who cares if I do S-turns, its my RIGHT to do S-turns." "Its my RIGHT to go into deep brakes on final with other jumpers stacking up behind me."

Some common sense, some consideration for others and some basic understanding of modern canopy flight (notice I didn't say "swooping") would fix our problems, but no, people don't care. They want to blame a single group of people and continue on about themselves.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Spizzzarko 0]

Us old RW guys do fly smaller canopies and do HP landings.


Dude if you are over 29 and swooping then you are mooth! There is an age limit to this kind of stuff. You geezers are dangerous... We don't want yall having a heart attack in the pattern and causing all of us younger people to have to dodge you while you are having angina! Old swoopers are like old drivers. They are dangerous to the general populous because they don't realize that they are slower in mind and reaction. Remember the next life you save could be your own. Just give it up and get a manta now so that you don't kill any of us!

[davelepka 4]

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Some common sense, some consideration for others and some basic understanding of modern canopy flight (notice I didn't say "swooping") would fix our problems, but no, people don't care. They want to blame a single group of people and continue on about themselves.

Part of this is ignorance. If people don't understand a pattern, and how to use it, and how other people use it, you can't expect them to attach too much importance to it.

If the education was in place to transfer the book knowledge, and the culture was in place to support compotent canopy piloting (not swooping) as being cool, you would see a different situation.

Non-swoopers would take pride in flying a clean pattern, with dead on accuracy, and sweet flare. Just like AC pilots take pride in flying a clean IFR approach down to minnimums and putting it right down on the numbers.

If they know how and why, and that their friends are all watching to see how good they are, then they'll do what you want them to do.

[AggieDave 6]

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If the education was in place to transfer the book knowledge, and the culture was in place to support compotent canopy piloting (not swooping) as being cool, you would see a different situation.

Some of the worst offenders are people that have over 1000 jumps and a decent amount of time in the sport. Even when folks like Brian Germain or Scott Miller try to nudge them gently towardst the right, they get an attitude.

Luckily there are some people out there that are working hard at their own DZs training their students and low time jumpers. Its not the best answer, but atleast we can work hard to train the next generation of jumpers to fly right.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[davelepka 4]

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Some of the worst offenders are people that have over 1000 jumps

Having 1000 jumps just means that you had the time and the money to make the skydives. It doesn't stop you from being a dick.

[yardhippie 0]

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Some of the worst offenders are people that have over 1000 jumps

Having 1000 jumps just means that you had the time and the money to make the skydives. It doesn't stop you from being a dick.

Well now were talking about education of dicks. IMHO, teaching dicks anything "new" or "different" is like shaving with a cheese grater. It doesnt mean it cant be done. Its just met with great resistance. This I seem to find is not just in our sport. It has to do with anything in life where someone feels they "know it all". I see it in my job constantly. The problem has become, and I am guilty of it in my job, we just catch the ones we can, leaving the dicks alone. It makes our lives, for the moment, easier. Yet in the long run, we are probably hurting ourselves. Possibly literally.

A few courses of action need to be taken.
The majority of the skydiving "population" must confront dick about his pattern.
Dont take no shit from dick.
If dick dont like it, the DZO needs to send dick packing.

but thats only a small portion of the issue. We do have young pilots that dont understand and are afraid to ask, or dont even know to ask.

So we have a muti-faceted problem where ALL sides must be addressed. Its not a one answer cures the problem question.

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[jacketsdb23 49]

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but thats only a small portion of the issue. We do have young pilots that dont understand and are afraid to ask, or dont even know to ask.

Amen to that. I'm a new jumper and feel like I ask questions when I don't understand something. I don't feel that all new jumpers do. I think canopy control including landing patterns and flight paths needs to have some emphasis placed on it.

On another note, I supposedly screwed up a pattern and was yelled at by an individual. But that individual would not go out to the landing area with me and explain it because they had to pack to get on the next load. I asked repeatedly. I wrote it off as somebody who was just pissed at where they landed other than a safety issue.

If we see people doing something wrong, lets take the time to teach them instead of getting pissed, making snippy comments and hurrying to the next airplane.

Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen
God is Good
Beer is Great
Swoopers are crazy.

[davelepka 4]

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I supposedly screwed up a pattern and was yelled at by an individual

Thats bullshit. Here's the way it works-

Either you've figured out that you can't trust anyone up there, and that counting on another jumper to perform in a certain way in order for your personal plan to work out is a giant mistake. In this case, you have no one but yourself to blame when things don't go how you want.

If you haven't figured that out yet, then you have no place to yell at anyone. That guy is a douche.

[stratostar 5]

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I really don't think of the "large S-turns" as stupid.***

I happen to agree with you to a point, when doing classic A or round jumps. The problem here is your trying to discuss this concept with the 40% er's (even though I don't know the ages of any of them, look at the years in the sport for those who replied) and you will always get comments from them like this,

Not necessarily. One might disagree, since most of those old timers fly the erratic S-turn patterns on big squares and quite a few FF fly higher performance stuff
and set ups. ***

The reason you hear the "new breed" say this stuff is 1. canopies have changed and there are way more zoomies today & 2. none of these people learned the way we did and ever used the techniques, so them "old timers fly the erratic S-turn patterns on big squares" it is seen as erratic, because they don't understand working the wind line in that manner, where as when this was common we understood what was going on and it was normal and not erratic at all and was predictable.

Anyone who has done many round jumps and then changed to squares or did a FJC (early squares) back then will understand my point, and the rest just won't get it, it is a real skill to fly backwards 'S" turns across windline to land on target, once we got squares we kept the "S" turns but now we could go forward most of the way instead of backwards,running,crab'n most of the way.

I still jump rounds for fun and practice those skills of yesterday and it always blows the new kids mind when I can back up all the way to the LZ and land in the LZ, because they think you have no control under a round, I can do it with a T-10 and I can do it with a PC, I can spot, with all that said if I chose to do a jump like this with a round or a square I do a H&P from the 182 so I can have the sky to myself, it's no different then swoopers doing H&P's to do their thing.

As I said in another forum there is a time and place for everything, and as many poster say we need to understand with education what the swoopers are doing, I find it kind of funny how the same wasn't extended to the old school rules, they were just thrown out all together and now the big "L" pattern is the standard now.

The reason I say this is I still use those skills on tight demos or out landings, I'm glad I can have the experience from those old school skills they have come in handy more then once over the years. I realize no one dose it today as a standard and those skills have gone the same way of spotting, and that is why I chose to do those jumps by myself (or other old school jumper) in open airspace.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[yardhippie 0]

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I supposedly screwed up a pattern and was yelled at by an individual

Thats bullshit. Here's the way it works-

Either you've figured out that you can't trust anyone up there, and that counting on another jumper to perform in a certain way in order for your personal plan to work out is a giant mistake. In this case, you have no one but yourself to blame when things don't go how you want.

If you haven't figured that out yet, then you have no place to yell at anyone. That guy is a douche.

Definite douche.

Its rare I say anthing to anyone, but one of my goals for this year is to change that. I also plan to address it in a calm, and helpful manner. Being agressive and loud will only breed resentment.

Ian has a nice approach to people in those situations. (When he doesnt have a corn cob up his ass ) He'll walk up to them, ask their name, how was their dive, etc, and then TALK to them. We cant expect to accomplish anything with yelling.

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[davelepka 4]

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Its rare I say anthing to anyone, but one of my goals for this year is to change that

As an outside observer, you can say whatever you want.

As the supposed 'victim' of some wrong doing at the hands of another jumper, your comments would be out of place. It's your fault for leaving yourself open to whatever happened to you.

Don't get me wrong, accidents do happen, but in the case of a true 'accident' all parties are equally at fault for the incident.

[rehmwa 2]

I'll triple that 'douche' comment. If someone is so put off that they yell or lose their temper, they should not be listened to. 1 - they might be just as wrong, 2 - they won't be able to explain the issue well, 3 - they'll get brushed off as a selfish hothead

better to wait until cooled off then talk AND listen to the other person to figure out what really happened

WAY too often there is no listening, even when being cool - and even if the other person is in the wrong, it helps to understand their perspective on the incident to figure out why they think that way

no one "purposely" causes unexpected traffic - the worst thing you can do is treat them like they did it on purpose.......

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[skybytch 273]

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better to wait until cooled off then talk AND listen to the other person to figure out what really happened

Or take the issue to the dz's S&TA/CCI. That's part of what they are there for, and they should be able to handle it diplomatically.

[frost 1]

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Not sure how organizing the load to wing loading would work.

Not saying that exit order of RW vs FF should be based on wingloading, just suggesting that it should be known what types of canopies/wingloadings are on the load. If there are 2 same discipline and similar sized groups - let the one with smaller/higher loaded canopies go first, even if they have 3 people vs 4 in your group. As trivial as it seems you'd be surprised how many times i heard from a 4 way FF with big canopies that they should go ahead of a 3 way FF with small canopies because their group is larger.

And even that is just another small point to keep in mind. My point was - staying out of trouble is quite a process. It starts at the loading area, continues to the the exit of the group in front of you, to knowing where everyone else in the sky on opening, to setting up for the turn, to landing and walking to the packing area. I was just asking if may be these accidents failed somewhere in the beginning of this process...

Ultimately it's your own responsibility to stay on top of that, and as someone already said... everyone involved did something wrong. if it is not both parties fault, then definitely the more experienced guy should have known better.

on another note, trying to minimize the chances of something bad happening by telling others what to do, is a waste of time. Educating a dick is a waste of time. people will always do what they want to do, will hear what they want to hear. You know exactly what i am talking about. The best thing that can be done to minimize the chances of bad stuff happening is - take care of yourself first and do the right thing.

[polarbear 1]

I really think the best thing to do is to find a way to allow hop n'pops or high pulls, always. Places like Eloy will let you do it only at certain times. If you allow hop n' pops, most of the hard-core swoopers will likely choose to do that and will get filtered out of the mess.

I don't think organizing the load according to wing loading makes sense, simply becasue wingloading is only one factor. What about pull altitudes? What about flying styles? In order to maintain vertical seperation, common sense dictates that faster canopies open lower. However, The more HP a canopy I fly, the higher I find myself opening to allow suffcient altitude to deal with malfunctions.

Alternate landing areas are also a good idea, but at some DZs the real estate doesn't exist or it's just too expensive to build/maintain a second landing area.

I really think the easiest thing to do is not just allow but encourage hop n' pops or high pulls for the greater-than-180 crowd.

"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

[Deuce 1]

How in the heck can a greater than 90 be incorporated into the traditional downwind, base final pattern to the same landing area?

We have gliders at my DZ. How one could turn base and then pass the runway and then whoop a 270 to land and not get his license pulled by the FAA?

I'm ready to be convinced, but at some point in that maneuver the landing glider is directly opposing traffic in the pattern head-on!

There are individuals who can share that space safely, but that's a situation like an airshow, not an uncontrolled airport.

When we get to new airports it's usually "Left or right hand pattern, land into the wind." I've never had a briefing where I was instructed "And about here the swoopers who pull a 270 will go right, about here is where you pull a 180, and 740's from here.

Going big like that requires a seperate landing area or pulling high or hop and popping with the other pros.