NickyCal

We have a hard and simple rule already in place. Low man has right-of-way. Low man is closer to the ground, closer to pull time, and he cannot see you. If you end up above someone at the bottom end of a group jump, you had damn well better be watching for their wave off while you are also clearing the hell out of that airspace. I don't care if you are the king of perfectly executed barrel rolls, what difference does it make? So you do a speed inducing instability maneuver at pull time, see somebody above you, and... Well, and assume that they are going to follow protocol and get out of your way! There isn't a whole lot that you can do. Wave bigger? Take it a little lower, yes. But you need to assume that they are getting out of your way, you can't start moving and start the chain of events all over again. They need to avoid you! In almost all instances, doing a barrel roll at pull time accomplishes nothing constructive. It can certainly be a negative, causing instability, causing people to go too low, causing a wild and off heading opening. The list goes on. Doing a barrel roll at pull time is not something that should be a thing. We already have the thing. The thing is, if you are above someone, it is your responsibility to get out of the way when they wave off. The one thing that I did take away from this accident, and I think this is what we need to perhaps emphasize as the teaching point, is that if you are on a group dive like this and go low, you've got to give everybody a little more vertical separation, just in case. Which means that if you know your group tends to open at 3500, you might want to pull closer to 3000, just to be safe. You lose the luxury of opening high, just this once you're going to have to pull a little bit lower than your comfort zone, but this is better than meeting one of your friends plummeting to earth while you are already in the saddle.

I only have a little over 400 jumps, so my experience is low, but for me, doing a barrel roll to check my air space above when I am already reaching pull altitude would not be ideal. At that point, my focus is on stability and a nice clean canopy over my head. Also, barrel rolls are FAST! I'd probably have to do three to efficiently check the airspace above me, and by then I'd have had an AAD fire. I just don't see that as being the responsibility of someone at pull time. Wearing a full-face helmet, and in a belly to earth orientation, looking back above you is also of minimal assistance. You don't have much field of view. It is, however, your responsibility to not be above somebody. We've all been on jumps that went wrong, and I've certainly been in a position of looking down and saying, "Uh oh!" (possibly in less polite terms). You get the hell out of the way, or especially on a small dive like this, you pull. You know that nobody else is above you. I see a couple of things that probably went wrong here. Obviously, the higher jumper was not paying attention to where the lower man was. However, she had very few jumps, and there is a lot going on in a 5-way. She isn't just concentrating on the dive flow, she's got a million other things in her head being that new. And her eyes aren't seeing the sky yet like a more experienced jumper would. Ideally, everybody concedes the airspace to her, being skilled enough to do what they need to do -- but the low man could not see her. His only option was to track away from the formation to the best of his ability, but more importantly, he loses the luxury of pulling high. He must pull below the rest of the group, to be absolutely sure of clear air space, since he is now below and has lost track of a new jumper. I don't think that a barrel roll has anything to do with this situation. A newer jumper was not aware of her surroundings. A more experienced jumper did not think clearly enough to get himself out of the way, having gone low and not knowing what was going on above him. I think it's as simple as that. A perfect storm.

Twice. Once, pilot informed us that winds had completely shifted direction since takeoff and were 30 knots, gusting 37. I was the only person who rode down, and holy wow, was that an interesting landing in crazy crosswinds. Might actually have been safer to jump!! The second time, there was a terrified static line student who turned down. The instructor was also doing a jump with another student. I felt that he should have stayed in the plane, but, you know. So I opted to ride down with the shaking and white-as-a-sheet static line refuser, who I didn't think should be left in the plane on his own.

You know, we looked all over and couldn't find anybody doing it this way (thus my assumption that it wasn't a good idea, after he'd been told "impossible!" by the local riggers). But, sounds like not only has it been done, but he's right on track with how he wants to do it. So, I'll leave it and let him experiment. I'll give him that info, as well, in case he wants to check in. Thanks so much. I feel more at ease!

I'm going on the assumption that this is a bad idea, and thus is not the done thing. Obviously, a big ol' weight and dropping the flag on the ground are not ideal, but if there was another way, surely it would be in practice. Other equally inexperienced jumper (~550 jumps, 3 years in the sport, not a rigger) is rigging a flag into his D lines in preparation for "demo season" in the local area. He won't listen to the wisdom of riggers and more senior jumpers on the DZ -- "they just don't want me to do it because they didn't think of it themselves!". Before he goes out and gets himself killed/injured/embarrassed in front of an audience, can we please get some expert knowledge and wisdom on the subject? What say you experienced riggers? His plan is either to put it in the D lines or to rig a separate flag line at the back (attached to canopy) via which he will "raise" the flag after opening. Many thanks in advance.

Tore my ACL quite badly awhile back, and was on an 8 month wait for surgery via NHS. By the time that I got the call, I was mobile again, so decided to forego the surgery altogether. I used a knee brace for a few years when it felt unstable, but these days, I don't even notice it unless I do some pretty serious cycling. Jumping does not affect it at all. Rest up for now, let it heal, and you'll be good to go again. Good luck!

Excellent articles and information. Thank you for your time and efforts here! I have been to far too many DZs (including my current DZ) where people actually actively believe that wearing seatbelts is MORE dangerous than not. The DZO and one of our pilots, included. Quick question, only because I'm being lazy this morning and can't quickly find the answer. We had some new kids out at the DZ this weekend who said they've changed the seatbelt recommendation to 1500 ft. I've been used to 1000 ft in a Cessna, and some bigger DZs ask for 1500 ft in the larger planes. Has there been an official change to 1500 ft. all around? Did I miss this? Thanks!

Seamless Rigging makes a fantastic product (actually, range of products!), with quality workmanship, great customer service, and will be happy to work with you in detail on EXACTLY what you want and need. Both my husband and I have had Seamless Rigging magnetic bags for over a year now and would never go back. I have put at least 150 jumps on my bag (darn pregnancy slowed me down for awhile!), and my husband has probably 300. Openings are smooth and packing is a breeze. I highly recommend Seamless Rigging.

I use the bag made by Seamless Rigging, completely stowless, and have had absolutely no issues with deployment, either from full altitude or on hop n' pops. in fact, last weekend we did a cross country, and so I pulled literally right off the step, and it was a beautiful smooth opening. The only thing that I am less fond of in the fully stowless bag is that you can't really muscle the canopy into submission and then rubberband it tight (packing a brand new canopy at the moment!). You actually do need to pack it properly, because the bag will only contain the pack job that you slide into it. If you are used to making a mess of it and squeezing it in with the help of the rubber bands, a stowless bag is not for you! I am s-folding my brand new canopy properly now, instead of being lazy, so it's all good.

He has a GoPro as well (which I'm assuming is somewhat comparable to the Action Cam series?), but was looking for something with a bit more "professional" quality. Do you think that the Action Cam fits that bill? As far as trading in the Contour and using something different than a GoPro.

Asking this question on behalf of my other half. He's been getting into the camera flying gig at our little DZ and using a Contour side mount and a Cannon DSLR on top. However, he's not thrilled with the old Contour and would like to trade up for a Sony of some variety. As we started to look at them, however, the options are incredibly diverse and he's not sure what the best models would be for the skydiving discipline. He found a good deal on the CX405, which it appears is a lower end model, but is there good reason not to go that route as a first foray into the Sony brand? Thoughts or advice would be much appreciated.