Sgt.Sausage

==> . perhaps you thought this was an anonymous board Thats the fact, Jack! I had no intention of tying this to any named individuals, organizations/outfits/ etc. Bad assumption on my part. ==> looking like the guy who really DID know it all, I came here asking a question for something I most certainly did NOT know. Yes, it should have been handled differently in the way I posted it. I was in need of an attitude adjustment, have received sufficient motivation to make said adjustment. Consider it made. BTW - I'm not a beer drinker. Where does one find Stella in the area. Assuming they don't stock it in the local Qwikimart.

Let me start this out by saying: I have already admitted, publicly, loudly, and openly, the screw up here was my fault. I'm saying it again, right here, right now. Agreed. As was already acknowledged elsewhere in this thread and again here. Agreed. As already acknowledged elsewhere in this thread and again here. I don't think I ever had a problem with who's decision it was. I made the (bad) decision. I take full responsibility for that decision. I made a bad decision. Public apology, to both you and your instructor. It is I, me alone, who did not know what he was doing. But more on that in a bit ... ** I'm done with folks slamming me for my mistake. Keep calling me out. It will be ignored. I've admitted the mistake. Multiple times. I'm giving you your due here both in re-affirming my mistake, and publicly declaring your staff was not at fault. BTW - I tried to keep this anonymous. I wasn't out to give you or your staff or your outfit a bad reputation. As far as I'm aware, I didn't name names or try to connect it to you in any way. My intent was not to insult your staff, but to figure out what happened. Since you came out of anonymization and put it on record, so will I: Jason Paul (no license) Student in need of remedial training. Owing one (or more) cases of beer to the staff. ** Now can we have some meaningful learning from this, please. I've seen a few folks chime in on that it appeared to be a tension knot and what causes tension knots. It seems you concur with that assessment: Since other folks here were just looking at the pics, and you were actually there and said you saw it, I'm gonna take that one as officially answered. OK, so here's my primary concerns: (1) I'm on my first jump. I don't understand the issue, or even recognize the seriousness of the problem (again - my issue, my fault - no deficiencies in training, just a deficiency in this particular student's neurons). You saw the jump and saw the problem right away. Admittedly, I've been unjustly harsh on your staff manning the radio - but this is an honest question: If you saw it and recognized it immediately, why didn't your staff on the radio see it and somehow acknowledge it? She was (a) much closer than wherever you were watching from and (b) charged with guiding me in. Nothing was said on the radio. Nothing was said on the ground after the jump. Nothing was said on the ride back.I'm not trying to be harsh. Not trying to point the finger. No judgement implied with this question. Just asking this question, and the obvious followup question: What are approved procedures for your staff on the ground, assuming said bone-headed student disregarded training and was coming in with a problem? The fact that I turned to an online forum before anyone even told me what the problem was ... that doesn't bother you in the least that maybe there's a slight gap in procedure there? It was acknowledged on the log for the jump by the instructors as a "...built in right hand turn", but no explanation was offered. I'm taking my well deserved public flogging now, but I think I would have preferred to have gotten beaten up on the spot. I will willingly submit to a public flogging and any remedial training you feel necessary when we show up for Jump #2. (2) Further question/concern: If you witnessed the issue first hand, and were wondering to yourself " ... why in the heck ... what the ..???" when you saw me coming in, and I was a student in your classroom, did you feel any need to discuss with me or attempt to correct the problem situation of _MY_ bad judgement. I hung around the DZ for at least 3 more hours watching other folks jump and waiting on a buddy to complete his. No one said a word. Not you. Not the two instructors who made the jump. Not your nice young lady on the radio. (3) Final question: Does it bother you at all that I was given a pass on this and an AOK stamp to move on to Jump #2? I don't know if it's possible to go back and retroactively fail someone on a jump, but on this one, I really wouln't mind if you did. In fact, I am formally requesting it here. I've admitted my mistakes. Both in procedure at jump time and in etiquette after the fact when publicly discussing the jump. Can you address my issues concerns as outlined above? ** BTW - Someone mentioned a case of beer. Which do you prefer and how many cases should I bring?

==> Have any instructors had students successfully land in this manner, and how did the cope? OP here. Define "successfully". I walked away. A little sore from a harder-than-it-should-have-been landing. Is that success? Mine was quite a bit more than shoulder-level. Most of the ride it was about half way between shoulder and waist. Sometimes as low as the waistline. Never at shoulder or above. But ... ==> My biggest concern, is that it would make flaring more complicated. As far as I can tell flairing was impossible. Sure, you pull 'em both down, but it certainly didn't react in anything like a flair. Mine did nothing but exactly what you thought: ==> I can imagine a flare ending up being a braked turn into the ground. That's about exactly how I would describe it. Left turn, drop and plop hard. I had no sensation of braking or slowing down. Just a left turn straight into the ground. Boom. Ouch. ** Again admitting my complete c*ck-up of this, my first jump ... but you asked what it was like. Sorry, I'm just a student and don't have the instructor's perspective you asked for, but it is what it is.

==> I think this boils down to reserve fear. Please do not be afraid to cut away and ride the reserve. Bingo - I think we have a winner! All joking aside, in hindsight, this is probably the correct diagnosis.

==> Can you see other possibilities now? OK, folks, I (reluctantly) agree. No one likes to admit they f*cked up. Here I am admitting it: ACKNOWLEDGED! I didn't handle this one appropriately. Important lesson learned. Good advice from your past experiences will be taken into consideration in my next (and all subsequent/future) jumps. *** Back to why I originally posted: I was looking for opinions on what the malfunction appeared to be. It seems that most of are the opinion it was some kind of tension knot. Can someone describe to me how these happen? Where they typically happen (is one area more common than another?) Are they something that happens with the way it's packed, or can it happen as just one of those things that can go wrong on a deployment, even if it was a solid, A1 packing job? I'm trying to learn here. Lesson 1 from this jump is above: I f*cked up. Teach me some more on Lesson 2: Tension Knots. Thank you all for your input.

==> I assume you verified the left side toggle was completely released. Both sides completely release and pumped/flexed fully through their entire range - kinda gave 'em a workout when I was attempting to diagnose the problem and decide if I could control it enough to land it.

==> ... if it isn't ready to land you safely at 2500 ft.... get rid of it! By 2500 ft, I had figured out it was controllable - and it certainly was. What student on his first jump is gonna know something like this is safe or not? The primary instruction I was given, aside from the major malfunctions - the ones causing an immediate cutaway/emergency procedures was to ask myself: "Can I control it?". I had already answered that to the affirmative. It wasn't a high-speed spiral. It was faster than a hard/fast left turn, but it wasn't uncontrollable and the answer to the question was: "Yes - I CAN control it." BTW - pics posted, I edited them and pulled them into a single pic. There was no catastrophic failure that lead me to believe I was in immediate peril, nor anything that lead me to believe I could not land it. I answered my all important question to the affirmative: Yes, I CAN control it. I see no problem with the way I handled the situation. I'm just curious as to what it could have been so I can keep an eye out for it in the future.

Here's my first attempt at posting pics. They're not very good quality.

AFF Jump #1 last Saturday [2011.07.02] BTW - Whoah! I'm hooked. I can't imagine anything better than this. Anyway ... went with 4 buddies (5 of us total), three are coming back for more including myself. I had a minor malfunction. Have no idea what it was. Canopy deployed AOK, but upon waking up from my overwhelming, zoned out sense of "Hey! This sh*t is too cool" I realized that yes, Virginia, the 'chute had opened but I found myself in a medium speed spiral to the left. Looking up I could find no line twist. All cells inflated. No step-thru or line-over or any of the other major malfunctions they taught us about. They gave us three questions to ask ourselves (1) Is it there? Well ... yeah it's there and deployed. (2) Is is square? Umm ... not so much. (3) Can you control it ... yeah, sort of. After eating up 1500 feet playing around trying to figure it out, I found that if I kept the right steering pulled between 2/3 and 3/4 of the way down (I had to keep it below my waist, but not quite as far as I can possibly pull it) just to maintain steady, straight line flight. About every 600 ft on the descent I released the right side steering to see if it had worked itself out. Nope. Every time I tried I starteded into a slow speed left hand spiral. By this time, too late to ditch it, so ride it on in. Coming on the approach to landing (right hand pattern) I couldn't turn the pattern. The 8 or so inches of pull I had left on the right side was not sufficient to make a turn, and by this time I had nothing left in my right arm. I had to stow the left side and reach up higher on the right steering line and pull with both hands, and all my weight, just to make the two 90 degree turns to landing. Trainer on the radio doesn't notice my problems and guides me in. I'm barely able to make the turns in time to land in the designated area. (BTW - our radios were receive only. I had no mic to talk back and notify her of the problem). At about 400 ft she wants me to do a practice flair. Flair what? I've got 6-8 inches on the right of flair (the remaining slack being taken up just to maintain steady, straight flight) and as soon as I grab the left and pull - bingo - right back into a left hand turn. I was gonna land with no flair based on that, but as I approached the radio was screaming "FLAIR FLAIR FLAIR FLAIR". Who am I ? Just a dumb noob. I figured she knew what she was doing (wrong assumption). At about 15-20 ft, I flaired, as instructed and it dumped me into a hard left hand turn and basically stalled. So much for an easy landing on my first landing . So much for assuming your training staff has their sh*t togethere . Noboby could tell me what was wrong. Neither the AFF instructors, nor the girl on the ground. When told of the problem, they just pulled the 'chute out of rotation for the day and said "we'll look at it tonight, but nobody else is jumping on it today". Wasn't a catastrophy, but enquiring minds want to know: What was wrong? I looked up at least 4 times at high altitude, and more as I was coming in for a landing. Didn't see anything obviously wrong. After looking at the photos, though, something doesn't look right. Doesn't look bad - not catastrophic, but ... not quite right. Can I post pics here for comments/discussion?