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Wingsuit Dive Policies

Wingsuit jumps carry many of the same risks as tracking/angle flying because of the horizontal movement component. They can also pose a risk to later-dropping aircraft because of the extremely slow fall rate. They can pose challenges when dealing with malfunctions as well, because of the limited mobility many suits allow the jumper before wings are released.

  • These dives have a higher chance of landing off the DZ. Also, since you’ll open away from the usual jump run, we may not see you if you land out or have a malfunction. Don’t expect a ride if you land out; we’ll do our best to get you if we see you, but assume you’re on your own. If you have a cutaway, note where you opened so we can help you find your main. Identify an appropriate alternate landing area right after opening and fly conservatively to it, then make the phone calls described below.
  • Each jumper should carry a mobile phone in a secure pocket, and program the following three numbers into it: Manifest (770-748-2200), ICE or In Case of Emergency number (family/responsible person for us to contact in case you are hurt), and the jump organizer. Call 911 first if you land out and are badly hurt, and call us second. Call us also if you land out but are unhurt to let us know you are OK and if you need a ride. Also call your jump’s organizer with the same information.
  • We highly recommend AADs for all skydives.

Experience Suggested Requirements

  • 200 jumps within the last year, or 500+ jumps total. If you are not an experienced wingsuit flyer, your first 10 wingsuit jumps here should be under the supervision of a wingsuit instructor.

Wingsuit Dive Policies

  • Get a briefing from a staff wingsuiter before making a wingsuit jump here. You will then receive a tag for your rig; otherwise, the loader will not allow you to board with a wingsuit.
  • Always tell manifest if you are making a wingsuit jump so we can notify the loader and pilot. If you don’t declare your intentions with manifest, the increased last-minute load organizing may result in you missing the load.
  • It is your responsibility to determine if the rest of the load is compatible with your jump. If there are already multiple horizontal skydiving groups planned, you may be assigned to a different load.
  • Know where wingsuiters are assigned to fly each day you jump a wingsuit and stay in that area to avoid traffic with aircraft and other groups.
  • It is your responsibility to plan each jump in a way that will keep you away from others and let you land on the drop zone. Check this board and/or weather websites for current wind conditions and use this information to plan where you must open to land on the drop zone, then make a flight plan that will take you to this opening area without crossing the normal jump run or approaching any other high canopies, trackers, etc. Consider that 180° second passes may occur and keep your flight plan clear of this as well.
  • Do not ask the pilot for a variation from the normal jump run. If you would like a different jump run, ask the drop zone manager and if the new jump run is approved, he’ll communicate with the pilot. You should verify that the pilot is briefed when boarding.
  • Before exiting, ensure the plane’s wings, nose, and tail are level and the green light is on. Do not exit linked with another jumper.
  • On exiting the aircraft, keep all wings collapsed for at least three (3) seconds to avoid striking the tail of the aircraft.
  • DO NOT attempt to chase or fly in formation with the descending aircraft.
  • Flying past or opening close to tandems or other groups, or crossing back and forth over jump run, will result in immediate and prolonged grounding.
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New on New

weather

Are you a new skydiver with a shiny new A license? Or maybe you’re a skydiving student already thinking about the fun things you’ll do after you graduate? Congratulations on becoming a part of the global skydiving community! We’re glad you’re here. 🙂 Now let’s talk a little about the skydives you’ll do once you graduate. There are so many choices!

One thing we see frequently, perhaps because we are a big dropzone with a lot of students graduating all the time, is new skydivers jumping together. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! You are cleared to self-supervise your own skydives because you’ve proven that you have the necessary skills to save your own life after throwing yourself out of a perfectly good airplane. However, one skill you may have not yet developed is the ability to assess the inherent risks of different types of skydiving than the small, one-on-one belly jumps you have done until now.

Back to all the choices… there are bigger belly-fly jumps, sit-fly, head-down, hoop dives, raft jumps, tracking dives, angle flying, canopy flocking, canopy relative work, high pulls… it’s a smorgasbord of fun! But all of these dives carry more or different risks than the individual risks you learned about in the Skydiver Training Program. When you do bigger belly jumps, you need more awareness of where everyone is in the sky to stay safe. For sit-fly or head-down, you would need all the control you learned in the program on your belly, but enough skill to exercise that control at freefall speeds almost half again as fast as what you’re used to. For tracking/angle dives, you need all that awareness and skill along with awareness of where your group will travel across the sky and whether it will interfere with other groups on the load.

And no matter what kind of flying you’re doing, you will no longer have an instructor with you whose sole focus is to stay with you and keep you safe. Chances are quite good that you’ll start learning just how good your instructors are when you jump with others… 😉 And when everyone on your group is relatively inexperienced, chances are good that none of you have the experience and awareness to do a lot of the new activities safely and effectively.

None of this is intended to scare you or create reservations about jumping outside of the program. Far from it! Rather, we’d like you to consider that since the freefall world is now open to your interpretation, that you use that freedom wisely and safely. If you’re doing something on your skydive that you didn’t learn in the program (this will be many things), take a few minutes to ask one of our instructors or organizers for tips on doing that activity safely. If they say you need XYZ skills before trying what you want to do, trust that they are not trying to stifle your fun, but that they want to keep you and other skydivers safe. We’ve seen a lot of people make mistakes simply by not knowing what they don’t know, and the good thing about Spaceland is that there are so many people here that I guarantee somebody knows more about what you want to try than you do. Find these people, pick their brains, and keep learning! Keep an open mind and you’ll keep learning as fast as if not faster than you did in the student program.

Another aspect to learning quickly is to take advantage of jumping with people with more experience than you whenever you can. At Spaceland, we have the mentor program whereby jumpers under 100 jumps from any dropzone can get free coaching from a USPA-rated coach or instructor every weekend day in a 3- to 4-way format. Every month, we have a larger event on the first weekend of the month focused on a particular topic, be it dive and dock, turning pieces, accuracy, etc. Keep jumping with people who have lots of experience whenever you can, and get all the tips they can offer. Don’t feel that you should stick to skydives with your fellow graduates to avoid ruining someone’s jump who’s more experienced, because we all grew up in the sport with people taking time to help us out. We’re giving back what was given to us, and we know you may not be perfect. We aren’t either! We just want to skydive, improve, and have fun, knowing that whatever we give you will be paid back when you’re ready to do so.

Blue Skies!

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Skydive Spaceland Camera Policy

Camera Safety

Forrest Gump might have said that skydiving and cameras go together like peas and carrots. It’s an awesome thing to capture what’s arguably the world’s most fun aerial activity with a nice tiny, high-quality camera such as a GoPro. It won’t get in the way, right? You won’t even know it’s there!

To go back to our peas-and-carrots analogy, it doesn’t quite fit the skydiving scene in the sense that the peas don’t hurt or kill the carrots. But cameras add risk to nearly any activity, even if it’s just a spectator on the ground with a camera. Why? One, cameras apparently have a unique ability to disable basic brain function in humans. Haven’t you noticed how smart humans can become complete idiots when cameras are rolling? It might be a “Hey y’all, watch this!” showoff, being so focused on getting the shot that the camera jumper forgets to deploy his/her parachute on time, or a spectator walking into a dangerous landing or aircraft operations area because they are too busy watching what’s in the viewfinder or on screen to realize they are walking into a trap. All kidding aside, the distraction problem cameras pose is very real.

Two, cameras on skydivers can snag parachute lines and thereby cause or complicate parachute malfunctions.

Jumping with any type of camera, including small-format cameras such as GoPros and Contours, adds significant risk to any skydive. These risks may include the following and other risks:

  • Cameras falling off of jumpers, creating hazards for people and property on the ground.
  • Pilot chute bridles, lines, and/or parachutes entangling with the camera.
  • Distraction from critical safety issues such as proper gear routing, exit lights, and freefall and canopy traffic.

The United States Parachute Association recommends that jumpers have at least 200 jumps and a C license, and instruction in camera flying before using a camera on any skydive. Skydive Spaceland believes in and follows this recommendation. If you are interested in jumping a camera here, get your 200 jumps, familiarize yourself with USPA’s Skydiver Information Manual Section 6-8, and seek advice from one of our many experienced camera flyers.

Further Reading

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Avoiding Turbulence

It is bumpy up there!

Turbulence is the Rodney Dangerfield of skydiving…. It doesn’t get respect. Turbulence is a challenge for jumpers for at least two reasons: It is invisible and unpredictable.

Because turbulence is invisible, we must actively anticipate where it may be. Most new jumpers (and a lot of more experienced ones) vastly underestimate the danger zone for mechanical turbulence around obstacles. We can expect turbulence in front of, over, beside, and 10-20 times the height of the obstacle downwind. At Spaceland, turbulence in the primary landing areas most often occurs south of the berm and hangar in a north wind and east/southeast of the hangar in a west wind.

Because turbulence is unpredictable, it is easy to be lulled into an unwarranted sense of safety. If ten jumpers on one load fly through the same cube of potentially turbulent air in a 90-second period, four may experience nothing at all, five may get “bumped around”, and one may have a partial canopy collapse. It is therefore critical that we be wary of areas where turbulence is likely even if turbulence has not yet caused trouble there today.

Many jumpers have experienced turbulence only as “bumpiness” under canopy. That is certainly the most common manifestation of turbulence. However, bumpiness is not the only consequence of flying through turbulence. Turbulence can create unstable landing conditions. These unstable conditions can result in the canopy moving suddenly in unexpected ways or even collapsing very close to the ground. This has injured or killed jumpers. Canopies are fabric wings that are vulnerable to collapse. When turbulence collapses a canopy it typically does so suddenly and close to the ground. Fortunately, most collapses are only partial, and re-inflate promptly. Occasionally, a canopy will not recover in time for a safe landing.

Varying appreciation of the risk of turbulence plays a part in the varying wind speed limits among jumpers. Often because the new jumper has not seen or experienced the dangerous consequences of turbulence, he or she discounts it as just “bumpiness” and not a reason to stay on the ground. This was certainly true for me as a new jumper. I traveled to a temporary drop zone set up for spring break. The appeal of this DZ was the promise of beach landings. Unfortunately, after arrival, we discovered that the DZO had not done the FAA paperwork right, and beach jumps were not allowed. The alternate DZ was near the beach, but it was surrounded by turbulence-generating buildings on three sides. I made three jumps there in turbulence before I decided to come home. A few days later a jumper with more than 10,000 jumps died at that DZ due to a canopy collapse (The fire department recovered his body from the attic of the condo that he landed on). That incident forever changed my personal appreciation of the risks that turbulence poses.

The smartest way to deal with turbulence is to avoid it. Learn to predict turbulence, watch other canopies for evidence of turbulence, and be willing to stay on the ground when conditions are risky for turbulence.

Scroll down for maps of turbulence risk areas at Skydive Spaceland based on different wind directions–but keep in mind that turbulence can also occur in other areas for reasons you might not expect (such as the wake turbulence from a jumper who landed shortly before you).

The linked article is EXCELLENT. I highly encourage all jumpers to read it (or read it AGAIN): http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/Turbulence-Hazard.pdf

Reprinted with permission from Jim McGraw

Skydive Spaceland-Houston Turbulence Risk Areas

Turbulence risk areas: Winds out of the north
Winds out of the north (click to expand)
Turbulence Risk Areas: Winds out of the south
Winds out of the south (click to expand)
Turbulence Risk Areas: Winds out of the east
Winds out of the east (click to expand)
Turbulence Risk Areas: Winds out of the west
Winds out of the west (click to expand)
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Hop and Pop Skydiving Smarts

Skydiving hop n popIf you’re a people watcher, observing skydivers preparing for hop and pop skydives (low-altitude exits) is a lot of fun. You see everything from cool-cat, ho-hum, highly experienced swoopers practicing their craft to jumpy first-timers doing their first exits below full altitude, hoping with all their hearts to be stable enough to deploy within the 5 seconds required to graduate from student status. 
With all that observation, you tend to notice a lot of people doing things right as well as some things that are frequently missed or done incorrectly. So here are eight tips on doing a safer hop and pop:
  1. Plan your exit order with any other hop and poppers before you board the plane. The person with the highest wing loading should exit first, since they will be descending more quickly. Knowing this before boarding lets you load the plane efficiently in the correct order so you don’t end up climbing over or around each other before exit, reducing the chance that you’ll snag pins, flaps, and handles in the plane (bad juju!).
  2. Know what to do at and with the door. It’s hot outside these days, so we’re opening the door at about 1,500 feet so we don’t all get heatstroke. But you shouldn’t just open the door at 1500 feet without doing a couple of things first:
    1. Remove your seat belt and ensure those jumpers near the door have their seat belts off as well. If there is an aircraft emergency and the pilot tells us to bail, we all want those jumpers to be able to exit as quickly as possible!
    2. Check the jumpers up closer to the pilot to make sure their belts are off too. Usually there will be an instructor or experienced jumper on board who will give you a thumbs up when all is clear.
    3. Check your handles and buckles, get a pin check, and secure any loose accessories (gloves, helmets, etc.) before opening the door.If you’re unfamiliar with operating the door of a Twin Otter or Caravan, please check out this video!
  3. Sit safely. Usually as a hop and popper, you’re sitting on the floor near the door and you may be tempted to lean on the wall, bulkhead, or the end of a bench. As with any ride to altitude, you should make sure you are not moving around a lot and especially not scrunching the back of your rig on things as this can pull or bend your pins (neither of which is good!). In particular, some aircraft have rails on the bulkheads that are at a perfect height to mess with your reserve pins if you are not careful, and the ends of Otter benches are a pretty good height for that too. Very experienced jumpers have pushed out their reserve pins on the ends of benches! You can safely lean straight back on things IF you are gentle and don’t move around a lot, but it’s even better to avoid that.
  4. Check the spot AND check for traffic. When the door (red) light goes on, do any of the above checks remaining and open the door if it isn’t already open, check the spot (can you find and make it back to the DZ from here?), and check for traffic. The last item is one that we often see neglected, but it’s a really important one. Usually the pilot will know about any other aircraft in our airspace and will not turn on the red light if another aircraft is in a hazardous spot. However, other pilots don’t always use their radios when they should and/or don’t always have perfectly working radios. So there is always a chance that another aircraft could be trailing your jump plane where you could hit it if you jumped (resulting in a really bad day for everyone). It’s critical to look for such traffic and ask for a go-around if necessary in order to jump into clear airspace. Look down, all around, and especially aft for other traffic flying in the same direction as you before jumping.

    Also check for other canopies on days when we’re flying multiple planes; you don’t want to jump right on top of anyone! Our aircraft operations should prevent this, BUT stuff happens–premature deployments, accidental handle grabs on group jumps, etc., that could result in a canopy being open in our airspace higher than planned. If canopies are in the landing pattern, they’re low enough that you’re good, but if you see they’re too high or you’re not sure, ask for a go-around or for an instructor to take a look for you.

  5. Don’t go until the pilot turns on the green light. There’s usually a good reason why the light isn’t on, and often it has to do with traffic. Likewise, if people are exiting (at any altitude) and the green light is turned off, later groups/jumpers should not exit. There’s a good chance that the spot has gotten poor or a traffic issue has just been identified, and this is the pilot’s way of telling you not to exit.
  6. Ensure an appropriate delay when multiple people are doing hop and pops. Just like at full altitude, you need enough separation between jumpers that each one gets to open in his/her own vertical column of air. Leave at least 4 seconds between jumpers if the airspeed is high, and leave more time with lower airspeeds. Learn more about optimal exit separation…
  7. Don’t scrape your rig on the door! Far too often, we see hop and poppers do creative exits out of the plane that put them at high risk of raking their rigs on the edges of the door, and this is dangerous for a variety of reasons. (To be fair, the problem is definitely not confined to hop and poppers!) Opening flaps and pulling pins on the door puts you at risk of deploying pilot chutes and/or canopies over the tail of the aircraft, which puts the jumper, the plane, and everyone in it at risk. It also puts the jumper at high risk for having a horseshoe malfunction, which is no fun at all. Be aware of how far off your back your rig is, and don’t exit in such as fashion that you put your rig close to the edges of the door as you move through it.Common exits to handle with care: 
    1. Swinging out from the bar into a back flip: This can scrape off pins on the bottom edge of the door and puts the back of your head at risk of slamming the floor. Safe as long as your rig and head are well clear of the bottom of the door when you pass through it.
    2. Hopping out head-down, with your head toward the prop: Safe as long as your rig is well clear of the bottom of the door when you pass through it.
    3. Hopping out in an aft-facing sit: Safe as long as your rig is well clear of the front of the door when you pass through it. This is more of a challenge when exiting with another person with grips between you; both of you need to be aware of the door edges and not put your rigs close to them.
    4. Diving exit: Safe as long as you don’t scrape your rig along the floater bar/top edge of the door.
    5. Floater exit: Safe as long as you keep your rig well clear of the sides of the door when rotating from inside the plane outward to a floating position. If you’re jumping with another person and you’re nearer the front or rear of the door, make sure your rig rotates through the center of the door so it’s as far from the door edges as possible.
  8. Don’t hit the tail! This is tough to do in our Super Otter, but much easier to do in a Super Caravan or any other low-tail aircraft. Before exiting, make sure that the plane is configured for your exit (slowed down and not climbing, or not climbing as steeply in the Otter). The pilot will usually slow down and level off dramatically so it is clear that it’s jump run time. Once it’s time to exit, don’t do a big jump upward off the door and if you’re jumping a wingsuit, keep all wings closed for at least three seconds after exit.
Blue skies and safe hops!
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Skydive Spaceland Hosts First Transitions 3-Way Speed Star Competition

https://atlanta.skydivespaceland.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/104.jpgOn August 3, 2014, Skydive Spaceland added friendly competition to its Transitions program for recent graduates of any skydiving program. Skydivers with A licenses up to around 100 jumps enjoy free coaching from two available USPA Coaches/experienced jumpers every weekend. Also, during the first weekend of every month there is an event with additional mentors focused on a particular skill such as dive and dock, turns, and linked exits.

August’s Transitions event was a 3-round, 3-way Speed Star event in which each mentor formed a team with two jumpers who each had under 100 jumps. The event followed a modified version of classic 10-way rules, with all jumpers leaving from behind the so-called “suicide line” from the leading edge of the Otter door to the opposite bulkhead corner. Each mentor provided point-of-view video for judging purposes, which allowed the event to run at no additional cost to the competitors.

Despite significant weather challenges on both weekend days that pushed the Saturday event to Sunday afternoon, five teams persevered and completed all three rounds in short order once jumping recommenced. It was the first skydiving competition for many of the mentors as well as the mentees.

“I learned more in these 3 jumps than in the last 20,” said Cale Curry of third-place team 101 JumpStreet.

First place went to Double Ds, with recent graduates Dave Baxter and Doug Brooks jumping with mentor Steve Thompson. Dave and Doug received first prizes of 20% off a Sun Path Javelin harness and container system from the Skydive Spaceland Pro Shop.

Double Ds scored a fast 14.64-second round 3 to get out of a near-tie with Bald Beaver Lovers; only 0.35 seconds separated the two teams after round 2. Double Ds scored 60.8 seconds across the three rounds, averaging 20.27 seconds per round. Bald Beaver Lovers scored a total of 76.4 seconds, and 101 JumpStreet came out of a tie for last after round 2 to leapfrog into third with round 3, scoring a total of 110.42 seconds.

“I am a much better and safer skydiver today than I could have ever expected to be at this point without this [Transitions] program,” said Dave Baxter of Double Ds. “This program is the reason why I am still skydiving.”

See all team and jump photos

Future 2014 event focuses include:

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Does Your Canopy Turn When You Land?

Does your canopy turn when you land?

Does your canopy turn when you land? The most common cause of this is when the pilot looks to one side instead of straight ahead, creating a chain effect. We tend to go where we look. As you enter your flare, if you look down and in either direction, your body will want to go that direction. Try standing in front of a mirror and hold your hands at chest level a few inches in front of your body, then look down at your right foot. Look back in the mirror; you will more than likely notice that your right hand is slightly lower than your left hand.

When you do this under canopy, this starts a slight turn to the right. At the same time, you will tend to reach towards the ground with your right leg, unevenly loading the harness and thereby adding to the turn. As the turn progresses, your instinct to reach out to break your fall starts to overpower your training to fly and of course, the further you reach the more aggressive the turn becomes.

How can you fix this? Simply by looking ahead where you want to go. On final, you should be looking ahead of you with your focal center point approximately 45 degrees below the horizon. Once you have entered the flare and begun to swing forward towards the leading edge of your canopy, you should shift your focus directly ahead, a couple hundred feet in front of you. You should be aware of what’s in front of you. This will also help you keep your flare even as you finish. It may help you to lean forward over your hands after you have reached chest level. This will make finishing your flare evenly easier and help keep your focus ahead of you. Remember to look where you want to go.

As always, if you have any questions about canopy flight, ask one of our instructors!

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Long Hair? Avoid This Skydiving Malfunction

Containing long hair for skydiving

Ah, the feel of freefall on your face, your hair whipping in the wind… wait a minute! If you have long hair (past your shoulders), hair whipping around in freefall is actually a bad thing.

Aside from the Gordian knot that often results from 120mph of wind whipping your hair around, hair that is very long can actually cause a malfunction when you deploy your parachute. This is highly unusual but it has happened, and to very experienced skydivers; here’s one jumper’s story of a hair-main entanglement that turned into a hair-main-reserve entanglement. Luckily, the jumper was eventually able to clear the mess and land her reserve safely with only some scalp soreness, but it’s an experience no one would want for sure.

There are a couple of ways to capture your tresses safely and comfortably for skydiving. Trust me… tucking a long braid down the back of your jumpsuit is not comfortable under a rig, nor does it always stay in place. And a braid whipping around in freefall can be a significant distraction from that important stuff like checking altitude, deploying, etc. Here are some options; comment if you have any additional ones! 

  1. Braid it and pull the braid up straight up over your head under your helmet (you are wearing one, right?). If you have been jumping with your hair out of your helmet and switch to pulling your braid in, you might find that you need a size larger helmet to fit everything securely.
  2. If your hair is super long, you might need to wind the braid(s) around the crown of your head to contain it all.
  3. With short or long braids, consider using a stretchy skullcap (ideal) or bandanna to keep everything neatly contained and your hair out of your eyes. These are also really useful at the wind tunnel, and you can get them at most any sportswear store for $15 or less. There is also the currently popular Buff-style head/neckwear, which you can usually get for free or very little as a branded promotional item from a skydiving gear manufacturer, drop zone, or tunnel.
  4. Another option is to wrap your hair into a bun, tie that with an elastic, and tuck the whole thing under your helmet liner.

With your hair taken care of, you can focus on rocking out your skydive instead. 🙂 Blue skies!

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Skydiver Training Tip: Practice Before You Leave

Practicing a skydive

When I was still in school, I was a serious last-minute crammer before tests. Study ahead of time? Not my strong suit. So there I would be at 1 a.m. before a big exam, studying my tail off. 5 minutes before the test, still reviewing. At least I studied, right?!

When you are learning to skydive, studying has a huge payoff as well, whether you’re reviewing things at the last minute or (preferably) with more time to truly learn the new skill. When you’re learning something completely new like skydiving, practicing what you can beforehand and visualizing proper performance are key to helping you get it right the first time (or at least with a minimum of effort!). But now we reach the sticky point: What do you study?

Here’s where you can be proactive about your education: Ask your instructor to talk you you about what your next dive flow will include, and how to practice it effectively at home. Keep in mind that if you stop jumping in the middle of a busy day and your instructor starts to jump with someone else, that person will take priority on the instructor’s time. However, if your instructor has even a few minutes to help you out, he/she will be glad to help you prepare for your next dive so you can practice correctly at home. Practicing correctly is essential; the last thing you want to do is drill something incorrect into your head and take that into the sky.

Make sure you have your instructor’s input before practicing at all, and once you know what to do, think about it, practice, and visualize so you rock out your next jump!

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Movement Dive Policies

Horizontal movement dives are fun… free flowing… and inherently potentially much riskier than dives that fall straight down. Any dive in which jumpers plan horizontal movement other than tracking for separation after breakoff requires good planning and execution to minimize the additional risks to everyone on the load.

Above photo by Daniel Angulo! 

That responsibility is 100% the job of the organizer(s) doing movement jumps, and it should not be taken lightly.

Spaceland has developed several policies for tracking/angle dives with the blessings of our staff and experienced tracking organizers. Please read all of and follow these guidelines to help keep us all safe.

Movement Dive Safety Basic Guidelines
  • Design your dives and select your group with safety in mind. Consider jumper experience, dive plan, group size, and winds to develop a plan that will minimize any chances of compromising other groups’ airspace. Then discuss the plan with the rest of your load, adjusting as needed to maximize safety. If you need help, ask a more experienced angle/tracking organizer and/or consider getting coaching before leading these dives.
  • Use the dry erase board in the loading area to draw your dive plan for the jump, and make sure all other movement groups on the load do as well, so you can visualize the plans and adjust as needed to divide the airspace safely. Jump run  is marked with a black magnetic arrow.

    Horizontal dive planning board (Spaceland Houston)
    Movement dive planning board (Spaceland Houston) – Click to expand… Can you spot the problem with this dive plan? If not, please don’t lead any movement dives until you can.
  • DO NOT break off towards the line of flight.
  • Always have a straight-down dive as a backup plan in case conditions such as clouds, changed jump run direction, modified exit altitude, etc., will make your primary plan unsafe.
  • New to these dives? Jump with an experienced organizer/coach until you fully understand the risks and have sufficient technique and awareness to not increase these risks.
  • Each jumper should carry a mobile phone in a secure pocket, and program the following three numbers into it: Manifest (770-748-2200), ICE or In Case of Emergency number (family/responsible person for us to contact in case you are hurt), and the jump organizer. Call 911 first if you land out and are badly hurt, and call us second. Call us also if you land out but are unhurt to let us know you are OK and if you need a ride. Also call your jump’s organizer with the same information.
  • These dives have a higher chance of landing off the DZ. Also, since you’ll open away from the usual jump run, we may not see you if you land out or have a malfunction. Don’t expect a ride if you land out; we’ll do our best to get you if we see you, but assume you’re on your own. If you have a cutaway, note where you opened so we can help you find your main. Identify an appropriate alternate landing area right after opening and fly conservatively to it, then make the phone calls described below.
  • We highly recommend AADs for all skydivers.
  • Make sure to manifest your group as a movement dive.  If you don’t declare your intentions with manifest, the increased last-minute load organizing may result in you missing the load.
Suggested Minimum Experience for Horizontal Dives
Dive type/role Minimum experience Notes
Track with coach No minimum Experienced coach/organizer strongly recommended
Solo track 200 jumps Consult with safety officer or experienced tracking/angle organizer on dive plan
Group track At least 100 jumps 3 or less people per group; we recommend that your first 10 tracking/angle dives be
with an experienced organizer/coach
1 on 1 angle dive At least 100 jumps Experienced coach/organizer strongly recommended
Group angle dives At least 200 jumps We recommend that your first 10 tracking/angle dives be with an experienced organizer/coach
Lead tracks/angles At least 500 jumps We recommend that leaders have at least 25 tracking dives as a follower and consult with a safety officer on your flight plan

* Individual experience and skill vary widely. You may be more or less skilled at a certain jump number than others, so please consult with our safety officers/instructors/more experienced organizers before trying new types of dives or if you have any questions at all.

Coach/Organizer Recommended Requirements
  • See above minimums table. No one should lead or coach angle flying without suitable experience, and all leaders should consult with a safety officer if they have any questions.
  • Make a flight plan that ensures you won’t fly into others’ airspace and lets you land on the DZ. If your jumper(s) land off due to poor planning, you may be barred from organizing these jumps until the problem has been solved.
  • Screen all jumpers for skill/experience needed for the type/size of the dive. We suggest that you do not allow open participation without regard for each jumper’s skill and experience (no zoo dives).
  • You are responsible for the safety of yourself, your group, and its plan. Select your skydivers and your plan carefully.
  • We strongly recommend that you only lead on your back if you have an experienced tracker as your mirror face-to-earth as a directional control.
  • Design your skydive to fly perpendicular to jump run, and account for any other trackers and wingsuiters.

Ensure that everyone on the dive knows:

  • These dives have an increased risk of forceful freefall collisions due to combined horizontal/vertical movement, and many people can be in your blind spot. Reduce risks by keeping groups small, especially with less experienced jumpers, and thoroughly briefing good technique and awareness.
  • Getting clear of the normal jump run is essential.
  • These dives require a safety-focused plan. Know your dive’s plan and DO NOT deviate from it unless danger requires it.
  • Determine where other jumpers/groups are before flying back towards jump run and the landing area under canopy.
  • Know what to do if a jumper is left behind in freefall.
  • We suggest limiting the dive to max one skydiver with a high risk of not getting to the formation, and have a plan for this.

As with other type of skydives, flyers involved in incidents caused by unsafe planning/execution may be prohibited from jumping until they obtain further training/guidance from organizers/safety officers.

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Skydive Spaceland Transitions Events for Recent Grads

Skydiving Transitions events

For recent skydiving graduates, there is often a no-man’s-land between the A license and getting on good dives. Skydive Spacelan has been turning that no-man’s land into free coaching central with its monthly Transitions events.

On or near the first weekend of each month, organizers and coaches collaborate to provide free small-group coaching tailored to a particular skill, such as dive and dock, linked exits, and tracking. Future events will include competitions as well.

“The goal is to provide new skydivers with a free coaching to improve their skills and safety, the chance to network with the organizers/coaches and other new skydivers, and have an awesome time doing it,” says Spaceland marketing director Christy West.

“This was such a great experience for a new jumper like myself,” says recent graduate Nicole Ortiz. “I learned so much and I look forward to more events like this to help make me a better skydiver.”

“Thank you for taking time out this weekend to help me be a better skydiver! I really appreciate it!” added Clark Shores.

The events are hosted by Skydive Spaceland and organizer Chuck Akers, and assisted by The Ratings Center and many instructors/coaches around the drop zone donating their time. They have become a celebration welcoming newly licensed jumpers into the ranks of the experienced while providing numerous sources of good information to improve skills and safety.

“Great event, Spaceland. We need more DZs to follow suit,” said videographer Rick DeShano.

The Transitions events are open to new jumpers from any drop zone, and they are focused on skydivers with 100 jumps or less. For more information and a schedule, see Skydive Spaceland Atlanta on Facebook.

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Propeller Safety

There are a lot of things in life we sugarcoat, such as when answering questions like, “How do I look in this dress?” Or “How does this resume sound?” But some things in life just don’t take sugar well–they are what they are. So it is with safety around propellers, be they of the aviation, marine, or any other variety.

We get pretty comfortable moving around airplanes in the skydiving world. We board aircraft while they’re running, climb around outside the door in flight, and jump out of them at altitude. With all this familiarity, repeated several times daily, we can sometimes lose perspective on one plain and simple fact: Spinning propellers maim and kill. And if you make the mistake of getting any part of your body near a spinning propeller, chances are very good that it will be the last mistake you will make.

Fixed-wing aircraft danger zone (generic for single and twin-engine aircraft)
Fixed-wing aircraft danger zone (generic for single and twin-engine aircraft)

So we’d like to ask for your help in keeping us all safe from spinning propellers, regardless of where you choose to skydive (this isn’t just a Skydive Spaceland risk–it’s a risk at any airport). Here are 12 tips on propeller safety:

  1. Know where the propellers are on any aircraft you are approaching. This may seem elementary, but especially when you are visiting new drop zones with unfamiliar aircraft or new aircraft are visiting your home drop zone, props may be in slightly different places than what you’re used to. They are invisible when spinning, especially in low-light situations like boarding for night jumps.
  2. Never approach or walk through the propeller area on any aircraft, running or not, unless your job requires you to be there.Don’t get in the habit of walking under or next to props on aircraft parked in the hangar, for example. If you always consider the prop area to be a no-walk zone, even after hours with a beer in hand, chances are much lower that you’ll stray into the danger zone during jump operations. Also, prop edges are sharp; even if they’re not moving, they’ll often cut if you bump into them. If you’re not near them, they can’t hurt you.
  3. Stay behind (not in front of or under) the wing when approaching or departing from any fixed-wing aircraft, whether it’s running or not. Props are located on the fronts of wings or the noses of fixed-wing aircraft, so staying out of the area in front of, underneath, and inboard of the wingtips ensures you will not be in the danger zone.
  4. Be vigilant for spectators/observers around aircraft. They will often be caught up in the noise and excitement of aircraft operations and may stray into danger zones despite adequate safety signage. usually leading with a smartphone, camera, or tablet. At Spaceland, there should be no spectators in the waiting/loading areas unless they are escorted by staff (observers, media, etc.). If you see an unescorted spectator in restricted areas (whether planes are operating or not), take the initiative to politely let them know that only skydivers and staff should be in the area, and escort them back to the safe public areas. Showing them where they can safely get a good shot of the airplane loading (preferably behind a visible barrier like a fence) will usually make them quite happy and appreciative.
  5. Be vigilant for fellow skydivers/staff around aircraft propellers. Even experienced skydivers and staff can become too comfortable and/or complacent around running aircraft and walk into the propeller danger zones after a dropped item, in an attempt to talk to the pilot, etc. Be on alert for anyone in propeller danger zones whenever you are approaching an aircraft or waiting to board, and keep an eye on your buddies too.
  6. If you must talk to the pilot, do so from within the cabin or via the loader. Or you can ask manifest to relay a message via the aircraft radio. Do not approach the forward pilot door unless your job requires it.
  7. Follow instructions from the aircraft loader. Never approach the aircraft for loading ahead of the loader.
  8. Helicopter danger zone
    Helicopter danger zone

    When approaching helicopters, stay in front of or even with the boarding door. Approach from the front so the pilot can see you. Never approach from the rear, as the area around the tail rotor is the danger zone. **Note: Some helicopters may have a main rotor that dips down in the front, so directly in front of the helicopter may also be a danger zone. When in doubt, approach a helicopter from the front quarter but not directly in front (and NEVER from the rear).

  9. When approaching helicopters, wear and secure any accessories on your body. If you are carrying anything, keep it below shoulder level.
  10. When exiting helicopters (at altitude or on the ground), do not jump up and do not raise your hands/arms above your head. Hands and arms are OK above your head if you’re hanging off the strut. 🙂
  11. Do not venture into aircraft operating areas at any time unless your job requires it. For example, at Spaceland, the loading area is not a good shortcut between the hangar and the parking lot regardless of whether aircraft are loading at that moment. Spectators and students may see you hop the fence to shortcut to your car and think it’s OK–and it’s not!
  12. Never touch a propeller even when the aircraft is shut down and parked, unless your job requires it. Many incidents have occurred from hand-cranking/moving propellers.

Thank you for helping us all with this!

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Whose Airspace Is It, Anyway?

Jump run

Skydiving often seems like one of the most dynamic, chaotic sports in existence. People are falling from the sky every which way, for cryin’ out loud! 🙂 In reality, the chaos is highly engineered to allow us all to enjoy our dynamic freefallin’ fun while staying safe, and that engineering starts with ensuring that each group on each load has its own airspace column (with the exception of horizontal flying dives; we’ll get to those shortly).

Why is this important? Each group that’s essentially falling straight down (everything but a tracking/tracing/wingsuit dive) needs its own vertical column of air for freefall and deployment, period. If we don’t have that, then we have groups crossing above/below each other in freefall, which carries a significantly increased risk of collisions between groups particularly if they are falling at different speeds (think freeflyers falling much faster than belly flyers). These collisions can be quite serious.

We avoid these collisions by planning each load’s exit order and exit separation timing to create a safe amount of horizontal spacing between groups. With this strategy, each group has its own predictable airspace column and other groups know where those columns are. They then know where to look for the groups that exited before/after them when deploying.

An important point to note with this each-group-has-its-own-airspace-column concept is that it assumes each group is falling mostly straight down, without any significant planned horizontal movement except for breakoff/tracking at the end. One thing we often see with solo skydivers, especially those without very many jumps, is that they can move a lot either forwards or backwards when they don’t have another jumper there as a nearby visual reference. Unintentional sidesliding is usually much less significant. Thus, if you are doing a solo skydive, primarily face 90° to (across or perpendicular to) line of flight (LOF) rather than up or down LOF. This will reduce the chances that you unintentionally backslide or track into another group’s airspace.

Horizontal Flight Dives

Jumpers planning horizontal movement (tracking, tracing, wingsuit) dives need to consult with the day’s conditions/flight plan on the Safety Stand before jumping. Each day, the pilot will post the day’s winds aloft, planned jump run, jump run groundspeed, and which way he/she expects wingsuits and trackers to fly. It’s imperative that horizontal flyers follow this plan so everyone, including pilots, knows where all groups expect to be on deployment. This is especially important for wingsuiters that can cover a couple of miles in freefall; the pilot must know where they plan to be so he/she can avoid descending the aircraft in that space.

Sample Jump Run Visualization

Here’s a sample jump run with exit separation for a hypothetical full load with several widely varying types of skydiving groups. This is one of the more complicated jump runs one would see given the mix of several small groups doing different things. However, it shows how we should exit the aircraft for maximum safety with the various groups, guaranteeing that each group has its own airspace column for freefall, breakoff, and deployment (yellow and red areas on diagram).

Sample jump run diagramPlease observe the following:

  • Horizontal flight groups should exit first (with two groups or less) and last (third/fourth horizontal groups). Wingsuiters exit after all other groups, large to small.
  • No more than four horizontal flight groups per load.
  • No delay between climbouts of successive horizontal flight groups, as they’re tracking away from each other to create separation.
  • Following the first horizontal flight groups, the exit order is as follows (loading order is the reverse):
    • Horizontal flight groups (max of 2 groups)
    • Belly flyers (large groups to small)
    • Freeflyers (large to small groups)
    • Skydiver Training Program
    • Tandems
    • The last horizontal groups if present
    • Wingsuiters
  • Separation between skydiving groups follows the exit separation chart here according to the size of the group.
  • After deploying, do not fly up or down jump run until you have identified the canopies of the groups exiting before and after you and ensured that there are no traffic issues.
  • Check your spot before exit, and if your spot is long, open a little higher so you can make it back.
  • See today’s conditions printout on the Safety Stand for any exceptions to these policies.

Further Reading

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Exit Separation Between Skydiving Groups

Jump run and exit separation

As skydivers, we tend to like to do things together. We like to skydive with our friends, give each other grief about any minor mistakes during the dive, celebrate our successes, and enjoy brews together after sunset. Some people prefer solo skydives on occasion so they can work on skills or just enjoy the sky without distractions.

However, there are such things as too much and too little togetherness in skydiving. And only a few seconds might separate the two extremes when we are talking about the proper amount of time/space to leave between multiple skydivers and groups exiting the same aircraft on the same jump run. Our goal when selecting the right happy medium number of seconds to leave between groups is to arrive at a delay that does two things:

  1. Provides enough separation between adjacent groups so no groups will fall into the others’ airspace columns and risk collisions, and
  2. Keeps the entire load in an airspace box from which any reasonable skydiver should be able to land on the airport.

The risk of leaving too little time is collisions between groups, whether these are freefall or deployment collisions. But leaving too much time can spread out the jump run so much that the last skydivers out may not be able to make it back to the landing area.

So how do we decide how much time to leave? Luckily, skydivers before us have developed guidelines to tell us how much time is safe between groups based on experience. Keep in mind, however, that two major factors play into the answer.

  1. Group size. The larger the group, the higher they will break off and the more overall horizontal space the group will occupy when breaking off and deploying. Thus, you must leave more time when following out a bigger group compared to following out a solo skydiver.
  2. Ground speed of jump run. The space we want between groups for each group to have a clear column of air in which to deploy their parachutes is horizontal space, not vertical. (Vertical isn’t good enough because what if someone in the lower group has a premature deployment? Or what if someone in the upper group cuts away?) If the plane is flying slower into a headwind, it’s covering less ground per second, so we need to leave more time between groups to get the amount of horizontal distance we want.

Below is a graph showing how much time you should leave between groups of varying sizes. Remember: Exit separation is time between EXITS, not between the previous group’s exit and the start of your climbout. This graph is posted on our Safety Stand in the hangar so you can check it anytime you have a question about how much time to leave between groups.

Exit separation graph

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Landing Areas: Divide and Conquer

Busy skydiving landing area

Please note: This article was updated on October 1, 2015. 

You know how the first time you came to a busy drop zone, it seemed like all the parachutes were flying randomly around the sky? But now that we are skydivers and understand flight plans, we see some degree, at least, of order in the chaos. We’d like to further increase the amount of order in our canopy flight traffic by reminding everyone that we have three separate landing areas at Skydive Spaceland: One for jumpers with D license experience to address the tighter area, obstacles, and increased traffic; another for students and slower traffic east of the hangar; and the swoop pond/alternate landing area across the runway.

One of the often-missed aspects of separate landing areas is that they’re not just about where you plant your feet–separate landing areas are designed to manage canopy traffic all the way down. Imagine there’s a 1000-foot tall wall separating each of these landing areas, and whenever possible fly your patterns under 1000 feet so you don’t fly over the landing areas you’re not targeting. This keeps students and lower-performance parachutes flying together, and the same for swoopers, so we don’t have large discrepancies in canopy speed and approach type that can lead to someone getting “run over.”

Also, remember to fly a predictable pattern regardless of where you’re landing, so other skydivers can have a reasonable expectation of where you’re going. It’s fairly common for newer canopy pilots to arrive in the pattern too high and sashay back and forth to kill altitude, but this forces all the skydivers above you to continually adjust because they can’t tell where you’re going. If you find yourself high in the pattern, learn from that for next time, and for now use a deep brake approach or your front risers to lose that extra altitude.

Landing Area Policies

Low man has the right of way in all landing areas. Do not cross the runway under 1,000 feet when aircraft are using it. The runway splits the property, so be aware that airplanes and skydivers share this property and aren’t completely separated. Both parties must consider the others’ needs to use the property safely. If you are unsure if the runway is in use, don’t cross it below 1,000 feet and you may need to land south of the runway.

Please see this article for our current landing areas divisions.

 

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Skydive Spaceland Introduces the Safety Stand

What if every drop zone posted their safety policies and daily notes conveniently in one location in the loading area for all jumpers, old and new, to browse and learn while waiting for aircraft? Check that box for Skydive Spaceland! We’ve just posted our own Safety Stand in the hangar, complete with information on:

  • Skydive Spaceland Safety StandBasic safety guidelines
  • Aircraft safety
  • Camera jumps
  • Tracking dives and who should/should not lead them
  • Wingsuit dives
  • Today’s conditions
  • Jump run/exit separation
  • And more!

You’ll see the stand on your way into the hangar from the parking lot, so come on in, drop your gear, and come back when you have a few minutes to take a look. Get out to the loading area early for your next few jumps to soak in some of this great info, and it’s a good place to hang out on a weather hold as well. Whether you’ve been jumping for 20 days or 20 years, chances are good that you will find something on this stand that you didn’t know. If you’re a new skydiver, you won’t have been in all of the situations where you needed all of this information yet. If you’ve been around awhile, keep in mind that skydiving is evolving very quickly and so must our safety policies (particularly when it comes to dives with a lot of planned horizontal movement, such as tracking, tracing, and wingsuit dives). Even after 17 years of skydiving, I learned a lot while putting this together, so hit the loading area a few minutes early to check it out! 

Some of the information on this stand is old, and some is new. Some of it describes policies we’ve been following, but which may not have been spelled out where visiting and newer jumpers could discover them easily, and some policies are new. If you have any questions about why any of these policies are what they are, just ask one of our instructors or manager and we’ll be happy to explain the reasoning. 

I think one of the most important statements on this stand is the following, because it applies to every single one of us:

“Before trying ANY new type of skydiving activity such as freeflying, tracking, flying a camera, or flying a new canopy, consult an instructor, coach, or safety officer for tips on learning that activity safely. The biggest problem with new activities is that we don’t know what we don’t know or how we could be endangering ourselves and/or others. But these people do.”

We will also be sharing some of the specifics on this stand in future issues of FlyTips. Thanks to Skydive Arizona for the inspiration!

Stay safe out there–the life you save could be mine! 😀

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Do it Right: Visualize Your Skydive

If you’ve ever played sports, chances are good that you’ve heard a coach tell you or someone on your team to visualize doing it right when they were struggling with something. Some call this practice mental rehearsal, and it’s a completely valid strategy to increase performance, because you’re training your brain to perform to the standards of that visualization.

Visualization can help you respond more quickly when faced with emergency situations, perform a more stable exit or a better track, land more softly, etc. Skydivers from STP students all the way up to world-class competitive jumpers visualize their jumps beforehand to improve their performance. While you’re learning to skydive, better performance may mean few or no repeated levels and a shorter time to your A license.

So let’s think about what visualizing good performance on a skydive means. First,you have to know what good performance will look like; your instructors will help you figure this out with ground rehearsals, previous videos, etc. When you have some free minutes between rehearsing and jumping (on the ground and/or on the way to altitude), close your eyes and transfer that visualization of your ground practice to the sky environment. Take your time especially when you’re starting out with this practice; don’t rush. Be calm, efficient, and methodical in your visualization, because that’s how you want to fly. Think about all the details that make the picture complete, such as the sound of the wind decreasing as you flare or the smell of jet fuel if you’re visualizing exit technique. All of these details will help reduce surprises and put you in that calm, ready to perform mode.

Now let’s consider what you’ll see as you perform. Let’s say you’re working on a typical exit from inside the plane, facing up line of flight. Visualize the group leaving before you, checking the spot while counting off the specified delay between groups, your instructor’s climbout, then your instructor check-in, count, and solid arched exit while looking up the line of flight and watching the plane fly straight away from you.

Now carry that visualization through your entire dive flow, seeing yourself maintain your chosen heading and performing the body movements and dive flow objectives you have planned. See yourself do all of this right the first time, then visualize your altitude checks, deployment sequence, canopy control check, canopy learning objectives, and a soft landing. You’ll be amazed at how visualizing your performance thoroughly can help you achieve that performance more effectively and possibly in fewer skydives, because you are following a predetermined plan rather than seeing it all new for the first time.

Try this on your next jump and let us know how much it helps!

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Skydiver Training Tip: When to Learn to Pack Your Parachute

Packing parachutes

Hello student skydiver! As you progress to ever more awe-inspiring feats of skydiving skill in our Skydiver Training Program, do you ever wonder about the magic that happens before you strap your gear on for the next jump?

I refer of course to the magic whereby the billowing parachute, hundreds of square feet of nylon, that you lay down on the packing room floor after a jump is organized and repacked into the shoebox-sized container for your next one. Someday, you’ll have the pleasure of learning to do this for yourself. It’s a requirement to achieve your basic skydiving license, and even if you plan to pay packers to do this for the rest of your life, you must learn to do it anyway. At least once. 
So when should you take the packing class? As soon as possible, but don’t skip out on good jumping weather for it. This is Houston, after all; it will rain soon enough and bad weather is a great time for a packing class. Here’s the scoop on scheduling your packing class:
  1. Pick a weekday or a weekend day when the weather is rotten. The packers are not available to teach you to pack during busy jump days.
  2. Plan for at least 3 hours for the class and expect to sweat.
  3. Contact one of our packers directly (Nigel or Brad), or Kelley at kelley@skydivespaceland.com to schedule your class.
  4. The class is $50 cash if you jump your own pack job afterward; $55 if you do not and the packers must repack it when you’re done.
Don’t wait too long to take your class so you can become a fully licensed skydiver!
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You’re the Pilot: Take Control!

Ask any group of non-skydivers what they think would be the scariest part of skydiving, and at least a few will answer, “The landing.” Ask a group of skydiving students, or even experienced jumpers, and you’ll get the same answer from a few of them.

We have the guts to throw ourselves out of airplanes in flight, yet we’re sometimes scared of piloting the assembly of nylon and string that saves our lives. But if a skydiver is scared of the parachute, he/she is often more likely to become injured on landing than a skydiver who flies confidently and safely. So the fear can become a self-fulfilling prophecy–but no one wants that! Let’s look at why some skydivers fear their parachutes and how to fix that.

First of all, fear is often caused by the unknown. No one grew up flying parachutes from childhood, so as adults learning to skydive this is a skill that we don’t know yet. It is related to the skills required to pilot an aircraft or even a car, but not quite the same, hence the potential fear.

Another potential source of fear is loss of control–and we often feel out of control on our first few skydives even if we’re not, just because everything is so new. After all, you can’t get off this ride until you reach the ground!

Put together fear and perceived loss of control, and you sometimes see skydivers that seem scared to fly their parachutes. They may perform very gradual turns and often hear radio guidance along the lines of, “Pull that toggle down further… keep pulling the toggle down to your chest… there you go.” They may also flare the parachute timidly while landing, resulting in not slowing their descent enough to land smoothly. These skydivers are also the ones that may say things like, “The wind blew me off course” after landing out or far from the target.

Flying a parachute doesn’t have to be scary. Parachutes obey the laws of physics pretty well, so all you need to do is understand the basics of those physics and take charge of the parachute. You are the pilot, so listen to your instructors and fly that thing!

“You need to realize you have control just as you do when  you are driving your car,” says instructor Raul Quinones. “Understand that you are the pilot of your own canopy. It will not go where you want it to unless you tell it to. If you want the car to turn, you have to turn the wheel. It’s the same as with your parachute–make the correction you want with your toggles (or risers once you have learned how). If the air is turbulent or bumpy, just relax and fly the canopy. Feel the canopy and where it is in relation to your body, and keep it where it’s supposed to be on landing–directly over your head.”

Raul describes the following common mistakes he often sees students and less experienced canopy pilots make:

  • Reaching out or down on landing with one hand or foot (often an unconscious intent to “break your fall,” especially if you feel off balance). This causes a diving turn. Instead, focus on keeping the parachute directly overhead and flying it so that you will slow the parachute and touch the ground with both feet at the same time. The parachute is your “safety net,” not the ground!
  • Flaring unevenly (one hand higher than the other): Same result as above, and same correction.
  • Landing downwind of the target. “Hold upwind, not downwind,” says Raul. “Select a holding area location where the wind will help you get home, not keep you from it. Stay in that area until you have permission to leave it, which is at 900 ft. Also, learn how varying winds affect where your canopy can fly over the ground and use the winds rather than fighting them. Fly the same pattern, but move your pattern’s turn points over the ground—further upwind in higher winds.”
  • Not thinking about your landing just as much as your freefall and canopy pattern. “Often people have a lot of adrenaline and just want to land, without thinking about HOW to land properly,” says Raul. “Keep focusing on your landing technique until you have landed safely and picked up the canopy.”

“Be positive and take control!” urges Raul. “Don’t stop thinking until you’ve landed.”

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Skydiving Tip: You’re Not THAT Good…

Skydivers tend to be pretty confident people. We trust ourselves to save our own lives while throwing ourselves out of (ha) perfectly good airplanes towards the planet, right? We trust that we have the skills to succeed in the dives we plan. We trust that our gear will work, and even if it doesn’t, we trust that we have the knowledge and skills to handle it and still land safely.

Some of us also trust that we have infallible awareness of other skydivers in freefall and under canopy, so there’s no need for backup safety devices. “I can protect myself–you’ll never hit ME!” is something you can hear declared confidently at just about any drop zone in the world.

Here’s a news flash–you’re not THAT good. No one is, and the only way to absolutely guarantee that you will never have a chance of being struck by another skydiver is to not jump.

But what fun is that? We want to jump and play with our friends. But there is some risk–just as there is risk in skydiving, period. So just as we mitigated risk when learning to skydive by paying careful attention to our instructors to learn safe skydiving practices, and performing good gear checks, we mitigate risk when jumping with others. We plan dives within our skill levels, with objectives in mind, to increase our safety and chances of success. We keep our heads on a swivel in freefall when everyone’s not in the formation yet, and under canopy to stay aware of traffic and avoid collisions.

Despite all of our preparation, however, the chance of a collision still exists. One important way to mitigate our risk of injury or worse in the unlikely event of a collision is by wearing all possible safety gear, such as hard helmets (ideally full-face helmets) and automatic activation devices (AADs). Even highly experienced jumpers can lose track of others especially on a jump with many other jumpers, and sometimes stuff just happens. A foot to the face during a transition in formation skydiving. A vertical collision when one skydiver gets in another’s burble. A tracking collision between jumpers who didn’t see each other. Or even a totally unpredictable situation, such as a loose shoe in the face on exit as in the photo above. At freefall speeds, unconsciousness would be a very likely result of a direct shoe to the face. Thus we arrive at the AAD recommendation…

We all like to think we’re perfect, but not a single one of us is and neither are those we jump with. Follow these guidelines to help avoid incidents and injury:

  1. Plan safe skydives and get advice from instructors and experienced load organizers frequently to reduce the incidence of collisions.
  2. Give your gear a thorough check before each skydive, check your handles before exit, and get a pin check in before exit.
  3. Wear safety gear to reduce the “penalty” of any unexpected situations.

Fly safe!

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Tracking Dives: The Fun and the Danger

Ah, the sunset tracking dive. What could be more fun than flying along with your skydiving friends in a flock with a beautiful sunset? After all, all the cool kids are doing it! Graduation jump tracking dive, anyone? Just kidding!!!!

If the dive goes wrong, a whole lot of things could be more fun than that tracking dive.

Tracking and angle flying dives that plan for the group to move across the sky are very fun and cool, but they can also be very dangerous both within the group and to other groups. Not to be a wet blanket, but they seriously do require solid planning and skill from each flyer to execute safely. Some drop zones are considering requiring at least 100 jumps before allowing individuals on group tracking dives, and 500 to lead such a dive.

Think about it… if a tracking dive is doing up to 50-60mph horizontal speed and the flight path angles incorrectly up or down line of flight, how long will it take you to cover the distance between your exit point and the next group on the load? How long will it take you to pass them? Not very long at all, and now you are opening in the “wrong” airspace where at the very least you’re not expected by others on the load, and at worst you are in the same airspace as other groups and opening collisions are a major risk. (Remember last week’s tip about predictable skydiving?)

There is also a significant additional risk from freefall collisions with other jumpers on your dive, particularly if any of those jumpers are inexperienced in general or with tracking dives.

So what it all boils down to is this: Tracking/angle flying dives have the potential to be much more dangerous than “regular” falling-straight-down jumps. Don’t try group tracking dives right off student status, and make sure any tracking dives you are on are well-planned. If that little voice in your head says this doesn’t sound safe or organized, speak up!

If you are considering joining or leading a tracking dive, please read the following articles to inform yourself about the risks and proper planning of these dives. Consider jumping with a coach if you really want to work on tracking. We want you and the rest of us to stay safe!

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Skydiving Tip: Predictability = Safety

Plan the dive, dive the plan. You’ve been practicing this since your first student training jump. There are two reasons for a dive plan:

  1. SAFETY!
  2. Engineering the dive so you can get in maximum learning and/or performance from the jump.

Once you have graduated from a skydiving training program, there are SO MANY things you can do! You rock–you are now a licensed skydiver! But that is just a license to start learning further, not a license to do whatever you want. Safety is priority 1, always!

The goal when planning a dive is to come up with a dive we like that will be executed according to plan (or at least mostly!). Skydives are more successful and safer when things go according to plan–they are predictable. Unlike that new relationship where unpredictability can be mysterious and fun, unpredictability in the sky leads to confusion and safety issues. These could include issues within your group or between your group and others.

Here are 10 things you might want to ask yourself when planning your dive:

  1. Is there a particular exit I want to do? How should we safely climb out for this exit and what grips should we take? (Hint: Do not scrape your rig along the door as you climb out!)
  2. What do I want to do in freefall? Is there a skill I’m trying to work on?
  3. Realistically, how many people should be on the dive to achieve that objective?
  4. If you are working on a skill, is there a more experienced jumper or coach who can lay a stable base and provide feedback?
  5. What is the dive flow based on the above answers?
  6. Where should you be in the exit order for the load with this dive plan?
  7. How much time do you need between group exits with the current winds?
  8. How high will you break off and pull? Is there enough time between them for adequate separation at deployment? Is this acceptable relative to others on the dive and other groups on the plane?
  9. Where is your holding area under canopy?
  10. What is your planned landing pattern?

Likely, you won’t answer these questions all at once. For example, you will probably figure out your holding area and canopy pattern before your first jump and stick to it for the day unless the winds change. And you won’t know about where you fit in the boarding/exit order until you get out to the boarding area with the rest of the load, but you should already know where you fit in the grand scheme of things. With more experience, you’ll answer many of these questions automatically.

If at any time you feel that the size of the dive is too big for safety or that the participants on it may not be safe for that dive flow, change the plan. If you have any questions about safety or maneuvers, please don’t hesitate to ask one of our Skydiver Training Program instructors or load organizers. Also ask questions if you are on a dive doing something you haven’t done before (such as a new type of exit or group activity such as a tracking dive). Any of us will be thrilled to help you keep us all safe!

Remember–YOU are responsible for your safety, and that of your group if you are planning the dive. Take the initiative to make sure your dive plan is safe and predictable for you, your group and the rest of the load. Blue skies!

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Parachute Dirt Diving

We dirt dive the freefall portion of nearly all of our skydives, but do you dirt dive your landings? Do you check the wind speed and direction at all altitudes, which way the wind will shift as you descend, etc.? If the wind direction changes, how will that change your landing pattern? As we develop more experience this becomes almost automatic, but initially we have to think about all of these aspects of winds and how the affect our canopy flight to develop this skill.

Once students graduate from our Skydiver Training Program, we occasionally see them fly a pattern that doesn’t suit the current winds, and thus they land somewhere other than where they planned. It’s usually pretty clear that the skydiver simply flew the same pattern that worked yesterday or for the majority of their training, and never looked at today’s winds or thought about how they’d affect their landing pattern and accuracy.

Ask yourself several questions before every skydive so you know everything you need to know to land safely on or at least near your target.

  1. What are the obstacles you need to avoid (such as the berm, hangar, trees, etc.)?
  2. Which side of them is downwind? (You know you don’t want to land there because of turbulence!)
  3. What are today’s winds aloft?
  4. Where is your holding area?
  5. What are your planned turn altitudes?
  6. Where over the ground do you plan to make those turns?
  7. Have you considered the speed of the winds when planning your landing pattern?
  8. Will your planned pattern ensure that you don’t cross the runway under 1,000 feet?

Next, make sure you check wind indicators on the ground (flags, tetrahedron, wind sock, pond fountains, etc.). Check before takeoff, on the way up, and once you are under canopy just like you did when you were a student. Even after graduation, are you checking the wind indicators on the way up and once you are under canopy like you did as a student?

Plan the dive and dive the plan–it’s much better than locking yourself into a suboptimal landing pattern and/or direction because you didn’t think about it until you were too low to fly the correct pattern with other traffic.

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Helmets: Secured for Takeoff

We don’t have a lot of bad words in skydiving (regardless of what you might hear after the beer light comes on! ;), but there is one we can all agree on: Complacency.

com·pla·cen·cy n. — A feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger, trouble, or controversy.

In skydiving, we say someone is complacent when they think they are safe but they are acting unsafely or in an unsafe situation. This covers a number of situations, but right now we’ll focus on our behavior in the aircraft.

It’s certainly rare, but any moving or flying vehicle can come to a sudden stop for a variety of reasons. We often see people put their helmets on for takeoff, but neglect to secure them with the chin strap (usually full-face helmets that people think may stay on because of the liner’s “chin cup”). This is a clear instance of complacency because that jumper assumes the plane won’t crash. Most of the time, he/she will be right, but if she’s wrong, the consequences can be pretty major.

There is a very good reason we require helmets to be on or otherwise secured for takeoff. In the unlikely event of an aircraft issue, what good is a helmet that is not secured to your head? If it flies off it’s no help to you and a danger to everyone else in the aircraft. OK, it’s hot. We get it. But really, how much cooler is that helmet without the strap secured? Especially compared to your safety and that of everyone else on the load?

Here are a few more points to consider, from a recent conversation with Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld (you know, that world-champion skydiver who nearly died in a plane crash in 1992?).

  1. Aircraft incidents where a helmet could come in handy range from the rare and obvious (uncontrolled landings) to the more common but less obvious (hard stop due to aborted takeoff, for example).
  2. A helmet that is buckled to your chest strap cannot protect your head. What it can do is break ribs and cause internal injuries if turbulence or worse causes you to strike another jumper or the aircraft. 
  3. Dan was not wearing a helmet when the plane he was riding in crashed. He has a permanent head injury as a result, and feels that had he been wearing a helmet, he would not be taking medication for this injury for the rest of his life.

Your helmet should be secured for takeoff by either:

  1. Putting it on your head and fastening it (recommended).
  2. Clipping it on your chest strap or running the strap through the helmet.
  3. Buckling it and you into the seat belt.

In skydiving, we manage our risk to the lowest possible level so we can make as many jumps as we can. Don’t raise your risk with something as silly as an unbuckled chin strap.

As always, if you have any questions, just ask one of our many instructors! Fly safe.

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Skydiving Advice: Listen With Care

Skydivers come in all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life, but If one word could be used to describe nearly all of us it would probably be “passionate.”

This is a sport we love dearly and deeply, and we love to share that passion with others. That passion, unfortunately, can cause problems in the scenario of one jumper giving another advice. If you are a skydiving student or less experienced jumper, sometimes the advice you get from random fun jumpers on the dropzone is not suited for you, so listen with care.

Most skydivers love to give back to this sport by helping out those newer to skydiving than ourselves. The stories shared among skydivers during and after hours at the dropzone are a huge learning opportunity and a major part of the fun of this sport. However, advice given around the figurative bonfire is not always something you should take as gospel, even if it comes from a very experienced jumper.

Different skydivers have different experiences and goals than you might have, and the advice they think is proper may be counterproductive or potentially dangerous to a less experienced jumper. For example, if someone is encouraging you to downsize canopies significantly, explore high-performance landings, or get on large tracking dives when you have very few jumps, that’s a red flag. They would never lead you astray intentionally, but sometimes it’s easy for people to forget just how long it can take to achieve the skills needed to do some of these things safely.

By all means, listen to advice you receive and listen well. But also listen with care, and discuss new concepts and advice with your instructors before trying them. Your Skydiver Training Program instructors are experienced in training skydiving skills and they have a good handle on what advice will be suitable for you and your particular level of skill at the moment. They’re your best judge of what you are ready to do safely and what advice you should follow.

If you are no longer a student or learned to jump elsewhere, but still have questions, also go to our instructors. They are happy to help you “vet out” advice so you can stay safe!

Blue skies and fly safe!

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Landing Patterns and Winds

Landing patterns for different wind conditionsOne of the best things about skydiving today compared to some decades past is that we jump steerable parachutes. We have the ability to change our flight paths and land on target, which makes it a lot easier for us to land near the hangar and make lots of jumps in a day without quite the cardio workout of walking in from far-flung fields.

These steerable parachutes also make it possible for us to land on target in variable wind conditions, but we have to understand how the wind affects our canopy flight to fully take advantage of the situation.

Wind Speed vs. Airspeed vs. Groundspeed

The typical parachute in full flight has a forward airspeed of about 25 mph. Its groundspeed (speed across the ground), however, varies according to whether you are flying into the wind (holding) or running with the wind at your back. Let’s say we have a wind of 10 mph. If we’re holding into the wind, it’s slowing our groundspeed, so we get less forward movement as we descend. Subtract the 10 mph wind speed from your 25 mph airspeed, and your groundspeed is 15 mph.

If you’re running with the wind at your back, it is pushing you across the ground faster. So add that 10 mph to your 25 mph natural airspeed, and your groundspeed is now 35 mph. You might feel a little like Superman, flying across fields in a single… bound?… well, anyway. 🙂

Landing Pattern Adjustment

This variable groundspeed with winds clearly affects our flight patterns, because we can’t just turn in to the downwind, base, and final legs of our landing patterns at the same points on the ground and altitudes in different wind conditions and expect to land on the same target. What we should do is fly the same pattern with respect to our planned turn altitudes, but shift the entire pattern in an upwind direction in higher winds as in the diagram at right.

The higher the winds, the more upwind your pattern should shift, because your final leg into the wind will get shorter and shorter with more wind (more like the red line in the diagram).

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The New Beer Line

Ah, the beer line–that line close to the hangar that causes all skydivers in sight distance to yell “BEER!!!!” with glee if you land on the hangar side of it. Did you know we now have one of these in the student/A-B license landing area at our Houston location in addition to our regular beer line? Let me explain.

Skydive Spaceland beer line
The reference line is the new beer line.

You might have noticed that we have a reference line mowed/burned in the grass, running east to west and extending out from the fence in front of the hangar. This line was created to build a buffer of safety from the north property line berm, because there is no good landing direction that favors landing next to it, just past it, or facing it. We call it an obstacle for a reason! The turbulence in that area can be ugly, potentially collapsing your canopy, and misreading the winds can leave you on the berm or in the ditch. Avoid this area at all costs!

Especially when the winds are strong out of the south, our plan with that line is to have everyone plan to land south of it, pretending that the line is the berm. This way, if the winds are stronger than you realize and you end up landing further downwind (closer to the berm) than you intended, you have a buffer before you get to the real obstacle.

So now that the reference line is the new student beer line, if you are an STP student and you land between the beer line and the berm a few things could happen.

  1. At the least you will get a reminder from your instructor that you should not be landing there.
  2. Considering that we are now calling the reference line the student beer line, you will be asked to purchase frosty beverages. 🙂
  3. We may consider that the winds are too strong for your current level of canopy skill and require you to stay on the ground until the winds drop.

If you’re a licensed jumper and land there, well–BEER!!! If you land here repeatedly, we may need to review your wind limits.

Florida students (and all other jumpers): This concept applies to you too! Anytime the winds are strong and there is an obstacle downwind of your target, create a buffer around that obstacle in your mind and fly your pattern such that you stay clear of your buffer zone.

It’s all about safety! Stay well away from obstacles in any conditions, especially windy ones. Fly safe and let us know if you have any questions!

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Skydiver Training Tip: To Land Off or Not?

Scenario: You’re under a good canopy at 2000 feet. You are downwind of the drop zone and aren’t sure you can make it to the landing area. Between you and the drop zone are trees, brush, power lines, and likely all manner of unpleasant critters. Behind you is a wide open field. What do you do?

a) Get on your rear risers or toggles, trim out your canopy for a flat glide, pull up your knees to reduce drag, and try to clear the obstacles.

b) Start looking for an alternate landing area.

c) Aim for the center of the biggest tree so you can grab onto it when you land there and not fall out of it.

d) Transfer your landing pattern to the open field behind you and aim for the center of it.

Remember back to your student training… at what altitude were you taught to select a suitable landing area? That’s right–2000 feet. Above 2500 feet you should have done a controllability check and begun evaluating potential landing areas (free of hazards) nearby.

So let’s look at the answers.

(a) Get on your rear risers or toggles, trim out your canopy for a flat glide, pull up your knees to reduce drag, and try to clear the obstacles.

Good answer–if you were well above 2000 feet, not AT 2000 feet. By 2000 feet, you should have already selected an easily reachable, safe landing area.

(b) Start looking for an alternate landing area. 

By 2000 feet, you should have already done this so you can make a choice with sufficient altitude to achieve a good pattern starting point.

c) Aim for the center of the biggest tree so you can grab onto it when you land there. 

This is only a good plan if you have failed to select an appropriate landing area in time to reach it. It’s an emergency technique, not a plan.

d) Transfer your landing pattern to the open field behind you and aim for the center of it.

DING DING DING! By 2000 feet, you should have decided on a safe area to land, whether that is on the drop zone or not. Don’t get fixated on the drop zone landing area; be realistic about whether you are certain you can make that area. If not, look all around you. Like they’re always telling us on commercial airline flights, the safest emergency plan may be behind you.

Select a suitable area, transfer your pattern to that area, and land just as if you would if you were “home.” On the way down, take a quick look around for the easiest way to walk to the drop zone or the nearest road for a pickup.

Safe landings and blue skies!

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And Liberty and Pin Checks for All…

As skydivers, we like to do everything right so we can skydive again… and again… and…

Lately we have been seeing a number of recent graduates, now unsupervised by instructors, neglecting their pin checks before exit. Perhaps it’s due to distraction when thinking about the upcoming jump, or perhaps you noticed an experienced jumper neglecting a pin check (shame shame!) and thought it was OK.

Either way, this isn’t a good step to skip! Pins getting pulled at the wrong time can have major consequences for our fellow jumpers and our lovely aircraft. And several things can result in a loose pin–such as a stretched closing loop, the jumper behind you bumping your rig, or leaning on the wall or bulkhead during the ride to altitude.

So please, please get a pin check in the plane before every exit, not just on the ground before boarding. If someone in your group doesn’t ask for one, offer! The life you save could be mine, or yours. :p

As always, if you have any questions about why or how to do anything regarding skydiving or our operations at Spaceland, feel free to ask any of our instructors or pilots.

Blue Skies!

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Seat Belts in Jump Aircraft: Not Just for Show

Seat belts in the CaravanI once had an instructor who refused to wear a seat belt in a car. He had managed to defy all odds in two separate car accidents by not wearing seat belts; both accidents threw him out of a car that would have crushed him had he remained inside.

Unlike with cars, however, the last thing you want to occur in the (thankfully extremely unlikely) event that you are in a plane during an emergency landing or crash is to be tossed out of the aircraft or about the cabin. You are much better off (and so are your fellow jumpers) if you are fully restrained by your seat belt and skydiving rig harness. Seat belts are our first line of defense–they keep the cargo (jumpers) in place, maintaining balance in the aircraft.

Sometimes we will see a jumper, often a visiting one, refuse to wear a seat belt in one of our jump aircraft. The jumper may not put on the seat belt at all, or may loop the belt loosely around an arm or leg. One comment I’ve heard is, “Yeah, this is just easier.”

“Yeah, it’s easier for you to slam into me or the pilot if the plane goes down. Put it on.” The last thing we need in a crash is to have the impact of the crash, and then our friends landing on top of us.

Seat belts need to be buckled around your waist (with benches) or through a part of your harness away from your handles (i.e., leg strap) before takeoff. No exceptions. Then remove them at 1500 feet so you can exit the aircraft in case of an emergency that occurs high enough for you to safely jump from the plane. Helmets also need to be secured on your head or secured by your chest strap or seat belt for takeoff; otherwise they become projectiles in a crash.

As always, if you have any questions about why or how to do anything regarding skydiving or our operations at Spaceland, feel free to ask any of our instructors or pilots.

Blue Skies!