Another season closing, a time to look back, a time to look ahead. Looking back we see all the good that's come to us over the year and it can be hoped we've had the opportunity to learn, and that we've taken advantage of that chance. Some growth perhaps, both in our abilities as skydivers and in our abilities to profit as people, to move forward. There have been some eye openers out there. Many comical, a few painful, and one deadly.
The topic of preparedness managed to make itself heard this year. Are you ready to skydive and what does that mean? Please understand that what I'm about to say is not meant to be harsh or unkind. But when there's permanent damage done to a human body, it requires strong measures and language as well as a very straightforward approach to understand how to prevent it from ever happening again. Ever!
In Quincy this year one of our own Ranch hands - and most of you know who - came this close to losing his life and will instead be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life if he's lucky enough to be able to sit upright. He had been driving all night with friends to get there; when they were tired he took the wheel. When they arrived he was the most stoked and the least rested. He was also a relative low timer who was at the Convention for his first time. Ever been to Quincy? It ain't the Ranch, my lovelies. Earlier, throughout the season at the Ranch, he was on more than a few people's list as a highly likely candidate for an ambulance ride out. And he never really heeded advice, seeking his own way instead. How anyone believes they can do that and survive is one of the greater mysteries we may never unravel.
So, on his first jump ever at Quincy, he decided he'd land in the same spot he'd just watched someone biff into. Maybe he figured he could do better? Maybe he didn't figure anything at all. It was also a tight enough area to land in and with his experience and unwillingness or inability to properly gauge his skill level, the area was respectively tighter for him. This area was the helicopter boarding area, the large tent right there acting as one border of the landing zone he'd selected. It's absolutely amazing just how fast a skydive can come to an end when your canopy is snagged in flight by, oh, let's say, a tent. Sure as shit he was slung with a whap to the unforgiving earth and managed to break his back. As in permanent paralysis. It is hoped all of us will learn something from this. What I worry about is what we'll learn. The landing area he chose is very landable - if you have the skill; if you are conscious and not over tired, over amped and over confident in your diminished abilities. Let's get something straight here. What one of us can do is by no means an indication of what everyone can do - yet. There are dozens of us who could have landed there. Of those dozens none would try in less than ideal conditions like fatigue or over excitement. Those of us with a few thousand jumps under our belts have so many precisely because we opt to stay on the ground sometimes. There's a story about two bulls on the top of a hill looking down on a herd of cows down below. One bull is a young stud and the other is older, wiser, been around a bit. The young one says, "Why don't we run down there and fuck one of them." The older bull replies, "Let's walk down and fuck them all." Sometimes all it takes to live, to stay healthy, to be able to come back and make a ton of skydives and eventually become a great skydiver is patience. There are a number of things in life we can rush and there are a number of things we dare not rush, and to attempt to place these things on our schedule with no respect for their natural schedule is to invite trouble. Patience. Sure couldn't hurt.
This year's National Pond Swooping Competition was at once the greatest and most successful to date and the most tragic. We may never know the truth of what happened. All we can do is guess based on a broad range of experience and eyewitness accounts. Basically what we know is that one competitor was completing a left hook near the trees at the orchard end of the pond when her canopy caught some turbulence. Or maybe not. The turbulence angle has one of three possibilities. It could have been normal turbulence off the trees whether that means a rotor or a down draft or whatever the real weather folks call these things. Shit off the trees is what most of us call it. Another possibility is wake turbulence from the competitor before her. Not everyone agrees with this but then not everyone has a degree in aeronautical phenomena. A third angle that has been proposed is the venturi effect, which, as it was explained to me but I'm not certain I can explain, is a turbulence created at the tree line when the tree line has an irregularity in it. Back there there's a notch, an indentation in the straight tree line and that can cause an additional disturbance. So if she was caught there she might have hit one, two or a combination punch of all three. Anyone who saw it though will tell you it was the freakiest collapsing of a canopy we've ever seen. Which brings us to the fourth possibility as well as another topic of discussion. Without stating positively, because no one I know is fully qualified to do so, it has been suggested - suggested - that the canopy itself was to blame.
Icarus Canopies issued a bulletin earlier this Fall on their Crossfire canopy. Not on all of them ever built, just those of certain serial numbers. They admit to having had some design problems and are working to fix them. Meanwhile there are first hand accounts and eyewitness accounts of the Crossfire buckling, or buffeting, during a front riser turn to the point of uncontrollability. The company is advising against this maneuver on these serial numbers. It is not issuing a recall yet and is keeping skydivers up to date via their web site. They update frequently so if you have any questions, go to www.icaruscanopies.com/bulletin.htm . Or you can email them with your Crossfire questions at crossfire@icaruscanopies.com .
Again, whether or not this problem contributed to the death at the Pond Swoop meet is too much for anyone here to speculate on responsibly.
Enough black death stuff. It's been too rough a year for all Americans, and the world, to dwell on death. We apparently will have time for that soon enough. Let's get positive and optimistic while we still can.
As much as I hate the winter, here it comes and with it layoffs from jumping or slowing down at least. There may be trips to warmer parts of the country for a whole season or just a week or so here and there. The best advice is to stay current and to stay wise as you put more time between jumps than you'd like and as you visit what may be unfamiliar drop zones. If you intend to jump here in the snow be mindful of what the snow cover can do. It can completely eradicate any depth perception and make judgment on landing a tad tricky. Not unlike what landing over water can do. Everything is one color and most ground vagaries are covered up so that for the most part you're looking at one smooth and continuous surface. Might just be a lie. Winter jumping at the Ranch might also mean the Cessna - The Jewel - and it could very well mean lower jump altitudes as few of us really want to deal with the climb in the cold or that much freefall in the cold either. So your internal clock needs to be reset for winter. It's not uncommon for we spoiled 13.5ers to blow our timing when all we get is 9 grand or so. Remember: It's the plane that didn't go as high but the Earth is still right where it was. Meanwhile, your 50 - 70 seconds will convert to 20 - 40 depending on what you're doing. So by all means pull high enough. (By the way, USPA has recently upped the pull altitude for 'A' license holders. Used to be 'A' and 'B' could toss it out at 2,500, but now the 'A' folks have to split 500' earlier, at 3,000' AGL. Hell, those are minimums. Why not all of us pulling at 3? That's another thing that couldn't hurt.)
The Ranch Safety Days are slated for April 19, 20 & 21. The idea is to focus on safety - hence the name - and how we can all keep more than just our own asses clear of danger. The exact schedule is not worked out yet but I'd love to hear what you think would be important to cover, what do you want to have discussed or who would you like to hear speak on what topic.
Ok. That's it for now. Maybe that's it for the season. Stay well, be smart. Ask a lot of questions. Then go ask someone else.
And as always,
Thanks for listening and please, come back in one piece!
Kim Emerson, S&TA