P A R A C H U T I N G ' S N E W S M A G A Z I N E
Ask the Editor
Batch 5
King
Air Exits
Questions About an Accident
Dealing With Fear
Parachuting vs. Skydiving
The following questions were submitted by visitors to our Web site and answered by the editor of Skydiving magazine. .
To ask a question of your own, click here.
Q. What advice do you have for a student who is relatively okay with exiting a Cessna but scared to death of exiting from a King Air (and must learn to do it if she wants to continue jumping)
A. You'll feel better about exiting a King Air if you receive some training before you go up and do it. Ask an instructor, perhaps when things slow down at your DZ. He or she will show you there are several ways to leave a King Air, all of which work well. Practice them repeatedly, in the aircraft if possible. You don't have to consult an instructor. A jumper who's just mastered side-door exits would be helpful, since he still remembers the little things that make it easier.) Here are three techniques to try, in increasing order of daring: Sit in the door with your legs out and knees pointed forward, towards the front of the plane. To start your skydive, hop off the door sill like you were hopping feet first off the top of a fence. Keep your head up as you thrust your left shoulder forward, towards the engine into the airstream. Arch and watch the aircraft as you fall away from it. Another way is to crouch on the door sill on the balls of your feet, facing forward. Grip the forward edge of the doorway with both hands and place the left foot in front the right. Keep your head up. Step out with the left foot while arching and pushing forward with the left shoulder. (If you look down while getting into position, you'll see the King Air's wing flap, close to the door. You might feel you're going to hit it as you leave. You won't.) A third technique is more fun: Dive out towards the 8 o'clock position (the nose of the aircraft is 12 o'clock) with your arms extended forward Superman-style, your feet tucked on your butt, and your chest presented to the relative wind (this means your right shoulder will be higher than your left). Hold that position. After pitching head-down for a few seconds, you'll pull out into a normal belly-to-earth attitude, facing away from the aircraft. Then relax into a neutral freefall position. Trust that "Superman" position to work. It does, but it won't seem that way right out the door; you'll feel like you're going to do an uncontrolled front loop. There are other ways to exit a side-door aircraft like a King Air-you could back out like a floater, for instance. But having three to choose from is enough at first. Many new jumpers prefer side-door exits to those from a Cessna because they don't have to climb out on the step. The King Air flies faster than a Cessna on jump run, and you'll feel that extra speed in the door and on exit. Deal with it; use those muscles God gave you. But freefall is freefall, and once you leave the aircraft you'll be in familiar territory, where your stability and maneuvering skills work the same.
Q. A friend recently died in a skydiving accident. According to reports, no handles were pulled except the "cutaway." Can you help me understand what this means? I heard he was experimenting with placing his parachute in "different locations" so perhaps he got confused.
A. Most skydivers wear a rig that has three handles. One handle deploys the main parachute, another deploys the reserve, and the third jettisons the main. On most jumps, the skydiver uses just one of the handles; he deploys his main canopy and lands uneventfully. But if he deploys his main and it malfunctions, then he'll use the "cutaway" handle to jettison it and then pull the reserve handle. The reason for cutting away a malfunctioned main is to create clean air for the deploying reserve. If the malfunctioned main is still attached to the jumper, the deploying reserve can entangle in it. There are many emergency scenarios, however, not just the one described above. For instance, sometimes a jumper will have trouble locating his main deployment handle (perhaps he's wearing heavy gloves, or his goggles have blown off, or the handle has blown out of his reach). He's still in freefall, with nothing out. In that case, the best course of action is to simply pull the reserve handle, rather than cut away first. Cutting away is just a waste of precious time and altitude. Over the years there have been many fatal accidents where jumpers have failed to pull either the main or reserve, or pulled the wrong handle at the wrong time--or pulled none. Some have inexplicably pulled the cutaway handle and nothing else. Investigators have attributed these accidents to a variety of causes: poor training, unfamiliarity with new equipment, suicide, heart attacks and more. But the investigators usually don't really know what happened. Usually no one saw it clearly. Furthermore, accident investigations in our sport are for the most part conducted by well-meaning amateurs. Many of these have a conflict of interest. Some might work for the manufacturer of the equipment or the drop zone, for instance. These conflicts can ruin their objectivity. And, in a sincere effort to come up with an explanation, investigators will often pick the most plausible reason as the cause of the accident, even though it could have been the result of the one-in-a-million scenario. Humans also like to explain things; no one likes to conduct an investigation and admit that he just doesn't know what happened. From what we heard about your friend's death, no one really knows what happened. One could present several plausible explanations for the accident (he became confused, he was incapacitated, he was a suicide, he was simply reacting slowly) and we've heard of no evidence that clearly establishes the cause. This response sounds blunt and uncaring. We're sorry for that, and we're sorry that your friend died.
Q. I made a few jumps during the summer and it was incredibly fun. But I'm having a hard time finding the guts to keep going and I certainly don't want to quit. What can I tell myself to be more comfortable?
A. At one time or another in their careers, skydivers have to cope with fear. Jumping out of an aircraft in flight is dangerous and unusual--we should be scared. It takes time and experience to learn to manage that fear. Surprisingly, students often discover that their scariest jump isn't their first. Their second jump is often the most gut-wrenching, or perhaps their fifth or fiftieth. Fear also increases as the time between jumps increases. Getting back in the air after any sort of layoff is guaranteed to churn the stomach. Here's a suggestion: Save enough time, money and good weather so you can jump several times a day for several days in a row. Expect to be really petrified on the first jump of that sequence, especially during the ride to altitude. But, more than likely, you'll land from that jump feeling quite enthusiastic about making another. You'll be much more relaxed on that next jump. Once you make a bunch of jumps in a row, you'll rightfully have a lot more confidence in your equipment, your training and yourself. Fear will diminish dramatically. But expect to be scared again the following weekend, although not quite as much. Expect also to get the heebie-jeebies when you're exposed to a new situation (new equipment, new DZ, different aircraft). For a few new skydivers, the fear never subsides enough, even when they try jumping frequently. In that case, if a sport isn't fun, then why do it?
Q. Is there any difference between "parachuting" and "skydiving"?
A. No; the two terms refer to the same sport. Parachuting is the older term; skydiving didn't come into favor until the 1980s and 1990s. Many jumpers today prefer skydiving because it emphasizes the freefall portion of the jump, which they enjoy more. (To many, parachuting emphasizes the canopy descent). But parachuting is probably the better of the two terms. A parachute is what's common to every sport jump; freefall isn't.
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