Way off

[Mark P.]

This past weekend, on the occasion of my 4th static line, I had the
wonderful experience of landing about half a mile from the DZ. Seemed
to arise from a combination of the winds being in the opposite direction
at 4000' as they were on the ground, a slow exit, and my complete
inability to spot the DZ from the air (although I had a radio). Anyway,
I'm still really confused as to how I had so much difficulty orienting--
after all, it WAS a pretty panoramic view and it isn't THAT hard to spot
an airport! Does anybody have some perspective into why this happens?
(I hope experience improves :-) ) Any anecdotes regarding major quality
misses would be appreciated.

Mark Papamarcos
..hplabs!pesnta!valid!markp

[David Cohn]

On my first jump I had a similar experience:
They hadn't dropped a WDI in a while and the winds had shifted so that
jump run was going *downwind*, which makes the plane passs the spot more
quickly. Additionally, I was slow to get out of the plane. Beyond even
that, I had line twists, so while my 'chute was flying straight away
from the drop zone, I was busy spinning around underneath it trying to
get myself straightened out forward. Urgh.
Orientation from the air is something humans aren't hardwired with. It
*does* take practice. It helps if you havee a major landmark to look for
regardless of orientation. Once you know appx. where, it's easier to figure
out which direction.
Incidentally, that first jump was at Otay Lake in CA, 2 miles north of the
Mexican border. I got alot of cute comments as I returned from my long
walk from the south.

skies call,
-pablo

[kas]

I can't offer any real advice on spotting the airport, but I think that
after you've made a few more jumps and had an opportunity to view the airport
from a variety of different angles, it will become easier to find. Just start
to memorize major landmarks in the region which are easy to spot from the air.
An anecdote: When I first moved to this state (OR) I had already been
skydiving for several years, and consider myself to be an accomplished spotter.
I got good at it because I got tired of having other people spot me halfway
into the next county. Anyway, when I went to the local DZ, I let other people
spot because I didn't know the area yet. On one load, though, I somehow got
"volunteered" to do the spotting (because I was near the door, I guess). When
we got to altitude, I looked out the door -- and the airport was nowhere in
sight. I looked at the pilot quizzically and shook my head saying, "where
the hell are we?" He kept saying we were right over the airport, but I couldn't
find it at all! The pilot had us on jumprun, and wondered why nobody was
climbing out yet. I kept telling him I still didn't see the airport, and I'll
be damned if I'm getting out until I do. Well, he finally banked the plane
sharply and pointed down and behind the airplane. Sure enough, there it was,
about a mile behind us! I told the pilot to do a 180 degree turn, which he
did, and we all piled out on a downwind jumprun (which I compensated for, of
course). The pilot was mad at me for the rest of the day, thinking I was some
sort of jerk. From that experience, I learned to find the airport by first
locating a huge log pile next to a lumber mill. The airport is next to it,
but is rather hard to see from higher altitudes because it is very small and
has a narrow dirt runway.
As far as the winds aloft, you will very often find that the upper winds
are going different directions than the ground winds. That is why it is
important to open the parachute at about the same altitude that the wind drift
indicator was dropped (typically 2500-3000 feet). The more you deviate from
that, the more error you will encounter. If you are doing static-line jumps
from 4000 ft, your jumpmaster should have dropped a WDI from 4000 ft. When
you start making delayed free-falls, the jumpmaster will put you out at an
appropriate altitude such that you will (should) open at about 3000 ft. Many
times I have seen students who are supposed to make a 10-sec free-fall pull
the ripcord after only 4 or 5 seconds. This puts them into "uncharted"
territory, and they're lucky if they don't run into some funny winds on the
way down. Soooo...when you start those free-falls, try not to get pull-happy.

*
/ \
|---/---\---| Ken Scofield C-9355
| Gone | Hewlett-Packard PCD
| Jumpin' | Corvallis, OR
|-----------|
{ucbvax!hplabs, harpo, ogcvax}!hp-pcd!kas

[dmeyer@ti-csl]

/* Written 11:11 pm Jan 26, 1986 by ma...@valid.UUCP in ti-csl:net.rec.skydive */
/* ---------- "Way off" ---------- */

Mark Papamarcos
..hplabs!pesnta!valid!markp
/* End of text from ti-csl:net.rec.skydive */

[dmeyer@ti-csl]

/* Written 11:11 pm Jan 26, 1986 by ma...@valid.UUCP in ti-csl:net.rec.skydive */
/* ---------- "Way off" ---------- */

Mark Papamarcos
..hplabs!pesnta!valid!markp