- Gear check—3 straps, 3 handles, 3 rings, 2 pins, RSL, AAD. Ensure that AAD and RSL are turned on and hooked up.
- Plane ride—relax and breathe, go over dive mentally.
- ACFT emergencies—if a pilot chute comes out capture it immediately; if it goes out the door throw the jumper out immediately.
- Engine failure—wait for instructions from pilot or jump master.
- Bail outs—if below 2000’ use reserve parachute.
- Dive flow—exit (present arch to wind), get stable, circle of awareness, turns, coa, flips, coa, play, wave at 5.5k and pull at 5k.
- Priorities of pull—#1 pull, #2 pull at correct altitude, and #3 pull stable.
- Malfunctions—if you must cutaway the procedure that I use is:
- Look—Reach—Look—Pull—Reach—Pull!
- That means to look at the red handle, reach for the red handle, look at the silver handle (reserve), pull red, then pull silver. IN THAT ORDER!
- In addition to this material you should watch the malfunctions video in the office, and practice with your coach in the hanging harness.
- Do not cutaway below 1000 feet. If something happens at this altitude all you can do is pull the reserve.
- Beware of a brake fire malfunction and what to do with it. If you have a brake fire (one comes unstowed prematurely) you will start to spin immediately. If you are spinning but the canopy looks good, you possibly have a brake fire. All you have to do is reach up and unstow the other brake and the spin should level out.
- The hard deck is 2500 feet.
- Look at the windsock on takeoff and under canopy
- Canopy ride—after throwing the ball give the parachute 4-5 seconds to fully open; then do the following checks.
- Is it square?
- Is the slider down?
- Are the lines straight?
- Is it steerable/controllable? (Left and right turn and a flare).
- Play in the holding area upwind.
- Look for other traffic constantly, and especially when turning from base to final.
- Landing pattern—start downwind at 1000’, base at 500’-600’ and final at 250-300’.
- Landing—priorities of landing.
- Wing must be level to land.
- Avoid obstructions
- Use at least 50% brakes
- Prepare to PLF
- Water landing—once you know you’re going to land in water do the following.
i. Loosen you straps to make it easier to get out once you land.
ii. Flare as you would normally.
iii. If you choose to cut away the main, wait until you feet hit the water, but be sure you have disconnected the RSL.
iv. Take a big breath of air in order to get out of your harness.
- Power line landing—if you must land in the vicinity of power lines land with the run of the lines, try to avoid hitting them perpendicular.
i. If suspended from the lines do not try to climb down—wait for the power company/fire department.
- Tree landing—if you must land in the trees aim for the biggest branches that can sustain your weight; flare normally and allow your feet to contact first, then immediately grab something and hang on.
NOTE: These are guidelines that I have put together for myself that are based on the USPA SIM requirements. When doing recurrency jumps you should always present a logbook that documents your last jump or jumps, and you should always jump with a competent Coach or Instructor.
Have a great jump!
God Bless and Blue Skies!
Mike Sanes
