I went through the beginnings of AFF a couple of years ago and had two of the best minutes of my life followed by pretty much the worst AFF experience ever.
Decided to pay for a buddy and myself to go skydiving for his wedding gift. Chose a DZ near us in New England and signed us up for AFF. I had always wanted to skydive and figured AFF would give me the option of continuing and getting licensed. Ground training went well but weather prevented us from getting our first jump in for a couple of days.
Fast forward a week and the weather is clear, we show up and get ready for our jump. Now would be a good time to mention that I'm a pretty big dude, 6'2", about 220lb at the time (100Kg, 188cm). They weighed me, seemed a bit concerned and went off to chat among themselves for a few minutes. They pulled a pack out from a different rack and gave it to me. I asked if I should be concerned about my weight and was told that this was a larger canopy that they don't normally use but not to worry as it would be slower / safer for someone my size and the reserve had been repacked within the past 12 months. I'm not feeling great about the amount of dust on the pack but put my faith in my instructors. We finish gearing up, test the helmet radios, go through a ton more checklists / review and head to the Super Otter.
Flight is uneventful and filled with lots of review of the FF task list. We get to altitude (14,000ft) and people start their exits. My team is last in line. The team in front of us was a tandem and the girl started freaking out and having a panic attack. After about 60 seconds she finally agreed to go and we were up. My exit was textbook and I was flying.
We're in freefall and it was incredible. My instructors were holding on to me and guiding me while I was going through my task list (alt check, practice touch, CoA, etc). Everything seemed to be going perfectly on my way to my expected deployment at 6000ft, all thumbs up from my instructors.
The last CoA I remember was at 8500ft... My world goes black and I see sparks, feels like I been in a car wreck. My sight comes back and I realize I'm under canopy and my back / legs are screaming. Look up, full canopy, no tangles, struggle to reach for my toggles but my arms are barely working for some reason. Just enough strength in my fingers to get two fingers into the right toggle and three into the left. All I hear on the radio is static. Look around, no one in sight but I can see the DZ. Look at my altimeter and I'm at 7500 ft. All of this took about 2 seconds but felt like 2 minutes. I can steer the canopy and burn off about 6000 feet in a left hand turn per my training and head towards the DZ for landing under zero radio guidance alone. As I approach I'm watching 10 or so instructors running down the runway flapping thier arms like birds telling me to flare. Landing was rough as I couldn't get my legs to point down instead of in front of me and my flare was weak because I only had a few fingers in my toggles. I tumbled but it wasn't bad, landed right on the bulls-eye.
I'm sitting on the ground in a daze as the pain starts radiating for a minute while the instructors rush me, remove my gear and asking if I'm OK. They eventually help me up, walk me over to their bar and all buy me beers while we chat about what happened.
Here's what went wrong based on what my chat with them and my own observations during and later after doing a bit of research.
I was borderline too heavy for their normal AFF packs so someone decided it would be best to put me in a rarely used pack that had a larger canopy. I later found out that it had been last packed a long time ago by a packer that had since moved away.
The instructor decided to pull my cord for me at just under 8000ft with no warning whatsoever. He told me that he was concerned with our late exit due to the tandem delay and wanted to make sure I had enough altitude to safely fly back to the DZ.
I had (according to the instructors already on the ground) the fastest / roughest canopy opening they've ever seen. My freefall instructors said that when my pilot was deployed, I shot up like a rocket ship. They guessed that either the rubber bands on my pack had worn and deteriorated or it was a shoddy pack job. The canopy inflated almost instantaneously and it's size meant I experienced "severe deceleration".
My pack was not well fitted to my body. The leg straps were in my groin and when my canopy opened, almost all of the force was in my inner thighs.
The opening was so rough that severed the radio audio cable that went to my helmet.
I ended up with massively bruised groin/ thighs and two herniated disks which still bother me today. One instructor admitted to me after a few beers that she saw my rough opening and after realizing that I wasn't responding to ground radio instruction, figured I was unconscious and didn't think I was going to make it back to the DZ. While the series of events was unfathomably unlucky, I realize that it could / should have been much worse and I was lucky to not have been more seriously injured and alive.
So, my questions are...
How often have you seen any of the above happening to someone going through AFF?
I feel that what happened to me was due to a combination of bad luck and poor decision making on my instructors part. Do you agree? Is there anything you as an instructor would have done differently?
Even though I feel like I was pretty close to having a near-death experience, I still can't forget the wonderful experience that was freefall and would consider doing it again if I could drop some weight and my back seemed healthy. Would you suggest I jump again given what I experienced? How can I ensure that I find a reputable DZ that will ensure my safety?
What do you do when you come across a "bigger student"? Is there an upper-end weight limit for skydiving where it becomes more dangerous or just too challenging? Most of the pros I've met seem to be skinny as a rail and at most, 160lbs.
Thanks in advance!
(Edit) Anyone that reads my experience, please don't let it deter you from trying. I'm sure that 99.999% of people doing their first AFF jump have no issues whatsoever. Even with the injuries, it was still one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
Perma_Fucked18 karma
Not sure if you're still answering here.
I went through the beginnings of AFF a couple of years ago and had two of the best minutes of my life followed by pretty much the worst AFF experience ever.
Decided to pay for a buddy and myself to go skydiving for his wedding gift. Chose a DZ near us in New England and signed us up for AFF. I had always wanted to skydive and figured AFF would give me the option of continuing and getting licensed. Ground training went well but weather prevented us from getting our first jump in for a couple of days.
Fast forward a week and the weather is clear, we show up and get ready for our jump. Now would be a good time to mention that I'm a pretty big dude, 6'2", about 220lb at the time (100Kg, 188cm). They weighed me, seemed a bit concerned and went off to chat among themselves for a few minutes. They pulled a pack out from a different rack and gave it to me. I asked if I should be concerned about my weight and was told that this was a larger canopy that they don't normally use but not to worry as it would be slower / safer for someone my size and the reserve had been repacked within the past 12 months. I'm not feeling great about the amount of dust on the pack but put my faith in my instructors. We finish gearing up, test the helmet radios, go through a ton more checklists / review and head to the Super Otter.
Flight is uneventful and filled with lots of review of the FF task list. We get to altitude (14,000ft) and people start their exits. My team is last in line. The team in front of us was a tandem and the girl started freaking out and having a panic attack. After about 60 seconds she finally agreed to go and we were up. My exit was textbook and I was flying.
We're in freefall and it was incredible. My instructors were holding on to me and guiding me while I was going through my task list (alt check, practice touch, CoA, etc). Everything seemed to be going perfectly on my way to my expected deployment at 6000ft, all thumbs up from my instructors.
The last CoA I remember was at 8500ft... My world goes black and I see sparks, feels like I been in a car wreck. My sight comes back and I realize I'm under canopy and my back / legs are screaming. Look up, full canopy, no tangles, struggle to reach for my toggles but my arms are barely working for some reason. Just enough strength in my fingers to get two fingers into the right toggle and three into the left. All I hear on the radio is static. Look around, no one in sight but I can see the DZ. Look at my altimeter and I'm at 7500 ft. All of this took about 2 seconds but felt like 2 minutes. I can steer the canopy and burn off about 6000 feet in a left hand turn per my training and head towards the DZ for landing under zero radio guidance alone. As I approach I'm watching 10 or so instructors running down the runway flapping thier arms like birds telling me to flare. Landing was rough as I couldn't get my legs to point down instead of in front of me and my flare was weak because I only had a few fingers in my toggles. I tumbled but it wasn't bad, landed right on the bulls-eye.
I'm sitting on the ground in a daze as the pain starts radiating for a minute while the instructors rush me, remove my gear and asking if I'm OK. They eventually help me up, walk me over to their bar and all buy me beers while we chat about what happened.
Here's what went wrong based on what my chat with them and my own observations during and later after doing a bit of research.
I was borderline too heavy for their normal AFF packs so someone decided it would be best to put me in a rarely used pack that had a larger canopy. I later found out that it had been last packed a long time ago by a packer that had since moved away.
The instructor decided to pull my cord for me at just under 8000ft with no warning whatsoever. He told me that he was concerned with our late exit due to the tandem delay and wanted to make sure I had enough altitude to safely fly back to the DZ.
I had (according to the instructors already on the ground) the fastest / roughest canopy opening they've ever seen. My freefall instructors said that when my pilot was deployed, I shot up like a rocket ship. They guessed that either the rubber bands on my pack had worn and deteriorated or it was a shoddy pack job. The canopy inflated almost instantaneously and it's size meant I experienced "severe deceleration".
My pack was not well fitted to my body. The leg straps were in my groin and when my canopy opened, almost all of the force was in my inner thighs.
The opening was so rough that severed the radio audio cable that went to my helmet.
I ended up with massively bruised groin/ thighs and two herniated disks which still bother me today. One instructor admitted to me after a few beers that she saw my rough opening and after realizing that I wasn't responding to ground radio instruction, figured I was unconscious and didn't think I was going to make it back to the DZ. While the series of events was unfathomably unlucky, I realize that it could / should have been much worse and I was lucky to not have been more seriously injured and alive.
So, my questions are...
How often have you seen any of the above happening to someone going through AFF?
I feel that what happened to me was due to a combination of bad luck and poor decision making on my instructors part. Do you agree? Is there anything you as an instructor would have done differently?
Even though I feel like I was pretty close to having a near-death experience, I still can't forget the wonderful experience that was freefall and would consider doing it again if I could drop some weight and my back seemed healthy. Would you suggest I jump again given what I experienced? How can I ensure that I find a reputable DZ that will ensure my safety?
What do you do when you come across a "bigger student"? Is there an upper-end weight limit for skydiving where it becomes more dangerous or just too challenging? Most of the pros I've met seem to be skinny as a rail and at most, 160lbs.
Thanks in advance!
(Edit) Anyone that reads my experience, please don't let it deter you from trying. I'm sure that 99.999% of people doing their first AFF jump have no issues whatsoever. Even with the injuries, it was still one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
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