My first cut-away on jump #911 - at Skydive Perris 27th Oct 2018

It’s both ironic and hilarious at the same time that the first time I had to use the emergency procedures should have to happen on jump number 911. I can’t deny that it’s a moment that I’ve dreaded to a certain degree, and I guess most skydivers do in one way or another, and it’s kind of a relief to have gotten it out of the way. Fortunately it was a low-speed malfunction, the canopy was pretty much in full flight which gave me a little time to see if it could be fixed with a few tugs on the steering lines. And because I had time, I ended up stubbornly using too much time. I have had a lot of criticism from various people watching from the ground, and rightfully so, that I took “way too long time” and cut away “way too low” and “way too late”. I certainly should have used no more than half of the 15 seconds that I tried to fight the tension-knot that had bundled the lines together on the left side of the canopy and folding the end-cell. But, in my defense, because the canopy was practically fully inflated it was only descending approximately 100 feet for each 5 seconds so it was practically “only” 150 feet of altitude that I actually “wasted”. The bad thing was that it was a low deployment to begin with. It was on a 36way jump at a P3 sequential camp where we are instructed to deploy no higher than 3000 feet. In this case I took it down to 2800 before waving off, pitching at 2600 feet. The canopy takes 800 feet to fully deploy and according to my logger it was fully deployed at 1800 feet. I started battling it at 1700 feet and took one last glance at my alti at 1500 before going for the handles. So I cut away somewhere between 1400 and 1500 and had the reserve over my head just below 1100 feet.

The main reason I’m sharing this is for others to learn from my mistake. Or in the words of the wizard, “if it isn’t showing you any love, get rid of it!!”. (Perhaps we should apply that more often to other relationships in our lives as well, not just the one with our canopy ;-)

I’ll include the whole skydive in the video as well, since in every other way, it was actually a damn good skydive! ;-)

Видео My first cut-away on jump #911 - at Skydive Perris 27th Oct 2018 канала Jon Thorvaldsson