Dumbest thing you did skydiving

no hijacking meant here, but what canopy was it ?? Do you think it was a packing error ?

Dumbest thing my brother did was to mount a pc upside down on his rig when converting from boc to pull out. took him 2 jumps and a reserve ride to figure it out.

Dumbest thing I did was to land a pegasus with both steering lines broke. Slider half way up and wrapped up with the steering lines. Center cell split from tail to nose and the pilot chute over the nose. The parachute became progressivly harder to keep flying the closer to the ground it got.
The reason I did not cut it was because the legstraps unravelled to their stops and I was not sure I could get enough tension to pull the reserve.

Reason for all this was I let a student pack my rig. Unfortunatly he forgot to set the brakes and pull the slider up.

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What is the dumbest thing you ever did as a skydiver?

Mis-routed my cheststrap. Our camera flyer noticed (on the ride up) and pointed it out to me like this: "You better fix that sh*t dude!"

He saved my life. I bought him a case, and gave him a "thank you."

Edit to add: Thankfully, I've not repeated that error, and am constantly checking my chest-strap when geared up.

packed my altimeter inside my main. that was one expensive jump.

Absolutely dumbest thing I did was when I had about 50 jumps- in freefall, I noticed open canopies below and decided to track in their direction. Gives me chills just thinking about it now...

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copied from canopy piloting.com forums


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once upon a time a monkey went for a parachute jump
he borrowed a friends canopy that was the same as his new one he was getting

he took it up and opened at 8 K and played around.. came to land and saw a camera...

oooooooo thought the monkey i'll come in over the top of that.. it's look great....

so his ding donged around very low then carved over the top (read low final approach at an angle other than what it should have been)

the monkey flaired at the last min and got the wings level but ended up landing hard on his left leg...

the money didn't break anything but he thought he had at the time.

the monkey now has a limp.... and slight swelling

morel of the story

DON'T BE A DICK!

i ignored many a rule today about new canopys. and canopy control... and most of all what i DON'T KNOW

i won't be doing it again any time soon

the jumpsuit is muddy but not torn

and the monkey has had his LARGE slice of humble pie with a side serving of Dirt ...


it was also in front of about 60 people (tandems,grannys,dogs, kids and all the people i jump with who had landed before me)

the canopy was a sabre2 150
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Just one? There are so many.... I'll give you the one that really sticks out in my mind.

I was at Zhills a couple years back fresh off of airspeed skills camp training. All jacked up, flying better than I ever had. We wanted to launch and 8 way from an Otter. A couple of the jumpers refused to launch saying they would dive and dock. I planned a 6 way launch (which went perfectly). We burned 6k feet waiting for the other two to dock. Out of frustration I 'super arched' and funnelled the 6-way. We all broke apart at around 5k feet, everyone recovered and turned and tracked. Nothing happened but it could of. I felt pretty stupid when I landed.

Went straight to freefly right off student status.......with shitty gear. That was a dumb move, and I'm lucky I didn't kill myself or someone else.

Learn from my mistakes.

Had my chest strap misrouted, and it came undone in freefall. I was using student gear at the time which was a bit large on me, and my instructor came up to me in freefall and showed me my chest strap. So...a few words popped out of my mouth, my left hand grabbed my right shoulder strap, and I pulled. Once under canopy, a few more choice words were said. On the ground, my instructor and I went over proper routing of the chest strap, and I have not done that again. I'm now pretty anal about checking my chest strap about a bazillion times.

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Went straight to freefly right off student status.......with shitty gear. That was a dumb move, and I'm lucky I didn't kill myself or someone else.

Learn from my mistakes.

wrongway which part do you not recommend going to the darkside early ....or just freeflyin with out the proper equipment ... i kind of already know the answer but want to make it clear for all the new would be darksiders out there

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Went straight to freefly right off student status.......with shitty gear. That was a dumb move, and I'm lucky I didn't kill myself or someone else.

Learn from my mistakes.

wrongway which part do you not recommend going to the darkside early ....or just freeflyin with out the proper equipment ... i kind of already know the answer but want to make it clear for all the new would be darksiders out there

BOTH. Freefly can be beautiful and efficient, but dangerous in the hands of a new jumper. I started freeflying on jump 17 and never went back to belly. Luckily I made up for it with lots of tunnel time (on my belly) but not everybody has time, location, or cash to do that, I just got lucky last year. I'd highly recommend that you at least get a good grip on what you're doing on your belly and be efficient (clean flyer, you dont have to pull 30 points) before you take up freefly.

And as for gear, I had a Vector container, DOM was 1983, all velcro, and to make it "freefly friendly", I had snaps installed on the riser covers. I jumped that POS for just under 100 jumps, then sold it when I got my new rig. I told the person I sold it to NEVER to freefly in it, but it was fine as a belly rig. She got out of the sport not too long after (didn't have time ) and I have no clue where that rig is now.

But the moral of the story is, when someone looks at you and says "You're gonna FREEFLY in THAT piece of shit?!?", I suggest you listen to them.

Be safe, be smart, be aware.

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Had my chest strap misrouted, and it came undone in freefall. I was using student gear at the time which was a bit large on me, and my instructor came up to me in freefall and showed me my chest strap. So...a few words popped out of my mouth, my left hand grabbed my right shoulder strap, and I pulled. Once under canopy, a few more choice words were said. On the ground, my instructor and I went over proper routing of the chest strap, and I have not done that again. I'm now pretty anal about checking my chest strap about a bazillion times.

Holy shit, if ever there was a quick way to die, there it is. That's a great piece of advice, and I'm REALLY glad you made it through that opening. Whew!!

1. deploying in a track position... had a HUGE shock

2. didn`t checked my reserve pin and had as a result - a double out and a reserve ride

Bad landing in Lodi last year. Could have been a serious day.

Oh, and about 15 years ago I cut away from a CrW wrap (plenty high) and thought it would be cool to fall away from it and watch it while on my back - watch it - flip over - check altitude - reach for PC - grab and throw - realize I'm at terminal now. Terminal reserve openings are hard especially when it wasn't required . Also didn't find the main for a day (landed in the only tree in a 1 mile radius).

>>nobody that did my pin checks caught the misrouted bridle<<

That is very difficult to catch, since even if it is misrouted, the bad packer knows what it is supposed to look like and tucks everything away so it appears to come from and exit to the correct place. If your sh!t looks wrong when you are packing, get help THEN, not later when it is all disguised.

Brent

I have begged my way onto a number of dives that were way over my head, and every time I do it, it freaks me out. Early in my skydiving career, it was going on bigger belly dives than I was ready for with a slot in the base. More recently, it has been going on on bigger freefly dives than I am ready for with people who fall faster than I can. I have learned to be much more selective about what I attempt with bigger groups.

Brent

Allowing myself to be talked into doing tandems.

dumbest?
do we have to pick one?

1. jumping a new DZ for the very first time, being more aware of landing patterns and my audience than of actually flying my canopy - end result: flaring too late and breaking my ankle.

2. being under a canopy that, for a reason still unknown, had a left toggle that was significantly harder to flare than the right, which meant that getting an even flare was almost impossible. Yet I rode it down (first solo jump off student status, I think jump #12 or something like that), flared - and even though I used all my strength only the right side flared. Felt the canopy turn, and hit at about the same time as the canopy did. Ouch. Tumbled through the desert, got up, dusted myself off - and calmed the people that thought I just earned myself an ambulance ride.

Hrm....I have FUNNY stories of things that have happened - but I guess I don't have as many "dumb" things as I thought.

Better to be on the ground wishing you was in the air then in the air wishing you was on the ground. When your friends with 100's of more jumps then you won't get on the load it is probably a GOOD IDEA to do what they are doing.... Sitting on the couch watching all the other idiots getting dragged... Getting dragged really sucks especially in shorts and a tee shirt......

It was a sabre 170. Had about 600 or so jumps before i bought it. and it was pure packing error. To make less than 10 minute call plus a brief, I had to trash pack it. That was my stupidest skydiving trick so far.

when I trashpack is when I have my smoothest openings...
not recommended though.

Two Big boneheads right here.....

Bonehead Number one: Mr. Bill with an Instructor at insanly low Jump Numbers.

Bonehead number two: Jumping a packjob that I did not know who the packer was (at the time...). I didn't have a cutaway, but I landed a stepthrough. The mess worked it's way to where I could steer and flare just fine with risers... Lucky...

Two, and I'm not proud of either , but willing to share if it may help out someone else (and I know this has been done by others too! ):

1. Boarded a plane with my chest strap mis-routed. Now, there are two reasons this happened:

A) I was tired from partying the night before and I wasn't as "aware" as I could have been... BAD... wait until you are fully with it. Grab some coffee. Don't try to "wake up during first load."

B) I was still on student status and not overly-familliar with my gear. No excuse, but if you are new... make sure that you are tripple checking yourself and having others check you out.

I was lucky that this mistake was caught by my instructor as I was on my knees in the door ready to exit.


2. I landed on the grass runway... pretty much in front of the otter that was also landing. That was by far the dumbest thing I ever did skydiving.

If I remember correctly, I did a high-pull on sunset load. I was used to landing well before the aircraft. I knew where every other canopy was in the sky, but forgot to look for the damned obvious... the freakin airplane. So, I thought with my experience level, that my circle of awareness was quite alert and all. Wrong. I took a lot of time to think about that one and forced myself to land on the "student side" and practice my accuracy for a few jumps. Since then, my circle of awareness has grown emensly.

People, we all f*ck up. Be careful. And learn from your mistakes... and mine. Thanks, Cocheese... great thread idea.

not sure if I should admit this on here, but the dumbest thing I ever did was flare to land in the correct direction but too close to some high hedges forgetting that this would affect my canopy, and as I touched the ground, staggered sideways as the crosswind off the top of the hedge hit my canopy and promptly slipped and fell face down into a ditch 3ft deep full off muddy stinky water.

much thanks again to the rigger who managed to save my altimeter and the cypres!