Subject: Re: Open Letter to USPA
Date: Posted to rec.skydiving May? 1995

Rick Lemons writes:

>You are EXACTLY correct. This is the point we've been trying to make 
>all along.

Yes, this topic has been flattened to the point of concavity even though
there still seem to be some pockets of resistance.

But even the True Believers (tm) speak in terms of ground speed and time
between exits. My point is: How do you actually do that when you're
standing in the door deciding when to go?

   Let's see ...
   The air speed for this plane right now is ...
   The uppers are coming from ...
   So I take the cosine of this angle to get the component in the direction
   Now I want this much spatial separation so I divide ground speed into ..
   AHA! For this situation I should wait 8.75 seconds to exit ...

I think it's easier to just look out the door and see where they got out
and then pick another exit point 1,000 ft further along.

This has the added advantage that someone is looking out the door before
the jump.

I keep using 1,000 ft because it is a round number and seems about right
for the little loads that I prefer. I wouldn't go any less.

At the current drop zone I used the little 2,300 ft runway to eyeball
distances. You could measure landmarks with your car.

I also count between exits as a sanity check but it is very much secondary
to the visual picture of where they got out and where I'm going to get out.

Also I talk to young jumpers about this quite often.

So write to your favorite BOD members about this if you want USPA to take
action.

Skratch

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