NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/rec/skydivin/3558

Text File | 1993-01-03 | 2.9 KB | 52 lines

Newsgroups: rec.skydiving
Path: sparky!uunet!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!news.cs.indiana.edu!lynx!zia.aoc.nrao.edu!dbriggs
From: [e-mail] (Daniel Briggs)
Subject: Re: Eloy Fatality
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 93 10:08:55 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <[e-mail]>
  [e-mail] ('Kent Walker') writes:
>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>> I have an unconfirmed rumor that a a jumper went in at Eloy during the
>> Christmas/New Year's Boogie.  I was told the jumper was a french-speaking
>> female jumper, ~18-years-old, low number of jumps, no-pull.
>
>Consider the rumor confirmed.  Don't know about the age or number of jumps.
>The woman was doing free-style while being photographed by Mike McGowan.
>Mike's opening was reported as around 500'.

This sounds like a real shame!  RIP, whoever she may have been.  I'd really
like to hear more details, if anyone has them.  I must admit, this reminds
me a little of one my first jumps in front of a camera.  I think I had
maybe 60 jumps or so, and I did a B sequence, and then filled out the rest
of the jump with some basic freestyle.  I was in the middle of a flip
through when my camera man waved off and dumped!  People don't often think
of a camera as a new (potentially dangerous) addition to a dive but it
really is.  Especially when it's a novelty, the camera can be a *big*
distraction.  I think it's the worst for freestylists, as their maneuvers
are the most disorienting, they might feel especially obliged to geek the
camera since they're the only one in front of it, and there are only two
people in the air to keep track of the altitude.  In my case, we both
habitually dumped a little high, so I was under canopy at a perfectly safe
altitude.  I probably would have noticed pretty soon, but I *really* did
not like loosing even that much altitude awareness.  And while my cameraman
didn't think it was a problem, I felt really guilty about potentially
sucking him down.  I've only been caught by surprise by my audible twice,
and that was one of them.  I wonder if this effect was part of the Eloy
incident?  I wonder how Mike got sucked down to 500'?  That sounds almost
like an attempted save.  He's too good to have done that accidentally.
But if it's just a question of altitude awareness, I think the best thing
that the cameraman can do is dump, getting across the idea that *now* is
the time to deploy.

--
| Daniel Briggs  ([e-mail])                      |  USPA B-14993
| New Mexico Tech / National Radio Astronomy Observatory |      DoD #387
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