Canopy Formation from 3,500ft - CRW Video
Our Pilot told us to "get out of the plane now" or stay inside and land...we were climbing up to altitude when a huge storm cloud formed, which had a commercial jet the other side of it on its approach to London Gatwick airport.
This meant our planned skydive was cancelled. We had less than 15 seconds to react, so we got the door open and jumped.
VIDEO LINK AT BOTTOM OF POST
Usually when doing CRW (Canopy Formations) we would exit from a minimum of 8,000ft and a maximum of 15,000ft.
3,500ft is the height that skydivers around the world deploy their parachutes at, and now we are getting out of the plane at that height to go and play around in each others canopies...it certainly was a box ticked!
Two other skydivers jumped out also after us, but the rest of the jumpers remained on the plane so it could land ASAP.
It was good practice for an aircraft emergency, as you would have even less time to react, and all your plans have now changed, so it requires more thought, and you have to stay alert as you have no idea where other skydivers will put themselves in the sky.
Gary and I agreed to stop doing CRW at 2,000ft just before we jumped, so that gave me under 30 seconds to come and find him in the sky and 'dock' him.
Green light on, ready to go! GO!
Nice clean stable CRW exit by Gary.
He throws his pilot chute straight after exit.
His parachute is being extracted.
As soon as I see his canopy coming out I then exit the plane
A nice on-heading opening, perfect!
Time to play, lets go and find Gary!
I have more altitude than him, so this gives me advantage so that I can drive my canopy down and use the speed it creates and turn it into lift so that I can dock him.
I got hit with some of his burble, which is very turbulent air, so I was powering through it and managed to get underneath it and drive up to him using my rear risers to steer.
"Standby!"
Thats my signal to Gary that a dock is imminent and to get ready to get his feet around my lines (and prepare for the worst also haha).
Gotcha!
I swing around in my harness to get a good photo, I was pretty stoked to be fair as that has to be one of the quickest docks I've done. There was a lot of pressure to get docked before 2,000ft!
After our 10 seconds of stoke, its time for Gary to pilot the stack back to the DZ as we are starting to get low.
1,500ft, so we need to start positioning ourselves for our landing approach.
Gary is responsible for getting us back over the DZ as its only his steering inputs that count while we are docked.
I am simply a passenger.
Ok so now its less than 100ft (the altimeter stops being reliable after 200ft or so), so we break off and prepare for landing.
"Drop me, going left" is what I say, so Gary will go right, so that we don't die from a canopy collision (very important to get that bit correct, or you will likely die, and many have in the past).
Landing in to wind with plenty of horizontal separation.
Gary sticks it on his arse and I run it off but then trip as my left shoe came loose.
I purposely have loose shoes on a CRW jump, as I want to be able to kick them off in an emergency, such as a line wrap.
VIDEO BELOW
We did the jump from a Cessa 208 Caravan @skydiveheadcorn in Kent, England.
Neither of us would choose to do a CRW jump from 3,500ft, but we took the opportunity...probably won't do it again, unless it was a similar situation.
Altitude is your friend in this sport, so the higher you can go, the better/safer ;-)
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