In part 1 of this series, Cara King of Flight 1 discussed the importance of wind limits and what factors to consider when setting your personal limits and deciding to jump.
In this article, Pete Allum discusses some of the basics of navigating decision making on windy days and how to prepare if you’re caught in those winds.
What’s “windy” depends on where you learned to skydive. If you grew up jumping in places like Texel, where strong winds are the norm, your comfort zone looks different in regards to wind limits. But when you’re outside that zone, you might not have the skills to match the conditions, and that’s where things can get risky.
Here are a few key lessons I’ve found helpful in expanding your wind comfort zone.
Sense of direction
If you show up at the dz and know your compass headings then when you are given wind information you can use it intuitively rather than it seeming like a foreign language.
Weather report and forecast
Study the wide range of weather apps available—Windy, Wind Guru, Winds Aloft, etc. Speak to DZ control, check the weather board, and gather the following information: wind strength, direction and altitude.
Build a picture of the environment that you will be flying in. Find out the ‘wind line’, the line that runs from your ideal opening point to your ideal landing area.
Photo by Felix Wetterberg
Work out your ‘wind cone’
This knowledge helps you stay in a power position—able to make it back and fly a standard landing pattern. It also gives you the space to avoid unplanned approaches and steer clear of other traffic.
As soon as you lose your power position or leave the wind cone, look for alternatives and fly a new flight plan.
High wind flight planning
Your base leg is your friend. Flying a longer, drifting base leg gives you far more control over where and when you turn into your final leg. The higher the wind the further upwind of the target you need to turn.
Flare technique
Does your technique change in different wind conditions? The height of flare initiation doesn’t, your vertical speed stays the same, but what you do next can have a massive impact on your landing. In any wind condition your goal should be to get you and your canopy as close to 0mph horizontal and vertical speed.
The first stage of your flare stops the vertical descent, your wing is now parallel to the ground. Have a look at the ground now, are you still traveling forwards? If so then you are going to need to continue on with your flare until you stop moving forward.
So what would happen on a high wind day, if you have moved your toggles down to the first stage of the flare, you completely stop your forward motion and now you move your hands aggressively down?
Yep, you’re now seeing negative numbers on your speedometer. You could be going up and backwards. Know your wind limits.
Touchdown
Wait for the ground to come to you! We see so many pilots trying to “step down” from their flare too early. This makes you uneven in the harness and can roll the canopy to one side, giving you an unlevel wing. And as we know, the first priority for a good landing is a level wing. So keep flying the wing all the way through touchdown and beyond (see next section).
Ground handling
When you learn to paraglide, you spend hours (or you should) ground-handling your canopy. Get some help when you try this, don’t do it in too high winds to start and wear a helmet! Some DZ’s have an older wing that you can practice with.
The goal here is to dominate your wing and know how to keep flying it and collapse it under control before it drags you backwards across the runway and into a barbed wire fence.
Turbulence
There is a big difference between a strong laminar wind and turbulence. The goal with turbulence is to avoid it, don’t even jump, or land where there is less. I’m happy to jump in strong winds, even on a big canopy, but turbulence? It’s an equal-opportunity killer. Whether you have 36 jumps or 36,000, it can be very dangerous.
If you are going to jump in turbulent conditions, be ready to control/flare your canopy. It may dive suddenly, you need to touch down with your wing level and your legs below you, be proactive in these conditions. Avoid landing downwind of objects in strong winds. The turbulence can extend horizontally up to 20 times the height of the object.
I see it a lot, when the dz puts up a 400 jump limit, people with 450 jumps happily keep jumping but won’t think to ask why is there a limit? Sometimes the limits could be for cloud cover but more likely it’s a wind limit. Ask DZ control the reason; it could be strength or it could be a direction that causes more than normal turbulence. What is your wing load and forward speed, will you be going backwards after opening?Consider staying on the ground, even if you do have more than the set limit.
We like to have a straight up yes/no choice for jumping but in reality it’s more complex than that. As I said at the start, your perception of what is windy and your capacity to deal with the conditions should be the deciding factors, not just the number on the board.
Wind Limits 1
If you enjoyed this article why not check out part 1, by Cara King, Flight-1 instructor…
