- Jumping with inflatables.
How cool!
But wait, what are the tips and advises
to do a safe skydives, with inflatables?
Coming up.
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What's up skydivers, it's Catherine from skydive vibes,
sharing the passion of skydiving
and helping you become better and safer skydivers.
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so our weekly videos all about skydiving.
So yes, so we see a lot of those videos of people jumping
with inflatables, ducks, boats.
It looks really fun.
And although I have not done it myself,
I wondered what are the safety elements
to consider when jumping with an inflatable?
How can we still have fun and be safe in the sky while
getting some shots,
some videos that will go viral on social media, of course.
So this is why I reached to PernDog,
another skydiver YouTuber who has done it.
So Mark Perna is behind the Pern dog channel.
And I did ask him, what did he learn in doing those jumps?
What are the safety recommendations that we need to do and
be aware of when jumping with inflatables?
So here you go, Mark. The video is yours.
- Hi Katherine. So yeah, back in November, my buddy,
Jeff helped throw a boogie out at Lake Wales at jump
Florida skydiving center.
And we had the chance to jump with inflatables.
So, it was super cool.
We bought a little two person raft
and we put the girls in it and we had a blast.
It was the jump of the year by far.
It's definitely one of the
cooler skydives that I've ever been on.
So the boogie was specifically around inflatables. Okay.
So they brought in load organizers who knew
knew what they were doing.
They checked with the drop zone owner and staff and
and the pilot.
And we had a sky van to jump the inflatables out of. Right?
So you could just go out the butt of
the aircraft and not have to worry about
hitting and mess with it.
So, if you want to jump with inflatable,
check with your drop zone owner, check with your SNTA,
that's the US PA's safety and training advisor.
You know, the, the instructor who's in charge
of safety of your drop zone
and make sure that the pilot knows what's going on too.
And the other jumpers,
because you're gonna need a little bit more extra space and
separation between the inflatable group
and the rest of the skydivers.
So, skydiving with an inflatable adds an increased level of
complexity, and it also adds some risk to your skydive.
So, safety has to be paramount.
And before we even attempted the jump,
we made sure to link up with a load organizer and a more
experienced skydivers who knew what they were doing.
They've jumped with inflatables before,
and they brought up some points that I hadn't considered,
going into it.
So the number one tip when skydiving with inflatable.
Do not fly above the inflatable.
So, if something goes wrong and it gets squirrely and the
folks inside the inflatable gotta bail,
that thing instantly decelerates to its terminal boss
velocity, which is way slower than yours.
So you can imagine you're going about 120,
and that things may be going 20, 30 miles an hour.
That's an extreme impact.
What we learned from our load organizer, Gregory,
was that best case scenario.
It knocks you out and you have an AED fire
and you land off somewhere.
Worst case scenario, that collision
could seriously injure you.
It could possibly even be fatal at those speeds.
So, make sure that that you're skilled enough flier to
actually attempt the inflatable jump, and make sure that
you've got good flyers with you and never,
ever fly above the inflatable.
Tip number two, you need secure handles
to hold onto the thing.
So, very important for us was we had four flyers,
two on the front of the raft and then two on the rear.
And we built handles that we could hang on to, out of rope,
a piece of rope, about maybe 10 inches, 12 inches,
and some garden hose.
We tied one into the rope off
to like the handle of the raft.
And then we stuck it through a garden hose
and then tied a knot on the end.
That way we can just grab the rope, grab the handle,
and you're not sticking your fingers in anything.
And you don't have any loops that you could snag your gear
on or a GoPro or, you know, snag someone's D-ring.
So the handles were pretty important.
That was not something that was even on my radar.
I was like, were just gonna grab this thing
and throw it out.
So, make sure you got some garden hose and some extra rope,
built in the handles that are going to be secure that you
can really grab on to,
but you can also let go at a moment's notice.
This one was very interesting.
So, tip number three is only inflate,
your raft or whatever, partially.
So fill it up to about 60, 70%
and then be prepared as you're riding the altitude
to let off some air,
because as you go up to altitude up to 14,000 feet,
the air gets thinner, right?
So you still have sea level air or whatever level you're at.
You still have your sea level, more dense air and it's gonna
expand in your inflatable and
it could pop on the ride to altitude.
And that wouldn't be very fun to ride down, would it?
So, make sure that you're only inflated partially
and then release, be prepared to release
some air on the rides to altitude.
Tip number four, plan your break off, and break off high.
I think we broke off at like 7,000 feet or something,
it's kind of obnoxiously high,
because, you want to make sure that
whoever's in the raft, has a chance to get out.
So we planned our break off and we staged a little bit.
So the outside flyers kind of went away. We had one person,
our load organizer kind of hang out a little ways away
from the raft in case something went wrong.
He'd be able to go in there and assist, if possible.
But once you let go, that thing sort of, you know,
it's unpredictable with the rafts gonna do
so track away and make sure that you staged your break off,
do it a little bit high.
You know, you're going to be riding that thing
for about 30 seconds and it's not a very dynamic skydive.
You're just kinda sitting there, but it's a blast.
So you can afford to, to break off a
little bit higher and have that added time to
deal with any malfunctions that may arise.
Again, with that increased level of complexity and risk.
You want to add in a little bit more safety time for that.
All right. Tip number five, if it's a raft
and you have people inside of it, plan your rollout.
So, Amber and Andrea were inside the raft and you can see in
the video, Amber kind of cues it,
and then they both roll to the same direction,
protecting their handles as they go.
So you want to make sure that you're protecting your main
side cutaway and a reserve handle as you go out.
If possible, cover your BOC and your pilot shoe.
Just make sure that anything that could get snagged on the
raft or whatever you're covering. So you can roll out,
do your break off and then be good to go.
And you can see in the video that raft instantly
decelerates, it is gone.
It is really amazing how fast it stops falling.
And it was just gone after that. We couldn't find it.
We didn't know where it landed.
So yeah. Be prepared to lose your raft as well
Whatever your, whatever you've got as an inflatable,
just be prepared to lose it. Alright.
I think that, that those are the major points.
Overall, you know, with safety, the primary concern.
And we went over everything
a number of times before the jump.
we had a blast, it was, like I said, the jump of the year.
It was like our first skydive all over again.
I cannot recommend jumping with inflatable enough,
just make sure that you've got the skill level and the
safety consciousness before you
go and jump with a raft or
inflatable unicorn
or inflatable shark,
or dolphin
or whatever you're going to do.
Alright, again, Catherine, thanks for the opportunity
to send you these videos. And yeah,
I hope this video helps some people learn and educates
them about skydiving with an inflatable.
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- Well, thank you so much, Mark, for sharing your wisdom
about how to do jumps with inflatables and guys,
make sure to check in the description,
to find a link to his channel, PernDog,
which is very interesting and
has some great skydiving videos as well.
And that I hope you've liked this video.
Stay safe with inflatables in the sky.
Make sure to watch other videos from
skydive vibes right here.
And on that, keep jumping, stay safe and loose.
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