Spot the gust

[freeradical]

Hi all;

are there any rules to the game Spot the Gust? does anyone have any stories they would like to share about playing this game?

Obviously every situation is different, but as long as you are dealing with penetrable winds how much clearance is needed to be able to connsider the wind not an issue? 30 feet? 40 feet?

I guess spot the lull might be a better name for the game.

We have been playing this game frequently , but I am beginnning to think that the sight we jump provides so much clearance (40 feet miniumum) that we do not even need to worry about playing the game/ lull waiting.

I appreciate all posts from experienced spot the gust players.

[base428]

I fought the gust, and the gust won.

Picking your lull may work fine for exiting the object, but 10-30 seconds later, you have to land. If the gusts pick back up as you land, then you might feel the pain of a hard-ass landing. Been there, done that.

Another good clue to NOT JUMP is when your friend jumps off a 450' cliff during a lull, catches a gust that actually lifts him ABOVE the exit point, and he has to spiral down just to land. This happened at Tombstone 2000.


------------
Jason Bell (BASE428)
Email: jbell@vertical-visions.com
Web: www.vertical-visions.com or www.bridgeday.info

[crwper]

>Another good clue to NOT JUMP is when your friend jumps off a
>450' cliff during a lull, catches a gust that actually lifts
>him ABOVE the exit point, and he has to spiral down just to
>land. This happened at Tombstone 2000.

Ah, this also happened to a friend of mine at a local rock. Winds were gusting about 30, but he found "his lull" and jumped. He took about a 2 second delay, opened, and 5 seconds later was looking down at a jumper standing at the exit point. The problem with that particular object is that it's maybe 600 feet of usable altitude, but there's another 2500 feet of talus and such which you need to fly down to get to the landing area.

First lesson learned that day: always do a spit test. Just because it feels calm at the exit (on a rock), doesn't mean it's calm on the face.

Second lesson: on a good day, a canopy ride of several minutes can be beautiful -- a great chance to take in the world around you. When the winds are gusting, though, there might be 20 different wind shears in that time, and it becomes several minutes of wondering, "Is my canopy going to stay inflated when I'm 100 feet off the ground? What direction is the wind coming from? I can make my landing area no problem---wait a sec, now I'm going backward."

I'll jump in high, consistent winds. But for me the problem with gusty winds is that it's the #1 indication that the situation just became way less predictable. It's easy to forget that the reason our parachutes work is because they're flying through a relatively stable airmass... Easy to forget until you're a hundred feet up and suddenly your canopy stalls because of an abrupt tailwind.

Michael

[jason]

> [...] but he found "his lull" and jumped.

I believe his exact words were, "F*** it".