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I recently logged my 300th SD jump and now looking back on those jumps, I've experienced 2 object strikes on those jumps (1 B and 1 Dam). If I take out SL and PCA deployments where I see very slim chance of having 180 resulting to object strike, I end up with 200 freefall slider down deployments of which 2 have resulted in 180 and striking the object. Thats 1% of those jumps. From my point of view, that percentage sounds quite high and I honestly hope that I can go next 100 without having to inspect the surface of object "first hand". I'd like to hear from other people having 100+ freefall deployments off solid objects you can actually hit (excluding bridges) what's your experiences and thoughts about this topic and the probability of object strikes in SD environment. (I only have handful of bridge jumps so close to all of my SD jumps are from objects you can actually hit.)

And just for the record, I walked away from both strikes with no broken bones, only some scratches. :)

Any other 180º you got turned in time?

On top of those I can remember 2 (close to) 180's, one off an A (maybe 160 off) and one off a windturbine. Both with very strong tailwind so not even close to striking the object. On the A the wind was a bit from tail/side and you can clearly see on the video PC being blown to the other side when extracting the canopy so I'm pretty sure the conditions were a factor there. And on the turbine the tailwind was so ridiculously strong that there was no guarantee how the openings will be but it didn't matter anyway. :)

3 strikes in 400 slider down jumps; 2 on consecutive jumps off the same object!
Apparently the difference between apes and humans is that humans learn from their mistakes...

1 in 100 (1%) serious off headings sounds pretty reasonable to me. I'd start to get worried if you're getting down to 1 in 20 (5%) serious off headings.

I'd love to see the numbers come down even more, but I think that 1% is about where we are with the current state of the technology.

0 object strikes / 300ish slider down/off low freefalls.

1 170-180 off heading low A, turned around successfully.

only injuries to date - stitches in face.

hoping to maintain those stats.

since the invention of the tailgate and given current pilot chute designs, and unless the jump is in highly turbulent winds with whirling pilot chute and assuming relatively level shoulders and stable body position, the chance of a serious off heading is pretty slim. also, the benefit is that for slider down, the pack job doesn't seem to influence the opening quality or heading that much.

prior to the tailgate, heading quality was good but not nearly as good as today.

But what if you have a stable body position ?

what do you mean "stable body position?" are you talking about prior to the tailgate and the better pilot chutes?

just curious, why do you think the tailgate significantly improves heading performance?

I could propose many possibilities but it's from personal experience. I would guess that it was from a tail first inflation (without tailgate) that was causing off my off headings as opposed to nose first/bottom skin first inflation that seems to occur (from photo evidence) when using the tailgate. The off headings weren't that severe, usually 45 degrees. Sometimes as much as 90 degrees. It was very pronounced how much the heading performance improved when i started using the new tailgate innovation back around 1998 or so. Then all of sudden under the same gear config, openings were never really more than 10 to 15 degrees off. As usual, results may vary depending on jumper/gear config but that's what occurred for me.

sounds logical... have no real personal experience to compare between since i've almost never jumped without a tailgate or tapegate.

thanks!

I have over 500 slider-off jumps and have yet to have a 180. The biggest off-headings, 110 and 140 were caused by jumping in really bad conditions and I pretty much expected it.

I really think body position is the primary factor, and more specifically shoulder position as the canopy is extracting and inflating. This goes for slider-up or off.

Winds also play a role. I have a friend who had a 180 recently and even though the winds were light, they were enough to cause the PC to pendulum violently and whip the canopy around as it extracted.
(video showed it pretty clearly). His body position was spot on but he pitched his PC to the side and into a slight crosswind, which caused the PC to pendulum violently across his body.

A side note to take from that is try to get in the habit of pitching the PC straight up and out rather than to the side. When going handheld, throwing the PC out and up reduces the pendulum effect from a PC inflating off to one side.