Clarke Air Sports
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I have made this page to show a select group of people and other instructors the GPS/Flysight Debrief Tool I am currently developing. Please ask for permission before sharing with others.
Clarke Air Sports
StudiFest
GPS Debrief Tool
Flysights and other GPS hardware are commonly used in the skydiving industry by swoopers and wingsuiters. Multiple tools exist to view the massive amounts of data which they record. Gswoop provides a quick look at specific items high performance canopy pilots and Flysight Viewer provides a way to dive into specific data as well as overlay that flight path on a map.
Students often have a hard time recalling their skydive so having a video to show them during their debrief often helps solidify what happened during the jump in their mind. I feel that it is all too common for student debriefs to focus on freefall and not thoroughly look at the canopy flight. Using Flysights on students, instructors can know more about their students skydive and show the student where they were throughout the jump. Unfortunately Flysight Viewer as a student debrief tool is cumbersome and overwhelming. It is simply not practical or efficient for a student debrief.
With this tool almost every student jump at Skydive New England receives a thorough canopy debrief and better understanding of their canopy flight.
Download Google Earth Example Files if you want to see it in google earth yourself.
Why do we need this?
01_LANDING PATTERN
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Where was the student when they hit key pattern altitudes (1,000ft, 600ft, 300ft)
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What adjustments did they make if they were higher or lower than planned?
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Detect the landing point and measure distance to predefined target(s)
Landing point is detected when horizontal and vertical speed stop.
Known Issue: Student can land and run to target if they want.
02_HOLDING AREA
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Did the student fly directly to the holding area and stay there?
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Did the student leave the holding area at a different altitude than planned?
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Display circles around target to visualize progression card requirements for distance to target.
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330ft - Cat A
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165ft - Cat D/E
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82ft - Cat F
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65ft - Cat G/H
03_DETECT PRACTICE FLARES
Often students in early in their progression don't fully flare during practice flares or simply don't do enough practice flares. Detecting and attempting to rate practice flares can help confirm the student is practicing properly for a nice flare on landing.
Flares are rated based on stopping vertical speed for the longest amount of time. "Flare:5" means that vertical speed was kept close to 0 for a longer period of time than "Flare:3"
Weak Flares are hidden by default but sometimes a student will say they did practice flares and very few are detected. When this happens display "weak flares". Weak flares do not bring vertical speed close enough to 0. The student may not be flaring quickly enough or deep enough.
Known Issues False positives when vertical speed stops due to other reasons, high thermal activity etc.
04_DECISION ALTITUDE
Decision altitude (2,500ft) is marked on the map. Below decision altitude aggressive maneuvers will cause an alert and show the vertical speed generated by the maneuver.
We hope to hold students accountable to only do reverse canopy turns above 2,500ft and ensuring students do not come close to activating student AADs.
It also allows you to differentiate between aggressive 360's that generate high vertical speed, and mellower turns like brake turns.
05_OPENING POINT
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Marks the location and altitude where the canopy deployed.
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Show freefall time in seconds and average freefall speed
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Show canopy size and wingload used for the jump. Canopy Size and wingload information is imported from our student management software.
06_JUMP RUN AND EXIT
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Mark the location and altitude of exit.
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Show info about jumprun heading, offset, distance prior or past, and groundspeed
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Calculate seconds for proper separation.
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Show and calculate freefall drift between exit point and opening point.
