I don't understand. All the people in Vortex tell me how easy and safe skydiving is, and that all Cooper had to do was pull the ripcord to survive....
Sky diving is easy and safe except for when it is not. For the record, I don't think any skydiver would describe it as being easy and safe.
Skydiving is an air sport, and a high-speed sport. Both of those mean that it can maim you, and it can kill you. When shit happens, it happens fast, and you've got limited time to deal with it, so you better be prepared. I think it's best put as, skydiving is not a safe thing to do, but it can be done safely. That said, the gear and procedures are fairly simple. As a mechanical device, parachutes are far simpler than, say, the brakes on your car. The key is training, diligence, attention to detail. In training, we examine all the possible failure modes, and pre-determine what is best to do about them. That way when stuff goes wrong, it's not a surprise that you have to figure out, you already know what to do. And there is no time for panic, you must replace that with focus and determination. It's not for everybody. Actually, in practice, I think complacency gets more people in trouble than panic.
In any jump made, the odds are greatly in favor of survival. But people occasionally do go in, so anything is possible. A big part of instructing is assessing people as you work with them in training. You get a pretty good idea of how different types of people are likely to perform. So take Cooper. He plans this daring heist. And being no Walter Mitty, he actually prepares for it and does it. Once he boards the airplane, he could still hair out at any time. He could keep the note in his pocket, land, get a return flight and think, 'nice try'. But he hands over the note, keeps control of the situation, and actually goes out the door. If 'Señor Huevos Grandes Cooper' (nod to the Nelsons) goes through with all that, my educated guess is that he has no problem pulling the ripcord, stable or not. And if he pulls, he all but assuredly gets an open canopy. Again, I think Andrade's research into WWII bailouts is an excellent indicator of Cooper's chances, even if he's inexperienced. Any experience he did have, all the better.
the accident/death shown in the video might of been or could of had a different outcome
It really should have. An uninflated drogue is one of the pre-determined failure modes that is dealt with in training tandem instructors. The drogue is thrown soon after exit, at the top of the skydive. He should have, and was trained to, pull the drogue release and deploy the main as soon as he recognized the uninflated drogue. The drogues deflate at the beginning of deployment, so it would have resulted in a normal open main.
Wyatt Earp always said "you need to take your time in a hurry."
I like that. I alway teach students, when it comes to the pull or emergency procedures, don't rush - be smooth, deliberate, and accurate.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
