Hax, I checked the vertical limits you can attain with the cypher after gimping yourself off the stage. For this test, I begin my cypher after I begin decent from my second jump. And for this test, I set myself at 15 percent damage and used B-sticking to avoid fastfalling,
In a nutshell, Snake doesn't reach the stage the first time, and after performing a C4 recovery once, I find that Snake doesn't go as high as the initial cypher. I eventually die because I'm actually losing height rather than gaining it. And I'm never able to attain a good enough percentage to actually gain height, because I end up dying before the C4 will detonate.
All in all, just hope that you don't get gimped early, or you're going to have to be precise with your recovery.