SIM Changes 2005 - 2006

[exnavykds 0]

Can any of you old salts refer me to a specific list or post that states what changes, modifications and clarifications have been made from the '05 SIM to the new '06 SIM?

For example, I've been told that the A-license requirement of three group dives has been increased to five group dives (of two or more jumpers). Does USPA publish a list of changes? If so, where can this list be found?

Thanks, in advance, for your help and/or input.

-Kevin

[MakeItHappen 15]

Quote

Can any of you old salts refer me to a specific list or post that states what changes, modifications and clarifications have been made from the '05 SIM to the new '06 SIM?

Usually the minutes from the summer BOD mtg give enough detail for you to figure out the changes, but not always. A lot of the 'typo' or house keeping type changes do not make the official record.

Quote

For example, I've been told that the A-license requirement of three group dives has been increased to five group dives (of two or more jumpers). Does USPA publish a list of changes? If so, where can this list be found?

As far as I can tell, that change was done between the 2003 and 2004 versions of the SIM. I only looked at my hard copies.
This came at the same time with the increase from 20 to 25 jumps for the A license.

Is there a problem with the changes or a problem with 'knowing what the changes are'?

.

.
Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[popsjumper 2]

You know, this raises the issue of the USPA being badly in need of a technical writer's services....info scattered everywhere, hard to find, no change history, etc, etc, etc...

This calls for an email to my Regional Director....

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[bob.dino 1]

Quote

Is there a problem with the changes or a problem with 'knowing what the changes are'?

If the problem is knowing what the changes are, might I suggest a quick look at the APF Op Regs (pdf) for a possible solution? To quote:

Quote

Substantial changes from the previous issue (15 December 2003) are marked with a vertical marginal line. Minor changes may not be marked. Page issue date: 15 December 2004

Makes it easy to see what's changed at a glance!

[AFFI 0]

Quote

Quote

Is there a problem with the changes or a problem with 'knowing what the changes are'?

If the problem is knowing what the changes are, might I suggest a quick look at the APF Op Regs (pdf) for a possible solution? To quote:

Quote

Substantial changes from the previous issue (15 December 2003) are marked with a vertical marginal line. Minor changes may not be marked. Page issue date: 15 December 2004

Makes it easy to see what's changed at a glance!

What makes it easier is to study the 2006 SIM

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

What makes it easier is to study the 2006 SIM

That's easy? More like hunting needles in haystacks when the changes are few and far between.

[mattjw916 2]

"Change documents" are common in the technical world and enable people to quickly scan for changes that are relevant to them without having to reread the entire manual.

Last year this issue came up as well when the SIM was updated. It was a good idea then and it still is now. While I could care less if the style or formation skydiving requirements for a license changed, I might be interested in wingload recommendations. I shouldn't have to mull over the whole document, that I have read ad nauseum, to find some little nugget of information.

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

[monkycndo 0]

The vertical line to indicate changes has been standard practice in the building codes for years. If major changes have been made, they simple say the entire chapter has been rewritten. Makes it so easy to keep current.

Maybe adding a general index to find what you are looking for might be useful as well.

50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

[AFFI 0]

Quote

Quote

What makes it easier is to study the 2006 SIM

That's easy? More like hunting needles in haystacks when the changes are few and far between.

The needles in a hay stack analogy sounds like a good one if it is a stack of hay that has 267 pieces of hay, since that is how many pages there are in the book or 19,513 pieces of hay since that is how many words there are in the book - not a lot.

Please regard this posting as friendly I am not attempting to be confrontational, merely presenting a different perspective to illustrate the potential fact that a lot of people do not study their SIM on a regular basis or every year when a new one comes out.

I will admit that I do not study every word or read every page thoroughly, but I am known as a “SIM Thumper” at my DZ since I do take the time to study it a bit and teach from it to the students I work with to encourage them to study it after graduation. Some people do not like the formatting of the book, admittedly I have read better manuals but I have looked at worse as well. The USPA is generous enough to offer the book as a free download as a PDF file with the main advantage there being the use of a Search Function the makes finding things much easier. The CSPA manual is a good read as well, hell I would even read ones from other countries if they were translated since I can barely read engrish much less dem uther weird languizez…

Hujed un phnuix rully werked fer me.

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[MakeItHappen 15]

Quote

Quote

Substantial changes from the previous issue (15 December 2003) are marked with a vertical marginal line. Minor changes may not be marked. Page issue date: 15 December 2004

Makes it easy to see what's changed at a glance!

That reminds me of part of last summer's BOD meeting.

Someone suggested the vertical bar thing. (That was actually used before when the SIM was a loose-leaf binder.)

Anyway, 'someone' replied that 'eventually the entire side would be a solid black line'.

I just shook my head, thinking I can't believe I heard that. I guess the version to version change concept did not get across. That brings up another issue on the work load. Say you add the vertical bars, then the next year you have to go and remove those before adding in the changes for the new year. I can't see that as being a tremendously difficult job, but it does sound boring and time consuming.

The SIM, IRM and SCM all change each year.

One of the problems is the way the work is done. Legacy of these documents are typed pages that became a word processor document that became a Word/Word Perfect/ or whatever document that became a PageMaker document. This legacy inherently links the data to the display format. WYSIWYG. The two are interwoven so completely, that the 'average' office cannot separate the two.

Compare this to programming updates or more technical document revision processes.

Technical or programming documents always have separated the data from the display. Revision history has always been available.

If we were to do this for the SIM, IRM and SCM then we'd have to put the text into data fields and then generate the pdf and html files. That is quite easy to do.
Changes would be logged and you could always generate previous versions.
A change log can be generated automatically.

I think the reason we are not doing that is because the work process is very foreign to the people doing the work. It is a hard sell. The process is very common in the IT industry, but not in the paper document industry.

Editing documents as a whole is the legacy. Editing a data field of a record here and there and then generating the final document is the more modern (and efficient) way.

Also indexing a database document would be a snap too.

.

.
Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[tombuch 0]

Quote

The CSPA manual is a good read as well, hell I would even read ones from other countries if they were translated since I can barely read engrish much less dem uther weird languizez…

Try the Australian Parachute Federation site at http://www.apf.asn.au/main.aspx. Find the "Manuals" link on the right and click away. The foks in Australia read and write English, and their manuals are really solid.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Please regard this posting as friendly I am not attempting to be confrontational, merely presenting a different perspective to illustrate the potential fact that a lot of people do not study their SIM on a regular basis or every year when a new one comes out.

Same here.

The challenge is in the formatting. You have information for a given subject that can be in the ISP, the relevent chapter in Sec 5 or 6, the FARs in Sec 9, or the BSRs in Sec 2. I could see in my mind the exact passage I wanted to review, but finding it wasn't always easy. To do a page by page compare between editions would be tedious to the point of unproductive.

Last year I think Jan found and posted the BOD notes that detailed all the changes, and it was easy to print out the deltas. This year I'll probably just reprint it all or buy a copy.

[brianfry713 0]

One way to find all the exact changes is to download both the 2005 and 2006 SIM in .pdf format, extract the text, and then do a diff. You could do something similar with the HTML version.

BASE 1224, Senior Parachute Rigger, CPL ASEL IA, AGI, IGI
USPA Coach & UPT Tandem Instructor, PRO, Altimaster Field Support Representative

[bob.dino 1]

Quote

One of the problems is the way the work is done. Legacy of these documents are typed pages that became a word processor document that became a Word/Word Perfect/ or whatever document that became a PageMaker document. This legacy inherently links the data to the display format. WYSIWYG. The two are interwoven so completely, that the 'average' office cannot separate the two.

It's really not all that hard. The APF Op Regs are generated from an MS Word document.

The new office workflow for revising the SIM goes as follows:

1. Backup last year's version.


2. Clear all revision marks. A revision mark is simply a line on the left-hand-side of the page.


3. Every time you edit a section, place a revision mark on the left-hand side of the affected paragraph.

There's no need to overcomplicate things. In fact, given that PageMaker is a business publishing tool, I'd be surpised if it didn't have the facility to automate most of this. Dig out the manual

• Quote