What the fuck, people?

[davelepka 4]

Does anyone pay attention to what's happening around them? This last weekend was a real bitch. Waay too many people dying or going to the hospital for one weekend. Too many for a whole month if you ask me.

Here's the two that really get me -

The fatality on May 21, in TX. The guy who rode a mal too long, and cutaway too low. What makes this worse than any other incident? How about the same thing happening less than two months ago to a good friend of mine. Almost a carbon copy of the events if you read the eye witness accounts.

The canopy collision in KY. Two swoopers, with one swooping into the other. This is the same thing that happpened last year to another good friend of mine in Crosskeys. Of course the difference between the two is that in the KY incident, only one of the jumpers died as a result. Is that what we learned last year? Go ahead and collide with whoever you want, just make sure to only kill yourself?

I think what really gets me about all this is that the only good that comes from any incident is what we can learn from it, and how we can apply it toward the prevention of a repeat accident. It seems that the last two friends that I lost were all for nothing.

I know that everyone thinks it will never happen to them, and I'm probably guilty of that myself, but when it does happen to someone, and it's reported, with details, you would think that even the most jaded of jumpers would be just a bit more cautious in that perticular area. I say 'you would think', maybe I need to change that to 'I would think', and accordingly change my already bleak impression of the general skydiving public.

I have to admit that all of this hits close to home for me. Less than two months out from one loss, and a year from another, with repeats of both incidents in less than ten days. I also can't ignore the whopper of an incident we had at Aerohio this weekend.

As far as that goes, I've got nothing to add thats not already in the incident thread. I wasn't shooting the video, or even on the load. I don't do tandems, or gear up tandems, so I have no information about the use of a tandem harness. I purposely have not watched the video, asked any quesitons, or been involved in the investigation in any way. It's not my business, and I don't want to make it my business. There are smart people working on it, and I trust that they will pull any relevant information they can from the incident.

Lets all agree to slow down a bit out there. Lets think about what we're going to do before we do it. Have a plan or three before you get in the plane. Once that thing takes off, you're on a limited time frame. Once you jump, there's no way to get back in. Be ready for what you're about to do, and don't do anything you're not ready for.

Sounds like common sense, but this past weekend has shown me that common sense is not always a player in the choices that people make.

It's going to take a long spell of incident free jumping to make up for the last week or so. Lets clean it up out there, be smart, have fun, and make it happen.

[billvon 3,118]

>you would think that even the most jaded of jumpers would be
>just a bit more cautious in that perticular area.

Unfortunately, this isn't usually the case. The conversations I have go something like this:

"Hey, you might want to be careful about toggle turning that low; it can be dangerous."

"What? No, I'm fine. I have lots of jumps doing this."

"Well, so did Joe X, and he died last weekend from a toggle turn like that."

"Joe X made a mistake. He screwed up and turned too low."

"He has a lot more jumps than you, and he thought he was just as good. If it can happen to him . . ."

"Whatever."

[wmw999 2,588]

Good rant, and the right place for it.

There's a great post (here) in the BASE forum about how people are losing sight of the jump by adding crap to it.

Skydiving is throwing yourself out of an airplane. If you don't do something soon enough, you'll die (I'm going to ignore the Cypres issue). If you don't spot right, you'll land somewhere far away. If you don't land right, you'll hurt yourself.

Equipment doesn't change any of these things deep down. It might change their frequency, but they are all real. No matter what we do. We trust the GPS, we trust the Cypres, we know how to butt-slide .

"just" doing RW, or freeflying, or CRW, or swooping, or video isn't enough any more. A lot of people want to combine them. Maybe it's not about cramming as much as possible into one jump, it's about learning and enjoying from that jump.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[NWFlyer 2]

Human nature.

It's easy to be extra-special-aware immediately after an incident. It's fresh in our minds and we are still feeling raw from the impact that person's death had on us (and when they were a friend, it's even worse).

But time turns that pain from raw to a slight twinge. We go from hyper-aware to back to normal. Things go right and continue to go right and we're relaxed again, things are working as they're supposed to.

Most of us forget how close the line is between getting it just right enough and getting it very very wrong. When things go right a bunch of times in a row, we forget. And we don't talk enough about the times where things went wrong and we survived, except in the no-shit-there-I-was one-upsmanship at the bar. Rarely are they true learning experiences.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[AFFI 0]

I have been where you are, frustrated just after loosing a friend to something stupid, emotions swelling up inside and on a 20 minute call with a student where I had to put my best foot forward and do my job the best I can possibly do with this student – hard to keep my composure. I picked up my cellular and called a friend who has 40 years in the sport.

He said: “Put the corpse down, and slowly back away”. He urged me to just push the whole affair out of my mind and focus on what really mattered, setting a good example of training and adherence to sensible skydiving practices and to train others to the best of my ability to better ensure that they won’t end up in the same situation as the dead guy.

Sometimes I might seem a little hardcore in my training practices, sometimes I might seem like an asshole or the high and mighty safety police but it stems from the same emotions you are expressing – I am tired of seeing acts of stupidly and apathy take the lives of good people and sometimes it gets aggravating to say the least, but we can either let it get to us, or we can find someone to vent it to get it off our chest and do the most positive thing we can do – Lead By Example.

• If you don’t get pin checks before exit, start getting them.

• If you like the rush of a high performance landing, do them as safe as possible, hell, unless you are a competitor there is no reason to push it to the limit every time – I have discovered that I can have a lot of fun on a smooth 90 carve.

• Whether you are on the delivery or receiving end of a heated debate, if you have an opportunity to exercise a little humility and restraint when dealing with someone – then exercise it.

Another words, all we can to is keep out side of the street clean and lead by example.

It is infectious…

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

[airtwardo 7]

Rarely are they true learning experiences.


***

....And on the 'other' hand, I gotta believe that some of this is getting through!

I had an interesting experience last weekend.
I flew 1000 miles to the west coast to make a milestone jump with an old friend, his 100th.

I hadn't been to his drop zone since I taught there 20 years ago, so I was pretty much an unknown.

We were trying to set up an SCR dive with two guys getting their 100th jump as well.
During the planning, I offered that I would go last since I'm faster in the air than in the door.

Two people in the 4-500 jump range asked to speak to me privately. We went off to the side where they proceeded to ask the 'questions' checking me out.

When we were through, one said he'd hoped he hadn't 'insulted' me, but having someone swoop a formation that isn't qualified is dangerous.

I let him know that I wasn't insulted but rather impressed...

It was truly a pleasant surprise to see that kind of
thoughtful awareness toward making a safe dive.

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[dharma1976 0]

Quote

I have been where you are, frustrated just after loosing a friend to something stupid, emotions swelling up inside and on a 20 minute call with a student where I had to put my best foot forward and do my job the best I can possibly do with this student – hard to keep my composure. I picked up my cellular and called a friend who has 40 years in the sport.

He said: “Put the corpse down, and slowly back away”. He urged me to just push the whole affair out of my mind and focus on what really mattered, setting a good example of training and adherence to sensible skydiving practices and to train others to the best of my ability to better ensure that they won’t end up in the same situation as the dead guy.

Sometimes I might seem a little hardcore in my training practices, sometimes I might seem like an asshole or the high and mighty safety police but it stems from the same emotions you are expressing – I am tired of seeing acts of stupidly and apathy take the lives of good people and sometimes it gets aggravating to say the least, but we can either let it get to us, or we can find someone to vent it to get it off our chest and do the most positive thing we can do – Lead By Example.

• If you don’t get pin checks before exit, start getting them.

• If you like the rush of a high performance landing, do them as safe as possible, hell, unless you are a competitor there is no reason to push it to the limit every time – I have discovered that I can have a lot of fun on a smooth 90 carve.

• Whether you are on the delivery or receiving end of a heated debate, if you have an opportunity to exercise a little humility and restraint when dealing with someone – then exercise it.

Another words, all we can to is keep out side of the street clean and lead by example.

It is infectious…

another fine examle of why I enjoy reading your posts....

fairly new but already feel your pain...

people are complacent and unfortunately there are a lot of golfers in this sport...

sometimes people think I am an asshole for screaming about people landing in the wrong direction of the agreed landing direction

sometimes people think I offer a little too much advice...

sometimes people think I pull a little high to avoid traffic.

but I am in this to live and try to set a decent example...

and (un)fortunately there are a lot of strong personalities in this sport...some who have an accurate percieved ability and sone who dont.

and then there are the people who dont care about anyone else but themselves and will blatently tell you that they are going to do whatever the hell they want...those people usually get called assholes loudly and publically...

Dave

http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

[AFFI 0]

Suddenly I am compelled to take a look at areas in my life that are outside of the skydiving arena…

[dharma1976 0]

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Suddenly I am compelled to take a look at areas in my life that are outside of the skydiving arena…

Music is always nice :-)

hopefully you didnt construe that to be a vieled attack on you sir...

it wasnt...

just thoughts

Dave

http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

[AFFI 0]

No, not at all - I just started reflecting on other areas of my life where I could be showing a different example to others, and to myself…

[jdthomas 0]

Thats a good post dave!

Today I have been talking with a friend who is in Moab, he and 4 other guys went out for Mem weekend.. 4 of the 5 guys now have crutches to come home on.. why?

the tonight I went to my home town of Ft Scott, kansas to watch the green beret demo jumpers jump into our small downtown are to celebrate the town festival.
I am sick and went for the carnage, those guys choose to jump into a very congested area.. granted the buildings are only up to three storys in height but the power lines and the funny winds of the day where there as well.
One jumper made it in fine, the other guy hauling the flag landed on a second story roof top as the american flag and the 60# wieght went over the side of the building towards the crowd below.
Why would these guys even risk jumping into that area when there where wider open areas close to this location? I had a pro rating and would not even consider the city streets a landing area!

So to top if off these guys will try again twice on Saturday and once on Sunday when the festival crowds are at thier largest!

that story is a bit off topic but it seemd to fit with the weekend numbers and the aparent loss of the learning from others mistakes tool. Its a bummer.

I have become so conservative these days and can't see myself changing that any time soon.

Lets look at the info and learn from it. so we won't make thos mistakes that others have made.
Joe

www.greenboxphotography.com

[obelixtim 150]

Reminds me of the old pilots proverb..."there are old pilots and there are bold pilots......but there arn't any old bold pilots"...

Great earlier post by AFFI.......took the words right out of my mouth......



.g

My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

[popsjumper 2]

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...
I let him know that I wasn't insulted but rather impressed...

It was truly a pleasant surprise to see that kind of
thoughtful awareness toward making a safe dive.

This says a lot about you, Jim.
I hope you are going to Skyfest I want to meet you.

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

[StreetScooby 5]

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• If you like the rush of a high performance landing, do them as safe as possible, hell, unless you are a competitor there is no reason to push it to the limit every time – I have discovered that I can have a lot of fun on a smooth 90 carve.

I've been debating myself for a long time to mention what I'm about to mention. Here goes.

I'm a 4-way guy. Get my kicks above 2K. After I started my own company, I was out of the sport for a while. During that time, Canopy Swooping became popular. That's why Billy Richards put a pond in at the Ranch.

These days, when I land in the general landing area, I am _ALWAYS_ looking for some guy that's in his twenties swooping through the "20" jumpers landing in the GENERAL landing area on a canopy not much bigger than a good beach towel.

What's a nice way to ask them to do that at the pond? We've already had several collisions between swoopers and guys picking up their canopies. What really pissed me off last season was hearing a swooper say that the RW guys should land elsewhere. I wanted to say - You've got a f-ing pond, but I didn't.

In the general landing area, the dive should be over when you're on the ground. You shouldn't have to wait until the packing area for the dive to be over.

Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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When we were through, one said he'd hoped he hadn't 'insulted' me, but having someone swoop a formation that isn't qualified is dangerous.

That's great, man!

This reminds me of some experiences I had at Lodi.

I jumped at Lodi for 3 years. Every Sunday afternoon, Bill would break out the DC-3, and towards the end of the day they'd do a 40-way.

One day, there's a guy we all knew had less than 50 jumps going out 30+. Had a huge motorcycle helmet on. I'm going out 27th or so (after two seasons of hard effort), never wore a helmet, and myself and those around me were really concerned. Bill comes walking down the line, we approach him, he listens, looks back at the guy and says, "Ah, don't worry. He won't be close."

Another time, I was 20+ on a formation load (...last out?). I pushed the swoop really hard. Again, I didn't wear a helmet, and wore only Kruups (sp?). I hit the swoop so hard the googles pushed under my eyeballs, making them bulge out and tear up badly. Couldn't see anything. The only thing that saved me and the other folks from injury was that the swoopers that taught me (Texas Tom, Zimmo, and others) always told me to swoop the side of the formation. And that's what I've always done.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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sometimes people think I am an asshole for screaming about people landing in the wrong direction of the agreed landing direction

Isn't the landing direction always into the wind?

I see this happening at the Ranch sometimes, mainly with people who are beginning canopy swoopers. WTF? I'm going to do a downwind landing just because canopy swoopers agree to?

We are all engines of karma

[dharma1976 0]

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Quote

sometimes people think I am an asshole for screaming about people landing in the wrong direction of the agreed landing direction

Isn't the landing direction always into the wind?

I see this happening at the Ranch sometimes, mainly with people who are beginning canopy swoopers. WTF? I'm going to do a downwind landing just because canopy swoopers agree to?

actually we are talking about nill to extremely light wind...

if we agree on a landing direction at the loading area and the wind shifts when it is light, it is not big deal.

if the winds are strong and we choose a landing direction it is into the wind....

if people decide to land in whatever direction the choose after we have agreed we get what I have started to call the ranch landing direction because people would rather do whatever they want...

we choose a landing direction so we dont get people faced off while landing which can lead to people getting hurt.

and no I would rather land into the wind dont get me wrong...

Dave

http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

[StreetScooby 5]

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actually we are talking about nill to extremely light wind...

Agreed. Discussing landing direction in these cases is always good. And, people at the Ranch do that.

We are all engines of karma

[AFFI 0]

Quote

What's a nice way to ask them to do that at the pond? We've already had several collisions between swoopers and guys picking up their canopies. What really pissed me off last season was hearing a swooper say that the RW guys should land elsewhere. I wanted to say - You've got a f-ing pond, but I didn't.

In the general landing area, the dive should be over when you're on the ground. You shouldn't have to wait until the packing area for the dive to be over.

Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

I would find what the policies are at the particular DZ you are experiencing these issues.

When confronting someone, be diplomatic and informative, as to what the policies are at that DZ.

When I was learning to skydive with -500 jumps, the DZ where I was preached that “the skydive is not over until you are back in the hanger” (dropping your gear on the packing matt). That being said, the skydivers making high performance landings need to use good judgment as to when to abort for safety reasons. Everyone can try to be more respectful, nicer and if things get out of hand seek mediation.

I can totally see where your concerns are stemming from. Mostly making working jumps I am usually afforded the luxury of flying in brakes and give the hotshots time to descend, then when I go into middle aged almost out of testosterone hotshot mode the landing area is usually cleared out somewhat...

As Rabbitt would say, “That is all”.

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

[TrickyDicky 0]

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When I was learning to skydive with -500 jumps, the DZ where I was preached that “the skydive is not over until you are back in the hanger” (dropping your gear on the packing matt).

This is the impression Ive always had to. But there is responsibility for the swooper aswell.
My friend, who is deaf, was out in spain, enjoying a coffee at the DZ bar, sat at an outside table. Some hotshot decides hes gonna swoop the outside table, so is shouting at everyone to get out the way. My friend couldnt see him, so nearly got a high speed boot in the back of the head. This guy then came over to shout at my friend, only to be very sorry when he found out he was deaf, plus got a severe bollocking from managment.

So fuck off to any swoopers that think that other people should get out of their way. Everyone else has just the same right to be there that you do. Dont like it, go and land somewhere else.

UK Skydiver for all your UK skydiving needs.

[StreetScooby 5]

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I would find what the policies are at the particular DZ you are experiencing these issues.

When confronting someone, be diplomatic and informative, as to what the policies are at that DZ.

Thank you!

We are all engines of karma

[AFFI 0]

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This guy then came over to shout at my friend, only to be very sorry when he found out he was deaf, plus got a severe bollocking from managment.

What a complete asshole.

If he lives long enough he will discover the world dosent revolve around him...

[champu 1]

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Human nature.

It's easy to be extra-special-aware immediately after an incident. It's fresh in our minds and we are still feeling raw from the impact that person's death had on us (and when they were a friend, it's even worse).

But time turns that pain from raw to a slight twinge. We go from hyper-aware to back to normal. Things go right and continue to go right and we're relaxed again, things are working as they're supposed to.

Being "extra-special-aware" immediately following your participation in or observation of a skydiving accident parallels "just being extra careful" when driving drunk. Neither, I suspect, are very effective.

Safety comes from making sure the mindless routine you fall back into is a heathy one, not from drinking an extra cup of coffee before you jump.

You won't learn anything from an accident by reading about it and concluding, "Well duh, don't jump shitty gear." or "Well duh, don't stab a toggle 50ft off the ground." You learn something from an accident by understanding what the person didn't do prior to or during every single jump that would have prevented it.

[NWFlyer 2]

Well said. I agree that unless an incident introduces a previously unforeseen risk (which is really quite rare), it shouldn't be a "wake-up call." But the reality is that it often is.

[davelepka 4]

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Does anyone pay attention to what's happening around them?

Just to add to the stupidity, I read the non-fatal incident reports in the current Parachutist, and sure enough there was another repeat performance.

It seems one swooper 270'd himself into another swooper who was setting up for a 180. These guys were lucky enough to land in some soft mud, and both of them made it out alive. I can only guess that this was at laest a few months ago, but not more than a year ago, just based on how long it takes Parachutist to get things in print.

So, to recap, that three times in the last year that the same scenario has played out. The first was a double fatality, the second had no fatalities, and the last had one. So three out of six jumpers involved did not survive.

50/50 odds of living or dying aren't enough wake people up? Thats fucked up.