Alternate Solution(s)

[winsor 236]

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What will this do for non-competitive people? As I read through the fatality reports I see a whole lot from people who aren't flying "HP" canopies and aren't making deliberate low turns.

Which is what I see as the flaw in the idea. I think keeping people off canopies they shouldn't be on until they are ready for them and education/training is the fix.

Agreed.

What I'm trying to put together is:

A) A means of developing the requisite skills in the normal DZ environment,

and

B) A means of evaluating whether sufficient skills have been developed.

If an S&TA has a ready means of evaluating the skills of someone seeking to downsize when he says "show me what you got," it puts a handle on it.

My suggestion is to make it fun, challenging, only as competitive as you wish to make it, and something you can do without a lot of planning.

If only two people show up at the DZ, they can follow their drill dive by opening high, bumping end cells to their hard deck and fly the standard pattern to a sport accuracy landing.

Or something like that.

If you focus on the fun aspect of it, you are more likely to get people to voluntarily participate. Developing canopy skills is fun, and it can also save your life.

If you get people interested in using various combinations of front risers, rear risers and brakes and flying in close proximity (without necessarily docking), they are less likely to be spiraling down into other canopies at any time in their careers.

If you have people adapted to flying a proper pattern, set up for a safe landing by 1,000 feet, the mindset carries over to the usual fun jump.

If Coaches and Load Organizers have a post-deployment programme with which to work, they can suggest to the non-competitive jumpers on the load "what do you say we open by 3,000 ft, do canopy routine B, and then set up for a staged landing?"

In medicine you rarely have a single treatment that's 100% effective, but if something seems to offer a net benefit, you tend to go with it. You thereafter work toward increasing efficacy and reducing cost. That's the approach I suggest taking here - make changes where they seem needed, and improve upon that where the opportunity presents itself.

I appreciate suggestions, as well as observation of factors that I've so far overlooked.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[Hooknswoop 19]

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What I'm trying to put together is:

A) A means of developing the requisite skills in the normal DZ environment,

and

B) A means of evaluating whether sufficient skills have been developed.

If an S&TA has a ready means of evaluating the skills of someone seeking to downsize when he says "show me what you got," it puts a handle on it.

I see, that makes a lot of sense. Combined with th WL BSR, they would compliement each other very well. It could remove a special jump where the S & TA watches and the S & TA could simply review the results from any competetion to grant waivers and/or check that profiency for the next wing loading has been achieved.

Not a good idea, a great idea.
Derek