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Seriously, even *if* the WHO was completely a puppet of China, doesn't excuse the US failing so hard compared to countries like Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and even Vietnam. They had access to the same information the US did. Vietnam shares a border with China. Stop crying "victim", make your leaders perform better and hold them responsible. Funny how you don't hear much blaming going on in the countries fighting the virus successfully.

Yup, Trump will appoint nothing but sycophants as IG so he can fully control the money. Every step is about making money. Yet the crowd who were upset about speaking fees after a presidency are entirely silent.

I have been wondering where this is coming from, but then I noticed yesterday that US state controlled media is heavily pushing this narrative. It is this administration's standard operating procedure. Accept no responsibility and blame everybody else.

I have received some questions about recurrency when we are able to get back in the air, and I posted this in the Sigma Tandem Instructor FB group. I wanted to post a copy of it here as well in case we have Sigma rating holders that are not on that page. Thanks, Tom Greetings one and all, I have received a few messages asking about recurrency requirements when are finally out of this thing and are all able to get back in the air. As it stands now, we are of course still in what appears to be a global holding pattern, without any real expectation of when we will be able to get back in the air. A reasonable presumption however is that most uncurrent Tis will find themselves in the > 90 day or > 180 day realm of uncurrency when this finally passes and we are able to get back to work. We have a >90 day and > 180 day recurrency process that is on al of our renewals forms available at www.uptvector.com. That said, I will provide the info here as well so you don't have to go look for it. Key point in the recurrency process while you have a valid active rating, you do not have to fill out a recertification form or send it in. Simply follow the recurrency process based on how long you are affected by this, and log it in your logbook for record keeping purposes. Also important to note, as it has come up in questions, your recurrency at > 90 days can be self supervised, and your recurrency > 180 days may be supervised by either a UPT tandem examiner and/or a UPT rig owner, (as it has always been for recurrency, going on something like 25+ years as a process). If you go over 90 days, the recurrency requirement is: "If any currently rated Tandem Instructor has not made a Sigma tandem jump in the preceding 90 days, he/she must make a minimum of one (1) satisfactory Sigma tandem jump with an experienced jumper acting as a student prior to jumping with actual students." If you go over 180 days, the recurrency requirement is: "If any currently rated Tandem Instructor has not made a tandem jump within the last 180 days, he/she must complete Recurrency Training before jumping with actual students. RECURRENCY TRAINING Recurrency Training consists of a minimum of one (1) solo jump with the tandem system, and one (1) tandem jump withan experienced jumper acting as a student/passenger. The experienced jumper must first be briefed on how to respond totandem emergencies. In addition, each experienced skydiver acting as passenger must watch the Sigma Waiver video andfill out a Waiver. Passenger emergency handles may be used. During the jump the applicant must make a stable exit fromat least 7,500 feet, with drogue deployment within ten (10) seconds, and have an open main canopy opening by 4,500 feet. The applicant must demonstrate the ability to control heading during drogue-fall by making at least one 360-degree turn and perform practice pulls to all operating handles. Landing must be a stand-up (wind permitting) within 150 feet of target. These two jumps must be witnessed and signed off by an uninsured United Parachute Technologies, LLC Sigma Instructor Examiner or Sigma Owner. If you are an owner or examiner or both, you cannot sign for yourself. SOLO JUMP PROCEDURES Review operation of the complete tandem system. Remember, you can experience every possible tandem malfunction mode except student interference, so be prepared. Exit the aircraft, get stable, then deploy the drogue. Perform handleschecks, starting with visually inspecting drogue inflation over your right shoulder. Then proceed on to physically touchingeach handle as prescribed in the Sigma Manual. Once that is complete, continue on with practice pulls of the main deployment handles. This jump is intended to familiarize you with the system and how it operates. Do not combine this jump with any other skydiving discipline, i.e. “RW,” etc." It's too early to tell if there will be a bottleneck of observing examiners/rig owners at the > 180 day range, but if we get to that point and there is, we can certainly look to expand the observation capacity of recurrency training to include DZMs, CIs & S&TAs. Also important to note, we are in active communication with USPA on this, and welcome any other national federation safety officers that wish to consult on this to join the conversation. As we are all still on the ground for the foreseeable near future, there is still plenty of time on this issue to tweak it if needed. If anyone has any questions or concerns, please send them to me directly at tom@uptvector.com. And I will post any updates here on this post in the comment section.

if you condense your comment down as i have above, it mirrors my feelings on swooping. the only difference is that you get some rw time if you're not just doing hop and pops.

Cosmic. 80 degrees centigrade is 176 degrees Farenheight (sp). I agree. Cooking nylon at 176 degrees for a year and a half can't be good for it. Not realistic. You will laugh at this one: I actually put a pilot on speakerphone with a rep of one company with the 20 year (based upon age alone) service life. He asked if his parachute would fail if it was over 20 years old. The rep said that t wouldn't, then went into a (seemed desperate to me) explanation that amounted to nothing. We hung up and kinda laughed at the baloney throwing we had heard. (Recall the "Swoop Kerwin" tandem video where he explained the 'rarified air molecules' bs excuse for his passenger-surfing landing?) Even so, I told him to buy a new one, because of the factory policy of putting increased liability on the field rigger.