winsor

The policy is to weed out people whose level of personal responsibility is insufficient for an environment with such high stakes. I applaud your observation that this sport does not meet the criteria you deem necessary, and hope you enjoy whatever hobby you find that meets these standards. Bowling comes to mind, but there are other things that are just as much fun. Blue skies, black death, Winsor

Flyability != Landability. There are canopies that are sweet to fly, but are not necessarily survivable upon arrival. I have been under more than one canopy that was flyable but not landable. Semantics is the study of meaning; by and large, when people refer to semantics they have no idea at all what is the meaning of the term, which is singularly ironic. Blue skies, Winsor

Meine Meinung ist genau so wie das.

The way I figure it, if you have to read a warning label to realize that you are liable to be anywhere from badly maimed to deader than hell if things don't work out on any given jump, you are likely too dumb for the contents of the label to make much of a difference. I am, however, a big fan of reminders of the things I already know that can keep me alive for a while longer, since I tend to lose track of them if they are not brought to my attention upon occasion. My favorite warning label is from a BASE rig, and says essentially that you have to be crazy to use this equipment for the purpose for which it was intended, and to have a nice day. I'll post a copy of it if I can find it. Blue skies, Winsor

What you need is a little coaching on how to lie with statistics. Let's start with the minor observation that life if essentially fatal. From there you could argue that dying while skydiving is as good a way to go as any. "What do you mean, dangerous? Hell, he was going to die anyway!" Point out that someone is (slightly) more likely to die while playing 18 holes of golf than when making a single skydive. Do not note that death on the golf course rarely has anything to do with the game itself (heart attack, stroke, allergic reaction to beestings, snakebite, drowning in a water trap, lightning strike and so forth), but that death while skydiving is almost always related to skydiving. In any event, you should keep in mind that the contention that skydiving is "safe" is unadulterated bullshit. The contention that parachuting is pleasant, harmless fun - except for those occasions that involve being maimed or killed - is a rather weak one. If you approach skydiving from the standpoint of active risk analysis, fine. If you skydive based on the assumption that it is "quite safe," I suggest you seek out a hobby that more closely resembles that description. Blue skies, Winsor

One thing I do is to request that everyone on the load check their straps and handles one last time, typically as we climb through 10,000 feet. If Orly King or Scotty Carbone is on the load I don't bother, since they tend to make a similar announcement. Though some people roll their eyes - and it appears to rankle the hell out of a few others - I have seen enough people rapidly rethread a chest strap or pull out a cutaway handle that was tucked under that I figure it is worth it. I know of too many incidents that would have been avoided if someone had made that last check, and I'll be damned if it will happen on my watch. Blue skies, Winsor

Oh, I dunno. I sometimes consider putting in for the B and C for grins, but have yet to get around to it. Early on, it did not seem to make an awful lot of difference between one license or another as far as privileges went. Once I had the A I could manifest for pretty much any load I wanted to be on. Who was willing to jump with you was more a function of demonstrated ability than of credentials. I am trying to think of what came with the D license, but nothing major comes to mind. I think it was mostly a matter of "been there, done that." I guess I have enough Merit Badges amassed from various other activities that I can't get all too worked up about another set of credentials. To some extent I think it's more fun to sandbag than to bluster and strut, so being able to say "I do not have my B license yet" has entertainment value. Gaining the skillset is important from a lifesaving standpoint. Getting the credentials is useful only to the extent that it buys something. Blue skies, Winsor

With my aircraft, the critical factor is not stress on the wings as much as acceleration of the airframe with regard to the engine. If the airframe is abruptly accelerated upward or downward beyond the critical rate, the engine mounts are given to failure. If the engine comes loose, the airplane is unflyable. Staying close to stall speed allows the wing to stall before it can generate sufficient lift to result in structural failure at the engine mounts when encountering turbulence. Increasing the gross weight increases the stall speed, so your maneuvering speed - with constant margin above stall speed - increases proportionally. I agree that wing loading would indicate a decrease of maneuvering speed with increased gross weight if the limiting factor was structural failure of the wings. However, with my aircraft at least, it would have crashed long before the wings failed. Blue skies, Winsor

Ditto.

When doing big-ways out of planes such as the DC-3, the UP motion alerts floaters to the onset of the count. Hanging on to the outside of the airplane, it can be tough to see what the person in the middle is doing. DOWN, at which point the person's face drops out of sight, tells front-front and rear-rear the timing at which the GO will happen. When shooting camera in the rear-rear-rear slot, I found UP, DOWN GO to be the most effective way to be on the same page. It can be a bitch to synch up otherwise. If you are risking your handles, you are doing it wrong. I have never seen an inadvertent deployment or accidental cutaway result from an UP, DOWN GO call. Blue skies, Winsor

If I want to pay retail, I have many opportunities to do so. This generally does not include person-to-person sale of older, used gear. How much is used gear worth? Whatever the market will bear. The range of sale price for a given piece of equipment can easily vary by an order of magnitude. Price can be a function of seller, buyer, venue, season, and a host of other factors. A brand new rig with all the bells and whistles can fetch a pittance at a storage facility auction ("heck, I wanted to use this as a car cover, and this thing is not much bigger than a bed sheet..."), and gutter gear occasionally fetches princely sums ("the Government paid thousands for this for their paratroops and I got it for half price! I even got the lines they cut off!"). If you put a price on something, you will weed out the people who are simply testing the waters. In addition, you will let potential buyers know whether it is worth their time to pursue a potential purchase. If you do not put a price on something, serious buyers are likely to lose interest before they figure out how much you actually want for it. In any event, you really have no right to complain about respondents offering less than what you might think is fair if you do not let on how much you think that is in the first place. If you think it's worth $12,500 for everything and you get a buyer, more power to you. If you pick a price based on your estimation of its current value and it does not sell, either you asked too much, you did not do a good enough job describing it, or the right buyer has not come along yet. People sell gear on Dropzone.com, and tend to get fair market value. If you do your homework and change your approach accordingly, you should be able to do so as well. Blue skies, Winsor

Neither. I do not undo straps, just loosen them. I put on and take off rigs "Mike Nelson Style" (the Lloyd Bridges character from 'Sea Hunt,' not the Mike Nelson from Alabama). Blue skies, Winsor

Sorry about the delay, I just put it in the mail. It turns out I had about 30 copies squirreled away, which I laid in specifically for people who scared up ParaCommanders with no info. Have fun with the canopies; they are quite a worthwhile change from your everyday ramair. Blue skies, Winsor

I beg to differ. In order to lie, you must be aware that what you are saying is untrue. If, on the other hand, you put forth a tale that you believe heart and soul, it is not lying - regardless of the fact that there is not one iota of truth contained therein. Compared to alcohol or tobacco, marijuana is truly a Gift from God (which is, of course, not saying much). In order to oppose legalization of marijuana, one must subscribe to rather a large number of patent falsehoods. Unfortunately these falsehoods are useful to quite a few vested interests - the apprehension industry, the criminal trial industry, the incarceration industry, the pulp and paper industry and so forth - so their veracity is not questioned. I do not happen to touch any mind-altering substances stronger than coffee, so my vested interest is that I am expected to fund policies based on ignorance and stupidity through my taxes. Unfortunately, the dumber the policy, the more vociferous is the defense put forth by those who enforce it; paradoxically, in order to avoid the appearance of stupidity they embrace it wholeheartedly. In any event, if you smoke and jump just try not to bounce, since it makes stoners look bad. Blue skies, Winsor

My favorite saying is "Smoke a joint a day," and, uh, I forget the rest.

I have nothing against marihuana, but have it on good authority that it will cause your babies to be born naked. Not only that, but a study at a Major University concluded that 100% of people who smoke pot will die. In Europe, it is common for people to roll their own cigarettes, which only look like reefers. Thus, I am quite sure that the picture to which you refer is simply someone smoking good old tobacco. I do not believe that anyone is actually irresponsible enough to drink or take drugs before parachute jumping, since that would be bad. Blue skies, red eyes, Winsor

Yes, but can they funnel a formation properly by Day Ten? Indeed they can. In addition to learning the Oppenheimer Breakoff and the Pulsating Sphincter Transition, people go home knowing the fine points of a Crack the Whip and other variants of your basic Fruit Loop. Starting with a standard Horny Gorilla, we progress to the Saucer and Teacup. Similarly, a simple Tube can turn into a 20-way Steamroller if there is a C-130 on hand. By golly, we put the "fun" back in "funnel!" Blue skies, Winsor

You bring up a very good point here. The pilots of specialty aircraft may have all kinds of qualifications and no concept of how to fly jump operations. With the likes of Mike Mullins, Fleahop, and Larry Hill's and Paul Fayard's crews around we can easily get spoiled (I sure as hell am). The regular crews that make the Convention happen are brilliant, and they are used to doing complex tasks all day long and making it look easy. The performance of the DC-3 and Carvair crews during jump operations has made it quite clear who has the necessary skill to make it all come together smoothly. It is my recommendation that the specialty aircraft should operate under the direct control of the pros, since they have a track record of working together smoothly and safely. Regardless of the personalities involved, in practice they cooperate marvelously and do not step on each other's toes. Specialty aircraft, on the other hand, tend to interfere with normal jump operations by virtue of the fact that they are not used to the flow of a complex jump operation. Under the direction of the mainstay jump operations, the specialty jump operations can do less to interrupt the normal operations, and integrate with the flow that works so well. We have a lot of people working hard to implement improvements at the Convention, so what you saw last year is not necessarily what you will encounter next time around. We have a lot of talent available, and we are doing our best to use it to good advantage. Blue skies, Winsor

Not a problem. Our goal is to provide an environment where people have the greatest freedom, yet work together to keep it safe. The best tool I have found is communication. If, before boarding the aircraft, various groups talk amongst themselves and get a clear idea of who is doing what, they tend to work together to avoid problems in the air. They agree on giving enough of a delay between groups, order groups properly to maximize separation, and know to expect people opening at their declared altitudes. If people actively perform an equipment check 2 minutes before exit, any misrouted straps and errant handles are caught before they become a problem. Bringing up the issue of safety is responsible. Danger is a reality, and you can't expect it to go away if you ignore it. In days past, the number of Boogie attendees who could expect to wind up in an ICU was substantial. It is now an unusual event if someone is injured enough to require more than first aid (and a lot of that involves alcohol after jump operations have closed). We take safety seriously, and welcome comments that help us to get everyone home in one piece. Blue skies, Winsor

First off, the aircrews at the WFFC are the best in the business. These are not 320 hour pilots trying to build time, flying for aircraft owners trying to pay off airplanes they can't afford - they are the Varsity. The level of coordination between the various operations at the Convention is superb. If you listen to the radio communications between the various aircrews and the ground support staff, you rapidly conclude that these people are very good at what they do. Larry Hill's people, Paul Fayard's people, Mike Mullins, Fleahop, Rod Tinney and the specialty aircrews are as good as they get. The timing and separation between loads at the Convention is choreographed brilliantly, and you have a greater assurance of separation between successive loads there than much of anywhere else (except, of course, at Paul Fayard's place, or Larry Hill's place...). As far as how to fly your parachute safely in a high-traffic environment, we have that worked out to a science. If you come to the Load Organizers' tent, we can give you a clear and simple breakdown of how to do so. Every phase of jump operations has been addressed in our procedures, and using the Cliff's Notes version will keep you out of trouble (safety should be simple). We have jumpers between 0 and 200 jumps on a regular basis, and canopy traffic is simply not an issue. Where problems arise is with people with 300 jumps who try to fly like they did at their Cessna DZ; usually the problem is heralded by a loud "Hey! Watch this!" Where people have followed the basic safety procedures, they have stayed safe. We are available for you, and are happy to work with you when you stop by (Tent 3 is where I hang out, but any of the Load Organizers are great). Blue skies, Winsor

In both cases people succumbed to pilot error. The malfunctions involved would have been identical at a Cessna DZ. Playing with the malfunction, cutting away low and trying to get stable before deploying the reserve is a bad plan, regardless of where you jump. If you show a normal level of prudence (don't jump hung-over or overtired, don't spiral blindly through popular airspace, open at a proper altitude and observe your hard deck, and so forth), you are no more likely to come to grief at the Convention than anywhere else. If we observe you making bad decisions, we may make suggestions that improve your life expectancy if followed. Unfortunately, some people insist on making choices that result in their injury or death, and some of them do so at the Convention. Our goal is not to be safety-nazis, but for everyone to go home unhurt after having a very good time. If you come to the Convention, feel free to stop by the Load Organizer's tent. Even if you do not jump with us, we will happily provide the Safety Briefing which details an approach that maximizes your likelihood of staying unhurt. Three of us have penned articles on the subject; mine is basically a checklist for use in flight planning. At the Convention you have the best aircraft and aircrews in the business, and you might be surprised at how much energy is devoted to ensuring that our procedures are safe. Your typical smaller DZ would have to be in operation for centuries to amass the experience that is concentrated at the Convention. If you make use of it, you will benefit. Blue skies, Winsor

I don't see where your first 50 jumps has to be expensive or hard to do at all. Once I passed AFF I did maybe 2 coach jumps to get my A license and the rest were fun jumps. A lot of them were on my own, experimenting with the air and practicing just learning how my body reacted to the air and the rest were with friends. I did not mean to say that the first 50 jumps have to be hard; but they can certainly be hard to come by. For one thing, the logistics of going to the DZ to either get weathered out of maybe make a couple of jumps per jump day can be frustrating. It can be tough developing skills when you can barely get enough air time in to maintain a particular skill level. Some people have to pay a premium to be in an environment where they can both jump a lot and make skydives that develop skill rapidly. What I am trying to get across is that the Convention provides an environment wherein someone can show up unskilled and leave after ten days with a pretty solid level of competence. Convention Load Organizers are volunteers, and our goal is to provide a safe and enjoyable environment for jumpers ranging from rank neophytes to world record holders. If someone wants to try CRW, we have people who do that. If the goal is to do big formations, we do that, too. If someone is entirely unfamiliar with jumping in a high-traffic environment, and just wants to do one-on-one drill dives, we are happy to do that as well. Year after year I have seen people show up with very limited skills, but leave the Convention as heads-up skydivers after jumping with us for ten days. Going back to their home DZs, they find that their skills are now sufficient to participate safely on a wide range of skydives they would not have considered previously. My main concern is that people assume they should not come to the Convention if they have very low experience, since there is hardly a better place for them to go. After jumping with us for ten days, they can do well pretty much anywhere. Blue skies, Winsor

Well, no, I did not get into the extensive details as to why this is the case. I am not unusual among Load Organizers in that I go over safety fundamentals before jumping with someone for the first time, if for no other reason than to ensure we are on the same page. I try to get people to develop a mental picture of where to fly to avoid traffic. If you are in "popular airspace," you are competing with the maddening crowd for elbow room. If you are in "unpopular airspace," you can pretty much guarantee that nobody is going to spiral down through your altitude. Even at a venue as busy as the Convention, if the decision tree is kept simple and defined clearly in advance, a rank neophyte can decide where to fly to stay out of trouble and where to look to avoid collisions while doing so. It only takes a couple of jumps with a thorough briefing and debrief before someone is comfortable with the procedures, and can then relax and let their skills develop. FWIW, it is people who have, say, 300 jumps at a Cessna DZ that have the hardest time adapting - someone who goes through AFF at the Convention just deals with it from Jump #1 as part of the normal environment. It seems counterintuitive, but the safest people at the Convention are often the low-timers who jump with the Load Organizers. They are quite happy to make safety their first priority, and they go ahead and jump safely. If you come out and jump with us I think you will see what I mean, and I do not think you will be disappointed. Blue skies, Winsor

One of the biggest hurtles in skydiving is getting the first 50 or so jumps. Training is expensive and proceeds at the convenience of the instructor (and the weather), and getting enough air time that anyone else wants to jump with you is just as bad. No number of air-baths is going to get up jumpers to want you on their load, and paying for quality jumps absorbs great quantities of time and money. IMHO the single best place to go from your first tandem to being in on formation skydives is the World Freefall Convention. We are geared toward developing the greatest level of skill - from the standpoint of safety and practice - in the least amount of time, for the least amount of money. People who show up on Day One and can't even funnel a formation properly by Day Ten are organizing their own skydives together, executing them safely and having a great time. For complete beginners, the AFF concession is geared to getting you in the air and through the training process in manner that justifies the "accelerated" in its name. Jumpers cleared for solo jumping have the option of jumping with any Coach or with the Free Convention Load Organizers. The rule for the Free Convention Load Organizers is that our slots are covered when jumping on a 4-way or better, so a coached jump or 3-way drill dive does cost the price of an extra slot - otherwise we are volunteers. A-license-qualified jumpers have the further option of jumping with a Mentor. A Mentor is an up-jumper who agrees work with a low-timer, passing on skills and working with them to stay safe. We invite up-jumpers to register as Mentors. After 50 jumps or when cleared by one of the staff (we work with you, and are happy to sign off someone who is heads-up about safety procedures), jumpers are free to jump without a Coach, Mentor or Load Organizer. They are, of course, welcome to jump on organized loads. Paradoxically, the WFFC is one of the safest places to learn to skydive. The people who jump with us are drilled on safe procedures from soup to nuts, and get used to flight planning that minimizes their exposure to the unexpected. In any event, if you are either a student or a low timer, the Convention is the place to go. Blue skies, Winsor

I have maybe 10 copies around, which I pass on to people who need them. PM your snail mail info, and I'll send you one. Blue skies, Winsor