slotperfect

I picked it up the week it came out and I'm watching the "Dark Side of the Moon" concert segment right now. It is really a kick-ass DVD set. In particular I like "Sorrow" and "One of These Days." The latter inspired a change of avatar and sig line! Arrive Safely John

On August 9th, 1991, a close friend died due to a free fall collision. Without going deep in the weeds, two things besides the collision caused his death: not diving the plan (the formation didn't build and there were three or four "sympathy" formations), and his AAD was intentionally disabled (turned off). The details of the accident are not as important to this post as the results it had for me. You see, I was doing very similar things at the time, young and talented, caught up in the excitement of the adrenaline rush, and feeling rather invincible. At almost the same time of day I was doing a demo from 2000 feet, having never exited that low before, jumping a borrowed canopy I had never jumped before, with the aircraft dodging a broken cloud layer. We were pushing it, and we knew it. One of my mates stayed on the plane. That day I lived and he died - but it could very easily have been the other way around. Several of the guys we were jumping with at the time were shit hot, and I was determined to be like they were. The key was that I did not have the wisdom or experience that they had, and did not have the patience to get it. Sound familiar? I changed that day. I determined to focus on safety and longevity from that point on. As a result I am a safer, more conscientious, and conservative jumper because of what I learned from my friend's death. It was the only way I was able to find peace while trying to somehow make sense of the tragedy. Since that day I have continued to learn, adapt, and improve myself as a skydiver. I hope I never "arrive." I strive to keep my list of dead skydiving friends from getting any longer. I can thank my friend for that - I do it out loud under canopy sometimes when the spot is such that I fly my canopy over the place he went in. If we don't learn and apply for ourselves and others the lessons learned from our dead friends, we miss out on the potential value that those lessons can provide. I will never consider my friend's death as being "worth it" because of the people like me that changed that day, but I believe that if the lessons we learned from it save one life, they were worth the time and pain of learning. Arrive Safely John

Disclaimer: I am a non-current rookie Private Pilot with only 70 hours. 1) When I was learning to fly at night, my Instructor had me set up an approach for the grass runway at our local airport (it is very long and wide). As I was doing my pre-landing checks, he told me my flap motor was burned out and my landing/taxi lights were inop. After I got the 172 configured as best as I could for landing, he asked me if I could handle it. I put it down successfully, with a little helpful coaching from him, and it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my flight training. He intentionally put me into an emergency situation where Murphy had added to the pile of things that contributed to the situation. Quite often after that, I would takeoff and land (on the 5500 FT paved runway) without flaps on purpose just for the training value. I even think my evaluator had me land without flaps on my checkride. 2) With my limited experience I would not intentionally takeoff without functional flaps, unless it was just to get the airplane home for repair. I would first consult the FAR/AIM to make sure that was legal, and make sure that all other conditions (weather, etc.) were conductive to safely making the flight. My two inexperienced cents. Arrive Safely John

Upon request, I just waded through all of the posts in this thread, which has reached the point of nothing more than a pissing contest over DZ politics. Skymonkey13: your asshole comment was uncalled for and is an obvious PA - your one warning and a reminder that PAs are not welcome here. Fireballgrl: from past experience, hidden agenda threads don't fare very well here. Leave details out to be ambiguous and someone else in the know will fill them in. Leave room for interpretation, and the opnionated skydiving masses will jump in and interpret (it's what we do). For everyone: DZ politics really don't fit these forums. Nearly all of those threads self-destruct as this one has, adding itself to the pile of threads about the KC area DZ rivalry that have been locked or removed completely. The fundamental conversation about alcohol and jumping (with all of the subsurface baggage ) is an important one, and there have been some very good comments about it. Therefore the thread stays, but locked up to end the childish dirt throwing. Arrive Safely John

A forum search resulted in a couple of previous threads on the subject. Arrive Safely John

It's being handled. Thanks. Arrive Safely John

I try to ignore the student's body position and fly my own. On rare occasions I will wrap their legs briefly to get them in position. Otherwise if there is something making us turn I counter it with my legs. Arrive Safely John

Forum search results Arrive Safely John

Scotland (Clan Livingstone), England (Hawke), and the swamps of Florida

You are a genius. That works very well on the examples I tried. I have stashed that little bit of math for safe keeping. Thanks Lisa. Arrive Safely John

It's 10-13 November. Visit the GK website and click on the link on the right: "6th Annual Black and Gold Inter-service Competition." Arrive Safely John

If the students are trained skydive techniques and not tunnel techniques they do very well. The biggest thing I notice is that when the students are in free fall on their release dives they spend a jump or two moving around the sky quite a bit because they don't have the walls of the tunnel as a lateral reference. Yes. It is harder to fly in the tunnel than in free fall. In the tunnel it feels more like you are creating lift with your body to stay up rather than smoothly cruising through the sky. That makes the tunnel a great training tool. If the rig fits, and stays put, it has minimal impact. If it doesn't fit and moves around, it causes some symmetry problems. Small jumpers wearing really big rigs can be hampered by the rig being so long they have trouble getting their head back, and the sides of the rig protrude past the sides of their body and can catch air asymmetrically. I have jumped a lot of wind tunnel trained students, and making the transition from one to the other just takes a jump or two. Now someone needs to invent and exit trainer. It's the hardest thing to train in my opinion. Arrive Safely John

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=603579;search_string=tandem%20poll;#603579 Arrive Safely John

Hello, Be sure and PM Sangiro about your issue. It is very important to get him involved. Also, the picture you wanted to post did not make it. Arrive Safely John

I have been through the USFS Smoke Jumper course in Missoula, MT. Although that was a long time ago, and things may be changing, USFS jumpers used round canopies because most of their landings (due to terrain) were intentional tree landings. Jumpers would cap the tree they landed in on purpose so they were safely and securely hung up in the tree. Then they would use a let down rope coiled/folded in their cargo pocket to lower themselves from the cutaway main. Then they put their climbing gear on, get back into the tree, and go get their parachute out. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Smoke Jumpers used ram-airs because the terrain they jumped in allowed for nearly always finding a small landing area to put down in. As I said, I'm not sure if that's their way of thinking now. I listened to Bill Gargano at the last Symposium talking about the huge difference in philosophy between the two groups during breakfast one morning. Arrive Safely John

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=617868;search_string=tandem%20poll;#617868 I now carry a couple of those bathroom sized trash bags (already opened and balled up again) in my jumpsuit pocket. Arrive Safely John

Our very own Mark Guinto, known as Shark in the forums is on staff there as well. Arrive Safely John

Added Sherry Jasnos (fireflyunltd) from Firefly Suits. Arrive Safely John

The way this thread has gone - talking about the relative safety vs. danger of skydiving - came from the subject and main point of your original post. The comparison with driving also steered it that way. Your "side note" - the context in which skydivers use the word "safe" in their own discussions seems to be the point you are now trying to drive home. Since I've already commented at length on the main point, I will say that I agree we skydivers can use the word safe to define an acceptable level of risk when talking to each other. Examples: "Is it safe to jump in these winds?" Fundamental answer = no (skydiving is not safe). Contextual answer = may be yes. I believe that is your point. If that is correct, I agree. My side note? I don't believe that a 1:1 WL is "safe" for a student. But that is a subject for another thread . . . Arrive Safely John

With the exception of the pricing information (which I subsequently edited) it is indeed non-disruptive and non-offensive. Not only will you benefit, but we who read the thread and interact with you as a result can benefit as well. My goal is to preserve the direct interaction with manufacturers while honoring the no advertising rule. This is possible - it has been done before. Again, the thread as it stands now is indeed respectful of our small online community. Lastly, I don't think you have offended anyone . . . Arrive Safely John

This has happened to lots of people. Yardhippie's advice is sound; I would add that working the currency issue out with your DZO and/or resident S&TA can result in a win-win for everybody. You get to log another jump that gets signed off (currency issue is solved), and your DZO keeps you as a regular customer. Arrive Safely John

I guess the point is that saying skydiving is "safe" in a broad sense can lead to a gross misunderstanding of the risks involved and deadly complacency. Even worse, in my opinion is considering skydiving "safe enough." When I was a Golden Knight, we were training at Raeford when the mother of a young man going up for his first tandem asked me "this is safe, right?" She wanted some sort of warm blanket effect from someone with experience to justify in her mind that her son was going to be OK. I took the time to explain to her that skydiving is inherently dangerous, but that we go to great effort to make it as safe as possible. She understood completely. The jump went great, and everyone came away with a favorable impression of skydiving as a sport. Back to the gun analogy - even though my guns are unloaded and locked up with the ammo stored somewhere else, I do not consider them safe in a broad sense. No matter what I do, short of permanently disabling them so they will not fire ever again, my guns can still kill people. That attitude toward guns in general keeps me from accidentally shooting myself or someone else. The word "safe" does indeed have a place in conversations about skydiving - a very important place at that. We just need to be careful where we put it. Arrive Safely John

Very well stated. I agree with that one as well, to a point. Pushing limits and going places in the sport where no one has gone before has value as well, but the same attitudes toward mitigating risk must be applied. Here we disagree. Skydiving is dangerous in itself - in the big scheme of things, skydivers make it less dangerous. Advances in safety through better gear and better training, along with the "rules" of a particular aero club all come from skydivers who care about making the sport safer. There is a very good conversation on that subject in this post. Some people may even become safer skydivers as a result of this thread. Arrive Safely John

When a skydiver is satisfied that he has done all he can to mitigate the risks involved in skydiving, and calls it "safe" in whatever context, it can lead to complacency - forgetting that skydiving can kill you even if you do everything right. Complacency is very dangerous - it has and will continue to kill people in this sport. On the other hand, if a skydiver has done everything he can to mitigate the risk, but continues to have respect for the danger - knowing the activity can still kill him - his awareness of the risk and the need for emphasis on safety stays at the top of his skydiving task list. Skydivers like that will likely never get complacent. I'll use another analogy - a loaded gun. In your frame of reference, the loaded gun is "safe" as long as the safety is on. That can lead to complacency as well. My own guns, unloaded and locked up with the ammo stored in a separate location, can still kill people. In my frame of reference, I treat every gun with respect to that danger - I point it away from people and clear it every time I pick it up. I agree with Wendy that skydiving is dangerous. Keeping that fact in the front of my skydiving brain has kept me alive for a long time. Arrive Safely John

With friends and family I get a little more animated in the air because the connection is more personal. With paying customers, I go to great lengths to make the skydive all about them, and not about me. I just throw thumns up or peace signs and smile. I also wear mirrored goggles; I feel that taking my eyes out of the pictures removes my personality from the photos and focuses more on the student. It looks cool to boot (I need all the help I can get), and Arvel can shoot his reflection in my goggles. The attached photo is 81 year old Frank Pelaiz; Arvel Shults is the Camera Flyer, visible in my goggles. (What a hambone ). Arrive Safely John