Spizzzarko

I'm never going to have as good a view of the landing area as someone who is doing only 90's I'll give you that. In none of my posts did I ever say that a 270 in traffic was the propper thing to do so for all you people that got feklempt about what I have been saying then go an reread.

Right left up down and then to my risers then back to where I am turning. I also start my turn higher than most from deep brakes and use a slow turn rate. This gives me time throughout the turn to look around. I know other people do not use that method. Where do you look?

"Rules and policy do not, and will not affect those people." Thank you . That is what I have been trying to say from post 1.

"Are you really arguing that jumpers who do 270's have BETTER visibility of potential conflicting traffic than jumpers who make 90 degree turns in the pattern? I think perhaps getting out there and doing a few of these (after appropriate instruction/experience of course) would give you a clearer view of the issues involved." Visibility is provided by where you look. All I am saying is that if you are focused at one point throughout a turn then you are only going to see that point weather you are doing a 90 or a 270, and yes Bill I have done plenty of 270's. I actually competed on that turn for awhile.

I am in no way advocating that everyone should be doing 270's in the landing pattern. What I am trying to say is that making rules about banning swoopers from the main landing area at all times is not the solution to this problem. It is also my argument that with a 270 turn if done properly you should be able to stop your turn and bail out if people or objects get in the way. Yes the 270 is started higher and you are away from other people but that should give you a vantage point that many of the other people only doing 90's from a lower altitude do not have. Winsor. You are correct that you should be able to land your wing of choice straight in and stand up all the time. I am not arguing th efact of the matter. What I am arguing is do you honestly think that making more rules and regulations instead of educating the public is going to fix the problem? I for one do not feel that banning swoopers to a different landing are is the be all to end all solution here. Like I have said... There is no easy solution to this. Best of luck.

Since you do not accept private messages I am throwing this out there for you to read. "Folks like you are the problem. You do not have the right to needlessly endanger the rest of the load" Folks like me? Maybe it is your reading ability that is in need of work. From the very begining of this thread I have agreed that there is a problem but my point of contention with what you are doing is the issuing of blaket policy from USPA. Folks like me? Am I not the voice of reason in this whitch hunt that you are starting? Have I not said from the beginning that categorizing one group of people as the problem is not the answer? Folks like me? Look back in your little book of statistics and find for me anywhere where there have been collisions in swoop comps or anything like that. When you do then why don't you create a website telling folks like YOU how folks like me do it so that they can learn how to do it right. Folks like me... From what I recall I do not believe we have ever met or jumped together so how do you know what Folks like me even are? The cause of this is that certain individuals fucked up royally. They probably should have known better but you know what they still did it anyways. Enforce the rules and regs you have on the books instead of making new ones. Even in your own web site you are combatative towards those who swoop and I quote: "Wondering if you are the next target for some swooper dude..." "See the swooper-types feel that they can see all and ALWAYS see conflicting traffic" Now you are generalizing and lumping everyone who swoops into the negative context. For an elected official to USPA I would hope that you do not allow your discriminatory feelings to get into the way of your decision making process for all of those you serve. If you want to respond to me then send it on a private message instead of airing your discrimintory views about "Folks like me" in public. If you want this to work you need to be less combatative in your tone and include folks like me in your quest for the answer here. Just like Brian Germain said on your site "If you sound as if you are trying to ban high speed approaches, you will find yourself fighting a loosing battle. Hook turns are here to stay." Good luck.

That could be from teh bag and pilot chute.

Thanks for joining this discussion in this forum. There was just to much BS going on in the other forum for any constructive conversation to happen. I am not saying that there is not a place for rules and regulations in this sport. What I do feel strongly about is the fact that a blanket policy issued from USPA will in no way fix the situation. What is going on in the other forum is a whitch hunt plain and simple. I want to see an end to the needles death and bloodshed just like you do Bill.

"Again - if you missed it - swoopers flying into traffic is the problem we are addressing at present" That is a pretty broad generalization there budy. There were another group of people that made generalizations about other groups of people, and they killed a lot of Jews. And you guys call us swoopers canopy nazi's. Think about what you are saying. As far as visibility in the 270 you have just as much visibility in the 270 as you do in the 90. So don't give me that argument. At any point you can also stop your turn and bail out. So again your logic is flawed. According to your bio you fly a swoop canopy at a 2.0 loading so keep in mind "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate" Best of luck with this one gentlemen. I'm done here it is like beating a dead horse.

"Doing a 270 in the pattern led directly to this accident. Had he been doing a 90, then he would have been flying in the pattern with everyone else, turning with them, seeing them" So you are telling me that everyone who does a 270 does it without looking where they are going and without heed to anyone else in the pattern. Do I have that right? That is what it sounds like you are saying to me. There is a time and a place for doing more turn than a 90 Bill I am quite sure that we both agree upon this. My argument is that this could have happened just the same with a 90 degree turn as it did with a 270. I know that when I am doing a 270 I have a pretty good view of what is going on around me. Just the same view as when I do a 90. Do not blame the turn here Bill you have to blame the person who did it, but that is not important now. What is important is that there be more education instead of regulation. "I'm not! I'm only blaming the ones that do 270's in main landing areas." Again, the failure of a person to look where they are going before they go there can be the systemic cause of all of this. The way to fix it is to think about what you are doing before you do it. What rule that you could impose will make people do that Bill? If you can do that then I would be impressed. "You're getting off topic here." No I am NOT getting off topic here because you and several others posting in this thread are turning this into a whitch hunt. In my opinion this thread has gone way off topic here and what have we decided was teh root cause to all of our frineds being dead? Sure we have a few ambiguous opinions being thrown around and several people are calling for regulation based on the opinions of others. The fact of the matter is: Some one made a mistake and now they are dead. Going out and issuing blanket policy for all people is not the answer here. I have been saying it from the very beginning, and now I am asking you Bill to think about what you are saying and seperate your emotion from this. You are a smart man Bill and I usually agree with alot of what you have to say, but not on this one brother.

If you're talking about the GA incident, it sure as hell was. Oh come on Bill... You know just as well as anyone else that any of this could have happened just as fast if they were doing a 90 turn to final. So your argument on that level if flawed. Yes. Someone fucked up their swoop. Had they not swooped, this would not have happened. And if some one fucked up their 90 then both people could have been equally as dead. It doesn't freaking matter what turn you do to final there is always a possibility for collision. "That angle has led to a lot of dead skydivers. It doesn't work. In your own words, they fuck up and kill people. Once it becomes clear that individual judgment doesn't work, it's time to go to a clearer statement on how and when to hook turn." How? How does that lead to more people being dead than a rule that nobody is going to follow? "or we can do something about it." What exactly are you going to do that is going to work? I wasn't there and I havn't talked to Danny in a couple of years, but I'm pretty certain that danny did not consciously make a turn into another dudes canopy just so he could swoop. What I am getting at is that no matter how much regulation you place on this matter it can still happen. Do not be so quick to blame a whole group of people (swoopers) for the mistakes of the few. That would be like me calling all free flyers pot head hippy's and 4 way people old antiquated gays because they like to hold other mens hands.

Gentlemen, You are getting away from the root cause of this. One rule or a series of rules is not going to work out. It is said that "rules and regulation are guidance for the wise, but only idiots blindly follow them." The answer to this is educating people as to when and when not to swoop. There is a time and a place for everything including rash institution of worthless new rules and regulations. This is neither the time nor the place for that.

I do not think that we can point blame at swoopers in general here. Swooping is not the root cause of this. If you get down to it someone fucked up and took another dude out with them. That is theroot cause of this. FUCKING UP. Yes swooping is superfolous but so is jumping in general. There is no other causal factor here than some one fucked up. There are times to swoop and times not to, and deciding that comes down to the individual. So implementing change by adding rules regulations and constrictions is not the answer to the root problem. You need to get to all of the jumpers and remind them that every decision that they make in the sky can have dire consequences not only to themselves but others. To Makeithappen, I hope that you are getting the response that you want but I hope that when you take this to USPA they laugh in your face. Your crusade to institute policy is FLAWED at the basic level here. Take a moment and think about what you are doing. Try to seperate your emotion from your decision making process here and ask yourslef if policy is the best answer to this problem. If you honestly believe that then let us know why and we can discuss it in a civilized manner.

You know that the saftey and danger advisors could enforce the rules already on the books and thi might prevent this from happening. what new rules and regulations would you instill to prevent thus from happening again in the future? That is a question to "Makeithappen" too. Getting angry and making rash decisions because people got killed is not the answer here. banning swoopers from one landing area or limiting people to a 180 on landing unless you are cleared from management like sda has done is not really the answer either. education is the key here.

"I've also come to believe that separate landing areas for those doing traditional 90 degree patterns and those doing high performance patterns (ie turns greater than 90 degrees) are needed" Sure that is a good thing. Most swoopers will be very quick to tell you that they are more affraid of the common people (non swoopers) than them making a mistake. You also mentioned more canopy control lessons. That is a good thought but how are you going to regulate that. There are still many many people who believe that the canopy flight is just something to get them down to the ground for their next silly little sit fly jump ( I can never pass up a good opportunity to take a dig at the free flyers hahaha). USPA has instituted a more canopy centric a license requirement but that doesn't really even help matters here and now. Every jumper is required to know "basic" canopy control in AFF. How much of what we teach you in AFF changes when you have a 1000 jumps? I'm not saying the AFF course is the be all to end all, but every thing you need to know to become an old skydiver is taught to you in that course. It is really not the people with less than 50 jumps causing these problems. The root of the problem is people doing things they were not taught to do in AFF. So how do you incorporate what we are talking about to the general populus? Do you think making rules and regulations are the key/ If so who will implement them, who will enforce them, who will feel that they are necessarry to follow? How do you tell an old toggle whipping four way dude who has been toggle whipping his stilletto at 50' for the past 1000 jumnps that he is wrong and always has been? What are you going to do to make him want to change his habbits?

"How about if they keep getting booted off DZs if they don't follow the rules and regulations?" What rules and regulations would cause me to be removed from a dz? There really are not that many out there, and what rules and regs would you implement? I'm sure DZO's will remove people they feel to be a problem, but did you expect the people involved in the GA incident to be involved in it? Those were two highly experienced dudes and I'm sure neither one of them were consciously breaking rules or regulations.

"Don't you think that 9 deaths from canopy collisions in the past 10 months is 9 deaths too many?" Oh yes I do. Very much so. What do I think will work? Possibly a stronger focus on not racing to the ground.... Hmmm maybe an emphasis on setting up a good canopy stack... A good and thorough briefing on what group will land first just like we talk about what group will exit first and last... Jumpers actually thinking about where they are going to fly instead of being reactionary to all of the goings on in a pattern. This is just a start of what I think could help the situation. What do you think we should do?

"I want specific 'this needs to happen at this level in order to prevent canopy collisions' type of recommendations." What needs to happen is for each individual skydiver to think about what they are about to do before they do it. You can preach until you are blue in the face. You can make all the rules and regulations you want, but if the individual jumper does not feel that they need to adhere to your rules or regulations then they are not going to do it. "Ok, I am more than a little miffed about the events that took place this past weekend and the canopy collisions in the past several months." Are you doing this for the greater good of the sport or are you really doing this because you are emotional and a "little miffed" about what happened. I am saddened by this and I lost someone I knew too, but I am not having a knee jerk reaction to this and trying to create policy that may not fix a damn thing which is what you are doing by "not going to wait for an 'official' decree from organizations".

She....is one of your National Directors. Well isn't that nice. I hope that before one of our national directors decides to take the information gleamed from her web site to USPA, she really thinks about the root cause of all the incidents. Blindly issuing policy restricting how we land is not the answer here. "I am not going to wait for an 'official' decree from organizations." That is a quote from her post. Just what do you plan on doing with this information that you are going to gather? Don't you all understand just how dangerous this could be by her getting a few responses on her web site and setting her own agenda. Read what she has written in her post and ask yourself "Does this make sense?"

You are so fucking mooth.

I feel that there needs to be more research into the cause of this problem. I don't feel that swooping or frontriser turns over 180* is really the problem here. Let's look at some possible causes: 1. Skydiver complacency 2. Crowded Sky's 3. Simply fucking up 4. Faster canopies Of those 4 possible causes I feel that number 2 and 4 probably do not carry much weight in this argument. I would say that number 1 and 3 are probably more indicitave of the root causes of this series of unfortunate events. You can tell people to not fuck up untill you are blue in the face, but it doesn't mean that it wont happen again.

Very carefully.

I have a t-shirt. I have a coin. I am even a proud card carrying Peckerhead. Who the fuck are you?

This is one DZ taking matters into their own hands. Do I agree with what they are doing? NO. But I do understand as to why they feel that this rash reaction may be prudent. If there were two terrible incidents at your dz and the dzo or management did nothing do you think that would settle well with the jumpers there? Don't get me wrong Eloy is a wonderfull DZ and management there does a great job, but I do not feel that limiting turns to 180 is going to help matters. I also do not feel that making a rash reaction to the deaths is required by USPA. Who is this "Take Back The Sky" person anyways? Normally people who do not post any info about themselves in their bio would be called a troll here. Maybe Makeithappen feels that he or she is doing the best thing, but it seems like a witch hunt to me. Again I think that the problem is a little more systemic than jus tthe amount of turn that people are doing on final approach, and that we need to look more for the root cause than blindly issueing policy.

We then need to institute a "canopy coach" rating to help teach people how to make high performance approaches more safely. I honestly do not think that will work very well. Who will monitor and issue the rating? What will be the standard for issueing the rating? What is going to force people to get canopy coaching from "Canopy Coach" rating holders? This is just not an isolated phenomenom occuring to only swoopers. Two of the deaths at eloy were low time jumpers. You cannot hold only swoopers accountable for an industry wide problem. "Jumpers must fly standard patterns in the primary drop zone landing areas. (See illustration 4.a.1.) Jumpers who wish to perform high performance landings by turning more than 90 degrees in the pattern below 1000 feet must land at a designated alternate landing area." What if I get out on a hop and pop and swoop the main landing area and no one else is in the air? Are you still going to enforce the rule? Don't be so quick to institue policy before you have a good idea as to what is actually causing the problem Bill. One person was saved because he or she had a sky hook. Are you going to make a policy demanding that all rigs have sky hooks or RSL's or they are grounded? Do you even want to go down that road? I for one am pro sky hook, but anti RSL but that is neither here nor there. You can mandate a lot of things but you cannot force people to behave with common sense.