skybytch

Not everybody wants to skydive. Not everybody should skydive. Those who want to try it will. Those who can afford to continue or that get bit hard enough that they don't care if they can afford it or not will continue. That's the way it is. We don't need more people. Eventually you'll get over being a skydiving evangelist...

I prefer option 0). Avoid the situation entirely by being an active canopy pilot who controls my pattern starting as soon as my canopy opens. By doing so, I can be reasonably sure that there won't be somebody setting up their 270 or doing S-turns in front of me while I'm on final. If there is so much traffic in the main landing area that I don't think I can do that, I'd choose option 0a). Adjust my pattern prior to entering my downwind leg so that I land out. This doesn't guarantee my safety - there are no guarantees - but it does reduce my risk.

It's not a swooping issue. It's a skydiving issue. Remember, the last incident in Eloy did not involve swoopers. It may not be possible to memorize everybody's canopy colors, even at your home dz, but it is possible to learn to visually recognize the differences between a crossbraced canopy (very likely to fly a high performance pattern), a non-crossbraced "elliptical" canopy (likely to fly a high performance pattern) and a less aggressive canopy (likely to fly a traditional pattern). If you can do this, you can pretty much tell who's going to be doing what without knowing that Bob's canopy is black and green and he's a swooper or that Joe's canopy is all red and he does a traditional pattern. How can you learn this? By spending some time in the landing area watching loads land while you aren't jumping.

Before Phil's (Feeblemind) 100th. Me and some old friends from my home dz at the Star Farms Boogie, 2002 Before a Blow Joe initiation at Skydance, 2005 Pink suits at Skydive Monroe, GA 2004

Regardless of which company you choose, reserve your car online before you get here. Pay the extra for the "walk away" insurance; if anything happens it'll well worth the money (and you won't feel so bad about taking it four wheeling in the fields around Perris/Elsinore ).

Like I said above, requiring that every jumper complete a basic canopy control training course would help a lot. Anything beyond that needs to be done on a dz by dz basis, since what works with one dz's physical location may not work at another. I could turn this around and say it's banning non-swoopers like me from a particular landing area. The way I see it, it's not about banning anybody. It's about both swoopers and non-swoopers working together to come up with some way to reduce the carnage. I agree that education is key. I do think it is possible to safely share a landing area if everybody is controlling their pattern and nobody flies their canopy selfishly. But I also feel that until we've educated everybody, continuing to mix traditional and high performance landing patterns in the same sky will continue to kill. Personally, I'm willing to give up a bit of my freedom so that my friends and I can all survive to make another jump. Especially when the alternative is what kallend suggested...

Yes, I do. Maybe not the key, but a big part of it. USPA could recommend them. DZO's could implement them. DZO's and S&TA's can enforce them. The culture needs to be changed so that everybody feels they are necessary to follow. I think he'd be wanting to change his habits if he knew he would get grounded for doing it at every dropzone out there. If he were required to get canopy control education, he might come away from it with a better appreciation for the risks his behavior is putting onto other people.

I agree with everything you said, but I think we need to go a bit further. I think that every jumper out there needs to understand that landing safely is a team sport. We should all fly our canopies so that everybody gets to walk back to the packing area. I think that every jumper should be taught things like how to set up a canopy stack (how many jumpers out there who've never done a demo even know what that means?), how to fly in traffic, that S-turns on final aren't okay, that just because you got away with something once, twice, 100 times does not make it safe... As such, I think that basic canopy control education that includes the above and more should be a requirement. Not just for new jumpers, not just for swoopers... for everybody, no matter how many years in the sport, no matter how many jumps they have, no matter what kind of landing pattern they prefer to fly. 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.

All you've been doing is giving what you think are reasons that what other people suggest won't work. What do you think WILL work? Don't you think that 9 deaths from canopy collisions in the past 10 months is 9 deaths too many?

MakeItHappen is a USPA national director. In hopes of being part of the solution, I'll be sending her a list of what I think might help the problem before the end of the day.

A way to tell without seeing the unit is by the serial number. A Cypres1 will have a ridiculously long s/n, a Cypres2 won't.

When you see someone doing something stupid, inform the S&TA at the dz and let them do the talking to the other person. That's what they are there for.

Probably not. If the container was built to hold a 170, you may be able to go to a 135 in it, depending on the brand of the container; a 120 would really be pushing it in any brand container. The smart choice in downsizing is to go one size at a time. Put several hundred jumps minimum on a 150, then do the same on a 135. By the time your skills are truly good enough to safely fly a 120 you'll probably be ready for a new container anyway.

Krisanne, you are so right about Jason. He and his wife are two of the coolest people ever, not to mention that Jason's an awesome skydiver. I first met Jason on the airplane at Davis shortly after I got back to California from FL. He saw the dz.com sticker on my helmet and asked who I was on here. I told him and he immediately said "Holy crap! You're famous!" A few months later, after I'd moved up to NorCal, he found out that I didn't have a 'puter. So he built one for me. I know that he knows I love him, but it's always good to say it again. Jason - I love you, man! Someone else who "flies under the radar" here but is very important to me is NoPush (Jim). He's the best backup boyfriend a girl could ask for. When he messed his knee up last year and couldn't use his tickets to Alaska... he gave them to me. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Jim's not only generous and caring, he gives good hug, makes excellent enchiladas, always has top shelf liquor in his cabinet, tells a story better than anybody I've ever met and is way fun to go pretty much anyplace with. I'm looking forward to introducing him to the joys of Lost Prairie this summer. Jim - you already know this, but anyway... I love you! I have more too... but I'll save them for later.

As much as I love Tony, Kate and Jan, I have to agree - the new website sucks. The old one was a pain to update but it worked a lot better on the user end than the new one does. That said, I don't choose who to buy skydiving equipment from based on their website. I'll buy from the companies that I know will take good care of me, are owned/run by current skydivers that I know and respect and that make a point of employing skydivers instead of whuffos. There are at least two gear stores out there that I will never buy a single item from, not even if they have the newest, neatest, most functional website there is. Why? Because it's my opinion that the owners of these stores are either unethical, total assholes or both. If I ever have money to spend on gear again, I'll call Square One.

You might want to go reread the post. Nowhere is it stated that the guy was on another 8 way.

Ya missed the . I'm far from being so smart that I don't have to study hard! I suppose I could back off a bit and still get passing grades, but like you I've set the bar for myself quite a bit higher than "passing." I will claim being smart enough to know when it's time to take a break from packing my brain, though. Oh well, only three more tests to go and it's spring break. Too bad I have a history paper and a persuasive speech due two weeks after that... not to mention yet another Spanish test and yet another Algebra test between spring break and the paper and speech being due... It's all good. School is way better than working a stupid dead end job for an asshole of a boss was!

Would ya like some cheese with that whine? You know I'm in the same hell you are... Did an informative speech a couple hours ago (I think I did good!). I really should be writing cheat cards for tomorrow's history mid-term or doing math homework or doing spanish homework, but instead I'm drinking a beer and posting on here. It's a good thing I'm smart.

Veering way off topic, but anyway. My kid had to wear uniforms in junior high (public school). He complained about it at first but before long he liked it. As a parent, I definitely liked it - they weren't expensive and there was no more "but I NEED those $50 pants to be cool."

Fabric thickness is the same. As a general rule, an all zp canopy is going to pack up bigger (have a larger pack volume) than an all-F111 canopy of the same square footage. Therefore, a PD170 should pack nicely into the same space that a Sabre2 150 should pack nicely into, but not the other way around. Pack volume also depends a lot on humidity. Canopies generally pack up smaller in more humid climates, larger in drier climates.

$75 a day is a good deal when you can do an unlimited number of jumps per day on up to date gear. At Perris, that's exactly what is offered. Add in the fact that Square One (the store at Perris) has over 100 different mains and 20-ish different container/reserve/AAD set ups available for rental and it becomes the best deal out there. People who rent (or better yet, get on the "demo program") from Square One have the chance to safely downsize from student rigs to what they will be happy with for their next couple hundred jumps before they buy their own rig. If the person gets on the demo program, they can put down a certain amount of money and jump the gear without paying a daily rental fee (instead they pay a $99-ish monthly maintainence fee; that amount drops as the amount the person puts down increases). As Bonnie said, it's the best program for new jumpers in the industry.

If others aren't reporting a problem, how is the company supposed to know about it? If they don't know about it because it's not a problem that's been reported to them, how can they be held responsible for it? /me walks away shaking my head...

Should a helmet manufacturer be responsible for an audible lost off an outside audible mount? No, that's a risk the user takes by mounting their audible on the outside of the helmet. How about for a camera lost off an open side mount? No, that's a risk the user takes by mounting a camera on the helmet. It is not the manufacturer's fault that you didn't verify that your audible would fit properly in your helmet before you jumped it.

That is not what I said. I said - "do a search on 'wingloading BSR' in these forums." Why do a search on those words? Because a search using those words would turn up several threads in which the concept of requiring canopy control courses has been discussed. Which was what the person I was replying to was asking about.

Do a search on "wingloading BSR" in these forums. Requiring canopy control courses has been suggested repeatedly. Maybe someday USPA will do it. I'm not holding my breath, though.