skybytch

That's only if it's a picture of a naked woman. If it's a pirate's head, the wait is only 6 months. If it's a rose and the word "Mom", no jumping is allowed until she dies. If it's any female's name other than a blood relative, one can resume skydiving within a week. If it's a skull and crossbones, two days is required. If it's skydiving related, it's probably best to wait a day or two, but if you have less than 50 jumps when you get it you MUST jump the same day. Geez, I can't believe you people don't know this.

I know. No. It's more fun to watch you squirm. I'll be sure to post some of the pictures the s/o gets at the game tomorrow night, just for you.

That was for hockey. I'm talking about other things.

Nah. People with generators in disaster areas are popular. People with generators and cold beer are even more popular. It's good that he has neither. We wouldn't want to burden him with all those friends and neighbors wanting beer and internet access, would we?

Not biting on that, you still haven't paid up.

Is it heckling or is it gloating? Not sure. Kinda bummed that Vancouver won. Last year the Sharks took out Detroit in the second round and lost to Chicago in the third. Would have been cool if they could have taken out Chicago in the second and Detroit in the third this year. Oh well. It's still going to be one hell of a second round.

And if you think you can't practice this stuff, rearrange your priorities. Nothing is more important than landing safely. Practice flaring, while you are above pattern altitude, on every jump. Practice flaring from full flight, from quarter brakes, from half brakes, from 3/4 brakes. To get the best possible flare from brakes you may find that it takes a bit different technique than you are used to. Practice flat turns in both directions. From full flight and from brakes. Practice. Practice. Practice. Eventually you'll know what to do in those situations because you will have practiced it. Prevention is the best cure of course, but practicing canopy survival skills is a good second.

18:0:0 I fell down 18 times while playing hockey on Saturday. I didn't jump. I don't do firsts anymore.

I learned my lesson. No more heckling prior to playoff games.

Long straight in approaches from 1000 feet. That's the pattern. No turns allowed.

Let's say you and I are doing a two way. You load your canopy at 1.4, I load mine at 1.0. When we open, we do our housekeeping stuff and then we begin to create horizontal separation. There is some natural separation because you descend faster than I do, but if you do a 360 and I go into some brakes we can increase it. We work to maintain (or increase) that separation throughout our canopy flight. If we do this, there's no way that you can spiral into me at 800 feet.. I could spiral into you, though. It can work just as well with a load of 20. If everyone talks about it beforehand. That's already been accomplished, if the dz is a group member and is following the pledge they signed. Requiring that HP landings be done on a separate low pass into a separate landing area is punishing some of the best skydivers in the sport to "fix" something that isn't their fault.

Congrats! Bring plenty of money!

No need to do that if everybody works together. Those jumping higher wingloadings make an effort to be the first ones landing. Those jumping lower wingloadings make an effort to be the last ones landing. This effort starts as soon as they open their parachutes (ideally, even before that, in the loading area) and it doesn't stop until they are safely on the ground. Exit order doesn't matter as long as everybody knows the plan. As far as 90 degree turns go, I feel if you want to do that then you should do it from a low H&P only. After all, 90 degree turns kill people too. And no more big groups in freefall. Too many people have died from collisions in freefall and after breakoff, and at least one dies every year at big RW events. It's time to make that stop. No groups larger than a two way. If safety is so important that we must essentially ban an entire discipline (interesting that it's only those who don't swoop calling for it, but anyway), isn't it worth the sacrifice to only do two ways and long straight in approaches to prevent some of the other ways we kill each other?

Well shoot. Nobody thought about that. Does every skydive you do go exactly like it was dirt dived? No? Why bother dirt diving then if it's just going to get fucked up? Sure. Just like driving a car. The framework for adaptation is provided for us on the road - we call them lanes and center dividers and stop signs and speed limits. Within those limits, we adapt our speed and direction, and most of the time, despite those who insist of working outside the framework, we make it to our destination alive. What about airplanes? Pilots also work (continuous adaptation) within a framework. That framework is, surprisingly enough, called a pattern. Together, pilots have a plan to land individually, even if they don't talk about it before they take off for that flight (they have radios). In life, failure is very possible when you plan what you are going to do. But failure is almost guaranteed if you don't plan. The same applies to team situations - like landing a parachute amongst your friends should be.

That's why we have separate landing areas for swoop and traditional approaches, right? Those doing traditional approaches can all land in the same grass and those doing swoop approaches can all land in their grass, after the same load, if they work together. But again, that's asking too much. It's easier to demonize one segment of the community than it is to admit that "we" might be as much or more a part of the problem as "they" are.

Rumor has it that Friday's incident was a 90 degree turn. The "original issue" is not swoopers killing non-swoopers. The original issue is skydivers dying in canopy collisions. Regardless of how the people involved were landing. A skydiver is a skydiver. A canopy collision is a canopy collision. Dead is dead. Landing is a team sport, and swoopers and non-swoopers are not on opposing teams. We are all on the same team. The opponent is the possibility of a collision, not the people who land differently than I do.

Right. But s/he can still kill me.

Exactly. Banning swooping or limiting it to specific times or passes isn't going to keep me safe while flying my traditional pattern, no matter how much I'd like to put my head back into the sand. Landing is a team sport. Let's all be on the same team.

How can that guarantee that I'm not going to be taken out by some non-swooper spiraling into the pattern? Or by someone turning 90 degrees into me?

Spoken like someone who has never been an S&TA.

Better would be to require that every jumper, regardless of experience, take a basic survival skills course. Personally, I think this could be a B license thing; let's not make the A license even more expensive to get to. Some folks have been asking for that for damn near ten years now. Don't hold your breath. What if the lower canopy is very lightly loaded and your canopy is fairly highly loaded? How are you going to keep from overtaking them? USPA group member dz's have already pledged to do this. In the past two and a half years, I have personal knowledge of two canopy collisions that occurred shortly after break off from RW jumps; I even got to watch one of them go in. Both collisions occurred on skydives larger than a 4 way. There have also been fatalities at many recent big way events. While they were "caused" by a variety of things (gear issues, medical problems), they all happened at big way events. It's possible that big ways are too stressful, causing heart attacks and equipment malfunctions. Should we ban groups larger than a 4 way because 100% of the above incidents occurred on skydives larger than a 4 way? Us versus them solves nothing - you only have to look at the US government to figure that out. The only solution that is going to work long term is one that is worked out cooperatively, with input from everybody involved.

Bump.

Probably a typo.....I'm sure he meant 'unintelligible'. Your friend, Don You're probably right. I am a hockey player, after all.

They're being made the scapegoat for a problem that is the fault of every jumper, so yeah, they probably do.

Love it. About time somebody took a stand against those damned swoopers.