Fast

It's not a good thing. Without consequences for surviving something stupid, stupid will keep happening - "I did that and survived so that rule must be bullshit." Since jumping out a a plane in flight is intrinsically a stupid thing to do, this must explain why you've given up skydiving. Following your logic, there should be a rule against skydiving. That's actually where I get hung up on the topic. There is a "whole lot wrong" with jumping out of a plane from a practical standpoint. None of us agree with any of that stuff though which is why we jump. So the question becomes, where does the line lay between what's stupid and what's not stupid in a sport that most of the modern world doesn't really understand. I don't want to see the fun, innovation or free thinkers regulated out of the sport. I think that would do more harm than good. If everyone sits down and decides that hook turning at 30 feet is a bad idea though (I'm exaggerating) then maybe we should do something about that and there needs to be someone standing behind what is decided. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I very much prefer to take the radio with me and radio my own student down. If we have more than one on the plane, someone from the first AFF group carries the radio. We also typically give the radio to the instructor with the highest wingloading, just cause that person is often down first. It just works better that way, I don't have to worry about if someone on the ground is going to remember/hear the jumpers away call and go do radio. If for some reason, something crazy happens with the wind and we have to land off, I can bring the students to someplace safe that I pick for everyone. I also am not really worried about talking to them while I'm under canopy. I can be on the ground fast. If the conditions are such that they can get that messed up in the 1-2 minutes it takes me to stow my slider fly to the landing area and hook it, then we shouldn't be taking students anyways. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I have to say that I am surprised by the fact that the comments regarding S&TA's as being an unreliable source of control for some of this stuff has skated by. I really don't like the concept that "some S&TAs are a danger to themselves." If that's the case, how can we expect things to be working at all? The S&TA is supposed to be the person on the dropzone helping to give order to how a student program works, what is safe and expected on the dropzone and when "enough is enough" for a person and they need to sit down. If the S&TA themselves is dangerous how on earth can we expect them to do those things. That is somewhat a different conversation, but I feel as if it ties into this one. We are having an issue here where the concern is if people are getting the education that they need. If the person on the dropzone responsible for ensuring that is happening is not qualified... then what? This comes back to the issue that someone else pointed out. USPA isn't much into doing any sort of enforcement. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I do know that the mentality of a lot of jumpers is that "skydiving is supposed to be dangerous" and most people don't like any form of rules whatsoever, but where do we draw the line. I feel bad having to ground someone or yell at them for doing something dumb, but what else am I supposed to do? I don't have an answer to that. It just keeps coming back around to "required" education. If we can at least get people the basic knowledge that they are going to need at a gradual and increasing pace after getting their first license we are both educating them and showing them that "this is the way we do things" around here. The message now seems to be more along the lines of "you know enough to survive, well help you if you want otherwise figure it out on your own" and that's exactly what a lot of people do. I had someone on my dz this year decide he was going to start learning to swoop on his own, it wasn't long before bruises and sore spots and a rough landing changed that concept. There are plenty of things that those of us with experience can teach people how to do, but giving them an A license and turning them loose on the world and just handing them higher and higher licenses w/o much in the way of additional learning doesn't encourage them to ask for help. I also think that fixing this problem isn't going to happen overnight. We need to get the training infrastructure in place at dropzones around the country and then start working in the requirements. It would allow us to avoid having to constantly keep making rules if we could work on getting people in the right mindset from the start. We don't need a rule that you can't jump at a 2.0 wingloading at 200 jumps if everyone has been educated on why this is dumb. Also, for those people who just won't listen to reason, the answer really does come down to knowing when it's time to ground a person and help them learn exactly how much it sucks to not be able to jump. I'd rather see them grounded and walking around then grounded cause they are busted up. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I bolded a portion of your post for emphasis. The problem is that the people on here complaining about this are the ones that are learning and trying to do something about it for exactly the reason of they don't want to be the next person killed because of someone else. The main problem is all those other people out there who either are too damn sure they know everything, don't think that they really need to know more than they do or are just too lazy to seek out the information. We need to encourage those people to learn this stuff. I'm also getting sick of being the "bad guy" who has to lay down the law and make these people learn stuff. It just makes people annoyed. If the rules and information comes from the top down, it's not just XYZ DZO being an asshole and it keeps jumpers from just shopping for a dz that doesn't care. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Sit it in a bag of desiccant for a few days. That should dry it out. Give it a shot then. It doesn't have a hard drive, it uses memory chips. If that doesn't work, you could prolly send it to sony to have them see if they could recover the data? Dunno about that. The only other thing to try is if it doesn't turn on, you might need to wash it in distilled water, good soak with no batteries in it (dunno if it has an internal battery which could make that problematic) and then dry it out for a week in desiccant. Those are the things that come to my mind. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Let me put in perspective for you exactly what he is doing for skydiving right now. Fucking the rest of us. How does that saying go, one bad apple can ruin the rest? What you don't realize is that by not maintaining his aircraft, he is putting the spotlight on the rest of us. Most of us running dropzones spend a good deal of money because we want to maintain our aircraft and keep them safe and flying well. The things that we are doing, work. When people cut corners and try to cheap out on aircraft maintenance, the FAA gets pissed off. All that is going to do is cause them to come down hard on the whole industry and we will find ourselves having to do even more stuff, with more reporting and regulations and more money. So when Bill stops flying because the FAA shuts him down or the costs are just too high, you're going to be stuck with the rest of us who are willing to deal with more absurd maintenance requirements AND you're going to have to pay a whole hell of a lot more for a jump ticket. So, what exactly is the point you're trying to make? ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Not really? If it's a windy day and you "finish" your flare you might well be landing going backwards, which you can do, and I have done, but I don't really recommend it. Like it was noted above, flying and landing a canopy is a dynamic thing. Conditions are ever changing and you need to feel out what is going on around you and adjust what you are doing to that. I'd also like to suggest that seeking advice on the internet at this stage of your skydiving career is not likely the best method for learning. Track down the knowledgeable people at your dz and learn as much as you can from them, it will help quite a bit. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

pulling is only a survival skill if you are... uh... freefalling. and the point here is that experienced people are dying in canopy accidents because they never learned how to do things right in the first place and it's a testament to the relative safety of parachuting that they lived as long as they did. Castles made of sand look great until the first wave; castles made of rock look good after the wave too. Our current parachute training turns out canopy-pilot castles made of sand that sometime lasts for a long time before that first wave shows up and kills them. I'm saying we need parachute training that turns out canopy pilot castles built on rock, not sand. Ya know, you might be right. Maybe you're not though. Either way - it isn't something we are ever going to find out. USPA would never force that on dropzones and most of them would just leave USPA to keep doing AFF. We have to look at practical solutions. In our AFF program we emphasize and freefall and canopy. We expect a lot from our students. For the most part we are creating skydivers that have a good concept of both aspects of a skydive. I am still heavily in favor of a continuing / advanced education program that is built up and progresses around the different steps of licenses. It's a practical solution (at least in comparison to making people start with a static line program). It's something that we have the groundwork set up for and it's something I can see USPA supporting and implementing. We just need the "educational" stuff to go along with our licensing program. Someone needs to sit down and figure it out. "What's important to teach at what experience level and how much of it do you think people can really absorb." I don't think most of my first jump students could really wrap their head around all the extra canopy stuff that should be covered even if we took freefall away for 20 skydives. A program that steps the skydiver up into more and more advanced topics and has an easy way of pointing out to people where you are at in the progression could help, it certainly wouldn't hurt. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Indeed. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair But really, you make broad sweeping statements. Suppose you support them with some facts or at least details, to wit: What is the "plethora of reasons why this is true?" Why is "no one about to go back to the old system even if it did things much better (in the very part of the sport that is -- by FAR -- causing the most fatalities)?" What are the "flaws" in static line training -- and how do they compare to the fundamental flaws of a system that teaches fun skills before it teaches the basic survival skills? Well, you hit one of the nails on the head. Financially, it's not going to work for most DZOs and short of "forcing" people to go back to a static line teaching methodology, which I don't think is practically enforceable, it's one of the biggest reasons why it wont happen. For where I jump, we used to have very large static line classes, drop 20-30 students a day (before my time) and then tandem came along and changed things. AFF worked it's way in at some point in the past and we started making skydivers that were competent in freefall from nearly the word go. I have a static line rating (surprisingly) because we did static line up until this year at my DZ. It works well out of a 182. Dropping static line students out of a fuel hungry turbine aircraft that is just making a quick stop at hop and pop altitude isn't practical for most operations. In addition, for the most part, w/o a strut to hang from or a step to stand on the students don't get to learn much either. It's one of the reasons that we dropped the whole program. Exiting from inside a side door aircraft with stability and managing a static line and all of the like was not productive. We had it set up where the student would do some static lines and at the point where they would be moving to actual clear and pulls we transitioned them into AFF. It scared the instructors less and was more practical for the student to learn. Over time, it also became clear that given an option of AFF, the only people who chose static line were the ones who couldn't afford to do a tandem (our cheapest jump type other than static line) and not the people who wanted to learn to skydive. We also are finding more and more (and not just at my dropzone, in fact, not really at my dropzone) in this sport that the level of mentoring for free is dropping off. There are some great places out there where that isn't the case, but most people with an A license at a big dropzone end up on their own or have to pay for more coaching. We expanded our AFF program to an AFP program that has coaching and the like through most of the first 25 jumps because we got sick of losing skydivers who had gotten an A license and were incapable of being on a freefall skydive. No one would jump with them, no one would teach them, they were in limbo. The just quit the sport. Static line as a concept is great, except the average student coming off static line doesn't have anywhere near the freefall skills that an AFF student does and when it comes down to it, people you have to jump with are going to choose someone else if you can't hang. (Shitty I know, but in a day where every jump ticket has a bigger impact on household finances, that's how people are) I don't think that's any kind of excuse to not teach canopy skills. It's an important subject. I don't think that it's an AFF vs Static Line issue really. It's a "what are we teaching people" issue. I went through an AFF course and at this point, I am a fairly skilled swooper jumping a velocity, but I can land a parachute w/o hook turning it too and know how to fly predictably and how to look out for others who aren't. So, clearly it's possible to get to a good place from the AFF program, just need to have people who want to learn or give them reasons to learn these things. It's an easier subject to force on people than trying to convince everyone to take a "step back" by about 20 years. I also think that this comes down to the case of education not keeping up with the times. From what I have learned from people who have been around a lot longer than I have parachutes have changed so much and the teaching hasn't. The things that were taught 20, 30 years ago aren't going to produce a skydiver that can manage being in the air with 10-30 other skydivers jumping canopies that are faster even at a beginner level than most people jumped back then at higher experience levels. The education needs to catch up to parachute design. No one wants to slow down and take a breath and learn stuff. They want it all now. It's a generational thing and changing that attitude isn't going to be easy. We need to give people reasons to want to learn this stuff. We need to not make it harder for people to get into the sport than it already is. Oh and we need to find a way to do this w/o overly affecting the bottom line or dropzones just aren't going to deal with it. That's my thoughts on the matter, I hope it helps. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I don't have nearly the time in sport or experience that you do, but advocating that we all go back to doing static line isn't going to get you very far. There are a plethora of reasons why this is true and I have to assume that you know this. Why bark up that tree? We need to fix the system that we have because no one is about to go back to the old system even if it did things much better in that part of the sport. It just wont happen. Static line has it's flaws too. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Sounds like you are buying them for some kind of student or tandem fleet. The reality of this is that the vigil is "cheaper" but not everyone can agree that the level of safety provided is the same. Both have had their problems, but vigils seem to have more problems. I stress on the "seem" part. At the end of the day, my dz went with cypresses because we liked the maintenance program that they have in place. It helps on liability issues and it overall just "looks good" to be doing regular maintenance on things and being able to state that we are. My personal opinion is that it's a good idea too, so.. The vigil's have some neat features, but most of them just don't apply to our situation so they didn't matter much and we didn't like the open ended lifespan idea. I work around computers, electronics and the like... stuff wears out and dies and people are lazy and wont replace something till it's "dead." I just don't want the unit being dead to correspond to someone being dead as well. Planned obsolescence helps in that regard. Edited to add: You really need to search on this topic, it has been beat to death on these forums. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

All of the stuff in this thread just really helps put it home for me that these licenses that USPA issues should actually mean something. I mean, in reality, there aren't a whole lot of reasons to have anything other than an A license if you don't want to be an instructor. So here we have a stepwise licensing program that really has a very limited purpose. I don't think that most of the people getting into this sport are going to be able to stomach another course that they are going to have to pay someone to teach them how to do before they get their A license. I also think that even at 25 jumps, most of the people we are talking about aren't going to be able to soak up much more information. At least at my dropzone, the program is very progressive and there is a constant building of skills from jump 1 to jump 25. At some point in there they have to learn how to pack too. If the licensing system had some meaning to it, we could solve some of these problems. I am not huge on forcing people on things, really, but if there were good reasons to progress in the licensing program and good training that was required for you to progress then people would be doing it. If to get a B license you had to sit through a canopy flight course that emphasized on the saftey issues, explained things in more detail, explained about the different types of traffic you're going to encounter, the differences between small and big dropzones, etc, we would all of a sudden have a reason for people to get a B license. Then, as a dropzone operator, when a guy shows up at your DZ for the first time and has only an A license, you are distinctly aware of the fact that he either hasn't gotten this training or doesn't want to get it and you need to take special care of this person. Maybe it's an issue of figuring out where this person jumps and what they are used to and getting them the safety information they need for your dropzone. Maybe it's saying, hey man, you can't jump here w/o xyz happening first. Maybe the B license becomes the defacto standard to jump at big boogies, who knows. The point is, then it has some kind of meaning. For most jumpers it comes up quick, 50 jumps can be only a few months after getting an A license. I would say that most people don't stray from their home dz in that period. Then down the road the C license comes along and I don't have an answer for what that should entail, but it does happen to be right around the point where people start wanting to jump camera, wingsuits and all that other distracting stuff. There again, I see some kind of educational opportunity that can make this license have meaning and not just be another number. We have the basic structure in place for this stuff to happen, I think we just need to take things one step further and actually ensure that the information is getting out there. Back when they made these licenses, getting to those jump numbers took a lot more time and effort. The people you were jumping with didn't demand that you buy their jumps for them and pay them a fee to teach you stuff. Now a lot of them do and I think because of this, people just aren't getting the same kind of education that they did in the past. We have to make sure that people who don't want to or are afraid to seek out the knowledge are getting it. For the most part it flabbergasts me that the only thing standing in my way from getting the highest license the USPA has to offer is water training, 2 night jumps and what can amount to less than a year in the sport (500 jumps is doable if you have the cash). Somewhere along there some more training should happen if people aren't going to seek it out on there own. I don't want to encourage more people to try and take even more money from people learning how to skydive, but we do need to offer the education somehow. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

$5.00 and you get a PDF that tells you what you already know. I just want to say that I know Jeff. He isn't in this to make a buck. He likes jumping out of planes minus clothing and this is a way for him to help others proclaim that they do too. He's a decent guy, so... don't be mean. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Thanks! We were quite happy to meet many new people and see lots of familiar faces again! I hope to see you all again soon. Blue Skies! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I completely agree. Do you think the drunk driver would have gotten the same sentence if he ran over a guy in Compton.....rather than a famouis sports guy? Justice is a strange thing in America Probably not, but... I was in a car hit by a drunk driver. It was myself and 3 friends, all of us were under 18 and on the way to the local pool. The guy who hit us got 3 years in jail and no one was killed. Two of us just got hurt pretty bad. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Main side hangs on until the PC is released, then turns and tracks immediately. There's no specific training for what to do if the student pulls a pull-out handle but doesn't release it, but I've had success with both slapping the hand and grabbing the fabric and yanking it free. That and at my dropzone we have a hand signal for "let go". It's basically a hand facing up and open. We used to have a lot of problems with people holding on to them because our AFF gear was ripcord and at some point before they got a license we would transition them to standard sport gear. Don't see it so much anymore because all our gear is BOC. We also have full walk around harnesses that have a BOC "pilot chute" with the same 3 handles as on the student gear, including cutaway and reserve with cables and all. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

You came to the wrong place looking for video to make skydiving look bad ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

See you all soon! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

This! I have used this thing for a long time. It's free and has quite a few amazing tools on it. When you can't get a computer to boot past the windows logo before a BSOD cause of corrupted files, this solves the problem, lost password, solved, etc and so on. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I have been knocked silly on a jump before. Right on exit, the inside guy launched really hard for some reason on a head down flower and put my head into the wing. I didn't go out, but I did go limp for a bit trying to regain my thoughts. Was fortunate enough that one of the other jumpers on the dive was an AFF instructor, and already holding on to me from exit. She flipped me over and our freefly jump became a belly jump. Towards normal pull altitude I was able to opt myself to my main. If I wasn't stable and wasn't awake, I would prefer my reserve over my velocity which just will be another big ass problem for me if I am not deployed stable. If you're not an AFFI and trained on how to flip someone over, get them stable, and pull for them and maintain stability into deployment (which is gonna be hard and also normal AFFI procedures would really fuck you if you were on a velocity at that point) going for reserve is a much much better idea, but make sure you don't meet their pilot chute as it goes into deployment or you might end up unconscious yourself. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Speaking as someone who was jumping in intermediate, when they posted the 20 in round 1, it was pretty disheartening. I mean, my team didn't have any chance of winning, but it was like.... _really_!? a 20? ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

It's separated by what you chose to participate in and what points and such you have to do. They ended with a more reasonable average, but yeah at the start it was looking a little crazy. 8-way draw is happening like, right now. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Look dude. The reality of these things is that most of the "rules" everyone hates were written with blood. If you want to take your chances at adding to that, then go ahead and try and convince your DZO that his dropzone should be the one that you get killed at, or kill one of your friends. I'm sick and tired of having to explain to people that slowing down is a good idea. If it wasn't for people like me keeping you down like "the man" there wouldn't be a whole lot of dropzones left in this country. Have some respect. ps. yeah I'm crabby. edit to add, for what it's worth, this thread should basically have ended many posts ago. This topic has been beat to death. You're either trolling or again, new enough to the sport to not realize how these things go.... I see a trend.... c'mon man... for the rest of our stress levels,... why cant people be reasonable????? ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Exciting.... My team is driving down after work tonight. I hope the weather takes a turn for the better! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Pre-Registration ends tomorrow at noon! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka