Liemberg

I cannot believe someone would be so naive. When I give my word, I give my word. When I sign a legal document that has sentences in it which say "If part of this document is proven not to be in accordance with the law, those parts can be disregarded while all other parts of this document will stil be legaly binding" I don't feel I have given my word, I feel I signed a legal document. Anyone that wants my word that I won't start a (frivelous) lawsuit against their DZ can get it. I have been around the block long enough to make my assumptions-of-risk. My guesses are pretty educated, so to speak and if someone was running a downright dangerous operation, I'm pretty sure I could avoid those parts of it that would be dangerous to me. (Mind you, that even could include opening the main and reserve container of their rental gear - but normally I would arive with something that is inspected and packed either by myself or someone I already trust with that task.) If there was a question in my mind that I couldn't promise that verbally, because this airplane here looks like it can come apart in the runup, the mechanic appears drunk, the pilot seems clueless, whatever - I WOULDN'T JUMP THERE!!! The thing is however, they don't want my word. They want me to sign their waver. That's OK with me - if they come to jump at my place, I want them to sign MY waver. If I want their word, I'll ask for it...

I live in a different legal environment, outside the USA so it may not be a good comparison. We DO have wavers here however and since the DZ's and their legal representatives get to draft the waver (and you don't get into the airplane without signing) it usually is a lot "nicer" for the greedy capitalist DZO as it is for the poor skydiving consumer. Nothing new there. What I don't know and am curious about is whether USA wavers also have a standard sentence that says "If this is thrown out in court it must be thrown out paragraph after paragraph" (i.e. this is a legal binding contract, should higher authorities - like the law of the land - decide that you have signed away rights that are 'unwaiverable', the contract stays for the 'waiverable rights' you signed away) Is this the same in the USA or different? Other than that, here it is virtually the same: the DZ can get away with negligence but will get into deep trouble with gross negligence; since there is room for debate there it is more prudent to avoid negligence "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

AND he registered 2 days ago. I hope I never get that bored... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Funny - and yet not, because here you see what happens when advice is only partly understood. I don't know if the original poster (who started this thread) did pick a few brains on his home DZ or on DZ.com, but we can safely say he acted upon advice that was not understood that well. We debate - confronted with this proverbial LOOOONG spot - whether you should fly with a certain amount of brakes or you should fly with the rear risers and we know what we are talking about (at least you do Wendy, and I'm supposed to have learned a few things also, I guess...) We take into account different winds at different altitudes, different canopy-characteristics, etc. etc. Flying back on your rear risers AND LEAVING YOUR BRAKES STOWED is not ever recommended and we leave that out of the equation 'naturally'... We take for granted that everybody understands at least THAT. Someone didn't. Interesting lesson for all of us giving and receiving advice on the DZ or the forum.... Another observation: Maybe he heard about this 'long spot debate' (rear-risers / pull your brakes) and decided to be on the safe side by aplying BOTH methods... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Innumeracy ? (After all, what are computers for...) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

The fallacy in your thinking is that you forget to spin the wheel after every time you pull the trigger. If russian roulette was as rewarding as skydiving AND you could spin the wheel after every trigger-action, I know what i would do if the chances were equal.

From a dutch resellers website (which I'm not going to quote

And every morning as we unpack our gearbag and push the button four times we'll have a screen saying: 'New updates are available - do you want to install them now?' OTOH If they build airbags into the system, a mass exit where the radio controlled box of one of the participants starts to blow up all the freeflypantz and jumpsuits within range, due to a minor software bug - that could be worth the video... Just picture it: Inflatable skydivers stuck in the door!...

Yes, But it is more like the Hulk, I thought that was common knowledge. If you cross them they become extremely mad and they grow tremendous muscles, tearing apart their Green Wingsuits... On occasion they then f**k up a spot so bad that normal, hard working law abiding blue skydivers end up in another state or even another continent. Cant be helped, just try not to enrage em. Thats why I voted that they could do anything they wanted. You never know if they can't see how you voted (they can see that you voted, now can't they?). Keep em on your side at all costs. Better safe than sorry! PS. The Big Red One is even worse, some say...

It was as early as 1980 when I saw someone make a Stupid Low Altitude Maneuver on a Para Commander. He tried to make it to the landing pit that he was missing. It left him paraplegic. It used to be that anyone who landed directly after a sharp 180 degrees turn had his ass chewed by the local S&TA / CI. The fact that you managed to walk away unhurt didn't make you less stupid. Of course this was enforced a bit stricter with students than with experienced people, but it was something one didn't do. Nowadays there is Pro Swooping Tours (and Canopy Control Classes.) Every landing in a Pro Swooping event would have gotten you grounded by my old instructor. At the dutch nationals this year swooping was an official event - but they didn't have a pond... (By now we know that it doesn't save the day on all occasions, but at least swooping over water is something I can understand...) Did the structure of the soil change, making it more elastic? (Whenever somebody hurts himself the swoopers seem to doubt the forgiveness of 'terra firma' for at least the rest of a jumping day, so is my observation) Somewhere I must have missed something... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Your scenario is incomplete, because it doesn't state what your experience is and what your partners experience is. How many jumps total, how many freefly jumps, how many jumps at this DZ, how many jumps from 14000ft, what is the weather / cloudbase, etc, etc.? This is a situation where you can easily be tempted to act cool when you are not so cool as you think you are. Years ago I was a 250jumps wonder on a 3way (belly) as pin-base together with a 1000jumps wonder for the 1000jumps wonders girlfriend. I had a chestmounted altimaster 2, the skygod had no altimeter but that wouldn't be a problem for he could look at mine. I should concentrate on my flying, he would wave off. But during the jump he was way to concentrated on his girlfriend who had problems docking us. Still holding on to the guy, I looked at my altimeter at 2200ft, which was 1300ft below our agreed upon separation altitude. (Well, you live and learn...) On another occasion someone without an alti tried to dock an 8-way but with to much speed and downward motion. He funneled the formation pulling four people on top of him, came out low himself, panicked and pulled - almost killing me in the process... (please don't feed me a pilotchute in freefall...) Having said all that I have jumped without an altimeter and I have had altimeters malfunction in freefall. I know how long it takes and what the ground looks like. Beepers are reliable. Hey, what could possibly go wrong?

Ah, but how many skydivers do you know after one tandem jump and lurking DZ.com for a week? As I said it was from the top of my head and indeed most of my skydiving and piloting friends are above average when it comes to safe driving. Several. Again, I'm to lazy to search the fatalities pages (or make them clicky) but you can take my word for it: not every tandempassenger did survive. We don't write that in the brochure or on the DZ's website... Then again, none of MY passengers died as a consequence of trusting me to save their ass... (Yeah, I know - knock on wood...) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

AFAIK comparison of sports and their risks is often done with number of participants in a given year vs. accidents & fatalities. For instance: so many registered members for National Motorcross Association, so many for National Climbers Association (don't know if those organizations exist, but you get the picture) You can count accidents & fatalities at the end of the year. The assumption being that there will be an average Motorcrosser and you don't have to know how long he's training or how many races he joins. Neither do you have to know how many hours the average climber is actually climbing and how high the rock is. There IS an 'average skydiver' even if some of you manage 4 years of skydiving with less than 50 jumps total while others make the same amount in 4 days of training. Often on a national level (Fedstats, National Statistics, etc.) it is known what brought people in the hospital or in the morgue. Of course you would have to correct for participation level in the national organization, f.i. you would expect almost 100% membership where you can't participate legally without it (like hunting in countries where you need a license to hunt) and a lot less where you can (I can swim and I might drown - but I don't have to be a member of the swimmers organization in my country, only when I want to do competition I must become a member.) You could do the 'driving a car comparison' in the same way, since the number of valid drivers licenses will be known and again there will be an average driver steering for so and so many miles on so and so many average trips - and you don't have to know how far and how often your average driver drives. Or you could go for lazy and do a poll here (have you personally known someone who killed himself while driving / parachuting?) My 'score' - from the top of my head - would be: Dead skydivers I have personally known: 5 Dead drivers I have personally known: 0 Bets, anyone? "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

People who do this for a living compare fatalities per participants IIRC... Often, they are employed by insurance companies. (That should ring a bell, me thinks...)

No, it is not. (Common misconception among skydivers though, so there you DO fit in...)

Although my favorite statistician calculates every chance to be fifty / fifty (it either happens or it doesn't), you can. If your chance for a double mal is 1 in 25000 (0,004%), than on any given jump your chance of no double mal is 99,996%. Your chance of 2 jumps in a row without a double mal would be 99,99200016% (which is a little less - your chance indeed is diminishing.) I'm to lazy to calculate this any further, but there will be a point where a series of N jumps without a double mal is highly improbable. For the sake of the argument we could say that after 12500 jumps, there is a turning point where the chance of making such a series or a larger one without a double mal is less likely than a double mal somewhere in the series (12500 is NOT correct BTW, intuitively I would guess it to be somewhere near 17000 - the 'break even' or turning point of MY favorite statistician) However, what does this mean? This means that if you start out and make your first jump today, it is a bad investment to buy 25000 non-refundable jump tickets. If everybody does that it will only make the DZO rich - it is unlikely that you all survive that long. However, when you started out 25 years ago and until today managed to make 24999 jumps, against all odds without killing yourself with a double mal, on jump number 25000 your chance of a double mal is again 0,004% Should you stop jumping at 25000 since statistically, you are dead? No, in fact it is unlikely but not impossible to make a series of well over 25000 jumps without a double mal, even if there is a double mal expected to happen every 25000 jumps. Soooo: This parachuting stuff appears to be a whole lot more hazardous for newbies, doesn't it? "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Dices and coins have no memory Parachutes have no memory Humans do. I - myself - inspected and packed my main AND my reserve. I sincerely hope I remembered how to do that, when I was doing it.

I take it that candidates who are eligible MUST have actually jumped, right? You don't get awarded for stupid questions in the classroom or stupid moves in the suspended harness? Whenever an 'award winning stupid student' makes it out of the door of a perfectly good airplane there is at least one instructor nearby who thinks 'Oh - He / she will be fine...' Not pointing fingers here, just food for thought, for on a few occasions I was that instructor (Granted tough, life wood be so much easier when they arrived with a stamp on their forehead: "stupid is as stupid does"

Now I know why I should always listen to you Ron - I'm a mere 2600 jump wonder. Next question - should 2600-3000 jump wonders listen to beginners every once in a while? By doing that (couple of seasons ago) I cut one of the packing checks in half (i.e. we were checking 2 different things at a certain stage during the packing of a student canopy and an extremely smart student with a superior way of envisioning a 3D picture in his mind asked me "Why you do that all the time? If check nr 1 is OK check nr 2 must be OK also!") I chewed on it for about a week and decided the 20 jump wonder was right! (Ouch...) May not look like much but saves the one in charge of overseeing the students packing half an hour on a busy day. So - the only right answer is "Who cares" and if you ever catch me not listening to 1-3000 jump wonders I must have fallen asleep. Please DO wake me up.

Nice trick with the banners - got me reading a few articles. En "as wij daarover spreek / Nu we het toch over talen hebben" (since we switch to and from different languages - English, Afrikaans, Dutch - don't you think a useful spelling checker on a skydiving forum should know the lingo and not show words like pilotchute and grommet in red? Just a thought. (We ferriners actually use your dikkunary...)

Since he dug such a perfect hole for himself it would be a shame to let that go to waste. Put him back. Seal the hole. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

The manual IS on the website, but the internal link is dead. In the printed hardcopy of the manual you find http://www.vigil.aero/manual/ and that works. (even in French!) What doesn't work is the link from the introduction page http://www.vigil.aero/Download.html and from there to http://www.vigil.aero/User_ManualUKV2_0.pdf Sometimes I'm sooo incredibly smart....

"Their contribution is so immensely important that it is almost impossible to put a monetary value on it - therefore we don't try..." Other than that, I give you: MARKET ! "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Seen a few smashing themselves into the ground. Never saw one that combined it with a stand up landing

Try giving it back after you have been bleeding all over it and the paramedics have cut the harness in pieces... I'm sure what most owners prefer... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...