NickDG

To understand the current "Coach" rating it will help to know its lineage. Originally, from the mid-1950s to the early the 1980s, when the only "approved" training method was static line there were three main Instructional ratings. In order of rank and responsibility they were: -Jumpmaster (JM) -Instructor (I) -Instructor/Examiner (I/E) Let's look at these ratings a bit closer. How you went about attaining these ratings were about the same for the first two. But the I/E rating was a bit different. It's also worth noting skydiving borrowed heavily from aviation and the military for these titles. Being a JM was the entry level Instructor rating. You needed 200 jumps and a "C' license when I applied in 1980. (There was a time, in the early days of the sport, and before the proliferation of commercial drop zones, when attaining a "C" license automatically made you an Instructor) With a JM rating you could brief students for upcoming jumps, dress them, supervise them in the aircraft, and dispatch them via static line. Pretty much everything except teach a first jump class. An Instructor had to be on the DZ, as like now, all phases of student training had to be under their direct supervision. JMs were also allowed, and encouraged to teach and assist in multiple first jump courses (FJCs). The one plum of being a JM was once a student got to doing 30 seconds delays from 7500-feet JMs where allowed to jump with them. This was the famous "cherry dive" where you'd go and dock on the student for their first ever two-way. And those jumps were a lot of fun. And these and the later jumps you made with static line students were training us for something no one knew about yet, AFF. Besides the prerequisites for the JM rating you also needed to attend a Jumpmaster Certification Course (JCC). These were run by any Instructor and all you had to do was let USPA your where doing one and who was taking it. And this is where sometimes things went off the rails. The JCCs were typically one day affairs and some where terrific jam packed sessions on all phases of proper Jumpamastering. But some others were little better than several guys sitting around a table drinking beer and telling jump stories for an hour or two. Yet, we got away with that in those early days as jumpers in general were a little more tuned into the mechanics of how their gear worked and experienced jumpers in the plane were exposed to the job of Jumpmaster as all the action took place in the door right in front of them. Also in those days as students they spent sometimes three times as many jumps, or more, with a JM than they do now before being cut loose from supervision. Also in these JCCs you actually went up in the aircraft and put out your classmates on static line gear or you simulated it with dummy static lines. When I conducted JCCs I always made them do real static line jumps on real student gear. My thinking was if they didn't feel comfortable doing that how could they ask their students to do it? And on a purely whimsical note "Jumpmaster" was the coolest sounding title there was in skydiving and I was very sad when USPA dropped it. The Instructor rating worked about the same except you had to be a current JM and have held that rating for two years. You then attended an Instructor Certification Course (ICC). And again some of these where educational fests and some where jokes depending on who ran them. One big problem JCCs and ICCs had in common was the lack of attention paid to good teaching techniques. You usually got the nuts and bolts but not how to impart that information to students. On the other hand someone who had a JM rating for two or more years, and who was interested in becoming a Instructor, usually had a lot of time in the classroom teaching FJCs. And many could do the entire thing with no problem. Neither of these courses where the pass or fail type. Pretty much everyone who attended and had their paperwork in order passed. Where we did have some discretion, at least on the JCC level, was with whom you let attend your courses. If someone applied but you knew them to be unreliable, scary, or dangerous it was a simple matter to say, sorry, all the slots are taken. But it didn’t prevent these types from going out of town. And it always bugged me when other Instructors took in people they didn't know. I always thought USPA should have made that some kind of rule. And I know there could be personality conflicts in that, but USPA could have devised some method of redress in those cases. Now a short note on the I/E rating: Anyone who put in for this one was surprised at the depth of general knowledge required to pass the extensive written test. While you needed all the other ratings you also needed a working knowledge on rigging, airplane stuff, weather, demos, night jumps water jumps, FAA rules, and everything else under the drop zone sun. I/Es were meant to be the last word on everything in the field. But I found most of them knew a little about everything, but were masters of nothing. It's was nice to be able say you were an I/E but that was about it, and it was an otherwise useless rating. Then in 1981-82 USPA rolled out the AFF program and to their credit they put a lot of thought into it. It was, after all, a very radical departure in student training but it got off to a good start. I was only a Jumpmaster at that time (1982) and you needed to be a static line JM or Instructor to take the AFF Certification Course (ACC). Nowadays it's just called an AFF Cert Course as it's the only real certification course left, but it shocked most of us who took it in the early days. The way it worked is if you came into the AFF Cert Course as a Static Line Jumpmaster, and you passed it, you left as an AFF Jumpmaster. Then once you took an ICC you automatically became both a Static Line and AFF Instructor. If you came into the AFF Cert Course as a Static Line Instructor, and you passed, you left as an AFF Instructor. The perquisites in the those days for the AFF Cert Course, besides a JM or I rating, was 4 hours of freefall. (They since raised this to six hours). There were no real classrooms at Perris when I took the AFF Cert Course there, one of the first few courses every conducted. But the USPA course directors that came in from Headquarters arranged to have a spanking new air conditioned motor home brought in and there I sat. I looked around and here were all the big guns from both Elsinore and Perris and I was most likely the least experienced of the bunch. And it was then I looked up to see Paul Sitter and Mike Johnston from USPA and got the news that sent chills down my spine. "Gentlemen (there actually weren't any woman in the room) this course is not a gimmie! The AFF rating must be earned and more than half of you in here now won't make it." There was some audible grumbling and outright guffaws from the big guns, guys who'd been Static Line Instructors for many years. As for myself I figured I was doomed. The original concept for AFF was first tried by Bob Sinclair in the 1960s. He called them harness hold jumps. And he'd jump single JM fashion with his first jump students. He attached a lanyard to his student's main ripcord to ensure if somehow they did get away from him they weren't going anywhere but under a canopy. He did a lot of these jumps with celebrities in the Hollywood area and the most well known was his jump with Johnny Carson. To the rest of the sport and to PCA (what they were before USPA) Bob Sinclair was a certified wacko. But like USPA has done many times in the past, yesterday's wacko became today's visionary. So we began our week long (another new concept to us) AFF Certification Course. Initially rather than being much on how to do AFF they had to spend a lot of time explaining to us just what the heck AFF really was. And what they were trying to accomplish with it. The course directors were more like salesman and there was a bit of resistance from the big guns. On our breaks I heard more than few saying, "This God damn thing will never work, they are going to be bouncing students left and right." I was lucky though in one area. I was young enough not to be that firmly entrenched in the old ways and I was excited as hell about the whole thing. Then, like now, we were free to pair up for the initial two Jumpmaster certification dives. But that's where I had my first problem. I was from the San Diego area. And to the jumpers at Elsinore and Perris, in the skydiving sense, that was like being from another country. A third world country. So nobody wanted to jump with me. Even when I asked someone I got a bunch of, "Who the fuck are you(s)?" But my revenge was watching the mighty fall one after another. And more than a few stormed out of the course altogether after their first few dives going, "Fucking zero, how the hell do I get a fucking zero, this is all fucking bullshit!" I was spending the week in my car in the Perris parking lot and every night I had my flashlight out devouring every word in the course materials. Not jumping right away also allowed me to learn where people were making their mistakes. Finally, on about the third day, and running out of candidates someone had to take me with them on a dive. And it was Bob Celaya from California City. I'd never met him although years later we'd become good friends and I'd work for him. All I knew is he was another big gun. The thing about these two jumpmaster jumps is while one candidate's performance isn't supposed to affect the other, at some level there's no way to get around the fact your fates are intertwined. And Bob, who was struggling like everyone else in the course, only said one thing to me before we went up. "Don’t fuck this up, kid." And we both landed with big fat zeros. But only because we busted the hard deck yet the rest of the dive wasn't that bad. That's when Bob said, "Okay kid, it's you and me from here on in." We worked on our timing, divvied up who was responsible for what, and while we were deviating from the syllabus we were just trying to beat the course anyway we could. Then we started landing with twos and threes and we even both got a four on one dive. When we moved onto the level four dives we both did okay and both of us wound up passing the course. Every since that day Bob and I always had that, "we went through a war together" thing going. In the early days not every DZ had an AFF program right away. They either didn’t have the rated staff or the gear. Lots of DZ were still putting students out on gut gear and that wasn't very conducive to AFF. However I did a few of those early on. And with gut gear if you were on Main-side, you were really also Reserve-side too. So AFF and Static Line ran concurrently until the AFF program began to fully ramp up. And then slowly Static Line began to fall by the wayside. So now USPA had a problem. They had to start certifying their AFF rating holders basically from scratch. Now people sitting their AFF cert courses had never handled a student skydiver in any form in their lives. Also around this time "students" changed from merely being people trying to break into the world of skydiving to people who were now "customers" and "clients." I'm not saying that before this time we didn’t care if they made it or not, but the onus was on them to make the grade and not on us to baby them through it. But now that attitude was beginning to change and as more DZ came into existence "service" started to become important to differentiate one from the another. And the era of a student being a nobody until they proved themselves was officially over. USPA correctly figured actual teaching skills, not just knowing all there was to know about skydiving, was important so the AFF Cert Courses began to contain lessons on that subject. They had to as everyone who passed a course came out an Instructor right off the bat and were free to teach FJCs. In the early cert courses it was all about air skills, but now ground skills were getting more of an equal billing. Eventually USPA settled into having a small group of AFF course directors, usually three, for the entire country, and things hummed along quite nicely. I worked my way up to being an evaluator in some of these courses after I gained the trust of one of the course directors. And it was then I found my love of teaching the teachers. But I also began to see problems with how we were doing things. The AFF certification course, at first, was just that. It wasn't really supposed to be a teaching course. As candidates you were supposed to show up prepared and ready to be certified. But they weren't doing that and the pass/fail rate was dismal. I'd even saw a course or two were nobody passed. Then experienced AFF Instructors began to advertise formal pre-courses and things got a little better, and I did conduct those myself but even that, in my mind, wasn't the total answer. Then I got real excited when I heard Jay Stokes was going to start something called "Certification Unlimited" a for real boot camp for new skydiving Instructors. A place where you'd go for a few weeks to eat, sleep, and shit skydiving instruction. I even got with Jay and did some work with him and his prototype "student instructors" when he was first hashing it all out. This, I thought, was the answer to all our problems. But USPA wasn't buying. I even had one USPA official tell me I was out of my mind. And then almost in a distinct effort to make things worse they then yanked the rug out from under AFF altogether. They dropped the three person AFF course director program, which kept things in check and all on the same page, and threw it open to basically anyone with an AFF rating. We were now back to the old JCCs. Some AFF cert courses would be up to snuff, and some could be worthless . . . During the course of all this the USPA, knowing there were issues, started slapping band aids on things. The first one was the Basic Instructor Course (BIC) and that only lasted a few years. Then they came out with the "Coach" rating. That one never sat well with me because as important as primary skydiving students are, the next level up, AFF graduate to "A" license level is just as and maybe even more important. At that point, because they can now absorb more, they need something better than a baby sitter. If anything the "coach" rating should be reserved for 30-year skydiving greybeards who enjoy jumping with newbies and who could actually impart some wisdom instead of just taking all that knowledge to their graves. But it's not place for "student Instructors" to practice their skills. A fix, I believe, is this . . . Bring back the Jumpmaster rating. Then allow "certain" Instructors to bring these Jumpmasters under their wings in more of a mentor style relationship. They'd stay together like butter and toast all though every phrase of student training including, when deemed ready, actually going reserve-side on real AFF two JM dives. This mentor relationship would be set at a minimum time, but no maximum. Your mentor would cut you lose only when they were satisfied you were ready. We'd have to keep in check who actually is allowed to do this, and USPA has always shown a lack in that, but I know for a fact there are hundreds of experienced Instructors in the field who could do this. Otherwise, what happens? We'll also have a whole generation of Instructor veterans taking what they know to their graves. And that's a big waste. I know with all this, I'll sound like a wacko to some of you, but hey, someday I may be a visionary . . . ! NickD

>> Every other guy in the world lives without her. You can too.

Since I know where you did this now, follow Skybytch's advice and go to another DZ . . . NickD

>>For any further questions or comments, please call a Adventure Sports Customer Service Representative at 1-800-372-1254.

>>Because I "failed the course">The course was supposed to be completed in two days

Woman are like buses, wait 15 minutes and another one comes along . . . NickD

>>I think that maybe Cossey knew this and wanted to warn anyone who my try to use it.

>>It's been way too long since I made a skydive.

>>i think the correct term would be square stable and steerable...

I was in freefall once and looked up to see another jumper coming right at my head. I stuck my arm out to protect myself and when the other jumper hit my hand it rotated my arm around and it really messed up my right shoulder. The whole right side of my upper body was black and blue. About four weeks later I made a couple of fun jumps and it went all right. Then I went to another DZ to help them with their tandems. And on the first one I couldn't get the drogue out of its pouch. I was pulling as hard as I could but I couldn't do it. I settled for budging it a bit, then resting, then budging it some more, then resting again until I finally got it out. I sewed bigger spandex pouches on the gear that night and that got me through it. But instead of sitting around drinking beer at night I had to get some dumb bells and get my arm back into shape. I learned from that it's not enough to just heal, you have to rehabilitate yourself too. NickD

I'm not living down there right now, but I did live aboard for a few years. And yes there's beer can racing every Wednesday afternoon. Just show up and you can usually get a slot as rail meat. And I did learn marinas are exactly like drop zones . . . NickD

>>In the case of the DZ I teach at,

Opps, yes I meant Don . . . And yes these are the acting Swayze brothers. NickD

>>Also: what's that vertical metal looking rod on the top left? To leave no detail unturned (and remember it's clear I have no expertise), is it likely that the missing rip is what would be called a "cloverleaf" style or ???

>>I think the one jumpmaster AFF stuff is a pretty shitty way to do it.

>>Would be nice but really it is not really our business is it

>>You can try going to another dropzone and getting a second opinion by evalutation.

I spotted a lost student canopy motoring through the town of Perris once. A bunch of gangbangers were sitting under it drinking beer. I just smiled, waved, and kept on driving . . . NickD

>>There are white nylon (apparently) lines tied on the side straps.

How many tandems did you do before the two jumps in the video? NickD

Thanks snowman. I know Randy Leavitt but didn't know about this particular jump. Randy invented "Cliffing" which was climbing and jumping while everyone else was only doing one or the other . . . Thanks! NickD

The belly bands not only went through the fabric handles they went behind the elastic pack opening bands (POBs) too. I didn't think about Cooper having the two belly bands, nice catch, nitrochute . . . and we can also add the POBs (at least 2 per reserve container, some containers had more.) And all of those things are easily removable from their respective containers and a MacGyver type could have a field day with them. I was always luke warm to Cooper using the suspension lines to tie the money to him, and here's the first good alternative I've heard. So the next question is how many of those six items were left in the aircraft? NickD

I wouldn't worry too much about it as I doubt he'll really do it. This is just the kind of thing young men with 60 jumps talk about because they ain't got nothing else . . . But you seemed switched on - so if you know he's getting ready to do something really dangerous - just walk over and pull his reserve handle. Then tell him, "I just wanted to see what that felt like!" It's like having a dear friend with a very bald motorcycle tire. The best thing you can do is stick a knife in it . . . NickD

It looks like he had off heading opening and couldn't get his arms out of the wingsuit fast enough to correct it. After the initial cliff strike he did get at least one out, as you can see his bare arm reaching up . . . NickD

Yes, scan it for me. While there are plenty of people who've made their first B.A.S.E. jumps at El Cap, I've never heard of anyone making a first parachute jump there. But I won't say more until I see the "photo." On reading up on parachuting enough to be actually do it, there were several books in print at that time, but I wouldn't consider them "How to Books." But he could have "learned enough" to convince himself he could do it. On the practical side with real first jump students you have to explain even the simplest things numerous times before they get it, and even then, you worry they don't really get it. It would be like never having snow skied and reading a book about ski jumping - big wreck coming! NickD