robinheid

1. GOOD ON YA, MATE. We need more venues for people to shoot, learn about shooting, shoot down stupid notioins about firearms, and make more jumps. 2. I always thought "Para-shooting" was a better term for such events... 3. Being a former paratrooper, I think an integrated event such as the one you propose should require the competitors to jump in with their weapons and ammo, as that most closely approximates the "real world" as well as non-parachute-related shooting competition. I do not know of any where you start the course without your ammo, and then have to go find your weapon. Usually, you start with everything in hand, locked and loaded and ready to go. In this case, weapons would be unloaded until after landing. I'm not sure about your exact setup, but just guessing, I'd say that for safety reasons you'd want them to lock and load after they get to the firing line instead of on the target "X." 6. I don't see anything about hitting a target per se, and how that would be scored -- just "land and drop your gear." It seems to me that you are factoring in accuracy skill via the reduced "run time" of those who actually land on the target (like the hit'n'chug). The real advantage of not tracking parachute accuracy is that it makes the scoring simpler. However, what occurs to me is that you make a bullseye with a 10-ring and an "X" that's an exact replica of the paper targets at which the competitors will shoot on the range -- and score them the same too. That way you don't have weird calculations to make, and hitting the "X" instead of just the 10-ring gives you a tiebreaker in the same way that it does during the shooting... and people who miss the target get the same scoring for accuracy that they would get if they missed the paper bullseye completely. I agree with another poster that the parachuting accuracy should count for 1/2 of each round's score, so the parachuting accuracy score would be based on a simple formula of: Aggregate shooting accuracy score + ('chuting accuracy score x number of rounds fired in the shooting portion) = score. If you are knocking down steel or breaking plates, each plate or steel target gets 10 points like it was a 10-ring hit, then the 'chuting accuracy is figured the same way - ring value x # of rounds fired in that event. 7. Time would start upon landing but, again, would serve only as a tiebreaker: same score, first tiebreaker is time. (Same time, second tiebreaker is "X"hits.) The thing about doing it this way is that is introduces strategy into the event in the form of, "Do I run fast and start shooting while I'm breathing hard, or take my time and get to the firing line with a lower pulse rate?" And, of course, the closer you land to the bullseye, the less running you would have to do. Also, in the plate/steel events, the time tiebreaker will come into play because a lot more people will max out the shooting score. 8. You may need to leave the Class III weapons on the ground due to the law governing their use and "transfer," but with the non-Class III weapons, they could be carried. 9. Parachuting proficiency. Concur that USPA rules should govern the requirement here. 10. Firearms proficiency. I think your idea of a qual day is better than having paper. In my case, for example, I could show you my combat pistol medals from my Army days, and an expired NRA instructor card, or I could show you in a 30-second demonstration per weapon that I know how to carry, load, operate and clear each weapon safely enough to meet the event standard. 11. Whadduhbowt ENTRY FEES and PRIZES? What are you thinking in terms of this? 12. What I wrote above is just slammed out and I may well have missed some important elements, so apologies in advance on that. Whatever you come up with, it'll be great, and good on ya again for trying to put this together! SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

I disagree. Were what you say so clearly true, no company would stop drug testing. But we have been told that some have, as it is too expensive and created little or no benefit. Clearly some businesses have decided that the liability exposure is not great enough to warrant drug testing. I must agree with Robin that most drug testing has more to do with subjugation of the employee and not public safety or liabilities associated with negligence. There are well documented cases where "the company physical" was used for purposes far from the purposes revealed to the employees. Andy9o8 mentioned the privacy issues associated with the specimens used for drug testing and what those tests might reveal. The notion that the employer reigns supreme in these matters easily leads to these sorts of abuses. I agree with your disagreement with Normiss. It's the same shit with prospective employers running credit checks on job applicants. Sure, for employees with the potential for embezzlement there may be some relevance; but for the most part, it's just a corporate culture that mandates virtual colonoscopies on everyone in the name of having have the most perfect "kind" of people on the workforce. Maybe some people in this thread accept living in a society in which human dignity is pissed on in the name of "their job, their rules", but I don't. I tell ya, it's enough to turn a sane man Communist. +1 andy9o8 Any public policy which must be executed in private lest it run afoul of indecency and obscenity laws is, a priori, indecent and obscene. Forcing people to do indecent, obscene things to get a job damages their dignity -- and once you have destroyed a person's dignity, you can do pretty much whatever you want to them and they'll take it... you know, like let themselves be serially molested in order to fly on commercial aircraft or go to the Super Bowl. When you call drug testing by its right name - rooting through your body waste to make sure you're acting right - it begins to look like a bigger question than staff drug testing as a condition of employment. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Back in the early 1970s there was a lady named Nancy Wren. About 30, husband a hotshot skydiver... ...took her 20+ static line jumps before she was allowed to make her first freefall (most people did... 5). a couple of years later, she became a two-time national parachuting champion. You might also give the wind tunnel a try. It's a great way to work out the kinks, generally at lower cost and in less time. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Any religious or moral imperative that is imposed and/or enforced by a religious or secular government qualifies as sharia. As my signature line says, the beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names, and sharia is precisely what drug testing is because it forces compliance with the religiously- and/or politically-derived mandates of a totalitarian authority that have no relationship to objective reality -- and until individuals such as yourself get that, "this is what we have" will continue to be your justification for going along with it. Sorry if that scares you, but truth can be scary -- especially when accepting and understanding it takes you outside your comfort zone. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

I must disagree with this. Based on my personal experience anyway. I was 27 when I started racing super bikes in WERA. I was in my early 30's when I picked up a kneeboarding sponsor. I didn't start jumping until in my 40's. Maybe I'm just a "late bloomer". LOL Late bloomer indeed. What do you have planned for your 50s and 60s? SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

+1 It's not a big issue in terms of absolute numbers, but the magnitude of the potential liability makes the absolute numbers moot to a tandem manufacturer. As they see it, even one is too many because if that "one" is The One that precipitates a lawsuit, then there's a big problem. I wrote extensively about this in SKYDIVING's last couple of issues because I think we need to get more kids involved at much younger ages (because by the time they hit 18 they've already mostly established their "career path" in extreme sports), but independently of my personal opinion I found that even DZs that allow 16-year-olds (or younger) to jump have a very limited number of them seeking to do it anyway. Now, if kid jumping was promoted the same way kid skiing, BMX, MX, scuba, et al are promoted, then of course we'd see bigger numbers, but most likely we will never see kid-participation numbers anywhere near the aforementioned other extreme sports because jumping is more expensive than most of them, and most of the involved parents will say "not on my watch. do what you want when you turn 18 and leave the house" (as my parents said to me about riding motorcycles). I argue that other sports where kids can maim or kill themselves or others have found ways around the liability conundrum and that we should be able to do it too. Ironically, Exhibit A for the affirmative -- Mike Mullins -- has perhaps the most cogent argument against this notion. As I reported in SKYDIVING issue #329 (the last one): Mullins also takes issue with the contention that the many other dangerous sports in which kids participate are an example that parachuting can easily follow. “All the other sports you talk about, like motocross, skiing – and just look at riding hunter/jumper horses; people get seriously hurt – but they’ve been around for decades or even hundreds of years and they are accepted. But the word skydiving throws up red flags to the public and to the courts, which are generally ignorant about it. So I can certainly understand why some DZs don’t take kids and don’t encourage them, and I’m not encouraging anyone to take on liability exposure they feel uncomfortable with. I just try not to let the lawyers run my life too much.” SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Okay Matt, here you go: Under cover of sharia, drug testing actually violates every employment law there is against discrimination in the workplace. Period. Full stop. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

We test all of our staff's drugs to make sure they are fully potent before we allow their use. +1 LOL Or as Woody Harrelson told Jay Leno one night, "I don't do drugs any more... of course, I don't do drugs any less." SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

+1 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

See, this is where performance testing is far superior because, guess what? It doesn't matter what your excuse is (too tired, low blood sugar, hung over, mother died, etc) -- if you can't PERFORM to the required standard, then you go home. One continuing theme among posters who support sharia-compliant business practices is that somehow opposition to those practices = opposition to appropriate workplace safety standards, which is not the case. Pretty much everyone wants safe workplaces - and safe plane/train/bus rides, etc. That is not the issue, no matter how often it's repeated. The issue is how do you accomplish that in a manner that is actually effective, and at a cost that does not include the destruction of personal liberty. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Nice post, Bill, now quick -- before you assume room temperature, please please please recount some of those memories, whether they are from jumping or running wild with firearms, as those times were indeed great and deserve to be shared. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Bingo. When alcohol was prohibited, "they" did not make corn, potatoes, sugar cane, barley or hops illegal, did they? Only with hemp, coca and opium are the plants themselves -- the natural resources themselves -- banned, and thus also all of the non-drug products that are of great value to humanity but not to the petrochemical and pharmaceutical companies whose products must compete with them. Because underneath the sharia-compliant nature of employee drug testing is the crony capitalism (an oxymoron if there ever was one) upon which even the sharia is based: Go back in history and you'll discover that the senators from DuPont -- I mean, Delaware -- and William Randolph Hearst were instrumental in the passage of hemp suppression laws precisely because the invention of the hemp decorticator (think cotton gin and corn combine level of processing efficiency increase) made hemp a major competitor for DuPont's petrochemical-based patented products nylon, rayon and orlon, and for Hearst's vast forests-for-paper holdings. In fact, it was Hearst who is popularly credited with creating the word "marijuana" for hemp in order to play the race card in seeking its suppression. Harry J. Anslinger, for example, is famous for saying that smoking marijuana "makes darkies think they're as good as white men." So when you support sharia in the workplace, you are, in fact, supporting a policy and attitude based on racism and corrupt government-corporate collusion that has no basis in objective reality and which is, in fact, a direct assault on freedom, free markets and products that bring great benefit to humanity at far less social, financial and environmental cost than the manufactured substitutes pedaled by corporations colluding with government to suppress choice. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Of course; although to be more precise, lawyers are regulated by state and federal canons of ethics and disciplinary rules, which are written by the courts, and then enforced by initially by hearings (with due process) before disciplinary boards, the results of which are automatically appealable for new trials in the courts. But I'm not evading your point. I understand your point, and the seeming logic of it. Same goes for doctors & dentists, etc. But the difference is that the number of lawyers, doctors, dentists, CPAs, engineers is relatively huge compared to the relatively small number of skydivers, and especially DZOs, in the US. My concern is that there are (comparatively speaking) so few skydivers in the US, and even fewer DZOs, that 1 or 2 active DZOs on the USPA Board could set themselves up to have a huge amount of disciplinary "authority" over some other DZO whose guts they hate or who is a stiff competitor of theirs. Trying to eliminate that could result in half the Board having to recuse itself on one case or another. In any event, my fear is that too much personal self-interest and/or personal conflict of interest would abound. DiverMike, Notice the detail with which the self-governing process of doctors, lawyers and dentists is administered -- particularly in the area of due process and appeal. Nothing remotely similar exists in the parachuting industry, ergo, the increased potential for abuse outlined by Andy908. Exhibit A for the affirmative is the Skyride Clusterfink. Regardless of whether you agree or not with USPA's decision to get involved in "regulating" that, it turned into a massive clusterfink -- in large part precisely because our industry and its associated trade groups do not have anything remotely similar to the self-regulatory processes, procedures and structures that exists for doctors, lawyers and dentists. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Daedalus is the genius who designed and built the wings. Icarus was the fool who flew them outside their design limits. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

haha, I haven't done fencing in a long while, so I might be kinda rusty. I can just imagine myself dressed in ren/fencing garb and showing up at the DZ. Like this: (I'm the short one in the pic) http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o177/guineapiggie/3495312585_c1bc4a8f5e_b.jpg Cool. Let's just say that if you got along well with the, ahem, eclectic group that makes up SCA, you will have no problem fitting in with jumpers, who are exactly like SCA peeps except completely different. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Bingo! Years ago, a friend of mine owned a toxic waste disposal company. Had a great rep, did great work, so he got some federal contracts -- which of course meant sharia applied and he had to root through his employee body waste to ensure that they were sharia-compliant. Instant degradation of capability because he had to fire all of his best workers and keep all the alkies... As he put it: "The people who smoked pot after work always showed up on time, sharp and ready to go at the starting bell. The guys who drank after work came in late half the time, and they couldn't think straight until morning break, or make a critical decision until after lunch." He went out of business within two years because he couldn't get enough sharia-compliant skilled workers and he lost the fed contracts because he couldn't provide the level of expertise he had on staff when he got the contracts. He's now a deputy sheriff and was always a non-illegal-drug user himself, so it wasn't as if he was making excuses or enabling the tokers -- he just called it the way it worked out for him. Because of sharia employment practices, there is in fact a huge labor pool of highly qualified peeps across the job spectrum who aren't working in the positions that match their skillset and experience. Or as Dagny Taggart wondered for the longest time: Who is John Galt? SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Then just bring your swords and armor to the DZ. That'll definitely break the ice (almost all skydivers love cold steel), and the blade will be useful around the firepit too. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Which of course is mindless. One of the most mindless things, of course, is that, because THC stays detectable for weeks, it drives employees subject to drug testing to much more dangerous drugs such as alcohol,cocaine and heroin. Most importantly, of course, the presence of THC metabolytes does not in any way shape or form even remotely correlate to impairment, so the whole thing is ridiculous. What is not ridiculous is employers wanting employees to be able to PERFORM properly at work, and thus testing which MEASURES PERFORMANCE, not bloodstream composition, is what needs to become more widespread because, guess what -- emotional upsets and distractions are a bigger cause of workplace misphaps than drugs and alcohol combined and drug tests do not detect that now, do they? Check this out: Computer assisted performance tests already exist and, in fact, have been used by NASA for years on astronauts and test pilots. These tests can actually measure hand-eye coordination and response time, do not invade people's privacy, and can improve safety far better than drug tests can. Here's another one: While pre-employment and random drug testing can help employers detect applicants or employees who abuse illegal substances, the tests are not 100 percent effective in spotting an impaired worker. Stress and fatigue may be the two most troubling factors for employers that are trying to create a safer work environment, because stress and fatigue cannot be measured by biochemical testing. Therefore, some employers have turned to testing an employee's ability to perform a safety-sensitive job. These job performance exams are generally computer-based and check an employee's visual acuity, coordination and reaction time. "A performance test is a much less intrusive procedure than a drug test," said Wendy Colby, marketing director of Performance Factors of Golden, Colo. "We have found that employees overwhelmingly prefer the performance test over a drug-testing program." Performance Factors markets Factor 1000, a computer-based test that is relatively new to the market. Even though the exam was developed nearly 30 years ago by NASA to check the performance skills of astronauts, the technology was made available to the general public just a few years ago. The test measures responses while the test subject tries to keep a diamond-shaped cursor aligned with the center of the screen. The cursor moves randomly and quickly, so the subject's responses must be fast and accurate. Each person establishes a baseline score and must match that score to pass the test. Baseline scores are unique to each individual, which means employees cannot "beat the system" by having a friend take the test. The test takes only 30 seconds to complete, and employees have eight chances to match or beat their baseline score. If they fail, then the employer can reassign them for the day or request that they take the day off. Using objective-reality-based performance testing instead of politically-based "drug testing" is a far superior way to make sure your employees are up to doing their jobs on a given day -- unless, of course, you want to impose and enforce your personal opinions and views on how those employees live and what choices they make when they are not on the job. To be brutally blunt about it, drug testing is just sharia disguised as concern for workplace safety; it has only the most tenuous relationship or correlation to actual workplace safety -- but a strong correlation to endangering a free society. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

You have Tandems students that go through the trash? That is really weird. j Well, what happens is that they sees da hanger before s/he is policed up so they woofs their cookies into the hangar trash can, so of course they kin sees da bottles -- and countings dem gives them something to do while they be waiting for the next retch, y'know likes countin' sheepses to sleep except completely different, you know, like the difference between a hanger and hangar, sumthin' most peeps with a few thousand jumps can discern. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

Most hangers are dead when you police them up, not dead drunk, but until now I haven't heard about that being a problem except at the Suicide University DZ outside Hell, Michigan. Besides that, if "policing the hangar" means putting beer bottles in the trash cans in the building where they park the airplanes, well, it seems to me that the tandem students can probably count bottles in the trash just as easily as they count them on the floor, but at least they'll think that y'all are NEAT drunks. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

And to be clear a USPA BSR applies to every MEMBER of USPA who conducts Tandem Instruction. I think it is a step in the right direction. USPA should not be dictating the age in which one can start to skydive. In this case they fell back to Manufacturers rules, some may see no difference and may even see a further restriction. But now is there is away to legally protect the Manufacturers, then we can do away with the age debate. Matt +1 SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

You ask a good question. The problem with actually offering static line progression (again) in the US is the above-mentioned complete lack of experience with it by the majority of DZOs/instructors/IEs and S&TAs here. Moreover, having gone through SL progression myself back in the day, I think that, while a foundation of SL jumps is an exceptional way to prepare jumpers for their freefall training (through gear familiarity and confidence building through the launch/navigation/landing experience they get by concentrating only on the parachute portion of a jump), long assisted freefalls are much better for learning than the bits and pieces you get with standard SL progression. Dan and Amy Goriesky in years past used to train the air force academy cadets in freefall training after those guys had done 5 to 20 hop-and-pop jumps, and they reported that the learning curve and proficiency curve was way steeper than with AFF-only students. They found that having made several to many parachute-focused jumps before freefall training really increased the confidence and familiarity of their freefall students to the point that they could really concentrate and progress in freefall training,mostly because their launch-navigation-landing experience made them more RELAXED which, as SKR has said for decades, is the master skill. Finally, what I propose above is NOT a progression system; it is SPECIFICALLY proposed as a way to cater to that market segment that, unlike you, is NOT interested or able to "get qualified" or otherwise make the time/$$$ commitment necessary to be an enthusiast-level participant. It is designed to be an add-on offering to what DZs already have in order to expand their businesses without overhauling everything they do, which is not necessary. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

For others... If you are going to do this trick, make sure you practice the flare before you land. It is very easy to flare and stall any canopy, worse when you modify it. A stall is violent, and a stall on landing normally hurts like hell. +1 -- and whether you take a wrap or not, practice the flare a couple of times before you land because most likely a 150sf 7-cell is very different than your main. I've had one or two rides on my 150, and it was fine, without the sharp stall point that some reserves have (this was at a 1.1 wl, BTW). SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

That's right. You don't have to be any kind of skydiver to be a parachutist. But you better be some kind of parachutist to make skydive. Or more than one. LOL I was just on another thread called "What is killing skydiving?" and there was some consensus that the high cost of training and gear had a lot to do with why the sport is either dying or just not growing as much as it could be. So here's a post someone made, and which I answered that dovetails pretty nicely with what is being said in this thread: ----------------------------------------------------------- Poster #1 wrote: "In my opinion, costs are a major factor. All too often I see pumped up tandems coming down wanting to take up skydiving...until training and gear costs are mentioned." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Poster #2 wrote: "+1 It's a bit spendy. But what can you do? For about $3k you can buy a bike and gear and ride for a good 12 months. I think AFF is what? $1500? And then the rental of equipment to get to 20 is another $500?" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I wrote: "What can we do? Go back to the future and re-introduce static line jumping... it's a way for a lot of people to put their knees in the breeze for a low $$$ investment. Instead of popping for $300+ for ONE jump, they could make 5 or 6 or 7 for the same price, plus they get to hang around the DZ more and slowly get into the "scene" which in and of itself can bring some of them back." Roger Nelson understood this with his "100" and "200" and "300" clubs that created social subsets of people so they could be integrated more quickly into the community. The problem is, as I've stated many times over many years, most of today's DZOs, instructors and even the IEs and S&TAs have no familiarity with static line jumping so they immediately denounce it as old-fashioned, etc etc ad nauseam instead of looking at the economics of it. And I'm not talking about going back to the future with static line PROGRESSION, but to offer static line jumping for people who only want to -- or ony have the time and $$$ -- to make a few jumps a year. A static line concession would allow those enthusiastic post-first-tandem jumpers to be steered to an affordable (in terms of time as well as $$$) path to keep jumping until they: 1) figure out where to get the time and $$ to become an autonomous jumper; or 2) decide it's not for them; or 3) decide that making 4-5 jumps a year is JUST RIGHT. It would not be hard: Every Saturday and Sunday morning at 0800 hours (or by more expensive appointment at other times), there is a static line retrain class, so that after you've done your initial training, you can go through a review, practice ERs in a hanging harness, etc, then go make a jump or two or three and go home. No "progression" involved: it's just static line jumping, period, always with a jumpmaster, always with significant supervision for which they pay a premium price over a normal jump slot. No, they don't pay $200 for 2 slcots on the plane (tandem) or more for an AFF jump, but they do pay, say, $75 for each jump they make -- from 3000 feet instead of 12000 feet, and with a jumpmaster who gets a piece of each static line jumper fee and therefore may end up making more $$$ than by doing tandems or AFF. Plus if you have a low ceiling, the planes still turn and the JMs still make money. If you want to become a licensed jumper, then go to AFF or whatever that DZ ioffers. Very simple, and most importantly, it widens the potential market from only people with time/money/inclination to be enthusiasts to a much broader segment of people who want to be occasional participants. This is really a no-brainer, yet fashion, and a stubborn that's-the-way-we've-alwasy-done-it mentality, keeps us from adopting this simple little thing that could make our sport way more healthy from a financial and particpant standpoint. And please, save the "currency-is-safer" arguments. They do not apply, because this group of static line jumpers would always receive the same level of supervision as first-jump students. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

+1 It's a bit spendy. But what can you do? For about $3k you can buy a bike and gear and ride for a good 12 months. I think AFF is what? $1500? And then the rental of equipment to get to 20 is another $500? What can we do? Go back to the future and re-introduce static line jumping... it's a way for a lot of people to put their knees in the breeze for a low $$$ investment. Instead of popping for $300+ for ONE jump, they could make 5 or 6 or 7 for the same price, plus they get to hang around the DZ more and slowly get into the "scene" which in and of itself can bring some of them back. Roger Nelson understood this with his "100" and "200" and "300" clubs that created social subsets of people so they could be integrated more quickly into the community. The problem is, as I've stated many times over many years, most of today's DZOs, instructors and even the IEs and S&TAs have no familiarity with static line jumping so they immediately denounce it as old-fashioned, etc etc ad nauseam instead of looking at the economics of it. And I'm not talking about going back to the future with static line PROGRESSION, but to offer static line jumping for people who only want to -- or ony have the time and $$$ -- to make a few jumps a year. A static line concession would allow those enthusiastic post-first-tandem jumpers to be steered to an affordable (in terms of time as well as $$$) path to keep jumping until they: 1) figure out where to get the time and $$ to become an autonomous jumper; or 2) decide it's not for them; or 3) decide that making 4-5 jumps a year is JUST RIGHT. It would not be hard: Every Saturday and Sunday morning at 0800 hours (or by more expensive appointment at other times), there is a static line retrain class, so that after you've done your initial training, you can go through a review, practice ERs in a hanging harness, etc, then go make a jump or two or three and go home. No "progression" involved: it's just static line jumping, period, always with a jumpmaster, always with significant supervision for which they pay a premium price over a normal jump slot. No, they don't pay $200 for 2 slcots on the plane (tandem) or more for an AFF jump, but they do pay, say, $75 for each jump they make -- from 3000 feet instead of 12000 feet, and with a jumpmaster who gets a piece of each static line jumper fee and therefore may end up making more $$$ than by doing tandems or AFF. Plus if you have a low ceiling, the planes still turn and the JMs still make money. If you want to become a licensed jumper, then go to AFF or whatever that DZ ioffers. Very simple, and most importantly, it widens the potential market from only people with time/money/inclination to be enthusiasts to a much broader segment of people who want to be occasional participants. This is really a no-brainer, yet fashion, and a stubborn that's-the-way-we've-alwasy-done-it mentality, keeps us from adopting this simple little thing that could make our sport way more healthy from a financial and particpant standpoint. And please, save the "currency-is-safer" arguments. They do not apply, because this group of static line jumpers would always receive the same level of supervision as first-jump students. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."