robinheid

That's not reversing it -- that's missing the point. the gushing oil well is our fatally flawed training system. A wingloading BSR is the steps taken to clean up the oil. If you don't cap the well, you'll be cleaning up forever and never getting a handle on the problem because there is always more oil. Same same with our training system that is gushing stupid ignorant pilots into our sport ecosystem; until you cap the well that focvuses on freefall fun skills instead of parachute survival skills, there's always going to be more oil (blood) than we can handle. +1 Part of the program I've proposed for 16 years starts with a couple of "real" tandems, where you get actual "dual" instruction the same way you would when you earn a airplane pilot license, then goes to static line/iad/h&p jumps until you pass all the parachute operation/navigation/landing prerequisites before you start freefall... to include at least your first downsizing from student canopy to something more freefall-manageable (a big benefit of Roger Nelson going to Sabres was that the rigs were smaller so that they were easier to freefall maneuver with, especially for smaller jumper). 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 ask that myself -- every time someone proposes a bandaid BSR instead of fixing our ridiculous training system that puts fun skill training ahead of survival skill training. Yes, I agree and wouldn't you agree that the sun comes up every morning? Both questions are equally irrelevant in the face of the fact that most of the people killing themselves under open canopies would be outside the scope of your proposed wingloading BSR. Agree? I'm the one who keeps bringing it up -- since before you even started jumping (I called for this change 16 years ago in a SKYDIVING article, and repeated it two years ago in a revisitation of that article). We have a fatally flawed training system that puts fun skill training ahead of survival skill training. This was not a big deal when freefall-focused training started because everyone jumped F-111 canopies at 1:1 or less. Now, however, it is a big deal and until we deal with that 900-pound gorilla of a big deal, more people with thousands of jumps will kill themselves under open canopies because they never received the core training necessary at the beginning -- regardless of the number of bandaid BSRs you try to slap on severed arteries (and places that aren't even bleeding). Unless it involves improving or progressing with our fatally flawed training system, right? Please explain to me why is it that you spend thousands of words bandying about a bandaid BSR but none on fixing the core problem. First off, the definition of "reasonable" is the point around which 99 percent of all lawsuits revolve -- and a term that 99.9 percent of the world's people do not associate with parachuting in any way, shape or form. Second, the problem is not low-timers downsizing too fast; it's high-timers going down too fast too close to the ground -- a problem that is not addressed by a wingloading BSR based on jump numbers. Finally, the easiest way to any goal is usually where you find the most landmines and ambushes. If we are actually serious about reducing the number of open parachute fatalities, then we must take the hardest way, which is overcoming the inertia and ignorance that props up our fatally flawed training system that focuses from the first jump on the FUN SKILLS OF FREEFALL instead of focusing the SURVIVAL SKILLS OF LEARNING TO OPERATE, NAVIGATE AND FLY THE PARACHUTE. I'll say it again a different way: Our open parachute fatalities are like oil washing up on Gulf shore beaches and the broken well is our training system. How "reasonable" would it be to keep trying to clean up the oil but refuse to even discuss capping the broken well, much less actually try to do it? 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."

Huh? I personally know many people who have never made a jump but who know, through their common sense and/or equivalent risk experience, that it's not a good idea to jump a really fast parachute on their second jump. In fact, I would venture to say that if you randomly polled 1,000 people who had never made a jump and another 1,000 who had made one jump, you would find that between 99.9 and 100 percent of them absolutely get it that jumping a really fast parachute on their second jump would be a bad idea. I would also venture to say that if you specifically sought out 1,000 immature, foolish, thoughtless, impulsive people and asked them the same question, 99.9 or 100 percent of them would also get it that jumping a really fast parachute on their second jump would be a bad idea. It's not rocket science; it's just basic physics: force = mass x acceleration -- and if you exceed the critical angle of attack while flying your parachute, your mass accelerates. So, Bill, I really am curious: why do you insist on picking "experience" nits to absurdity and beyond... yet remain silent about the fatally flawed training system that produces so many open-parachute fatalities among jumpers whose "experience" would place them beyond the reach of every proposed wingloading BSR "solution" anyway? 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."

The premise of the BSR would not be to suggest acceptable Wls, that's individual to each jumper, the BSR would limit the max WL for a given number of jumps. I say again: the basic premise is invalid because most of the people killing themselves under open canopies have more than enough jumps to "qualify" for unlimited wing loading -- according to your own proposal. So what is the point? For what? Printing costs? How many copies of the SIM do they print each year? I'll cover the cost of one additional page in each of them for the first year. Seriously, send me a bill. Sigh... the burden is not on USPA for printing SIMs but on the DZs that now have to track every jumper's wing loading limits, which of course change weekly/monthly/yearly/whatever. Those are the "dynamic variables" to which I referred that not only add a poopload of extra admin to DZ ops but also increase the exposure to liability because, due to the aforementioned dynamic variables, most DZs will almost always be out of compliance a little or a lot and that means more ammo for lawyers preparing the battlespace for their scumbag clients. Yes. Always has been, but being able to effectively train for that has never taken hold. No matter how hard you try, 90% of AFF training and the A license proficiency card is about freefall and freefall manuvers. You really only need one manuver, get stable. Get stable at pull time, and whatever happened in freefall is a non-issue. It's in the past, and it's time to go parachuting. Please address the fundamental flaw in our training system that focuses from the first jump on the FUN SKILLS OF FREEFALL -- extended freefall at that -- instead of focusing the SURVIVAL SKILLS OF LEARNING TO OPERATE, NAVIGATE AND FLY THE PARACHUTE. A wing loading BSR is a bandaid on the severed artery that is our goofball training system which, unlike every other risk sport in the world, puts fun skill training ahead of survival skill training. "We hope?" Hope is not a training method. Everything you say in the above paragraph is just slopping a little Neosporin on the severed artery before you slap the bandaid on it. Or consider this analogy: Demanding and discussing a wingloading BSR without fixing our broken training system is like trying to clean up the Gulf oil spill without capping the blown well. Sisyphus might approve, but I can't think of anyone else... 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."

The additional bureaucratic burden it imposes on everyone -- AND the associated liability ramifications of BSR lapses related thereto. Many many winters ago, J. Scott Hamiton wrote an article in PARACHUTIST titled, as I recall, "Beware of Federales Bearng Gifts." In it he wrote about a new FAA program called "Aviation Safety Reporting" or something like that. The FAA invited all aviators -- especially those in fringe aviation activities such as parachuting -- to submit reports to the FAA whenever there was an incident where another aviator encroached upon their safety. It sounded great; let the FAA know about encroachments, corrective actions can be taken, and everyone will be safer. Win-win. J.Scott, however, being the high-speed lawyer that he was, pointed out that the FAA was essentially handing us a knife with which we would cut our own throats. As I recall, he said something to the effect that the very act of documenting such incidents, even if every single time a non-jump aviator was at fault/responsible/guilty, the FAA, as part of admin or policy actions to improve safety, could "point to a stack of our own reports" as evidence of in the incompatibility of parachuting with other aviation activities. So jumpers listened to J. Scott and the rest of the G.A. community listened to their lawyers, and that was the end of that. A wingloading BSR means we're making a knife with which to cut our own throats not one way but two: 1) Not counting all the BS you'd have to go through to design the system and beta test it, even if you end up with something marginally legit the administrative burden it would add to DZ operations would be enough to affect already-thin profit margins. 2) As J. Scott pointed out above, the more stuff you document, the more ammo you pile up for lawyers and regulators -- and because the probabililty of administrative error is so high due to all the dynamic variables, every DZ would routinely be out of compliance by a little or a lot. All of this, of course, makes it much easier for the lawyers because they can, as J. Scott outlined, use our own rules and records to create a more favorable battlespace for their scumsucking client... you know, kinda like when lawyers glom onto underage jumpers and the issues associated with them signing waiver of liability contracts. Kinda IRONIC, too, how some of the people squealing to reduce liability by banning all sub-age-of-majority customers are also among the loudest voices calling for a wing loading BSR that will increase liability. And reduce profits. And probably not accomplish its stated goal. Which brings me to the fundamental silliness of a wing loading BSR: 1) It is based on the invalid premise that jump numbers are an accurate means by which to correlate acceptable wing loading. 2) This premise is invalid because our own data shows that most of the people killing themselves by bad piloting have way too many jumps to be affected by said BSR. 3) Therefore, said BSR would be much ado and added liability about nothing. The only way to keep people from making so many pilot errors is to train them to be better pilots from the outset. Check that: ...train them to BE pilots. And the only way to do THAT is to quit training them to be "skydivers" until after they learn to be PILOTS. All of our fundamental training revolves around FREEFALL, not parachuting, and our problem is not freefall - it's parachute piloting. Freefall is something you can do more than once only because YOU ARE A PARACHUTIST. It seems to logically follow that you should learn to become a PARACHUTIST before you start skydiving, or base jumping, or doing crew or swooping or whatever -- and becoming a PARACHUTIST means LEARNING HOW TO OPERATE, NAVIGATE AND FLY THE PARACHUTE. THAT IS THE ROOT SKILL. And it is the basic SURVIVAL SKILL. Freefall, on the other hand, is a secondary activity and it is a FUN SKILL, not a survival skill, and it’s freefall-focused training that creates pilots who don’t know what they’re doing, don’t know what their parachutes are doing, don’t know what the air is doing -- whether they have 100 jumps or 10,000. So babble all you want about wing loading BSRs, but ain't nothing gonna change until you address the root problem. 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."

What i am insistent upon is that we actually look before we leap on this one. we don't usually jump before figuring out the wind, spot, obstacles and so forth because it is not a best practice to do it that way, so why does our industry insist on doing this "jump" with its eyes closed? A best practices study simply looks at what those in related industries are doing, thereby providing a database upon which we can draw in designing our own best practice. All I keep hearing from the "ageist" element on this thread is about how much they think they know from inside their little box instead of looking at the bigger picture and learning as much as possible about the issue before going out the door. 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."

good info, PZ. that's what I'm talking about. We need a lot more of course but this is how best practices studies work. 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."

Do you think you are accomplishing anything by continually repeating this same line over and over, and calling people "stubborn" because they disagree with you? If that's what you think I'm saying, then let me rephrase so it's more clear: I just don't get it: why does our "industry" so stubbornly refuse to do a basic "best practices" study of other risk sports and how they handle young participants when best practices studies are a proven method through which mature corporations and industries improve their operations, reduce their risk, and increase their profits? 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."

Robin - you seem to feel a real need to have this research done and you seem to be a forerunner of the "open access" debate. Why, then, don't you do the research into other sports' practices for involving minors and report the findings to the skydiving community rather than repetetively asking others to do the research? As nice as it would be, I think it's a candle-in-the-wind proposition. N I'd be happy to do the research. The moment PIA and/or USPA sends me a retainer, I'll get started immediately. 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."

Those precedents apply equally to multiple other risk sports that, contrary to your assertion, are also very risky and afford young people ample opportunity to kill or maim themselves or others. So I say again: I just don't get it: why do you so stubbornly refuse to do a basic "best practices" study of other risk sports and how they handle young participants? 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 just don't get it: why do you so stubbornly refuse to do a basic "best practices" study of other risk sports and how they handle young participants? 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 just don't get it: why do you peeps so stubbornly refuse to do a basic "best practices" study of other risk sports and how they handle young participants? It's a no-brainer. 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."

USPA Membership in 1980 was around 16500 USPA Membership in 1990 was around 20000 USPA Membership in 2000 was 34,217 We've doubled the membership numbers since 1980, that's a far cry from remaining the same... Well, that's why I said "As I recall..." Regardless, my point remains because, by your own count and USPA's, our numbers dropped during the last decade after 30 years of increases (USPA.org says the 2010 numbers are "more than 32,000") -- and the "greying" of our population remains a key demographic trend that is not being addressed. I just don't get it: why do you peeps so stubbornly refuse to do a basic "best practices" study of other risk sports and how they handle young participants? It's a no-brainer. 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."

the EXACT same legal standards apply to multiple other risk sports, so it doesn't even take any creative thinking to check out how they handle it -- just some Research 101 skills. You seem to have a very good research skillset so why don't you check out info on how these other sports DO IT instead of focusing on reasons why we CAN'T? 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 know because we DID allow 16 year olds to jump for a year or two and it made not difference. I think we got 2. there is a difference between allowing them to jump and seeking them out. that's my point here. Yes, there are not that many 16-year-olds jumping anywhere because the "industry" has this extreme prejudice about letting them jump. If parachuting marketed itself to younger people the way motorcross, skiing and other risk sports do, then you would see higher participation levels from this demographic. Sure, there is a cost-benefit balance in terms of the added legal exposure, but other sports have found ways around this, yet we as an "industry" do not investigate their best practices on this. And with the ongoing "greying" of our sport, we do in fact need to address this prejudice that is slowly strangling us. Think about it: As I recall, we had about 30,000 USPA members in 1980 when the US population was 226 million. Now it is 310 million and we still have 30K members, whose average age rises every year. This is a NO-BRAINER, TK; our "industry" needs to face these long-term trends and make some intelligent choices, chief among them being to reduce the low-timer injury rate (and therefore legal exposure) by discarding the backasswards training system that focuses on freefall (the fun part) at the expense of parachute flying (the survival part). Until we do that, guys like you will just keep adding bandaids like age limits to a bleeding artery and think you're actually accomplishing something. TK, you're a major player in this industry and a high-quality, high-performance player at that, but you REALLY need to empty your cup, climb out of your box and start thinking creatively instead of reactively. 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."

it is indeed based on reality, TK. Glad you agree.

Well if you use USPA's mission statement in literal form, then no, they should not be involved. But USPA, dropzones, instructors, aircraft operators, airports, government, manufacturers, packers, and everyone else in skydiving has some level of responsibility to protect the industry from harm. The harm comes when lawsuits gets filed. We have no insurance so we bear the brunt of the litigation ourselves. I am not saying it is 'justice' or even that it is 'right'. Lawsuits are not justice, they are a business transaction under legal guise that goes after the deepest pockets. The instructors have no worries, even they kill someone since they have no money. The dropzone seldom do as well, since almost all of them are 'shell' companies. So all too often they go after the manufacturers, who generally have no shell corporation and have large assets in buildings, revenues and infrastructure in order to be that 'big manufacturer' Our responsibility is to also try and protect them. No parachutes. No skydiving. If you want to bury your head in the sand and deny that this is a problem, then fine. But a mandatory age limit to ensure that people follow the age limits would be a responsible step to REDUCE the risk. And USPA is recognized as the 'teeth' in skydiving rules, not individual dropzones. If you leave it up to the dropzones, the manufacturers WILL impose their own rules, and especially in tandem, will begin to yank ratings for life. THAT is reality. Wing suit people lobbied USPA for some wingsuit rules and we owe it to them to set precedence and be a leader. And we did. Manufacturers are now asking us for the same, and for no other reason that supporting our industry as a whole - we need to do this. TK, wingsuit rules have nothing to do with age limits, and our collective responsibility to protect the sport from harm does in fact extend to discouraging counter-productive behavior. Which is what i'm trying to do here (as are others). It is parachuting's rule-intensive heritage as a spinoff of aviation that leads this sport to seek rule-intensive "solutions" to problems instead of thinking creatively, adaptably and common sensically about those problems. A current example: the continuing problem of people smashing or killing themselves under open parachutes. Do we do adapt and do the common sense creative thing and reject freefall-focused training in favor of that which focuses first on producing a generally competent pilot before we let them go to the top of Fun Mountain? Nope. We seek to impose minimum jump number rules on canopy type and size -- even though doing so flies in the face of all the evidence that it's lack of fundamental pilot training that kills jumpers, not their jump numbers related to wing loading. This is why the PIA initiative is so psychotic; they will kill parachuting more surely through this sort of silliness than through dissolution via lawsuit. You know, NO JUMPERS, NO PARACHUTE SALES. This whole thing reminds me of the National Park Service mentality regarding bear attacks in Yellowstone 20 years ago. The Craighead brothers proved conclusively that NPS was seriously trying to kill as many bears as possible because the way to get to zero bear maulings was to have... zero bears. Which looked fine on a bureaucrat's balance sheet, but sorta overlooked the primary function for which NPS exists - to preserve the wildlife. What PIA REALLY needs to do, in concert with USPA, is to try to get states to pass the sort of liability laws that exist in Colorado, Utah and similar states for the skiing and horse industries; THAT is how you "REDUCE the risk" withoutharming the sport -- excuse me, industry. This of course takes more time, thinking and creativity than just saying "no one can jump if they're under the age of majority." And of course, a path such as that would be rational and help to grow rather than shrink the sport. These manufacturers that support this age limit thing really truly don't get it - what they're doing is shrinking the potential customer pool in a way that has exponential consequences down the road. NO JUMPERS, NO PARACHUTE SALES. And really, if they're so worried about getting sued, then why don't they just sell their businesses to someone who still has cojones instead of trying to destroy the sport because they think it will save their now-risk-averse asses? We do indeed all have a level of responsibility to protect the industry from harm, and those who pursue ever sillier age restrictions by USPA are doing more harm than any negligent instructor or DZ operator will ever do. Plus, the whole thing is not only psychotic but utterly pointless: Please list for me the epidemic of underage-jumper lawsuits that prompted this psychotic proposal, then we can resume this discussion. Or not... 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."

Could explain these two comments a little fuller? JerryBaumchen if you wouldn't mind, Jerry, could we keep this thread on topic? expert witness testifying is a great topic for a new thread, but not relevant to this USPA BOD meeting thread. BTW anybody, what in fact did happen with the PIA proposal at the BOD meeting? Any further action other than what was described above? 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 am not sure why this is the case (particularly the bolded part). I have signed waivers for my kids to go canoeing and white water rafting. I have signed waivers for them to rock climb and horse back ride. Why would waivers hold up for those activities and not ours? Are there specific cases in which skydiving waivers have been held invalid because they were signed by a parent and not somebody 18? Hey man, I hope the formatting didn't confuse you into thinking that what you quoted above was something I said; that was part of TK's quote, not mine. Long answer short, though: TK is incorrect about waiver of liability contracts (WOLCs) "holding up in court" and thus not costing you "hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees." Often, you still have to spend the big bucks on legal fees -- but then the WOLC is upheld and what you avoid paying is the judgment. As I point out in a post above, WOLCs do not protect you from suits from adults or children, and it is indeed touchier when a minor is involved because of the issues about whether kids can sign a WOLC or their parents can sign for them. There are indeed many cases where riding, rafting, canoeing, or climbing businesses have been sued by kids and adults alike after they hurt themselves. It even happens in states such as Colorado and Utah, where there is literally state law that protects horse/skiing businesses from liability, so a little ol' stand-alone WOLC doesn't have a chance of pre-empting a lawsuit; it just helps you prevail once it's filed. That's in part why 15 years ago I advocated a WOLC-associated video that shows potential skydiving customers real carnage -- serious, bloody, dismembered carnage -- before they sign the WOLC so that, if that fool then decides to sue, the DZ lawyer can show that vid to plaintiff's counsel early in the process and say, "how do you think it'll play to the jury when they find out your client watched this carnage and then did it anyway?" You see, a whole bunch of drop zones and the USPA itself set up the climate for these kinds of lawsuits by telling everyone how "safe" skydiving is in order to get more customers. Me, I would tell them repeatedly that they are "entering the Reaper & Murphy Zone, where the Reaper always lurks and Murphy will arrange for you to meet him in 100 different ways than you imagine, so if you still want to do it, sign here, but don't forget, you may go outta here today at room temperature and never be able to tell anybody lies about your first and last skydive." Sure, it may dissuade the more faint-hearted among the potential customer base from jumping, but it also reduces the chance that the remaining ones will sue, and who knows? It may just bring out more customers looking to do something dangerous... heck, people all the time are standing in line at roller coasters making jokes about how the thing ran off the rails the week before, or reminding everyone of the the guy who died on that coaster the year before, etc. (Edited for typos) 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."

Yes, there are lots of reasons and ways that underqage (minor) waiver contracts are or can be thrown out, chiefly because neither the guardian nor the minor can sign a contract for a minor. A key element is what's called "reaffirming" the contract after the minor turns 18 (or whatever the age of majoriy is in a given state). At that time, the former minor can either "reaffirm" their signature on the waiver contract or "disavow" it. There is case law in Colorado where a minor broke her ankle jumping. she had a crafty lawyer who waited until she turned 18, then had her disavow the contract, and filed suit against the DZ. Fortunately for the DZ, the lawyer wasn't crafty enough; this jumper had jumped again after turning 18, so the state supreme court ruled that by getting into the airplane after she turned 18, she in fact reaffirmed her original waiver contract. Game set match to the DZ. If you can find a copy of SKYDIVING #329, there is a long article by me detailing the trials, tribulations and benefits of catering to younger jumpers. There is also this sidebar, which sheds a light on the issue in general, not just how it relates to parachuting. SKYDIVING #329 Copyright 2009 Skydiving Magazine SIDEBAR: A MISH-MASH OF LAWS Drop zone operators wanting to encourage kids and still protect themselves as much as possible from additional liability can take comfort from one key fact: You are not alone in the recreational universe. Skateboard parks get sued too. So do ski areas, rec centers, ice skating rinks and any other sporting or adventure activity you can imagine. No matter the sport, no matter the waiver of liability contracts (WOLCs) or even the indemnification agreements Cindy Gibson uses at her DZ, there is an apparently unlimited supply of idiots who will use any excuse to sic a lawyer on your ass if given half a chance. It can be a no-win situation too. When automated external defibrillators (AEDs) became available, many recreation centers and gyms chose not to get them because they feared being sued if a staff member or client used one incorrectly on a stricken individual. Then somebody had a heart attack at a gym without one – and the gym owners got sued for not having an AED onsite. But wait, it gets better. Not only do the contract rules for minors differ from state to state, the legal weight and even the basic validity of associated parental indemnification contracts vary too. Part of this is the interesting notion that parental WOLCs and indemnification contracts can be invalidated because they run counter to a given state’s public policy of “protecting individuals unable to care for themselves,” as the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in a case involving a 12-year-old injured at a skateboard park (Hojnowski v. Vans Skate Park [187 N.J. 323; 901 A.2d 381 (2006)]. But wait, it gets even better than that. After the public policy argument comes the commercial/non-commercial argument, as in: A WOLC protecting a public recreation facility can be upheld – but an identical WOLC protecting a privately owned recreational facility can be invalidated – because community and/or nonprofit organizations are bound by different public policy considerations than commercial enterprises. Then we come to arbitration contracts and arbitration clauses within WOLCs. This same New Jersey court upheld the arbitration portion of the skateboard park WOLC because it found that arbitration agreements don’t force a minor to forego any substantive rights. A Florida appellate court, on the other hand, in a case involving an 11-year-old killed by hyenas on an African safari, ruled that a parent cannot bind a child to an arbitration agreement because doing so was contrary to Florida’s public policy of protecting children’s rights and maintaining the state’s supreme guardianship position (parens patriae) (Shea v. Global Travel Marketing, Inc., 28 Fla. L. Weekly D2004, D2005 [Fla.4th DCA 2003]). Two years later, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the appellate decision, finding that “the arbitration provision in this commercial travel contract is not unconscionable, in violation of any statutory prohibition, or void as against public policy” (Shea v. Global Marketing, No. SC03-1704, July 2005). Getting the picture? Basically, common sense does not apply when it comes to tort law generally, and tort law involving minors specifically. No matter what you do, somebody can find a lawyer somewhere who can cite a court decision from who-knows-where that can tie you – and your dollars – up in court for years. It is certainly more complicated when minors are involved, but the same basic rules that govern a drop zone’s approach to adult WOLCs apply to kids too: Do your homework; and do everything as close to perfectly as you can – then cross your fingers and hope Murphy doesn’t come calling. –Robin Heid 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 of these sports enjoy something that we do not have - liability insurance. And it is reasonably cheap, even with all the litigation. If dropzones could get a liability policy for $10K/year, then it would not matter - claims are handed over to, and handled by that entity. But we do not. therefore ALL the costs of a lawsuit are born by our industry, dropzones, individuals and/or manufacturers and USPA< whomever. We owe it to the aircraft operators and the manufacturers, as well as our instructors and skydivers in general to attempt to protect ourselves from ourselves. Waivers hold up in court. no waiver means hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. THe majority of those lawsuits these days are being borne by the manufacturers. If we lose them, we have no gear. No gear - no skydiving eventually. I cannot even conceive how anyone in this sport does not want to be protected by a waiver. ANd waivers have to be signed by adults. 18 is the obvious choice, whether 3 states have problems with that or not - they would at least become the exceptions. (they already are anyway) BSR, 18 years of age, period. IF USPA does not act, the manufacturers already have stated that they will. TI's will begin to lose their ratings from them if they take minors on skydives. And I expect that the manufacturers of student gear may begin to enter into agreements with the 'users-of-their-equipment' with similar conditions. TK, I have no argument with anything you say -- except that USPA should be involved. I have categorically stated that the age decision should be solely the decision of the parachute center and/or the manufacturer of the equipment. Period. You make multiple good arguments for why YOUR business does not allow anyone younger than 18 to jump. Fine, great, fantastic, good for you, good on ya, mate. That is YOUR business. It is NOT USPA's business to tell you at what age you can let people jump. Still, even your own principal argument breaks down when you say that "most" of the the other sports I mentioned have liability insurance. Okay, what about the "few" who don't? How do they handle the legal risk? Methinks instead of further extending our own psychosis with even sillier age requirements, maybe we ought to see how those sports handle it and see if we could, you know, LEARN SOMETHING from other high-risk sports that do in fact accommodate young participants. 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."

Jump at 16? I never predicated anything I said on any specific age. I specifically said that we need to eliminate ALL age limits and let individual businesses decide how they want to handle it, be they manufacturers or parachuting centers. As Chuck Akers keeps repeating, USPA's very act of imposing an "official" age limit at all creates all kinds of associated additional legal risks and roadblocks to any manufacturer or parachute center that might want to deviate in any way, shape or form from this arbitrarily imposed "official" age limit that is based on nothing real. I mean, who the heck came up with 16 anyway - because that's when you can get a driver's license? Then why not 15 and 9 months for tandems, because in most states, you can get your driving PERMIT (conditional upon a licensed driver being with you) at that age? The whole thing is bogus on so many levels; that is why I say it's a psychotic proposal. As for your request for "statistics:" how about you look them up yourself, starting with the respective size of multiple other risk sports with no age limits compared to skydiving, which does have an age limit? 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."

Good on ya, mate... you just shot PIA and its moronic proposal right in the head. If no one is safe, regardless of age, regardless of waiver status, then why exactly go for this psychotic prohibition that will further stunt the growth of sport parachuting and eventually put PIA and its members out of business anyway? 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 The PIA proposal is psychotic. Not only does it FURTHER MIRE THEM in potential liability because they do not remain silent on age, it further limits their ability to sell their products because the longer they make young people wait to participate, the more of those young people will find some other sport in which to get involved. The PIA proposal is idiotic as well as psychotic. Think about what ages the FAA allows kids to get a pilot's license. Talk about manufacturer liability; what exactly is the manufacturer liability if a 17-year-old pilot crashes his plane into a school and kills a bunch of kids? These MORONS are shooting themselves in the head -- and the rest of the sport and industry too. I say again: the longer they make young people wait to participate, the more of those young people will find some other sport in which to get involved -- sports whose governing associations don't have psychotic entry age requirements. The PIA proposal really truly is psychotic too; they are doing exactly what will most quickly kill sport parachuting -- thus further restricting the number of younger people able to participate and thus bringing closer the day when they will go out of business by attrition. The psychotic nature of this proposal is not even debatable unless you're a complete loon yourself, or deliberately trying to ruin the sport. As for USPA taking action... not only did USPA get its ass kicked by interfering way outside its mandate with the Skyride fiasco, USPA is already way out on a limb by establishing an age limit in the first place... there has been a lot of chatter about what other associations do vis a vis online voting so USPA should follow what all those other orgs do and adopt online voting.... I propose that USPA do the same thing with its silly age limit; find out what all the other high-risk adventure sport associations do vis a vis age limits and adopt those. Think about how psychotic the whole age thing is: Car racing associations don't impose age limits, nor do motocross racing, snow skiing, skateboarding and a whole host of other sport associations where kids can kill or maim themselves or others. USPA essentially stands alone in demanding that the businesses which cater to its members only allow them to service customers that have reached a certain age. Now compare the size, scope, and vitality of those other sports compared to sport parachuting (even allowing for the difference in potential participants, etc) and you can see that forbidding kids from participating until they are legally adults is not just psychotic -- it's f------ nuts. 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."

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