tdog

I say 100% tunnel time, with a coach. (Note, the coach can be a tunnel employee, but not the employee who is "spotting" the entire group. You need a guy who can sit down next to you after you are done with a 2 minute cycle and tell you what is wrong and what you are going to do next. 4 people sharing an hour can use 2 coaches successfully to save $$$) I have had coaching in the sky and tunnel from some real good coaches (Perris Performance Plus and Airspeed worked wonders with my skill set) - and unless you are doing a 4way week long camp (24 skydives and 3 hours of shared tunnel time), I say just do the tunnel time... I have coached 45 people in the tunnel, and about the same amount in the sky - and I understand why a world champion skydiver told me, "If it was not for the tunnel, I would have quit skydiving instruction. I was honestly burned out because the progress was so slow and expensive for students - and then the tunnel came to our DZ, and I have a whole new outlook."

With a 3.3 wingloading, I bet that thing has a great swoop... Does the system that pulls the control lines also pull the front risers for a 360 hook?

Make that two men's opinions, because I agree... Accept the same fee for all passengers - and only accept the passengers that are 1) Safe to jump with, 2) Appropriate for you to jump with...

I admit it. I am addicted. My summer consisted of 10-20 jumps a week(end), mostly work jumps as an AFF-I, but it was a fun and busy summer... Now - last weekend I only got in three jumps... Company retreat to the mountains and weather came in on Sunday... It is only Monday - and only 8 days since we set the Utah state record at the MOAB boogie, and 2 days since I jumped - but I am starting to get all the signs: Feeling of jumpiness or nervousness Feeling of shakiness Anxiety Irritability or easily excited Emotional volatility, rapid emotional changes Depression Fatigue Difficulty with thinking clearly Bad dreams Planning trips to boogies all winter long I am afraid this winter, even though it normally does not slow us down much, is going to be very hard.

airplane... when the weather is just right - not to hot, so perhaps sunset... Ya, that is it... Sunset. Now out of a balloon - this has to be very carefully planned so the balloon lifts off the second the sun comes up over the horizon. Nothing beats a balloon jump, and making it to work on time 50 miles away.

Here's the application. I have to admit.... Patents are great things when people come up with specific innovative ideas... But, I really don't like when people patent the idea of a magnet, possibly electromagnet, being used somewhere, somehow, in a skydiving rig... If you read this patent, they patent all the ways a magnet could be used, and have provisions for ways not even thought of yet... I like the fact they specifically patented the idea of stowing toggles with magnets, the same way my paraglider toggles were stowed 4.5 years before the patent issue date! I hope someone paying royalties for that fights the patent - as this is not a new innovative idea... I got it... I am going to patent the idea of using a toilet tissue somewhere, somehow, relating to skydiving. All you guys who like to throw out a roll and chase it down - you owe me royalties for your cool videos... And those BASE jumpers - you will have to find a new temporary wind indicator or pay me too. I am sorry to sound so sarcastic - but it seems that Atair patented something pretty "ordinary", as my grandfather had a backpack in 1945 that closed with a magnet that I played with in the 80s as a kid... Now, if they came up with some sort of complete system/design that was unique - like a specific way to make the flaps close - I would have a lot more respect.

I guess I would ask - not what could be better, as much as, what is broken? You don't see incident reports weekly on the forums about "student lost by instructor, has cypres fire" or "student hurt on exit, instructor to blame." The most common incidents that are student related seem to be (someone correct me if I am wrong) - landing incidents - poor (panic) decisions under canopy - and they tend to happen after AFF is over. Just my gut feeling - if we are going to "fix" anything in skydiving instruction - it is canopy related.... Sure, there are other "business" things we could fix in operations - a lot of DZs have their students wait, wait, wait, rush a dive, leave - promoting one time sells and no long term relationships... Or many DZs pay the TIs and AFFIs the same, yet one has to train students, pack their own gear, debrief - and the other does twice the jumps on back to backs without paying a penny for gear or packjobs, meeting their student in the plane and shaking hands goodbye in the landing area - meaning a TI can make over twice to three times the revenue of an AFFI (depending on gear costs)... With those numbers, why would a professional want to do AFF over TI (assuming they are doing the instruction to pay the bills and enjoy both equally). How about giving the AFF instructor $.50 from every jump that student does for the rest of their life at that DZ - and not paying the instructor a penny for the AFF jump over their slot... I bet AFF instructors would become the best salesmen and work their butt off to make sure students stick around past the revenue jumps - becoming long term mentors and load organizers - and perhaps would be there after the 7th or 10th jump when all of a sudden the canopy issues occur as the student downsizes and experiences their first "oh shit" moment. But - all business problems aside, before the "system" is knocked too hard, knock where it is broken (where students are failing/getting hurt). I think it is canopy control... So when everyone is saying the new system is too easy - how much of that is in the canopy control part of the instruction - and how much is in the freefall ability??? Just my two cents - or maybe three on this one.

Love em too. I have about 50 - but for me it's all about wingsuits now, looking at he moon reflecting off Silver wings with lightning in the background.. t Our wingsuit flock, a.k.a. Avian Flew, talked about outlining the whole wingsuit in glowtube and flying a formation over the city (our DZ has the city in the background) with a photographer above to get the shots... Never happened... Yet... And the other two flockers moved to Cali. So I guess I will have to go "there" to do it, huh?

Alan and I got our ratings from Bram... We could not recommend him more... I think we got 100% or near that on the evals, because he worked with us on the road there, stopped us and recommended things, told us clearly what he wanted out of us, and really was all around great to work with. There were no mind games... I asked him at the end, "How many people fail?" He said he has a 90% pass rate because he uses the practice jumps to qualify people and tell them to go practice if they are not ready - and from what he said, he tells a lot of people to practice more before going hot - less than 50% make it thru, I think he said, if you count all the people he tells to go away for more practice. I think qualifying in the practice jumps (knowing the candidate has the core skills needed) allows the evaluator to spend more time focused on sharing knowledge with the candidate instead of testing the candidate the rest of the week.

It's not fine and dandy - the ground prep skills is as more important than making the saves in the air. In my experience, great ground prep reduces the need for saves... - You and I are on the same page... When I said it was fine and dandy, I did say, "quiz their candidates" - meaning, make sure they know the stuff they are skipping, not just let the student skip it if they say they want to. Ya, I got my coach rating with Don as an evaluator. It was one of his final work trips... I agree he was a great evaluator.

The course is only as good as the Course Director and the people evaluating in the Course. In the last year I have witnessed two AFF courses... One was suburb. One was not... The one that was not... I evaluated some of the coach candidates from the same teacher. The candidates were getting automatic unsats left and right. I asked them, "do you understand this concept of XXX? On your evaluation sheet, it is an auto-unsat, and I just watched the three of you blow it... I let it slide with the first person thinking they could learn from their peers, the second I got worried, now on the third, I am wondering what is up? I can't pass you unless we get this nailed." They said, "no, we were never taught that. What does it mean?" So I taught them from the IRM, and had them do the eval again. This time they actually did a great job, both following the paperwork, and teaching... It is the people who implement the system that make the difference. The best system on paper will do nothing if the people implementing it let stuff slide and skip over the meat and potatoes of the course. I talked with the course director and explained the situation. He said, "they chose to skip a lot of the course and go straight into evals." The rule that lets candidates skip over the ground course and just go into evals is fine and dandy, but the instructors teaching need to quiz their candidates to see if they know what they should know... So, I still believe it is the people....

Perhaps it is that some evaluators are too easy.

No, because assuming there were more customers in the rotation, and there was someone who could do the "United 747 Heavy coming in for landing" better, they could trade with no financial repercussions if there is no extra money involved... But if this heavy guy was the only customer left for the day, or no one was willing to trade, then you have a valid point...

I would definitely limit your rotations to 2 minutes each with a few people between, and maybe 15 minutes total... I find my learning slowed down as my muscles got tired... Same thing happened when I was learning to belly fly. I was fighting it, so it was tiring. Now, with many hours of belly fly experience and team training, I can fly for 20 minutes straight on my belly and not fell tired at all, just winded like aerobics because we practice blocks and throw each other around the tunnel practicing the 4way piece partner moves.

Tunnel... You have to prove to your instructors that you can fly belly first, then back fly... Then walk the net. Then sit... Then advanced stuff like head down... As the tunnel speed increases, moves become more "dangerous" because of the energy in the system. Also, as the tunnel speed increases, the ability for the instructors to spot for you becomes more challenging because they are in the same wind and need better skills than you. Example. My friend JumpNaked69 on these forums, MAXed out the Colorado tunnel on his belly. He arched like crazy. The instructors told him that if he popped up and got unstable, to stay up there and they would bring him down with wind speed as they could not spot at the speeds very well. After a few minutes in the tunnel, the instructors were freeflying around him in very fast body positions. If they would have corked onto their belly to spot, they would have been so arched to stay down they could not put out their arms to catch him, or else they would pop up... And, they were not walking on the net either at those speeds, they immediately were flying as they entered around him. All this is to say, as you start to go to very fast flying body positions, the tunnel staff need to be real good to help you - and they are. Also - you will find that the tunnel is harder to do things in, because the net and glass don't lie to movement, and if you move 20 feet while transitioning from your sit to back in the sky - no problem, tunnel - ouch... The amount of time to progress is different. I am a slow learner it seams... I can just barely sit in the tunnel, even with an hour or two dedicated to it... Others pick it up quicker. But - even without being able to sit well in the tunnel, I was able to hold a sit in the sky (heading, fall rate, et al) the first time I tried it after the tunnel time, where before the tunnel I was very unstable... So it is a one-helps-the-other sort of thing. I would say, make sure you are getting great coaching from either the tunnel instructor, and off the clock tunnel instructor, or a coach... Coaching is the difference between money blowing by, and money blowing by with improvement.

So how would you teach the pull priorities... I/We use these priorities... But I tell the students in the classroom what it means... Then I ask them questions. "You are on your back spinning fast - and it is pull time. What do you do?" If someone in the class does NOT ask, "but how will the parachute open if you are on your back?" then they have not thought it thru and don't have the picture and I keep talking about it until they do. Do you think the pull priorities should be eliminated, and something similar that paints a better picture, like "Pull when you are supposed to regardless of body position, and if you don't, pull as soon as you realize you should." Anyway, back to your thoughts - how do you teach the concept of pulling on time?

Now I can see that if you use your own rig it could age the system, and it is harder work for the TI, thus money well earned... But I guess I have a fundamental problem with this... It encourages people to push their comfort zone for money. In a perfect world, everyone would say, "I will not take anyone that is over this size" and stick with it... But then a slow day comes, the rent bill is due, the brakes on the car need to be done, and this really big person walks in and wants to do a tandem... You are next on the rotation... Next thing you know, the, "I have done someone a few pounds lighter" kicks in the back of your mind, and you are now jumping with the big guy setting a new baseline to break when the next bigger person walks in... I am not saying you, or anyone else, suffers from poor will power or accusing anyone of anything... But, I could see money making a poor decision, especially when someone is new to instructing...

I honestly don't care if they edited the tandem instructor out or not... It was him in freefall, and the text/caption/script never said anything that indicated he was the one to pull for himself.... I think we should be happy that our sport is getting positive press and marketing from this. More skydivers means more DZs, cheaper prices, more planes, better rigs, volume discounts, etc... Step back a few feet and look at it from the standpoint of money, time, safety and message... Clearly, AFF would have taken too much time to get him to the point he could hold heading, pull on his own, and remember his lines. Having a tandem instructor also in the frame of the video would be distracting from the message... This whole discussion, to me, is funny....

I took a 1X2 piece of Masonite and put the photos between the Masonite and some Plexiglas - and used gaff tape around the edges to frame it. Durable and cheap... Enough so every two people in a class have one to draw on. I stole this design from Bram (www.skydiveratings.com) and cost me $20 for 4, including the Costco blowups of the photos I took. (Ok, $23 for that slot/high pull, but another person paid me for that since we needed photos for a production we did.) You can take this "clipboard like" photo and hold it out and have people draw on them. I like it better than the laminate. You have good points... And, I have done most of those things myself in teaching... I am more worried about the 25+ jump person who all of a sudden experiences their first "oh shit, there is a fence!" (yes they screwed up higher)... Ideas to get the brake/flat turn as the "flight or fight" response instead of a toggle whip dive. Or the "I am landing down wind, suck it up and PLF" instead of the carving turn into the ground... These moments of panic have hurt many (not many at home, but I see it in the incidents forum all the time.)

Awesome work... I learned of Hick's law a while back on this site... Because of that, when I teach malfunctions now - I take Hicks law under consideration... So, my question for you - since you mentioned canopy flight... Students get hurt these days under canopy by low panic turns. I have my theories, and I hate when others (instructors too) put so much pressure on "land into the wind" and "follow the first down".... The pressure should be on the SIM landing priorities, "Wings Level, Obstacle Free, Flare, PLF". I teach why landing into the wind is desirable, and why following the first down is desirable, but my students know they are not on the priority list once it is two low to turn into the wind. So, Aggie, how can we use Hick's law to train students to not panic turn. Or other teaching methods/laws? (For the record, I learned the way Brian Germain talks about... Pain... I turned my paraglider, long before I skydived, into a dive to avoid something soft. It hurt bad, no hospital, but a limp and bruises for a long time.)

Thanks GQ_Jumper for judging this weekend... Rookie Class Mayhem took 1st place with a score of 6.3 - with two fill in players who had never jumped with the team! And this was in stop drill mode, taking the 3rd highest meet score of all the rookie teams all season long nation wide. AA CLASS Air Force Shockwave took 1st place Air Force CAD took 2nd place Air Force BOS, Air Force 7XY and Mile High Levitation tied for 3rd. To break the tie, the CSL looked back to the previous meet - where Levitation took a clean 3rd. The CSL is calling Levitation the 3rd place team for the league. Note, Levitation's scores earlier in the season were a bit lower when they were a brand new team with no experience as a team and no coaching... Since all the teams trained hard all season long, our league opted to use the end of season regular meet to break the tie as opposed to season long scores - as that best reflects the current skill set of each team as they move to the Nationals and how they progressed in their season training. Scores and News:http://www.skyleague.com/pages/news/showArticles.php?story=533 I am sending video to the NSL of every jump - I will post when the video is ready to view. Thanks everyone!

I bet one team of 5 or 9 (4 or 8 way with video) takes less time to "trick" than two groups of 2 or 4 groups of 8.... I am always concerned when we have lots of solos, not lots of teams...

Spooky in the fact the canopy changes colors from yellow and purple to purple and yellow in the matter of a few hundred feet.

Hey - we just did a thing for RE/MAX.... An 8 way became a 40 way, and three canopies landing became 40 canopies landing (high performance turns on to final and all). The video is 9 minutes long - and I have to admit, even though I am in it, helped script it, and was the production coordinator, and worked with the Director, Producer and Norman Kent thru the process, I have a hard time telling who is fake and who is real... I even asked once the editor, "is that me, or a fake me?" If you think the Mayor shot is cool editing - you should see this RE/MAX thing. Want a 800 way... I know the guy who can do it for ya.

As someone else said... He did a tandem jump... Twice... He actually said the lines in freefall, and then they voiced over it to make the noise go away. Then there are shots of him under canopy, and the landing. No stunt doubles... However, they did remove the TI from the shots... (I don't think AFF was an option - do you want someone on their first few jumps remembering lines and pull priorities???) I guess there is something to be said about the fact that the TI was removed... But, it does take a heads up guy to remember his lines in freefall on his first skydives! BTW... The mayor is a pretty cool guy... I don't like everything he does, but he is better than our last mayor by a long shot, who had his followers change Denver law to allow a building to be named after him while he was still in office and plastered his name on everything he could, as if he paid for it personally.... Hickenlooper (the mayor) actually owns a bar downtown and that is where he got his money. Smart business man, and pretty darn honest from my dealings with him. (Yes, I actually communicated with his office).