tdog

That is what I have been teaching... But - I have been worried that if the person pulled like hell on the PC that it could be out enough still to cause problems... So, I have thought about clarifying - that if you made any progress with the PC or can't find the PC once you started pulling on it, then cutaway and pull reserve... Perhaps that is too much for a FJC, so I have been keeping it simple stupid and have been following your example for them...

You know... This forum has me thinking. I went into a Boston Cafe and ordered something once. The lady behind the counter said, "You are not from around here, are you?" I asked, why? She said, "Look at your shoes... I mean, come on." I was wearing my favorite pair of Merrell boots, something like: http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?storeId=8000&catalogId=40000008000&productId=47871537&parent_category_rn=0 I guess in Boston, they don't have mountains to climb, not that I climb mountains at home... So all this Vans hubub... I just don't see anyone wearing them at home... Except for RJMoney - who moved back to California, where he probably belongs... He wears these funky white and black checked vans http://shop.vans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?section=shoes&catalogId=40000000002&storeId=2&productId=203591&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=6903&gender=99&mainPageCat=mens&mainNavCat=1&mainNavSubCat=1&mainNavDept=1111&shopperGroup=null with a torn out toe. We were on the Otter and he was putting on his wingsuit (prodigy) when he realized he needed shoe laces.... He looks at me with a deceitful smile, then eyes my Merrells and looks back at me with an evil grin. Next thing I know I am flying with these size 13 shoes, with a big hole putting cold Colorado air into my big toe, that would blend in with the black and white checkered floor of a (dirty) 50's diner - and he lands wearing mine. I looked over at him under canopy - and my shoes looked like crap on him, as did his on me... So, I guess, the point is - the shoes not only make the person, but are unique to the person too. Note - I do have some other Skaters type shoes, but I never jump with them... Maybe I should?

That is funny....

Don't panic. My Pilot, brand new, fit in a container I wanted to downsize in... And I packed it as a novice.

I have seen a lot of Tandem videos... That was awesome! Just one question... If you planned on having the TI do handi-cam, why did you jump with them???

ALMOST??? I think MORE is the word. When I first got my Pilot - brand new - I opened it up. I looked at it. I loved it, it was my new canopy... Then I put it back in the cardboard box it came in. It hated going in there like a dog going into a kennel. I kept pushing. I folded the lids shut on the box. I went to bed. The next morning I found the canopy exploded out of the box and covered my entire coffee table with about 3/4 of the fabric out of the box. There are two solutions to a brand new pilot. 1) Jump at Eloy - something about the sand. ;-) 2) Don't jump at Eloy, and learn how to pack - and once you have 50 new pilot packjobs under your belt - you become the "goto" guy at the DZ for every person trying to get their new ZP into the bag... Seriously - l am glad I learned on new pilot because I now can pack anything. Oh, and the fabric after 500 jumps still is going great, but easy to pack - I am happy with the product. Travis

I hope those flames work out for you. Do you like the smooth soles to slide your feet on the swoop, or is it for the lack of bumps to catch a line on the parachute - or both? If both, do you really feel a risk wearing knobby soles on shoes for malfunctions?

Is it just me - or do other people feel the TM, AFFI, Pilot, Packers, Riggers, jumping with/working for a student - OWE to the student - to be sober and clean while they are working with the student... The student trusts you with their life. I think they all should be subject to the same drug/medical concerns as a pilot of a commercial airliner. When you are an instructor, you take on a lot of responsibility.

I come from a DZ that now requires 8 coach jumps at $89 each from their approved staff for a student to get an "A", so I guess the answer is $720. Even at DZs that use the USPA proficiency card and allow any coach to do coach jumps, a few coach jumps are required - and these things can be accomplished during those jumps. The question is "how accurate"? I personally would rather see a student landing somewhere near the center of the landing area, using a good pattern, concentrating on the landing priorities from the SIM of "Wings level, obstacle free, flare, PLF", than do crazy S turns or whatever trying to hit a target. As they work towards their B - then they can dial it in... (Note, I am not advocating no accuracy, but you can tell when a student knows how to land in the landing area vs landing where the canopy takes them.)

How about teach the students to open their ears, but not to believe everything they hear without doing their own fact finding. "My instructor said it, so it is always right" and "The guy who said it is not an instructor, so it can't be right" are both dangerous thought processes... And, do you suggest that this rule be enforced on DZ.com, because the moderators will have a lot of work to do if so.

I have not jumped a stiletto, but I have flown next to one with my Pilot and talked to a lot of people who have flown them. I have flown the Katana in a pretty similar WL to the various Pilots/Lotus/Spectre/Sabre2s I have jumped - and have 500 jumps on a Pilot last year... The Pilot is often "dissed" as a "novice canopy"... Two people in the last few months have said to me, "But you jump a Pilot" trying to prove I was jumping something more docile than their Sabre2... I think the Pilot is quite responsive - so much so, that my first Katana jump I pulled a toggle in the control check and thought, "Well, this feels like a Pilot." It was not until I pulled risers or tried harness turns that I really felt the difference... So, be careful to those who believe the pilot is less aggressive than, say a Sabre2... And I have seen a guy do an incredible swoop on a Pilot loaded nearly 2 to 1 (over the recomendations for sure.) Someone who actually has flown the Stiletto can tell me, but my friends say that it turns sharper with less toggle input - and has less range in the toggles - so the toggles feel very responsive - while the canopy recovers from a dive quickly... Again - just what I was told and saw, not personal experience - so take it for what it is worth. Here are a few PD documents that tell some of the details of their characteristics. The Katana one has a lot of "Stiletto VS Katana VS Sabre" comparisons: http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/stiletto.pdf http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/Sabre2-Flight.pdf http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/KatanaFlightCharacteristics.PDF

Please, I had an AFF1 that flew in the mantis. Ya... I had a student this weekend. AFF Level 1... [ME] "So, have you had any prior skydiving experience?" [STUDENT] "Two tandems." [ME] "Ok, so no tunnel time..." [STUDENT] "Oh, well, I did one of those three day Airspeed tunnel camps with Eliana as my coach." [ME], "Ok then... Would you mind flying mantis on this level 1, I think it would make a nice video." He actually did fly manits... Feet were a little too far in, but I am sure he was just missing the visual clues to know he was backsliding (we held on, it was his first time touching a rig and pulling for himself, and the tunnel camp was a few months back, so we were better safe than sorry and did a traditional level 1...)

How did he do in the tunnel? I have seen some of the people I have coached walk away with 15 minutes of tunnel time with a lot of workons with me giving "arch, chin up, look at me, straighten your torso" hand signals - and others whipping 180 and 360 CP turns in a pretty aggressive (mantis) body position while cross referencing me and able to control their own fall rate without handsignals and with large range of motion abilities... Sounds like you had a real tough student (one of those who struggles a lot if AFF regardless of what happens - then becomes a world champion once it clicks)... I am wondering how they were doing in the tunnel after their 15 minutes? Would you not agree that this one student you are talking about is more of the rare exception instead of the rule - when dealing with students with tunnel time? Or are you having different results than what I have experienced this summer with a tunnel down the road????

Well - maybe "relax" is a hard word to use - however "experience" and "confidence" are good words to use, and in my limited experience this summer with coaching AFF students in the tunnel then jumping with them in the sky... I am much more relaxed when I know the student has tunnel time, because I know they will have the experience and confidence to fix problems on their own.

I hate lawyers like this... Naming the pilot who died, hoping to get money from his estate while his family has to survive without him. Scumbag... This reminds me of a friend who worked for a portapotty company - who delivered a portapotty to a construction site, and was sued because the guys who pissed in his potty also put a crappy roof on a house. His insurance settled for $10,000 because it was cheaper than going to court to prove there was no link between the urine and roof... He said he would have paid double if he could have dumped a truck worth of crap on the home-owner's yard.... I for one would pay into a defense fund some cash for the skydiving families involved who now have to hire lawyers too... Of course I will cancel that offer if the DZO is found negligent of maintenance, so lets see what the investigation finds out and help our skydiving brothers.... OK USPA, whatcha going to do for your group members now????

Can you elaborate on the general body type of the individual? Muscular and athletic vs overweight... I am one of the larger/taller guys at the DZ - and hence I have been getting some of the larger students... When their biceps are bigger than my leg, I know "helping them" do anything is going to be impossible if they choose to have a tug of war contest with me on the practice pulls, etc... Even then, I think 235 - 6 foot 5 inches, was my max student thus far - but the very short plump 180 pound girl was the fastest... What did you learn?

I live here.

See - our state is going to be nuked better than the rest - nanny nanny boo boo... Weird sense of pride we get, huh... Although - since NORAD provides the radar to protect the pentagon - if indeed the Soviets thought they "could get one thru by surprise" - I would have thought it would go NORAD first - everyone else 2nd...

My 11th Grade hippy World History teacher, who taught at my high school for 35 years, including the cold war era, had a sobering map on the wall of his classroom. It had a red dot for Cheyenne Mountain "down in Colorado Springs" - a red dot for two other high profile military targets in Colorado - and if you connected the dots, the exact center was my High School. His point. If the "bad guys" were to drop three nukes in Colorado - kiss our ass good bye.... Or, as he put it - if the bad guy just wanted to use one nuke to take care of all three, they would make the High School ground zero... It definitely provided motivation to make us think about modern world history.... Now I see Cheyenne Mountain is closing down and going on to standby.... I guess the threat has changed now that the cold war is over.... http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=b537089d-0abe-421a-01de-5deae3e369de&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

Cool... Sparky - we could argue all night long - Ford vs. Chevy... But I want to clear up something I said that you were able to "spin" another direction because I was vague... He was caught off guard in the way that the canopy did not "communicate back to him" or "fly like the canopies he is used to" or "react in a predictable way." In his case, he did not have much time to play, by the time he was open under the reserve (spinning main that ate up some time) he was low and landing out... So he did not have time to "get to know the canopy well." The landing sucked for him, because the flare did not react like anything he was used to. He FedEXed in a new reserve of a different make after the landing for the repack because he felt the "other" canopy too "unforgiving" to land. I think even good canopy pilots can have bad landings if the reserve does not behave like you expect it to. And the "other incident" was not a P/C in tow. Since you rarely get to jump a reserve (unless you do some intentional reserve as main jumps) - the way you gain knowledge about these things is by watching others land their reserves, asking others who have landed theirs what they thought, and by having riggers show you why they believe in one product over another... So, while I agree in your comment 100% - "develop your own knowledge" - I think I have, and what I have developed is an appreciation for two reserve models that people say are dreams to fly and have commented that they trust (either as riggers who have inspected, or pilots who have landed). But you make very good points, and perhaps if I jumped with you and had more good experiences with "other" model reserves, I would have trust in them too...

Yes. I watched my friend land a 1.3 loaded "other brand" reserve and it threw him down in a stall - something that hurt his tailbone pretty bad. He is a good canopy pilot with over a thousand jumps and was caught off guard. The other reserve incident - I never met the person first hand because he is paralyzed due to the incident and does not jump anymore, but I know of people who knew him and were there and gave me 1st hand accounts... He had a jump go really, really bad - with an AAD fire at terminal - and, if I remember correctly, he did not pull because he was knocked out. The canopy split in two and the landing resulted in paralysis... Now - I know that nothing is perfect in skydiving, but I am just sticking with stuff I have seen work and I trust. Now I respect your opinion and I am sure you have had good luck with other reserves...

I really respect the TMs that give their student an alti on their first jump and teach them how to pull and when to pull. I know one TM at our DZ that basically treats every tandem jump as a learning jump - like an AFF level 1. I watch the students who interact with both the TMs that take them for a ride and do all the work, and the ones who are given responsibility - and I think the ones who are given responsibility on the jump have more respect for our sport when they land.

A good DZ will give you a safety briefing when you show up. It might be as simple as looking at a photo, "We land this way always in this landing area, that way in that landing area, never land here (cactus/unfriendly neighbor) unless it is an emergency and you can't make it back. Board the plane here, and get your tickets there." Or it might be much more intense, including an instructor walking around the entire DZ - and you having to get your gear inspected from the rigging loft. I think you should not have a problem if you are honest to the manifest office. "I am a new jumper to this DZ, I have only X jumps but am cleared for self supervision, can you give me all the details. I have never jumped from an XXX plane before, anything I need to know?"

[how i learned] We had a packing class. $5 to the packer/rigger to pay for the repack afterwords. 5 of us. He stood in front of us as we packed a student canopy - walking down the line step by step - explaining how, why, etc... We packed it once. About 2 hours total. We were definitely not qualified to do our next packjob solo - but had enough skills to work with a mentor and not ask too many questions.... [/how I learned] I know when I teach the FJC, the students know every major part of the canopy by name and how it comes out of the bag, etc. They know what a slider is, why it is there, etc... I think the packing class should pick up there and talk about why you do a few things - but mainly, "this is how you do it." Packing can be very overwhelming to someone who never has done it before... "Lines towards the center" is easy to teach. All the reasons why might get too long... So maybe, "to prevent line overs, we like to flake the canopy so all the lines are in the center and fabric to the outside." Information overload if to much taught??? For an example, I stow my brakes a certain way so the slider does not rub the brake line every time... But, should this be taught, or left for the inquiring mind to want to know as they progress thru the basics?

I had an argument with a few guys recently face to face when they suggested that the tandem student would never know the difference between 6K and 12K... (Not my home DZ) I asked, "what about the video, won't it look real short." They said, "Slow mo the exit, replay some of the stuff, it will LOOK long." I am all about getting what you pay for - and what is advertised. If someone is told they will be getting a tandem hop-n-pop, fine. If advertised and paid for X and given Y - that is deceptive marketing, and it pisses me off in ANY industry - and I never will be part of it.