Andy9o8

Removing group jumps from the equation, is the greater risk of bashing something, or risers catching the ears? Point well-taken about "riser ear", but for me I use it mainly against head-bash. I've had my share of hard landings, a couple on paved runways, parking lots, rough terrain, etc., where my helmet probably prevented a concussion. I think since the sport made the transition over to all square canopies even for students, the newer people in the sport, who never jumped a round & were weaned on the expectation of soft landings, greatly underestimate the risk of head injury on landing. Just curious if there's a space to use an audible in those models..?

Didnt seem that way to me. It looked like ordinary line twists until they came apart and it was revealed as a more serious mal. From that point it was only about 5 seconds till he cut away. I say good reaction time and good decision. I echo ChrisL, word for word. Mazevedo, I'm curious whether you have an RSL, since your reserve was open very fast.

Barbarian.

OK, fair enough. But what about the RSL? Tell them during the FJC, or wait until after their 1st jump?

There are lots of ways to bash your head in skydiving. That's why I wear one, pretty much always.

I wonder whether the fact that the main was still in the container, as well as your body dimensions (height, weight, girth, etc.) may or may not have affected your results. Just food for thought...

Among other things, a belly band provides an element of redundancy to your front - you might mis-route your chest strap (see my rant above), which could cause the whole works to snatch off your back at linestretch, but it's less likely you'll misroute both your chest strap and your belly band. Plus, a belly band snugs everything up against you tighter than not having one.

You got a problem with that? What? Seriously, your post's a pisser, and so true.....

Holy crap, talk about your non-sequiturs. He wasn't saying that at all....boy, was that ever a Speaker's Corner kind of reply....

I guess our definitions of device dependency differ. Apparently they do. To me, merely having an RSL on your rig is not, in and of itself, dependency on it. To me, dependency is what might make you hesitate after you chop, and delay pulling silver, because you expect the RSL to do it for you. That's a bad thing, but the solution to that is training, not removal of it from the rig. But if you have an RSL, but train yourself to ignore it when you have to chop and pull silver as if you don't have one, you're not "dependent" on it. We all hope we never brain fart and fight a spinner down to 500' before chopping, or do something foolish to induce spinning line twists at 500', or have a mal and for whatever reason have such a hard pull on our cutaway handle we can’t pop it until 500'. But if we do, an RSL may make the difference between whether we skydive The Farm, or buy it.

So would have properly performed emergency procedures. That’s like saying a person might as well just go in if he doesn't properly perform his EP’s, even if he has no good excuse for not doing so. Sorry, I don’t buy it. The 2 jumpers lost at WFFC were pretty experienced, and apparently just screwed up their EP's. It happens, and not just to newbies. They paid for it with their lives when RSL’s might (in fact probably would) have saved them. That's not device dependence, it's just keeping it in your back pocket as one last chance.

Didn't we all just have this discussion? Deja Vu

People, I’m cautioning you, we don’t want to see our sport start getting scrutinized and regulated by outsiders (any more than it already is), but the fact that this might (might) have caused a tandem student’s fatality makes it more likely to get the attention of the self-important busybodies in Whuffo World. Gear for the most part has evolved over the past 20 years to be safer, but current harness design might be an exception to that. Do you really think the standard pre-jump “waiver video” will cover a design defect allowing a tandem student to squirt out of the harness on canopy deployment? Well, I’ve got news for you: it won’t. We all have a responsibility to deal proactively with this issue, and that means both manufacturers and consumers. We can’t just wash our hands of the issue by saying it’s just a matter of economics, so that’s that. The auto companies tried that, and it didn’t fly; in fact, it cost them big time. They’ve been making cars increasingly safer, but sure as hell (for the most part) not on their own initiatives, but because outsiders forced them to do so. Believe me, it’s far better that we come to grips with this issue and deal with it before some whuffo with a title and an agenda steps in to do it for us.

USPA did some research a few years ago...the in-and-out-of-sport average is 7 years. rl Not surprising. Considering the average age of first jump students, 7 years later puts most of them right at the marriage/kids/career/mortgage threshold. Spending available funds on your skydiving hobby when you're single is one thing; it's a lot harder when your money is not just your money, it's "the family's money" (and your health is not just your health, it's "the family's earning potential")

This is being discussed in a thread in the S&T forum, too: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1907002#1907002

I'm eating lunch at my desk & just read this. Thanks so much for the image.

I've been thinking exactly the same thing these past few days reading these threads. Remember the military surplus rigs we jumped as students in the 70's - all rigged up that way. Then sport rigs started using "split saddles", which were all the fashion rage back then, and are now the universal standard. Maybe the next generation of harnesses needs to look a bit more like the previous one... Clearly, these "holes" need to be designed out. Maybe..(and I'm no rigger..) full saddles...belly bands and rear horizontals...maybe a vertical running from the middle of the full saddle up to the rear horizontal....something like that...just some off-the-top ideas...... ...Riggers please chime in.... Edit: BTW, while I’m on a roll here, I’ve never much liked the design of the current generation of chest straps, either. Used to be, you’d snap the two links closed, and it was done. You could still loosen it if you wanted, but you didn't have to undo it to come out of it. Now, the links are gone, and there’s this omnipresent “misrouted chest strap” issue. I wish that could be designed-out into something more user-friendly, too. ...OK, rant over.

>Have you ever eaten anything in freefall? ============================= I've eaten a few sneakers doing RW. Actually, one was a foot in a sandal. Ew. I ate my old chest-mounted altimeter a few times on deployment. Chipped a tooth once doing that. Eaten dirt on more landings than I can count. Oh, and I've funneled and eaten shit.

I also started 30 years ago (just had my 30th first-jump birthday). Reading your story about being a newbie in the late 70's, I swear you must have downloaded my memories while I slept and posted them on here. I mean, practically word for word...wow. (Except different state & DZ) Maybe I should stop wearing my tin foil helmet to bed....

It certainly is, if that's the DZ that trained you... ...and if it's not the DZ where you did your FJC, it's still their fault for not making sure a student (you) knows how to do a PLF.

Absolutely. It makes me cringe that this guy wasn't trained in PLF's. Since gear made the switch over to square-on-square, there seems to be a cultural imperative, which too many novices fall for, that says one "must" stand-up a landing or else it's something less than a perfect landing. That's BS, of course. Landing isn't a fashion statement; and "Feet and knees together!" is not an obsolete concept. A "failed" landing is one you don't walk away from.

I respectfully disagree with 50% of that. The sky will always be there. With a mountain-ful of responsibilities that come with being a bit older, the opportunity to get that degree may not always be.

That's great! Just remember, as you go thru your student progression, the key word for any student is PATIENCE as you learn to freefall with stability. You'll have some jumps where you're very stable, and others where you'll have trouble staying stable. DON'T GET FRUSTRATED with unstable jumps and start saying to yourself "I just can't ever learn to stay stable". Yes you can, just be patient & take the time to let it all sink in. There's no magic number to how many jumps it takes you to get off student status - what's right is what's right for YOU. Edit: P.S., I agree that watching the plane as you fall away is a good way for a new freefall student to learn to stay stable. It imparts a natural arch to your spine that counteracts the tendencey to de-arch, or drop a knee, etc. Talk to your instructor about this.

Sorry, Darkwing, but I call bullshit on this. You & I are both men, and let's face it, if you have babies at home (not unusual for one's mid-to-late 20's) it's a hell of a lot easier to not have to spend 100% of your time with your young children if you're the dad than if you're the mom. Kimblair, if you quit school now, and wait until your late 20's to go back, by the time you're ready to go back you might just have a ton of responsibilities that will make it FAR tougher to go to school than now. Or, maybe you'll get a job that starts sucking up 60+ hours a week of your time. It can be incredibly hard to finish your degree once you have children and/or a full-time career. You're young, single, and responsible for nobody other than yourself NOW - but that won't last forever. Education is the magic bullet, dear. More Education = more options Less education = well, you get the picture

Yes. You just developed a nifty idea for a marketable invention, and published it in the public domain before applying for a patent. Doh!!!