MarkM

I don't think experimenting with new programs these days is also all about cost to the DZO. There's also a big problem with transitioning tandems into skydivers and a 2 instructor AFF jump is much more expensive for the customer than a tandem or 1 instructor jump. That cost can turn potential skydivers away. If you want to talk about student safety and AFF, I'm sure you've had first jump AFF students go unresponsive under canopy and put themselves under risk. Maybe they turn at the wrong time, flare at the wrong time, or even go totally catatonic and do nothing. Having an instructor on hand, under canopy, do deal with that could prevent those situations. The AFP program I was referring to started you with a full AFF groundschool before your first training tandem and you did your tandem with an AFF instructor. But yeah, I can see your point where tandems without proper training don't help at all for AFF jumps.

The navigation one is the thing that worries me. If you flatspin into the ground that will most likely just affect the person. But if a newbie flies into a tandem you'll start to see restrictions placed on wingsuits. It's like with swooping. People biff in all the time and no one says much of anything. As soon as there are canopy collisions though then you start to see talks about restrictions on the type of hook turns allowed at some DZs. Even at ZHills which is the wingsuit mecca, get a couple noobs to buzz too close to Randy when he's working a tandem and I bet it wouldn't go over too well. I saw a 160 jump guy doing a wingsuit at Seb get a talking to because he got in the way of the tandems landing, which most normal skydivers never have to deal with.

It's really hard to take your criticism seriously without your profile information filled in. How many years in the sport do you have? How many jumps, etc etc? 1 instructor after a tandem progression has been done for years. Used to be called AFP at some places when I was checking our different programs in 2002 and I'm sure it was around before that.

No that's changed recently. From the SIM: I don't have a problem with that and you can learn more faster from someone who makes it their profession to teach. But I really think the sport has gotten a "if you're not paying for it, you're not really learning something of value" attitude over the years and it's just not true.

Why would the person have to go up and attempt it themselves? Once they're cleared for solos they can jump with D license holders for student group freefall training. And many DZs have groups of very skilled people around that do just that, take in newbies and help them progress.

I'm trying to figure out where you'd actually need a coach to complete the A license requirements. On the A license 2 page prof card there are some exit and freefall skills and I remember doing those with a coach myself(just covered her slot and packjob), but I don't see where you're required to jump with someone who has a coach rating to complete them. It seems like you just need an instructor to sign off on it.

Wait until you have a couple hundred jumps and have a wingsuit instructor evaluate you. Nope. It's not harder, it's different and has different dangers. You stop falling and start flying. Nope. I think so. You'll only know yourself once you try it.

Is there any way to check if you've already registered? There's so many boogies going on I can't remember which ones I've registered for and not.

When you're on the load get into the habit of seeing who else is doing what and learn how that creates canopy traffic over the DZ. Like if it's just you, some FFers and RW guys who are all opening under 4k, they're not going to be in your airspace. If you see 3 tandems on the load, then you'll know that 3 very large canopies will be in the DZ airspace and if you have to navigate there, you'll know what to expect. Generally canopies are stupid easy to spot and avoid. The main danger in flying near them is that it scares canopy pilots that've never flown a wingsuit before, which can create DZ drama.

Hmm... Have the exits be a few miles off the DZ, everyone flies straight in, no turns allowed. 1 group aims left of DZ, 1 group aims at DZ, other group is right of DZ. Do a lot of go arounds in the plane so only 3 groups are in the air at once.

Hmmm, I could see situations where I wouldn't. If there was no physical reason for her not to be carrying it or I didn't love the girl, she can carry her own damn purse. Or... I'll carry her purse when she's willing to sit on my wallet for an hour or two on a hard wood chair.

Isn't it great that colleges are gun free zones. (yes I know, speaker's corner material)

Hmmm, why don't you conduct a little research and find out for sure?

If nothing else comes up, I should be there too and would definitely be interested in working on flocking skills.

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My only problem with your argument is that I don't think wingsuits are just about flying the suits. You need to be very comfortable with packing, openings, etc since the suit complicates that. You need to be very heads up with traffic patterns. And since you're pretty much landing at the same time tandems and students are, you need to be a confident canopy pilot. I saw one low jump wingsuit student cut off a tandem on landing because he didn't understand how and where tandems land. I've also been on flights with inexperienced jumpers and hand to take lead because they were going into tandem airspace. Knowing and navigating the airspace can be tricky. Sometimes you won't have good visibility of the ground and may have to fly a pattern semi-blind. I just think there's a big diff in that type of knowledge between someone with 100 and 200 jumps.

Thought there was 1 or 2 incidents of chest mounted altimeters injuring people on a hard landing, but maybe I'm wrong. I use eyes and an audible for wingsuit jumping and my hand mount neptune and eyes for landing my canopy.

I've found the evolution of wingsuits themselves to be interesting along with this as well. First wingsuits are banned because they're death traps. Then comes along a wingsuit that's safe, because you can cut away the wings and go back to a normal skydive. Next you have bigger suits, and the cut aways are for under canopy use only. Now you have suits that don't have wing cutaways. I tend to think it's a combination of having strict requirements in the start when people were learning what works and didn't work and now we're riding on the back of that learning. It seems pretty common now to see people in wingsuits below 200 jumps and I've heard of a few starting below 100 jumps. Hopefully these people don't start pounding it in or striking tandems.

The problem isn't that you don't have a clue, everyone doesn't have a clue compared to the guy who has X times more jumps than them. It's that you're talking to a 6 jump guy who's basically still a student. There's a lot of learning yet to do between AFF graduation and 30+ jumps and since local instructors already know what the low jumper knows, doesn't know, has issues with, etc, they're the best people to get this kind of advice from.

The problem is someone with so few jumps won't always know what stupid shit is. Once you leave AFF you have the basics to save yourself, be safe in the plane, land, etc. But there's a lot of stuff you still don't know that can harm you and harm others. To the OP, there really aren't any rules for AFF grads in my area but you should still be talking with your instructor about trying new things. They should point out any dangers you might be creating for you and others and help you plan the jump so you don't create a safety problem.

Pretty much the same experience. Sent in an old Neptune and rather than fix it, they just gave me a new one.

If I put my leg straps down by my knees I can pull my rig off of me in 1 quick motion. There's a video around somewhere of someone else doing it. It's a custom built Mirage, but maybe they did the measurements wrong. Don't know. When I used to FF a bungee helped keep the straps near my ass, where they work best. Now that I only wingsuit it's sort of a moot point.

Any chance Scott, you, Chuck, etc are going to be putting together smaller training weekends? Maybe take some of the weaker birds and try to tighten up their skills so they perform better/safely in the big ways?

I thought Jeff was in the 2nd chopper. I'd really like to see the footage from that too.

I've been wearing Ortho-K lenses for about 6 years now. I never wore contacts before then, had been wearing glasses for about 5 years and have such a slight prescription it would've been crazy to go with Lasik. I use z-Wave lenses which is a specific type of ortho-k. They scan your eyes, CAD out the lenses and send out for them to be made. I paid 2k for my first doctor to do my eyes which included a few sets of lenses. That price is high for Ortho, but he was really good. My current doc is cheaper, I think he charges about 1300. The lenses themselves cost about 150 each and they last a good 3 years(or longer) if you take care of them. Since I never wore contacts before it was hell getting used to them. They're RGP contact lenses and larger than normal contact lenses. Very uncomfortable and even today I get some discomfort with them. But that could very well be me, I just might be bad with contact lenses. Taking them in and out is silly quick anymore. Under a minute to put them on and the same to take them off and clean them. I wear them while I sleep, only while I sleep, and I'll have good vision the entire next day. I can skip a night wearing them if I want, but by the end of the 2nd night my vision starts to get sloppy. Overall I've been happy with Ortho-k. I don't miss the glasses at all. If my vision got worse I'd probably go with Lasik, since dealing with lenses even just at night is still an annoyance. There's no real commitment with it, just some $$$ to try it out. If you don't like it you can just stop wearing the lenses and your vision will go back to normal. It's also perfectly safe, they're just RGP contact lenses which have been used for a long time. If you give it a try I'd recommend finding a couple doctors in your area and visit more than one. Some docs will be better than others. Ortho-k is sort of an art.