DSE

if your source was widescreen, yes.

I thought I was done commenting... Keep in mind, this particular situation is brought about by military seeking training. As Phree explained above, the military is on their own program. USPA doesn't count, USPA rules don't matter, and apparently manufacturer requirements also don't matter. With the financial backing of the US Military, that's probably OK.

http://www.amazon.com/Vegas-Pro-9-Editing-Workshop/dp/0240813057/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286471557&sr=1-1 some very polarized reviews...decide for yourself. Folks either love it or hate it and not much in between.

I think a suit is a suit is a suit for purposes of instructional eligibility Where it can get weird is that a student with say...20 WS jumps has virtually no experience on a particular suit. At 20 jumps, theyve' probably just gotten their first suit with little practical experience. A well-rounded instructor has experience on multiple suits and brands of suits, IMO.

while I understand the intent of the discussion, I'm not sure it has any lasting value. There is a standard. Everyone knows this, ergo; a "standard." It was disregarded. Every person in this discussion knows it was not the right thing, regardless of whatever justification. It has occurred before and will happen again. Compounding the issue is that the guy that got rated at 80 jumps then says to himself, "I got trained at 80, and I think it's OK to train others at 150 jumps instead of working their experience level to 200." It's a ripple effect. It's the same situation as what brought this conversation into place. In my opinion, greed and ego brought about bad decision making just like it did when Dan Kulpa (and a couple of others) died. It's why the BSR was proposed. It's why manufacturers should be taken out of the training conversation. At the end of the day, talking about standards just doesn't matter because there will always be a "somebody" that doesn't believe they should adhere. It's unfortunate that in this case the "somebody" is a highly respected person in the sport. Remember when an RD took a 12 year old kid on a tandem? This really isn't any different. It cost that RD his seat on the BOD. "Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo"

Don't copy to clipboard; save as a JPEG. then in the Project Media, you'll find that jpeg (or refresh the Explorer) and you'll be good to drag it to the timeline.

Derek, we're on the same page. The advanced courses are there already, just not inside the USPA framework and certainly not requisite. The problem with tying to licenses is that you'll always have someone saying "I'm happy with just an A license so I can travel around." Any ideas on how to get this class of skydiver into advanced training?

Yes. put the cursor/CTI on the frame you want to grab. In the preview window, press the "Save" icon. this will give you the option to save it to clipboard or file. Choose Clipboard. now put the cursor/CTI where you want that still to occur and press CTRL+V (paste) voila!

There are several reasons the coach rating is required; liability and knowing that the PFC has received training to teach are two of them. The Coach program is a required step for all USPA training paths and that too, is part of the reasoning behind the requirement. PF is looking at instructional rating requirements in other countries.

If I read between the lines, you're saying Birdman/you waived the 100 wingsuit jump requirement for a BMI rating? Didn't you say at the USPA BOD/Phoenix meeting that "Birdman is the oldest and most integrous program" or something to that effect? Obviously, that's well within Birdman's purview to change up their own requirements but it is also fair question for people to ask, just as it's fair to ask about taking people for FFC's when they only have 50 skydives. FWIW, I've flown with two of the three given their ratings, and was impressed with the skill vs jump numbers.

There sincerely is no sneer, Robin. If you undertook the effort, then I applaud it. Effort is effort and takes dedication. But what you did 15 years ago isn't relevant to today. Were I to have been around for wingsuiting 12 years ago, the syllabus I'd have proposed back then would have been tremendously different than what I'd propose today. What you propose means taking steps back from a very good system that is in place, and isn't going to change. You want a manufactured zebra to not only no longer have stripes, but to be a cow instead. Yes, the system has flaws. Identifying those flaws and working to fix them inline is much more efficient than attempting to take everything offline. Advocating static line to replace AFF? Really?

It's already been done. both in a fun jump and in a specialty competition.

if it went via snail-mail...I'd wager many haven't seen it. If it's a print letter, it has to get around to someone's desk. Then it has to be seen on the desk, and takes additional time to open. there is no easy way to share it with others that might have input. Email is easy because it can be forwarded and the world is your desktop. Easier to read, respond to, and share with others. If you want a hard copy, it's but a button click away.

It's an absurd analogy and we both know it. Damn...that's GREAT that you wrote a syllabus and worked to implement it 15 years ago. AWESOME! 15 years ago I worked to bring the standard of DV to broadcast from the NAB level. We won, and DV became a standard. DV is dead. Now we're working on 2k. Times change. If the fight is worth fighting, you keep fighting and adapting. Bitching about it on an internet forum is just... bitching. Gather others to support your message. If it's just you, the one lone voice in the desert, you're not gonna get heard and worse, may not be representative of the collective community. Obviously we both feel changes need to be made. In this thread, I've made some suggestions. You feel they're worth a scoff or two from you, but you fail to provide a path. Insanity is trying the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Perhaps try to find a different way to achieve your goal?

Short summary is most sites are aimed at one-offs (like a documentary) or aimed at personal use. Very few are for shelf stock (reusable). There are licenses per use, bulk licenses, limited licences, and fee simple licenses. There are blends of all of the above as well. All of the above is separate from how Creative Commons works. The short summary is that there really isn't one.

I suppose I'm not articulating well. My opinion is that in addition to proper emphasis (not changes) being placed on the canopy portions of the A license requirements, an "advanced" canopy course is another option that has merit. Teaching "Your rear risers allow you do this" and "your toggles do that" doesn't bridge the disconnect between "what this does" vs "when you'll need this technique." We grill students in pre-A license training with contrived scenarios, but we don't offer endorsed/consistent mechanisms for post AFF training opportunities. Clearly, some people "get it" and access Flight 1, Brian Germain, or other canopy coaches to help them learn more techniques, advanced concepts for canopy handling in traffic, winds, or other challenging situations. These people are self-motivated, and that's terrific. Many people have no motivation to learn more. They just want to jump. Taking some of the Flight 1, Germain, or "other" syllabus and experience, tying it to a license, boogie stamp, or "other" should raise awareness, provide motivation for greater safety, and raise the overall skill level of the skydiving population in the USA. I've been to various boogies all over the US this summer and seen landing directions from all points of the compass. I've seen 3 canopy collisions that thankfully didn't end in a fatality. I've observed people overflying areas that are clearly dangerous due to winds, and watched one fatality because of same. A friend died due to being hit from behind just a few weeks ago. I cannot help but think that the increase in canopy collisions should be cause for pause and for the USPA to dig into the trend, identify means of reducing it, and education vs rules seem to be the intelligent path. The benefits range from better jumper awareness and skill down to lower insurance costs for DZs.

Maybe you've failed to notice that one is very simple mechanics while the other is a fairly complex process. If you have so much to say about it, Robin...why not come up with a course/program/syllabus and work to get it adopted?

nice to see you, Mike...looking better every time.

HUGE Congrats to JT and Chad, fun to fly w/you in Moab, great that you got your wings now.

As the article on the DZ.com homepage suggests, the PF course has been gone over by some of the best. The USPA SIM additions were put together by a team of people, with a particular nod to Skwrl, Callantine, Horton for their spectacular efforts. We'll see those soon. Chuck Blue, Scotty Burns, Joe Kaufman, Jay Stokes, Tom Noonan, Benedikt Klees, Tom Deacon, Jarno Cordia, Robi Pecnik, myself, Andreea Olea, Jack Guthrie and others to a lesser degree put forth effort to make this program solid, more up-to-date, and hopefully a program worth respecting vs the "You're a really cool dude, I think you can teach and you can prolly fly a wingsuit" academy of wingsuit instruction. We're growing as a discipline. We've seen several growing pains. I suspect we’ll see more. For me...the tipping point was seeing the self-created rating of "Wingsuit Instructor 00X” and then not briefing a student, not gear-checking the student, not sitting in the aircraft anywhere near the student, and then trying to divert responsibility when an incident occurs. Had any one of us that isn't a "superstar legend" been grossly negligent in a student fatality it would have been the end of our skydiving career. Calling oneself an "Instructor" without holding even a Coach rating is an insult to those like you who have gone through AFFI or TI training in addition to the USPA Coach course, attending the requisite IERC's, etc. This alone demonstrated a need (to me) that quality instruction building upon tenets that the USPA has recently put into place with the new Coach Course program, would be beneficial to the discipline’s growth. Jarno and I worked closely together to make a Wingsuit Coach course (written as part of my Examiner training with USPA) into a PF course once it was clear that the USPA wasn't going to accept the concept of advanced training. I'm not sure exactly the date the switch was flipped, but it's been something on which we've been working for about 18 months, not long after Dan Kulpa was killed in Sebastian on his 107th skydive. The emails from folks reading the front page article have mostly been supportive and laudatory. I realize some folks don't believe in training for wingsuits. In the early days I think this was fine, as suits were smaller and I believe the talent pool was more compact and overall more capable. Today, wingsuits have become mainstream in our small sport. With the videos of Loic and Robi skimming cliffs, a number of people are coming to the sport motivated by the goal of flying a wingsuit. They'll probably never fly a wingsuit against a mountain like Loic or Robi, but they can dream about it, and they deserve good training so their first jump is a positive experience. I believe good training will help build our flocks and sustain our discipline. Having a training program not motivated by sales puts the focus back on safety and fun, too. I can honestly say I've not had a single "scary/bad/holy sh**" student since this program has become part of the training. Current PFC’s have reported significant improvement with students as well. The kinesthetics and isometric exercises seem to make a big difference. One military student who had experienced alternative training one week prior to taking the PF FFC commented on how much easier, how much more intuitive the PF FFC course was for him. Regardless, some will probably feel their personal program is better (and perhaps it is) and others will benefit tremendously as coaches in any discipline after participating in this program. In the Examiner process, I grew tremendously because my instructor made us work hard for it, and the PF program directly resulted from that I/E process. It’ll continue to evolve and grow, of course, as every living thing should. From my perspective, taking the road of “This was invented 10 years ago and it works” is ignoring new methods, teaching aids, and the dyamics of how learning processes change. . Your example of a coach flying with a student is a good one. There is no way that a proper debrief can occur when there is no coach to “observe and report” as part of that first flight. Video helps, but that also means the coach has to fly close enough to capture decent/useful video. And though there aren’t a lot of situations where a coach can assist a flailing student, or intervene in freefall, there are for sure scenarios where the presence of a coach did make a major difference. Be it assisting with navigation, reminders to do practice pulls, or getting a student to relax. Hence the need to also make sure all coaches are capable wingsuit pilots. We gladly welcome any feedback from anyone who has taken the PFC course. If nothing else, c’mon out and taste the difference. You might learn somethin new. And you might have something to teach, too. Hope to see some of you in S’nore or at other PFC courses down the road. I know Chuck and Scotty are both planning dates, and I’ll be touring throughout the winter.

Birdman has a "rating by email" and "over a beer" program, too. Would you suggest Phoenix-Fly emulate those? Suits changed, times changed. Safety and a positive First Flight Experience are paramount.

http://www.vasstonline.com/ has an article http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_0Hh4vGJLM&p=72B5F2FAFFE4AC8A&playnext=1&index=2 has a video

A PFC course will be held at Skydive Elsinore on Friday, Oct 22, the day before the skills camp at S'nore. Qualified candidates: ~100 wingsuit skydives ~USPA Coach rating ~Logbook ~Three possible jumps to receive two Satisfactory Scores. The criteria for the jumps is found in the score sheet, attached to this post. Contact Skydive Elsinore manifest to register, PM me if you have questions. (951) 245 9939 There is a wingsuit skills camp being held the following two days. Airports to fly into: ONT SNA LAX SAN PSP Elsinore has a bunkhouse for $7.00 per night, it offers internet access, nice showers, kitchen.

haha what a lame DZ. I wonder why people even go there if the whole idea of FUN in jumping is being taken away.. The fossil who's running everything needs to go to the retirement house. The "fossil" that's running the place has done more jumps and good in skydiving in one day than you've done in your entire life. The problem is that there are out of town bad-azz mad skillz Ignas-types that can't do in real life what they can do with a video game online. One bad apple spoils the bunch.

I'm not sure what USPA should do. The point of my post was to suggest that perhaps large aircraft should be doing multiple passes. An interesting example is that Jan Meyer once told me that she downsized to a smaller canopy because with the larger one she used to have, she would have jumpers from a later aircraft passing her up and landing before her when she was jumping at a busy DZ like Perris Valley. We are creating very busy skies with all this activity. Perhaps it is time to pace ourselves and spread the jumpers out a bit. Given that multiple passes increase the cost of the jump to the DZO, that'll be a no-go proposition. When you have a DZO demanding that the aircraft turn 3-4 times in an hour, multiple passes are perhaps an effective solution but not a practical answer. Failing that...step backwards from the exit point and look more at separations, which falls into the world of education/awareness. And we're right back in the lap of USPA at least making an attempt to do something that goes beyond lip service. If we can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a dozen press releases, surely USPA can find a means of funding education, which is a great deal more effective. Then again...perhaps the first jumps generated by fatalities are statistically more powerful than the first jumps inspired by press releases.