DSE

At many, although not all DZ' that operate under the FMD principle, landing away from the main area is an option. Sure, it may be a longer walk back to the hangar but a longer walk beats an ambulance ride if winds, confidence, experience, or combination are a concern.

FWIW: I'm not going to have time to enter... my issue with issue/consern with the no compositing is that things like focus stacking/HDR are viable tools in the digital world to create pictures... Focus stacking for example is not just an image editing technique it's a creative tool that is comonly employed in macrophotography... I guess I just don't understand the need for imposing the limitation of no compositing... Because the contest is related to photography, not image editing. The idea is to encourage people to think about their PHOTOGRAPHY skills, picture composition, angles, exposure, y'know...all that stuff that relates to photography, not image editing. Maybe one day we'll run a contest that only photoshop editors can enter. If you don't have the time to enter, you probably don't need to worry about the rules of this particular contest. Problem solved.

mixing two images together is compositing. Basically anything that involves layers is compositing. Color correction/Cropping doesn't involve layers. The point of the exercise is to take great pix, not show off image editing skills.

An exception to FMD: if the DZ is divided into a high performance area and the FMD is landing in the HP area, then they may be intentionally landing downwind. In that case, FMD doesn't apply; FMD in the "regular" landing area determines direction. Two canopies flying towards each other at landing can be very scary.

One more time, more slowly this go 'round. I'm agreeing with you, Ed. I have three rigs. Two have a 9' bridle. One has a 6' bridle. I prefer the 9' bridle for wingsuiting. Occasionally I use the container with the 6' bridle. I'm not thrilled about it, so can't say "won't do it again, ever. I also borrow rigs from time to time when I travel. More n' likely, they have 6' bridles in them. But i'll still jump the rig, cuz that's what's available. There is nothing "dangerous" about a 6' bridle. And if it's a small wingsuit, there is nothing "wrong" with a 6' bridle. Certainly not enough to keep the average skydiver out of the air. If it's a big wingsuit, one needs to merely know how to deal with a short bridle and hesitations. But I'm not a fan of short bridles either. Hence the reason for the lil' video clip. Hopefully that helps clear up any question you had about what I was suggesting, Ed.

No one suggested as much, so if that's what you got out of it, maybe your reading glasses are dirty. Requirements for instructors across the board need a standard that prospective and recurrency allows for dropzones that fly multiple planes and dropzones that offer only a 182. Bottom line.... If you're instructing at Podunk Skydive in Tama, Iowa, you can't get enough jumps with AFF students to stay current if the requirements demand high numbers that only big DZ's can sustain. At least that's some of the thinking behind "Time in sport" requirements. The rest of it, we've been round and round. The hell of it is, I'm hearing the same BS in the production industry. "These kids are gonna kill somebody someday, they don't know how to rig tracks like we learned. We learned before lunchboxes and 10K's and blah blah blah." The old-timers in any industry bitch about the newbs not knowing as much. Funny thing, fatality rate in the production world has almost dwindled to zip, not terribly unlike skydiving. Maybe the sky isn't falling after all.

How can someone miss their legstraps being on? How can someone miss their cheststrap and exit? And...maybe (and in this video, entirely likely) it is done intentionally as a spoof. There are some great shots of Curtis from Arsenal flying backwards, and it was an intentional setup. Maybe they didn't do a continuity check, maybe they are dyslexic, maybe a lot of things

Watch the video again closely. I suspect it's a ruse. The "bad" skydiver actually is pretty good in that he's not flailing his body, just using small moves to get a lot of spin/twist/flip. There are a few stories of people landing their canopies backwards, but that particular landing looks like a "hold my beer and watch this" without a flare. If it was an unintentional connection to the harness, I'd wager most would cut it away.

I don't know about the "won't do it again, ever," but it can have its downside. http://vimeo.com/9133819 One of my rigs has a 6' bridle and a 30" Cazer PC with less than 100 jumps on it. I jump it when I've got nothing else packed or when I'm letting a student jump my Voodoo. If you know it's a likely experience, you just compensate for it. But it still is a less-than-optimal experience, I agree.

Simply because one is associated with ASC doesn't make one a villian and scumbag. I don't at all like what they do, but if the I/E was someone I recognized as "capable, trustworthy, knowledgeable" then I'd not care if they worked for ASC outside of their I/E work. IMO, most of the I/E's out there are pretty fine people. There are only a couple out there I'd not recommend.

Changing things up inside the USPA is a bitch. Changing them at the international level is significantly more difficult. Playing around is what I do for a living. The hard part (for which I am paid) is organizing the results of the playing around. We need to play around with all the various methods, and should have been playing around with them this whole time. No one knew it was a race until the race was over. Fooled once, shame on you and all that. Einstein found his relativity theory by thinking of what light would do if beaming through a moving elevator in space at the speed of light. He wasn't thinking of relativity, he was playing "what-if?"? We need much more "what iffing" if we're going to find the answer to what will work, and being forced into a box so early on precludes and ignores the myriad (and so far, better) options that are available to us. "The Grid" was a stepping stone, one that we're already to move past, but by it's acceptance as a USPA standard and the political structure behind it, everyone and every sub-discipline of wingsuiting is hamstrung. We want to fly tight and want to develop other aspects, but the threat of being discluded from this or that event, or the threat of being stuck with an unimaginative system makes it difficult to have a rational discussion about any of it. And as a result of that, it's no wonder the USPA and the rest of the skydiving world view wingsuiters on the whole, as being immature brats. Between the wholesale lies, half-truths, and truth...it's kinda hard to see through the blur. So, you ask what is "wrong?" Nothing, if we're all able to recognize we need growth and advancement. Everything, if you believe we should be adhering to a standard that wasn't supposed to be anything but recognition in the first place, and not challenging enough for "records" in the second. I think everyone wants the discipline to grow.

And if you use the right software, you can be editing/rendering/burning while another video is editing/rendering/burning. You no longer need one station per video.

Looking over one shoulder or the other will generally clear a hesitation. A PCIT is a different animal. http://www.vimeo.com/9133819 is a hesitation that clears as soon as the angle of the burble changes.

Remember your training and FJC. What's a PC in tow? A high-speed malfunction. How do you manage a high-speed mal? Don't make me sic the dragon on you....

There will always be "weak" anything, IMO. Either they get the rating to make money, they get the rating for ego, they get the rating for god-knows-why, but they're not really in the same mindset as people like yourself. Moreover, you'll never understand it any more than I will. I don't understand people that don't take their role as instructors seriously, yet we've all come across several that are like that. Here's the problem...There HAS to be a standard, and that standard MUST be objective. That was the problem with the "old" system was that it was very subjective. Here's an example; We'll call my hypothetical guy "Phil." Phil has 2000 jumps and is terribly serious about instruction. He's a terrific flyer, but he pisses off a course director during an off-DZ dinner. CD doesn't pass Phil, but a young chickie who has huge assets, 400 skydives does get the rating. Phil challenges the course again from a different CD 6 months later. Same CD also doesn't pass him. Phil's DZO sends a letter to USPA saying "WTF." Phil takes course again, and passes from same CD that wouldn't pass him in the first place. Meanwhile, chickie has taken students up and has femured one of them during radio'd landing, and flies another one downwind (resulting in no injury). Chickie is now out of sport, Phil is still in sport with 5k skydives and is one of the most respected instructors I know. Slightly off-track, but the point is, character can't be part of the "evaluative" process, because character is subjective. That's why the system *had* to be changed. It allowed for subjectivity. Now, it's pretty cut/dried as to how you do in the course. We all know instructors in every discipline of life that suck, we all know of the instructors that don't observe the 8 hour "bottle to toggle" rules, and we know instructors that burn one down during the day. How do you weed those guys out during the evaluative process? I submit you can't. Because it's subjective. Rather, hope that those instructors don't kill anyone in the process, hope they wash out or are known for their weak skills and the DZO's wash them out, whatever. Or hope that the S&TA or RD will undertake disciplinary action (riiiiigggghhhhtttt). But the process has to remain objective. Unfortunately, that can mean that less-than-idyllic skydivers will be successful when challenging the course. I can't at all accept your comparison to fighter pilots. We don't have millions of dollars at our disposal to teach people to do AFF. Moreover, we don't need it. Yeah, we all want better instructors, we all want to see the courses find a means of weeding out certain types, but at the same time, skydiving doesn't require a Master's Degree (flying a fighter jet requires the equivalent). If you've lost the "warm fuzzy feeling," then I'd honestly suggest you look back at yourself, and how good YOU feel you're doing, because I happen to know you're a very fine instructor who cares a lot for how you teach, and how your students do after they've come off the program. Of course you want to make it better across the board, but (IMO) you should still have that warm, fuzzy feeling because of your own efforts and the successes you see your students enjoying. It's pretty hard to see the world as it is, but it's pretty easy to see the world as you are in it. Smile Rich, you're one of the good guys. The sky ain't falling, it's just not quite as blue as you remember it once being.

John, I did like the Pilot (one of the newer ones) when I demo'd it. I didn't like the Safire at all. Snivel forever before it inflated. Justin and Scotty *almost* had me swayed to a Pilot.

I'm not at all suggesting the standards be lowered for the 182 DZ vs a multi-aircraft DZ. I'm suggesting that the opportunities are fewer, and that does need to be factored in. The risks are identical at both DZ's. We've gone in circles over whether the "old program is better/worse" (I'm convinced it was as much about who greased whose palms and who gave the best BJ as it was actual skills), and whether the "new program" is worth a damn. No point in revisiting that one. Then we've got the I/E that issued a "conditional rating" and even defended it. More silliness. We have RD's that do nothing, even fight submitting a fatality report to the FAA, that might incriminate an instructor that made an error. There are LOTS of issues unrelated to the instructional programs and requirements themselves. The USPA responded to a part of the complaint; maybe baby steps are in order here. But the crux of it, IMO, comes down to the I/E and disciplinary processes. There are solid I/E's and there are weak I/E's. There are solid AFFI's and there are weak AFFI's. There is an incredibly apathetic board and a number of even more apathetic RD's, and a few very "easy" s I/E's out there. Hopefully the IERC changes and some actual disciplinary actions on the part of the S&TA's, RD's, and BOD will take place, and we'll see an uptick in quality vs quantity.

Please don't bring common sense to an discussion that is predominantly based on supposition, hearsay, and educated guesses. Is there any evidence that LB was ever fired vs someone simply suggesting it happened?Any evidence that travel is being improperly paid for. Any indication of the cost (if any) of forwarding phone calls to a cell phone? Frankly, if there is a BOD member that can rack up enough free miles from the travel they get from USPA, who cares? Call it a very small bonus for the volunteer work they do. They don't get paid, so gee whiz, if they get a free ticket after flying a few hundred thousand miles...good on them, they probably deserve it. It cost the membership nothing, and if they turned the ticket back in...the membership would gain back a few hundred bucks. Whoopee. I'd be stunned if the two flights taken by RD's or NB persons adds up to a free ticket during a term.

As posted about in several threads, flash-based camcorders don't bring a tremendous amount of benefit to those that are still in the analog editing world. If you're not in the computer world...then you're likely best off with your old camera that operates the way you're used to it working. Flash-based camcorders are all about speed. Linear/analog editing systems aren't about speed.

I've got Storms as well, in a couple sizes. Can't begin to tell you how much I like them. Tried several other canopies before going to the Storm...very happy. It's a little zippier than the Spectre, but it also has greater flare.

I'm willing to loan you my 645n, it's a monster. I have a Vietnam-era Air Force version of the RB67, too, with graflock back. There are some digital graflock backs, but none of them are full-frame AFAIK. On a king DZ, I don't see many bigways...And even here at S'nore, they're just not there. Perris...I'm not in that class. edit; Just for giggles, tossed a 300mm (crappy zoom) onto my 40d and shot my own "art". I'll take the 645 up when I get back to Utah. Shogo, the EX1 is actually quite easy to jump. Well balanced on an FTP, it sits very comfortably.

Two initial reactions to your idea; -If waivers become "standard" fare for small DZ's, then waivers become "standard" as opposed to waiving the rules for special circumstances. -If waivers for small DZs become somewhat "standard" then we've effectively lowered the standard to (probably) lower than it was in the first place. IMO, there is simply no way to counter the throughput differences between places like Eloy, Perris, Elsinore, etc and "Skydive Kansais." It's easy to say "well, then the folks at Skydive Kansas should plan on spending a coupla weeks in the winter time at Eloy, Perris, Elsinore (wheverever) getting their ratings." In practical terms, this sport simply doesn't have the compensation to make that idea work. The standard is low enough that everyone can play, high enough that it takes effort to achieve, and if someone wants to go above/beyond the standard (like Skydive University decided to), then more power to them.

This is true, yet bear in mind that the standard needs to apply to dropzones with multiple turbine aircraft and dropzones that can barely support a 182 at the same time. 15 coach jumps a year is a no-brainer in Elsinore whereas at a place in the midwest, it might be somewhat more difficult. As identified by several, the I/E process needs to be more carefully examined. One bad I/E does tend to spoil it for everyone.

To keep a Coach rating current, 15 Coaching Jumps and one FJC in 12 months is required.

Emily, been fun watching you progress. You're kickin' em' out. Congrats! Don't worry about wraps. The rigs you're jumping are set up just fine, and your flares (on the jumps I've seen), have been just right. Keep knockin' em' out and you'll have your A soon enough. Let's hope for good weather this weekend!