DSE

This thread is for funny tandem photos. Post your faves; myself and one other judge will determine a winner. Photos must be submitted by midnight, December 31. They won't be used for anything, just want to give y'all something fun to play with. The winner will receive an "Adrenalize!" royalty-free sound library with a retail value of 100.00 Have fun!

He still lurks though. He was spotted in court in Nashville on the 15th, along with Chuckie Owens, looking like they lost a huge bet at the racing track. Well...he may be a very good skydiver, but his writing skills are challenged (at least in this press release). Hiring an educated intern would have produced a better result. Apologies to Ryan. The press release shrieks "Valley Girl" in the way it's written (O m' gaaaaaawwwwwwwdddddd!)

With tandems it happens all the time. Iv seen at least 10 TI myself take the coach course one week and TI the next... Thats why I think the one year as coach works in all systems. Make coach 200 jumps C with one year wait time to Get a I. Learn to work with student before you teach them as a I... Make the I a 3 year D requirement like it is for tandem. Make all I's the same. Simple is better. As for IE's and there courses. The ones I dealt with handed me nothing. I worked my ass off for them.. A year IE meeting or every two years like AFF IE's have would be a good thing too Can we keep to one discussion? I understand skydivers often have ADD (I do myself) but this conversation has now gone from the AFF rating to changing AFF and I/E's to changing AFF, I/E, Coach, Coach I/E, and now Tandem. Focusing on broad sweeps is counter productive and a recipe for guaranteed failure. I also don't believe this happens "all the time." The numbers are fairly easy to prove. Prove em.

A-I doubt he truly went unconscious. With a student AAD he had plenty of time to land anyway. B-By 12 jumps, he should be able to be stable. C-If you're having to have a device deploy for you, it's a last chance and the CYPRES has a potential for killing you as much as it does saving you. Once your reserve is out, you can't do a whole lot more, not with the knowledge a student has. D-Deploying a reserve that high affords the student (who has little knowledge) a lot more time to think, and more time to second guess. E-If AAD's fired much higher, we'd have a lot more AAD fires due to complacency, and probably kill more people than are saved due to two-out, etc. F-What about H n' P's? Do we then need to disable AAD's for those? Then students can't do H n' P's. This line of thinking is akin to the thought that we should wear three canopies instead of two. Skydiving is dangerous. It can kill you. If you're looking for more proactive safety devices vs gaining an understanding of how to be responsible for yourself and save your own life, it's likely not the right activity for you.

If for no other reason, deployment at 3000 feet might allow a lot of time for someone to make a decision even more stupid than the one that allowed the AAD to fire in the first place. An AAD fire can maybe save a life, but in most situtations an AAD fire indicates a poor decision prior to the activation. AAD's are adjustable for student, tandem, and expert modes. As you gain more experience, you'll be shown how to adjust an AAD's modes (assuming you jump with one).

if they run their operations as poorly as that press release is written, I'm surprised they're still in business. You can almost hear the gum popping in the mouth of the ditz that wrote it.

I'll be there, but already sharing a room. Looking forward to meeting you, Gary.

If this is your view of the current program, then you've got a seriously poor I/E in your area or a completely ignorant awareness of the new program. I'd expect it's the former. On the whole, exactly how many people get their coach rating on Monday and their AFFI on the following Monday? No one has to be injured or killed to provide that statistic. Just because it CAN be done doesn't mean it IS being done on a regular basis. The current system _is_ set up to encourage candidates to teach as coaches prior to getting an AFFI rating, and it seems to work on the whole. As much as I agree with changing minimal AFFI requirements, it seems like so much of this issue may be cleaned up by enforcing what is already in place, at the I/E level.

If you'd use aerodynamic principles on your mowage, you'd gain at least 10% greater forward speed. Get your Carbonfuckingfibre supply. Even comes in colors. I wanna be just like Ed when I grow up.

-you don't need 200 signatures to draft a letter. You want 200 so you can show some strength in numbers. Yet you aren't willing to support your position with some numbers? Stats help quantify the need for a solution. No offense to anyone, but numbers don't mean shit once you've gotten past a certain point. Like I said, I photographed a skygod who had been a JM, rating lapsed. And couldn't close major separation on his re-run of the new AFF course. Maybe students fly worse now than they did 10 years ago? If I'm sitting on the board, I want someone to show me objective information on why change is needed vs opinions of a lot of people who aren't instructors. Especially when the issue should be managed at the I/E level. My "devils advocacy" comes from having stood in front of the board and understanding that for the most part, they don't want to deal with these sorts of changes. When I proposed the wingsuit instructor rating program, they wanted numbers to support how many wingsuiters there are, how many there will be, how many incidents are related to wingsuiting and poor training. Three fatalities isn't enough, apparently. The predominant argument was that we don't need skydivers teaching experienced skydivers (the majority of whom have 200 jumps or fewer). My counter was "Why do we have TI programs?" To which was replied "Because it's specialized equipment with different deployment techniques and different needs." So is a wingsuit skydive... Fortunately they at least have encouraged public comment. I VERY much appreciate that you're having this dialog in public vs how the USPA accepted and adopted the wingsuit grid system, which was done entirely in secrecy. Changing the AFF requirement is likely going to occur, IMO. Changing the coach requirement? Likely not, IMO. There are a hundred arguments for the former, and not too many arguments for the latter. Refer back to this post in a year's time.

He he he - You look at two year slices? Yeah bend the 'stats' the way you want to. I can claim that from 1981-1987 - AFF had 0 fats 2001-2007 AFF had 4 or 5 fats. I don't know the # off the top of my head. . 'Course I'm only looking at a slice. Not only does it support a weak point in my argument, but more importantly, a previous post said that "incidents are up in the past couple of years." So, I looked at the "last couple of years." Not my fault if the stats happen to bend one way or t'other. You were on the BOD. Maybe you can outline why these egregious incidents have slid by? Do you think it will change under the new administration?

I'm repeating verbatim what I was told by the RD. Take it for what you will. And if that weren't the case, how do you explain an "instructor" not looking at his "student's" gear, resulting in a fatality, and then receiving a rating a few weeks later? Either A-the USPA doesn't give a shit B-The RD made an error C-The RD is right, nothing can be done to a lay member. My interpretation of Sec 1-6 in the governance manual "3. While engaging in any phase of skydiving, is so grossly negligent in his conduct or acts as to imminently imperil his fellow skydivers or aircraft or persons or property on the ground, or wantonly disregards the safety of himself or other persons 4. Engages in any conduct as a skydiver which a person of reasonable prudence would anticipate as being likely to bring public contempt upon himself or herself, or upon skydivers, or upon USPA" AND 7. Willfully and knowingly misrepresents any material fact in connection with any application filed with USPA Would suggest option A and B are the correct answers. So, you have numbers for one group, but not the other? I'm referring to the printed 2008 statistics report from APF, as reported to the FAI by the USPA. This iwas handed out at the APF conference in May. The figures for 2007 jibe with what Ed presented at the BOD meeting in January of 2008. Looking at 1990-1992 specifically, and looking at 2006/2008, there were more fatalities in the old program. The fatality database doesn't provide enough info to ascertain which are/aren't AFF, so can only go by the information USPA provides FAI. However, I don't think fatalities are/should be the measure to which the standard is applied. Incidents as a whole are what really matter, because problems of off landings, hit powerlines/poles, equipment failure, CYPRES fires, collisions, etc likely outweigh fatalities 50;1 (pulling a number out of my helmet).

If this is true, then your intent is completely lost due to the wording of the petition. You ask for very specific changes, some of which some folks can't agree with. I do believe a more general request for change would offer up more signatures.

In the interests of clarity, the rating wasn't issued only a week after the fatality, it was a few weeks after. Due to changes in the area RD, it took a few weeks for the couple of hour suspension to take place during the RD's investigation. Had the rating been in place prior to the investigation, I think that a different result would have occurred, because a rated instructor carries specific responsibilities and culpabilities that I don't think the RD could have avoided. In fact, I was specifically told nothing punitive could be done because there were no ratings in place at the time of the fatality. I also understand the political reasons that the RD did nothing. When I was told of the conditional rating (by someone who works out of the USPA offices), my first question was the same as yours. It's very possible that a reserve side instructor will end up main side, so how can anyone expect a "conditional" rating to make sense? In the interests of fairness... I don't think it's appropriate to point fingers at one specific I/E. Toning down the language might help perpetuate a rational discussion? I do agree the I/E's have some bad apples after having sat in on a few courses. And agree that the I/E program is where the changes need to begin, vs changing the Coach or AFF programs. I know some of y'all don't care for statistics, but the proof is there. More AFF fatalities occurred in the "old" program than in the "new" program when comparisons are made within the same scope of time. The only recommended change that makes sense to me is a one-year requirement in holding a coach rating, ten (or XX) coach jumps, and losing the 6 hours in favor of 500 jumps. Perhaps an addition of a 3 year requirement so that the AFF requirements mirror TI requirements makes sense? Makes for a clean program all the way around. I can see where the "coach one day/AFFI the next" concept has been of value in exceptional cases. In my AFF course, Craig and Eliana were challenging the course. They'd gotten their coach ratings a week previous to the start of the AFFI course. Who can argue that they weren't qualified? With 35K jumps between them, numerous camps and thousands of people trained by them....They've been coaches for years, they just didn't have the official card. However, there are always waiver applications available in those situations, so changing up the requirements should have little impact on that sor of scenario. Speaking of which, Mr. Stokes put those two through the same paces, same challenges in the coach course that I had to go through. During both programs. And yet they are arguably two of the most skilled skydivers on the planet. They probably could have challenged the course with zero classroom and practice time, but they got busted for things on the evals just like the rest of us did. Only three out of seven successfully passed that course.

Them being over! +1

if it's already mixed, it's next to impossible to cleanly remove the music from the dialog. You can do some tricks with phasing, but they rarely work well. IF the dialog is on channel one and music on channel two (discreetly separated) then you can do this in a mono control, but I'm doubting that it's in this format.

you're assuming the focal points will perfectly line up (they may well not) and that would immediately impair the resolution, and you could easily be less than an SD-designed lens. When I get back to the DZ I'll shoot a lens chart with them stacked, and that'll put an end to speculation. I'm curious myself.

By tenets and practices. /Marg They're actually the same, minus one not-so-large factor. One actively practices polygamy and the other passively practices polygamy. Scriptures, interpretations, etc are identical. for the OP, religion destroyed my marriage, thus it has been a discussion point in all subsequent relationships.

y'got stats on that? That might explain....

USPA President Jay Stokes finally got up in the air in a wingsuit. He took his initial FFC back in June, but due to circumstances, was not able to fly. He did multiple flights on Friday, December 18. Congrats on a great first flight, first dock, and first flock.

Sony Vegas Platinum Canopus Edius Light Ulead Movie Studio Adobe Premiere Elements8 Pinnacle Studio

you don't get GREATER lines of resolution when stacking lenses, you get lesser resolution when stacking lenses. The lowest resolution determines the best of the end result. I have both, but don't have both with me (on Xmas holiday). I'll screw em' together. How well it works will be camera dependent. What's the end game?

Actually, they shut down because of the trades. I started skydiving in Hawaii, and agree it's not the optimal place to start your skydiving career. If you can make the west coast, IMO Elsinore or Perris are the best places to go this time of the year. I'm a fan of Elsinore but Perris is very good too. Perris has a better bar, but Elsinore has a better view and a better landing area, IMO.

this is exactly the reason that double posting isn't allowed. Now we have the same (now more confusing) argument in two different fora.

After a hard opening ripped my 40D bottom and 15mm from the front of my helmet (and ripped up my ankle in the process) I too, went to all-top, and only carry a flash on needed, rare occasion. I have a light that weighs next to nothing where the DSLR used to sit.