LawnDart21

That cracked me up. Thanks. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

It should, because if its not, your relying on your AAD to save you. Okay, gotta go work over, be back tomorrow. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Okay found it....lol Okay yes I did say that. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

I never said that Dave, anywhere in this thread (I even went back and reread my posts. Did you even bother to read my posts, or are you just assuming that was what I said. Here is what I said: ***If your going on any dive where you think you may need an AAD to save your life because there is a chance you wont be able to, may indicate that the dive is beyond your risk tolerance.*** If your gonna quote me, please be accurate. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

You could create a myriad of what if scenarios that end with you getting knocked out and your AAD saving you. I concede that. "What if I was front floating and sneezed, and smacked my face off the roof of the Otter and the divers inside thought my sneeze was an exit count and all dove out on top of me and knocked me out........" Yes, I will concede to you in that case, yes, an AAD would save your life and you'd be toast without one............. You could make up a million of those, point is, whats the likelyhood of it happening? Very small. Plus, if you have a $30 protec on your head, your even less likely to find yourself in that scenario. We could play point counter point all day......... -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

This is not an Anti-AAD thread. This is simply a "Dont use your AAD to allow you to do jumps you wouldnt do without one" thread. The risk or willingness of doing a jump should be the same, with or without an AAD. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Absolutely so. Explain to me how an unconscious person (regardless of how it happened) is not a malfunction of the person? Person malfunctions (unconscious), AAD is supposed to take over. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Your AAD and your reserve are two completely different pieces of equipement with completely different agendas. No amount of attention to details can prevent your reserve from being used if you jump long enough. You can prevent your AAD from ever being used with that same attention to details, regardless of how long you jump. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

speaking of which.....lol -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Missing the point Dave.... Safe skydiving is not accomplished by wearing all the latest and greatest safety gear. Its done by picking and choosing the appropriate skydives based on individual risk tolerances and individual interpreations of the likely outcome of each jump. In a perfect world, I would like to see everyone jump with an AAD on every jump, why? Because it would give everyone in the sport an additional layer of safety, and thats a good thing. I absolutely concede AADs save lives. What we are disagreeing on is the point that using an AAD to mititage additional perceived risk is to me: inappropriate; to you; appropriate. I say its inappropriate because you are now relying on it to offset that additional risk, relying on a mechanical device. You say its appropriate. I'd feel better if your stance was "wear an AAD on every jump because it makes you safer", as that would atleast be consistent stance, but to advocate that using AADs when adding risk to a jump makes it "okay", that I dont agree with. Again, go back to the sole purpose of an AAD, to safely open your reserve canopy at the absolute last possible moment before you bounce. If you are willing to jump without one on a "normal skydive", by deduction saying you are capable of preventing that situation from occuring, and not needing the AAD, but then choose to use one on a higher risk skydive like a raft dive, you are saying that there is now a greater chance of not being able to perform that function, above what you are willing to accept without using one, thereby relying on the AAD moreso than you should. I am safe on any raft dive that I am on because I will only do raft dives with skydivers that I know well, and that I believe are safe and responsoble in the air, whether the dive is successful or not. I am safe on any raft dive that I am on because I can identify the things that I or any other jumper may screw up and have contingency plans to deal with it. We all screw up from time to time, the amount of damage it causes is directly related to the amount of prep involved in the jump. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Be only an additional layer of safety on a skydive. IE, make you skydives safer. If you are increasing the risk of your skydive (ie, raft) and only adding the AAD to compensate for the increase risk, you negate the intended purpose of it in the first place, to make you safer. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

There is a flaw in your logic comparing Reserves and AADs. Regardless of how impeccable one packs, the inevitability of a malfunctioning main does still exist and despite our diligency in packing correctly, it happens frequently, some would say 1 in 1000 jumps on average, could be higher, could be lower, but its important to remember that if jumped enough, every main will eventually have a malfunction. Regarding the need for an AAD, that is a malfunction of the person, not the gear, that typically leads to a cypress fire. And unlike mains, there exists no inevitabilty that all jumpers will have a mental malfunction. Most all infact do not. How many thousands of skydivers are out there that jump with AADs their whole career and never have an AAD fire? Most skydivers I would presume, making 1000s ands 1000s of jumps, and never need their AADs. Ask those same thousands of skydivers how many have had a reserve ride? Most will say they have. So there is where your arguement is faulty, your reserve is a peice of equipement that acknowledges the unavoidable imperfection of your gear. Your AAD acknowledges the unaviodable imperfection in people. The different is A) the expected frequency of the imperfections occuring (gear = common, human error = uncommon)and B) what we can do to prevent the gear or human malfunctions from occuring. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

So those people have two options: 1) Don't do the raft dive or 2) Wear an AAD on a dive they know nothing about the risk of. Which is the safer choice? What choice do most people make? Again, I am not arguing that raft dives arent more extraordinary than a regular vanilla skydive. My point is that if you have to wear an AAD to offset the additional risk of a unique skydive, your not wearing your AAD for its intended purpose. It wasnt invented so that people could do riskier skydives. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

I wear an AAD because I can afford to, it has no bearing on what jumps I will or wont do. If I couldnt afford one, I would still do the same jumps without one. Wearing one only reduces my risks, which makes me safer. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Agreed. The more safety gear you bring with you to reduce the risk, which makes you safer, the better. Agreed again, they also said in the article to wear gloves to prevent rope burn on the hands, agree with that %100. Exactimundo my point. "Every skydive", my original point which I think is getting muttled is that a raft dive should be no different than any other skydive in terms of safety. If your "appropriate safety gear" consists of an AAD without a raft, it would make sense to wear it with the raft dive. If your "appropriate safety gear" normally does not consist of an AAD on jumps without a raft (which is also okay), why would it change with a raft? If adding a raft is that much more dangerous that an AAD is now needed, then the AAD is being used to offset the "increased risk", which I dont believe is the point of the AAD. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Okay, your stupid. Just kidding. (Is it a personal attack if its invited?....lol) Again, I'll say the same thing, an AAD is designed to do one thing, save your life when you cant. I dont consider a raft dive to put me beyond the ability to save my own life, collision or no collision, if I did, I would not jump on a raft dive. If your going on any dive where you think you may need an AAD to save your life because there is a chance you wont be able to, may indicate that the dive is beyond your risk tolerance. (I mean "you" generally, not you specifcally.) -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Thats funny. I accidentally hit post while I was trying to cut and paste....lol It posted a blank post withonly my sig line.......lol. I went back and edited it. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Think about what an AAD does, it opens your reserve parachute at absoluetely the last second before it is too late and you bounce. If you go on any skydive thinking that there is a chance that you may not be able to do that yourself (open your own reserve with time to save yourself), maybe the jump is beyond your risk tolerance? -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

In Heaven there is no beer That's why we drink it here And when we're all gone from here Our friends will be drinking all the beer -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Okay, so there was a thread awhile back where myself and a few others argued back and forth about the merits of AADs and bigways, and other extraordinary skydives and the associated risk tolerances....... So last night Im reading an article in Skydiving Magazine about raft dives and one of the recommendations of the writers was that everyone on the jump should have AADS? It then hit me, "If you feel you should have an AAD on this jump" because you think that there might actually be a chance it might be used, maybe you shouldnt do the raft jump? It took me like 6 months....lol.......but I think I finally understand what Derek was saying.........lol. If your specificaly recommended to have an AAD for a jump, there must be some perception that it may be needed during the dive. If that is the case, then maybe the jump should be reconsidered. Edit to add: I understand from thier POV, why the writers included it in thier recommendation, I just don't agree with it. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Thank you, I love reading rants first thing in the morning..........lol Lets all bitch about something that bothers me! -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

About a 1000 jumps barefoot, aside from a few scrapes and cuts, no problem. Totally worth it IMHO. I only wear them now if I am doing a tandem or swooping. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

"This isn't the 15 minutes of fame I had in mind...." -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

I find that when I go extended periods without skydiving that I start to develope this green rash, turns out the rash is actually money in my wallet. It disappears as soon as I start jumping again. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.

Yup. -- My other ride is a RESERVE.