tombuch

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Damn, has it really been that long? Every time I see the list of names I check for Dave Clarke and hope his name won't be on it, but of course it always is. Dave was an old friend from Finger Lakes Skydiving in Ovid NY. We taught skydiving together, and he taught me to ski. Terrific guy. Still missed. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

There was a tandem fatality in Guam, I think, that involved a TI wearing a handicam. I had been asking the FAA to release details about the handicam, and if it was in anyway involved in the double fatality, but they never did. As I recall, that incident was being investigated by a very knowledgeable inspector based in Hawaii. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

The requirement is far more extensive than just having a rigger on the drop zone. The requirement under 105.43(a) is "direct supervision" by a rigger. That is defined under 105.3 as "...a certificated rigger personally observes a non-certificated person packing a main parachute to the extent necessary to ensure that it is being done properly, and takes responsibility for that packing. That part about "taking responsibility" was inserted after the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) public comment period, in response to my specific request, mostly because I didn't want a packer pointing to me and saying I was supervising unless I agreed to actually provide supervision. When you read the entire rule, and the NPRM comments with FAA responses, it becomes clear that the requirement for non-certificated packers is that there be some level of training, ongoing supervision, and the supervising rigger must take responsibility for the packing. The FAA should be able to visit the site and see actual documentation of what level of training and supervision have been provided, and by whom. If the FAA asked Johnny Packer who is supervising his work and he points to Joey Rigger, then if Joey Rigger confirms the relationship, he had better be able to show through documentation that he has provided adequate supervision to comply with 105.43. If the original poster was packing for others and was unaware of the regulation, then it would sound to me like the regulation isn't being followed on the DZ. That's not uncommon in the sport today, but it is also illegal, and shouldn't happen. My suggestion is that every non-certificated packer immediately establish a relationship with a rigger, and that riggers make it clear who they are willing to vouch for. It's not a tough process, and there are at least a few DZ's that do it very well (Skydive City comes to mind). For more information about the regulation, see the link in my first post, or go directly to the featured story at http://theblueskyranch.com/sta/tb11.htm. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Can you find somewhere on USPA's site that it says that? I have never heard that you have to be supervised by a rigger to pack someone elses sport rig....When you pack a tandem or student rig, you are doing work for the DZO and being paid by him. When you pack a sport rig, well thats a personal transaction between the packer and the jumper. Oh boy, are you ever uninformed, and dangerously so! Your profile says you are at Skydive Long Island, and your posts say you have packed "thousands" of rigs. You should know the regulations, and should be under a riggers supervision, no matter how good you are. The packing of main parachutes is controlled by the federal government under FAR 105.43(a) as follows:*** ...The main parachute must have been packed within 120 days before the date of its use by a certificated parachute rigger, the person making the next jump with that parachute, or a non-certificated person under the direct supervision of a certificated parachute rigger..."*** I wrote about that regulation in the June 2002 issue of Parachutists, and the article is reprinted in the S&TA section of The Ranch web site, available as Article 11, "Who can pack a main parachute" at http://theblueskyranch.com/STA.php. As for supervision control, I created a log sheet for supervising riggers and packers. It isn't used much, but I have attached it as a Word file. The elements identified at the beginning of this thread are serious, and can cause a malfunction or make one worse. Every packer should know about those, and the supervising rigger should make sure that packers are watching out for the little things. Riggers spend a good deal of time in training, and a good training program will emphasis the responsibility we have for the work we do. Too often I hear packers say they just shove the nylon into the container and the owner is responsible for whatever happens. It's rare that a certificated rigger approaches the job that way. While a rigger knows the end user is responsible for how the equipment is used, he/she will also understand that the maintenance of that gear and 'assurance that it is fit for use' are the responsibility of whomever packs it. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

I started at a Cessna DZ, and still jump at them every once in a while. Cessna's are fun, and as somebody else posted, the bat hang exit is very cool, and aside from superfloating on a DC-3, is probably my favorite exit. I'm not knocking Cessna's or Cessna DZ's. I have always thought that Cessna's are the backbone of our sport, and until just a few days ago, if anybody had suggested otherwise I would have argued strongly that the Cessna is the most common jump plane, most loads are flown with Cessna's, and we make most of our jumps from them. I thought my home DZ with three Twin Otters was an anomaly. The post I referenced that listed 41 different Twin Otter in the United States really caught my attention, and made me question what I thought I already knew. Cessna's definitely brought us to where we are, and they are still very common (even many turbine DZ's have them), but I think it's possible that in the year 2007 we may be flying more turbine loads and making more jumps from turbines. I wondered if that was true and sought the opinion of others here. From what I've heard so far I think it is safe to say that in the United States the Cessna 182 is no longer the unquestioned backbone of the fleet. Even in my area Cessna DZ's still outnumber turbine DZ's, but the lift capacity of the turbines may give them an advantage in loads flown and jump numbers. And the intensity of turbine based commercial tandem programs in urban areas may mean that more people are now introduced to the sport with a turbine. Plus, many Cessna jumpers travel to turbine DZ's, while fewer turbine jumpers make jumps at Cessna DZ's. I'm not yet sure that we make more total jumps from turbines, but at the very least it is close. That's a huge change, and it is sometimes tough for a guy like me with more than 25 years in the sport to question conventional wisdom, or to see subtle changes like that. One of the really cool things about Dropzone.com is that we can share our thoughts with others and get a real sense of what is happening around the country/world. We can challenge each others assumptions here, and that's a good thing. We may get shot down, we may leave the discussion unchanged, but at least we can ask questions in an open forum and hear a different opinion than what we might get around the local firepit. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

There is another thread called “Twin Otter Production Restarted” that begins by detailing the new production plans for Twin Otters, and then gets into identifying all the Twin Otters that are flying jumpers in the United States today. At this point it’s an impressive and growing list of 41 different airplanes based all over the country. According to USPA there are roughly 300 drop zones in the United States (>250 Group Members), and about 30,618 individual USPA members. That means there is on average, one Twin Otter for every 7.3 drop zones, and one Twin Otter for every 746 USPA members. Drop zones also have a variety of other aircraft, including turbine powered Porters, Casa’s, King Air’s, Caravan’s, piston Cessna 182’s, and many more (including piston and turbine variations of the same basic airframes). It used to be taken as gospel that most jump planes were Cessna 182’s, and that most jumps were made from 182’s. I’m wondering if that is still that case, or are most jumps now made from other airplanes, and is it possible that most jumps are now made from turbine aircraft. Does the Cessna 182 still dominate our sport? ‘Back in the day a turbine aircraft was a special treat. Jumpers had to travel long distances for special events to leap from a Twin Otter, or any other turbine. Cessna 180/182’s were unarguably the mainstay of the jump fleet, with a few DZ’s flying the Cessna 206, and just a handful of really big DZ’s flying the DC-3. It was easy to assert that most jump planes were 182’s, and that most of our jumps were made from 182’s. We were a piston nation. Times have changed. The fleet of turbines is growing, we have a much wider distribution of turbine DZ’s, and the lift capacity of these aircraft (jumpers per load, and loads per hour) is much higher than the Cessna 182. It might well be that we are now a turbine nation. I am confident that in my part of the country (New York Tri State), turbine drop zones log far more jumps than Cessna drop zones, and together we might even fly more turbine loads than the regional piston fleet. My DZ does have a Cessna 182 for occasional jumps, but jumping the 182 is rare, and on a load-to-load basis it carries only four jumpers against 21 in the Twin Otters. Put another way, it would take five loads in a Cessna 182 to equal just one in a Twin Otter. Just a few years ago we were the only turbine drop zone in the region, but now there are many others, and our jump numbers dwarf the small Cessna DZ’s. How does this play out around the rest of the country? Do you think most jumps still are made from the Cessna 182 and the piston fleet, or have turbines taken over? What does your logbook say? If you review the logbooks of traveling jumpers what do you see in the Aircraft box? Any thoughts? Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Where you looking those up? Neither 202DH or 204DH is currently registered to an otter or to skydive factory. I mentioned earlier in the thread that N321CY is at Skydive New England in Lebanon, ME. I think a lot of planes get registered by corporations in New Hampshire for tax reasons. Dave http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/nameSQL.asp?nametxt=skydive+factory&cmndfind.x=12&cmndfind.y=9&sort_option=5 Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Anybody know about a company called "Skydive Factory" that has two Twin Otters registered in New Hampshire (N202DH and N204DH). How about "Jump Run Aviation," also in New Hampshire (N321CY) Those companies are probably a registration home for aircraft used elsewhere, and flown under a different name (For example, Freefall Express is listed in New Hampshire but their aircraft are flown mostly in New York and Florida). They may already be on the master list, or they may be missing. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Find detail by searching the registration database with "Freefall" here: http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/name_inquiry.asp. 123FX, 129PM, and 166DH are registered to Freefall Express in Keene, New Hampshire, while 40269 and 716NC are registered to the same Freefall Express in Gardiner, NY., and Cessna 2137R is registered to Freefall Express in Schenectady, New York. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Back in 2005 when I was the S&TA at The Ranch I prepared a document for our members to share with security staff, including the NYPD (they were beginning inspections of carry on bags at train stations and subway stops). The document outlines specific regulations and gives the user a professional way to approach security inspectors. It is also suitable for packing inside a rig bag so inspectors who are checking luggage without the jumper will have an idea of what they are looking at. I posted the document here on dropzone.com in 2005, and another dz.com poster moved it onto USPA letterhead. It is NOT an official USPA document. I've attached the file as a .pdf. Anybody is welcome to update it or change it as you see fit. The idea is to give the inspector a better understanding of the regulations that WE operate under, and a means of satisfying their security concerns without opening the rig. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

The NTSB Preliminary Report on the accident is located here: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20060803X01086&key=1. The lawyer, Gary Robb is very, very, very good, and has a solid track record in wrongful death cases. I encountered this guy in the late 1990's, and although he blew the case I was involved in, he is dangerously aggressive, and focused only on building a case to win the maximum damage award for his client. If he is your lawyer, I suppose that's a good thing. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

And now the toothless tiger has been revealed as an itty-bitty pussycat. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

IAF usually means Instructor Assisted Freefall, a version of Accelerated Free Fall, sometimes beginning with tandems, and usually taking place at higher altitudes. IAD is Instructor Assisted Deployment, a version similar to static line that takes place at lower altitudes. Drop zones often design their own programs based variations of tandem, Accelerated Free Fall, and Static line, and then intentionally give them a wide variety of names and abbreviations. The result is marketplace confusion that minimizes the ability of students to comparison shop. If you spend some time visiting web sites you will see all kinds of marketing designed to confuse, rather than enlighten. That was one of the motivations for writing my book. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Sounds serious. Instead of posting here about a significant problem at an anonymous drop zone, I'd strongly suggest you contact the appropriate authorities directly as follows: Strong Enterprises at 800-344-6319 USPA Director of Safety and Training Jim Crouch at 540-604-9740 USPA Regional Director for the Southeastern US Mike Gruwell (if it happened at your home DZ in Florida) at 770-749-9184 FAA Regional FSDO/GADO if you are sure of the reserve violation and wish to pursue it through FAA channels. I see far too many very serious problems like the one you are posting, but rarely are they officially reported to anybody who can actually do something about them. It's pretty disingenuous to post them here when you are not willing to stand up and express them with the name of the DZ for attribution. If you must keep your name confidential, Strong Enterprises and USPA will certainly listen with interest, and will probably follow-up informally, but it's difficult for any official organization to take action on an anonymous say-so simply posted in a public forum. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Sure, but probably not to the same degree that you are reporting. Somebody who knows you and your skill levels will be better able to assess the causes for the seemingly high injury rate, and can better inform your decision about staying with the sport. There are some folks who just shouldn't participate in high risk activity at all, but they are few and far between. A more interesting topic is our willingness to incur risk and accept injury, and the change that aging has on those decisions. When I was a young jumper of about 22 I thought nothing about risk, and easily bounced back from injury. I enjoyed risk, pushed limits, and experienced injuries at least as serious and often as you report. Now I'm pushing fifty, and fifty is pushing back. My body breaks with less force, and it takes longer to recover from any injury. Plus, all my past injuries have had a cumulative impact and leave me with aches and pains that never really go away. My understanding of consequences has increased, and my tolerence for risk has decreased. I'm much more conservative in all my risk based decision making. I think that is a good thing, but at the same time I don't regret any decisions I made in the past, nor would I trade any of my experiences for pain-free old age. So, I suppose my answer to your question would be phrased as a series of new questions: How old are you, how much life experience do you have, and how much risk are you willing to incur? Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Dunno. Wouldn't be the first time I've seen the FAA put that parachute symbol at the wrong spot. I've even written them about it once... their reaction was "oh well" and didn't seem too interested in fixing it. FAA GADO and FSDO offices really don't seem too interested in charting issues. When I was trying to get a frequency on the chart for The Ranch the Albany FAA office said that since it was a private use facility it would be unusual to list a frequency. They suggested that if a "real emergency" existed I should document it and provide proof that transient aircraft were crossing over the field and were not aware of the DZ. I asked how long it would take to add a frequency if I could show a real emergency, and the FAA said "about two years." Obviously that's foolish. I checked the back of my chart and found the phone number to report errors, and then spoke directly with the editor. He had the frequency on the chart at the next publication cycle just a few months out. All I had to do was send him a request in writing on company letterhead. The folks who make the charts really care about the accuracy and presentation. The number listed on the chart is 800-626-3677. They also list an e-mail address for corrections as: 9-amc-aerochart@faa.gov. If you know of an error on your chart, give the charting office a call. Keep in mind they can only work within the specifications of the regulations they are working under. Those regulations are produced by a user group called the Aeronautical Charting Forum that meets about twice a year. USPA attends those meetings on behalf of the skydiving community. If you want something changed on the chart that requires new direction from the ACF, contact USPA for discussion. There is currently a plan to update the chart and AFD listings for all drop zones, but some confusion about where the source data will come from and how it will be authenticated. Developing a single accurate database is the next step in populating a digital database that will flow to GPS and FMS displays, so there is an aggressive move to get that done, but "aggressive" in FAA speak tends to take a while. As for the marking on the sectional near Perris, see the link provided on an earlier post as: http://skyvector.com/, and type in the airport designator as L65. You will see a purple circle designating the class "B" airspace, and the warning is just to the lower right Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Try sending him a private message through dropzone.com at: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?username=BrianSGermain;. Big Air Sports is very much active, and a very reputable company. Brian posts here and tours drop zones all the time. I suspect your message will reach him through this channel, and you should hear from him soon. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

I would have agreed with you about five years ago, but USPA has since responded and developed the ISP. Canopy control is well covered under the complete ISP program. See the grid at: http://www.uspa.org/publications/SIM/2007SIM/section4.htm#42. Specifically, click on "Skill and Knowledge Sets." The ISP is designed as a progressive training program that allows a student to mix and match training from SL, AFF, and tandem, and places significant emphasis on canopy control, equipment, and regulation. While a student can leave the direct control of an AFF instructor after just a few jumps (something I still object to), he remains under the direction of a Coach, and the overall supervision of an Instructor until completing the license requirements. The program gives the student lots of freedom as the build jump numbers and gains experience, but it includes greater depth of knowledge and skill development than any previous program, including conventional static line programs. The problem, as I see it, isn't that the program is weak, but that too often our instructors, especially our AFF instructors, are not teaching the required skills. Part of that is money...a professional tandem instructor can make a dozen jumps a day, while an AFF instructor can only make a small fraction of that number if he really spends the necessary time with a student. So, some of our AFF instructors skimp on the non-freefall training so they can pack more jumps into a day, and reach pay parity with the tandem instructors and unrated packers. We need (that means our DZO's need) to pay AFF and advanced instructors a better wage and then insist that they spend adequate time and attention with every student, and cover all the material in the ISP. The AFF/ISP program does work at some drop zones, as long as the school understands that skydiving isn't all about freefall, and that we must teach the rest of the basics with an emphasis on canopy control. And, there is no reason an AFF student can't do a tandem jump in the middle of the program to work on canopy control under the hands-on direct supervision of an instructor...a school can use any of the training methods in any order to accomplish the required training objectives. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

See article 7 "Skydiving Risk" at http://theblueskyranch.com/STA.php Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Cookies are kept until they expire, and the clock is correct. It's something else. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Protec is owned by Vans now http://www.vans.com/vans/index2.asp - I didn't have time to search the site for a phone number (frickin' riggin' ya know?) but I'm sure there's one on there somewhere And Vans is now owned by VF Corporation. It seems like this is a brand that just doesn't want any direct consumer contact, and getting a phone number is tough. One of the ways I usually reach a 'tough to get hold of corporate entity' is to contact the Media Relations department or Investor Relations. Here is the basic contact information page of the web site for VF Corporation: http://www.vfc.com/sub_pages/contact_us.php. If you click the download button for brand managers you will find great contact information for most of the brands, but none for Vans. Go figure. If you take your search a step further and check Anywho for the street address listed for Vans (Vans Inc.,15700 Shoemaker Ave, Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670) you will come up with 562-565-8267. I don't know if that works, but it's probably worth a try. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

When using Firefox with Windows XP the 'mark as read' command doesn't always work. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I find that I can mark all threads and the screen shows that has been done, but when I return I'm presented with threads and posts I've already read as being new. I'm generally in the "Skydiving" cluster, and that's where I notice the problem about 10% of the time. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

Please tell me that 300ft is a typo, and that you meant to type 3000ft. I think he meant that when he is landing on the ground he starts the hook turn at about 300 feet. When there is a cloud deck above 3,000 feet he can set up at less than 300 feet above the cloud deck and start his turn there. The cloud deck then simulates the ground, but without the consequences of turning too low. Back in the day a cloud deck above 2,000 feet gave me a chance to "practice going in" with low pulls. I'd try to dump as close to the cloud as possible and see if I would have made it. Pretty fun, but as I have said before, jumping over clouds is dangerous and illegal. Of course once I knew how little altitude I really needed, low pulls over the ground became a part of my routine, and that was way stupid. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

My guess is that the helicopter pilots are flying with GPS/FMS systems and instrument enroute charts, and don't know you exist. They would probably be supportive of your interests if they knew the specifics of your operations. Education really works. There are several ways to attack the problem, depending on where those super-unfriggin-believably rich people are going to or coming from. First, if there are a couple of designated helicopter landing areas on the Hamptons, you could contact the airport manager and post a notice there for pilots. Check out: Southampton Heliport at: http://www.airnav.com/airport/87N Bistrains Heliport at: http://www.airnav.com/airport/4NY5 East Hampton Airport at: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KHTO Second, there are not many helicopter companies that do transport work from areas where most of the uber-rich are coming from, so if you could id the choppers and then contact the companies it would help. Hopefully at least some of the helicopters have a company name on them, or grab the tail number and do a search on the FAA web site. As as start, contact NY area heliports as follows (from Google): E 34 Street Heliport www.avports.com 499 E 34th St, New York, 10016 - (212) 889-2551 Air Pegasus W 30th St Heliport new-york.airportbug.org 335 W 30th St, New York, 10001 - (212) 563-4442 Downtown Heliport 6 E River Dr, New York, 10002 - (212) 248-7240 Third, you could contact the manager of your local approach sector and explain the problem. While ATC probably can't provide guaranteed separation services, they can make it a point to provide transient pilots who are receiving IFR or VFR services with specific advisories beyond the regular "parachute jumping in progress over.... airport, 14,000 and below." At The Ranch I developed a notice that I have placed in many local pilot lounges and sent to pilot groups that fly in our area. The idea was to be very specific in the way we define the hazard, give pilots several ways to identify our airport, and give them multiple ways to contact us. You could build your own version for SD Long Island and use that as your primary educational element. You can see it and download the document at: http://theblueskyranch.com/sta/pilot_caution.pdf As you struggle with the issue keep in mind that pilots are just as afraid of hitting jumpers as jumpers are of being hit. Most pilots will be happy to deviate if they know where the hazard is, understand the real impact of the hazard, and have an easy means of avoiding that hazard. Check with your DZ Manager and/or S&TA. Show them this post and my briefing sheet, and get together to solve your problem before the summer party season starts in the Hamptons. Good luck.. Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy