Deisel

My TC man crush gets bigger with every movie. Cannot wait for this one.

Good questions which I don't know the answer to. I had assumed that they were FAA employees and that the students being tested were covering the travel expenses. I'll shoot a note to the aero clubs and ask for a clarification.

That's interesting. I've been learning to fly in Germany and Japan over the last 3 years. They both have well established procedures for FAA examiners to regularly come out to conduct check rides in the local area. Covid travel restrictions prevented me from doing a check ride because the examiners have been prohibited from coming out. I would have assumed that the same procedures apply to DPREs.

Raeford (aka Paraclete)

I recently used a PCS move as an excuse to throw out a couple years with of back issues. Had to lighten the load and stop moving boxes of old mags around the world.

I would disagree with the permanent video records. Some things just don't age well. And under the current system, the candidate gets to elect to use video or not. It's highly recommended, but not required. This is because the candidate pays all costs. And the video can never be used to lower the score, only increase it. Anyone can pick apart a skydive in a slow motion review and find discrepancies all day. We currently depend on the eyeball of the examiner on the jump to provide the initial feedback of go/no-go. So all of that would have to change to implement your suggestion. I do however like having an outside examiner as an independent reviewer. Not sure how that would work other than situations where there's a disagreement about the scoring. It wouldn't be practical for every jump of a course. Again, this would increase costs to the candidate to hire a secondary or tertiary examiner. And whatever we can do to avoid cost increases would be a positive. Also, recommend that the mods edit the topic of this thread.

Concur. A while back I proposed a junior/senior type of AFFI rating. Make the junior guy probationary for 10 or so jumps and limited to 2 instructor jumps with a senior I. Didn't get any traction though mostly I think because nobody was interested in the opinion of a new guy. Maybe now I can put together some concrete data that will either prove or disprove the validity of the proposal.

Since 2009? Quite a bit actually. The structure of the AFFIE rating system was significantly changed to make it much more difficult to become an IE. I was one of the people that was unable to get my IE because of this, but I'm back on track now. And if you look back through old Parachutist issues at the new rating lists, you will see that there have been almost no new IEs for a couple of years now. And by reducing the number of IEs they reduced the number of courses to get ratings. And the continuing education program for IEs has improved as well. Ron Benn, Mike Wadkins and many others have done quite a bit in this space. Overall, I think that we are moving in the right direction with this.

First off - welcome back! I would be prepared to repeat the entire AFF course. Although your license technically never expires (USPA membership does) I personally would not be comfortable with just a refresher and then turning you loose. Things have changed since you've been away. Things like angle flying and XRW did not exist back then and you should be prepared to encounter them in the air. Not only do you have to learn to fly again, but there's all the book stuff as well.

I made a bet with Carol Clay. Uber stooopid! We were up late partaking in some DZ shenanigans and I bet the Queen that she wouldn't make load 1 in the morning. My dumb ass stayed up until... hell I don't know. And anyone that partied at West Point back in the day knows what I'm talking about. I think I got about an hour nap and somehow showed up to dirt dive with Carol. I fell asleep on the ride up and I do not remember the jump whatsoever except that Jason was there. When we got down I crawled into a corner of the hanger and passed out for most of the day. Never again I swore... but then there was another boogie! Damn I miss that woman.

Welcome (back) to skydiving, Christopher! Plenty to learn and lots of good times to be had. Blue skies!

Does anyone know what happened with their lease? I jumped here once on a road trip. Good peeps all around and stellar views from altitude.

I was there for the first 2 days. There wasn't anything significant or controversial discussed in open session, but there were much longer closed sessions than I remember happening before. Typical admin matters were handled (upcoming meeting dates, awards, etc.) and a few member requests for waivers and what not were dealt with. Of interest, Luke Akins offered to publicly discuss his situation. Chuck Akers declined due to a potential conflict of interest. According to Chuck, there will not be any USPA action until the FAA concludes its investigation. Good on Luke for attempting to pull back the curtain and deal with the issue out in the open.

Big shout out to the crews at Skydive San Diego, Skydive Moab, and Bay Area Skydiving! Special shouts to the loft in Eloy for getting me back in the air in record time. Nevada was NOT fun jumper friendly! Pretty much tandem only out there. Heading to Longmont tomorrow and then on to Kansas and Missouri.

Thanks - Ridgely is definitely on the radar. I'm curious to find out what the old Delmarva crew is up to these days.

Today was my first time logging onto Facebook in a few years. Saw that I had an unread note from Tom from about 2 years ago, after the last time I saw him. It was at the standardization meeting in Germany. And we talked about flying his plane up the coast when I got home. Man - it gets you when you least expect it. Miss you my friend.

After being stationed overseas for the last three years I'm back! So I'm kicking this off with a cross country road trip. Primarily I'll be touring MLB stadiums as I traverse the wide open plains, but of course I'll be jumping along the way. The highlights are; San Diego, Phoenix, LA, Oakland, Denver, Kansas City, St Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Boston, New York and finally DC. Any recommendations for places to jump between Denver and Chicago would be greatly appreciated. Looking around online has not been very promising as a lot of the DZ's on my route are closed during the week and tandem operations.

Thanks for all the feedback here - lots to consider. I'll certainly continue to pursue some type of continuing education, but I'm not sure if a ticket is the way to go. Based on what I've seen online, a course will cost around $3K if you add in food, lodging, and travel. But hell, I just might do it anyway. Not sure yet.

Hi all. I'm going to soon have quite a bit of time on my hands as I move into what I'm calling my pre-retirement. So I'm considering taking a rigger course this summer but don't plan to work as one. Primarily I'd be doing it just to increase my knowledge about the equipment. I've also done some rough math and figure that it should pay for itself after about 3-4 years of maintaining my 3 rigs. But I also view this as similar to having an instrument rating as a pilot. It can actually become less safe to have if you don't use it regularly. Just curious if any of you experienced riggers had any thoughts on it.

I look at how the pilot flies the airplane. If they are doing unusual take-offs, zero g jump runs, wing overs after the last jumper exits, and has a cavalier attitude, these are red flags for me personally. Some people are good with it. I also look for reckless canopy pilots the same way. When I get to a new DZ I'll sit with the spectators and just observe a few loads. Check out the vibe and see if there's anything weird going on. Then I'll ask questions about it to try and gage the general attitude toward safety. Never forget that there are always other places to jump if it doesn't feel right.

Yep, that's the stall recovery arc. Good habit to practice up high as it helps you learn the canopy's performance envelope. Next time, take note of the altitudes you begin and end the recovery. This moves you from feeling what he canopy can do, to knowing exactly what the canopy does. And keep in mind that these performance qualities will change based on the quality of your equipment. I.e. a new line set will flare very differently than an old worn out one.

Flare - converting forward movement into lift. Stall - not enough airflow over the wing to produce lift. To put it simply, a stall is what happens at the end of the flare if you hold it long enough. Once the canopy is no longer moving forward you are in a stall.

So the BOD had already approved a standing waiver for low pulls for the Red Bull Team through the 2024 season. But it was contingent on FAA approval. I assume that the FAA denial cancelled the waiver. Waiver Luke Aikins Red Bull Team. Renew waiver To allow the Red Bull Airforce Demo Team members (Luke Aikins, USPA #74853, Andy Farrington, USPA #112308, Jon Devore, USPA #182308, Mike Swanson, #USPA 67730, Jeff Provenzano, USPA #113923, Miles Daisher, #USPA 114553, Sean MacCormac, USPA #113484, and Charles Bryan, USPA #91708) to conduct demonstration jumps through the 2024 airshow season, contingent upon FAA provisional approval." Motion 50: FB: Passed by Unanimous Consent Move to waive SIM Section 2-1.H.4. C- and D-license holders 2,500 feet AGL [S] (waiverable to a minimum altitude of 2,000 feet AGL) to allow members of the Red Bull Air force Demo Team listed below to deploy no lower than 1,000 feet AGL to conduct demonstration jumps through the 2024 airshow season contingent upon FAA or the foreign country’s approval. The following members will be participating in these jumps: Luke Aikins, USPA #74853, Andy Farrington, USPA #112308, Jon Devore, USPA #182308, Mike Swanson, #USPA 67730, Jeff Provenzano, USPA #113923, Miles Daisher, #USPA 114553, Sean MacCormac, USPA #113484, and Charles Bryan, USPA #91708.

Are these guys still around? Just checked the website and the last release was 19 Nov, 2021. Haven't seen anything saying that they closed up shop.

That's exactly what I was implying, but didn't want to accuse. Seems to me that somebody dropped a dime to the Po-Po and they came a looking. How many time have we seen this play out before... There was no random picking out of a crowd. This guy was targeted for a reason (rightly or wrongly) and the medical was the vehicle used to crush him. IMO.