Marisan

You are now putting students out on canopies that would have required at least 200 to 300 jumps experience to jump in my time. Your excuse is: 1/ how will they get back from a bad spot? and 2/ what about high winds? The answer to these is: 1/ Learn how to fcuken spot. 2/ Keep your students ON THE GROUND in high winds! Jesus Christ, what does it take to make you people see

You really need to learn how to do this.... You are dead right but I'm too busy keeping up with the carnage

Quote:In this case, by jumping a grossly overloaded reserve canopy, the decedent had a baseline of one Fatality Factor already built into every jump he made -- so he had one less FThe reserve is a LIFESAVING EMERGENCY DEVICE, not a fashion accessory, but still people persist in jumping reserves so small that they can twist up into an unrecoverable spin -- or they will die if they can't fly it properly.F to add before he hit the death zone. Unquote: Who the fcuk is making these things and who the fcuk is selling them. And who the fcuk is going to take responsibility for this fatality? (Don't say the jumper either because some one made it and sold it to him) Highly loaded reserves: What the fcuk are you people thinking about. Who thought THAT was a good idea?

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http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4317092;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread More of a botched landing under a high performance canopy than a botched high performance landing. When will you ever learn

Thanks for that Marcel. Looks good and practical and more importantly, Doable. Anyone else have any suggestions.

Well the fatalities under an open canopy would certainly be less. Maybe the lower leg injuries would be more (they were) My whole point is: Stop killing yourselves (Yes I mean YOU) under a fully open and functioning Canopy

Back in the eighty's we used to put 45 jumpers out of a DC3. (Twentyfive from an a Twin Otter) Exit separation consisted of the time it took for the next exit to stack and exit. We never had freefall/ canopy collisions. We never had fatalities from 45 jumpers trying to land in the same 200x200 yard area. The reason why you can't do this is because the canopies you jump now won't allow it Canopy Collisions come from the people jumping HP Canopies

Wow! Maybe in the 80s it was. Today its unacceptable and dangerous in the pattern to do s turns. They are unpredictable and do not fit in the standard pattern. Well, maybe that's why the fatality rate under open canopies was MUCH LOWER in the 80's

That sounds like you are pointing the finger and also starts with ban them. Go away = ban them. You didn't address the fact that they need to clean up their patterns. Your post indicates that you believe one group is the problem and the other can just carry on. Again, this is everyones problem and is bigger than just swoopers. My solution includes better accountability by DZOs to the USPA for a comprehensive plan. Separation of landing patterns works when enforced and implemented with NO exceptions. If you want to ground the kid with the hot rod who is over his head, you have to ground the instructor doing s turns in the pattern or breaking the pattern because they feel like it. Nobody is immune from dying in this sport. I actually DO believe that one group is the problem. Why penalise the jumper that is doing S Turns. He/she is only being safe. Why not penalise the jumper that is putting everyone else at risk just so they can get their thrills. How about a bit of accountability from your side. It is the swoopers that are putting people at risk not the conservative jumpers. If starting your own DZ is too hard how about exiting by yourself. That way you only put yourself at risk. (Oh, I forgot, and the psyches of the people that have to clean up your mess) Regards Marisan

Yawn... I've seen more shoddy pattern flying by the old time instructors doing 90's or "straight" in approaches then I typically see with disciplined canopy pilots. What I saw at Perris in February in the main landing area was incredibly undisciplined. "S" turns on final are tolerated and its unacceptable. The quicker we figure out that this canopy issues is an "US" problem and not a "THEM" problem...the better off we will all be. Get off your high horse and offer a solution that doesn't start with Ban them! Additionally anyone that thinks the USPA will be released from any sort of responsibility in the eyes of the government of swoop deaths/injuries if it pushes out swooping to swooping dedicated Non USPA DZs is also fooling themselves. Well it worked with BASE BASE doesn't use airplanes. Well they do sometimes

Yawn... I've seen more shoddy pattern flying by the old time instructors doing 90's or "straight" in approaches then I typically see with disciplined canopy pilots. What I saw at Perris in February in the main landing area was incredibly undisciplined. "S" turns on final are tolerated and its unacceptable. The quicker we figure out that this canopy issues is an "US" problem and not a "THEM" problem...the better off we will all be. Get off your high horse and offer a solution that doesn't start with Ban them! Additionally anyone that thinks the USPA will be released from any sort of responsibility in the eyes of the government of swoop deaths/injuries if it pushes out swooping to swooping dedicated Non USPA DZs is also fooling themselves. Well it worked with BASE

Yawn... I've seen more shoddy pattern flying by the old time instructors doing 90's or "straight" in approaches then I typically see with disciplined canopy pilots. What I saw at Perris in February in the main landing area was incredibly undisciplined. "S" turns on final are tolerated and its unacceptable. The quicker we figure out that this canopy issues is an "US" problem and not a "THEM" problem...the better off we will all be. Get off your high horse and offer a solution that doesn't start with Ban them![/reply Well I've got two solutions for you. Go away and start a swoop only DZ. Get out by yourself so all those old time instructors (BTW who probably taught you) won't be in your way. That's two. Where are your solutions?

Sorry, the faulty reasoning lies with you: I never said any such thing. It's not turn-dependent; it's ALTITUDE dependent. What part of that is so hard for everyone to undertand? I was jumping a canopy with a huge recovery arc so when I botched my entry, I had 300 feet to fix it; no problem. When my friend botched her landing on a small recovery arc canopy, she had 30 feet to fix it; game over. Please read my article attached above that was inspired by her death and then we can continue. 44 Hi Robin, So you are saying that the problem is the little boys trying to emulate the big boys but with inappropriate gear and also lacking the knowledge and experience to jump the appropriate gear all the while thinking they they are making a safe progression until it all turns to shit. (What a long sentence) Therefore most training and doctrine for learning HP landings has been wrong and is a major factor in the carnage? (That doesn't apply to the hotshots that won't listen to anyone) Regards Marisan

Mari, That statement tells me something -- you are very bad at statistics. Also, the article you linked to is six year old. What, without a recent incident to use as an excuse to bump your regular thread, did you have to go digging for tenuous links to tell people something they already know? While your concern is admirable, your methods are tiresome. Why don't you spend that time working on a viable solution? Tim Tim, If you profile is correct (74 jumps and 1 year in the sport) you are one of the people that doesn't know what he doesn't know. If you think that 50% of the fatalities last year (Low turns/ Canopy collisions caused by low turns) happening under fully functional Canopies is somehow acceptable I despair for the future of the sport. The article I linked to is 6 years old but Smeeds law was written about acceptance of risk came into being 65 years ago and is as true today as it was then. I'll reprise it for you: Fatalities increase until the community will no longer accept it. Then they decrease to a level that the community will accept. Known among jumpers as Booth's law. The community is showing signs of saying "Enough"

Also known as risk homeostasis and the converse is also true. When things get safer people are willing to take more risks. Also known in skydiving as Booth's law: "The safer skydiving gear becomes, the more chances skydivers will take, in order to keep the fatality rate constant." And that is the whole point of the article

Hi Wendy, no I DON"T have a large agenda of doing away with swooping. I, however DO have a large agenda of doing away with the carnage that seems to be associated with swooping (or tiny canopies). Again my point is that the community seems to be starting to no longer accept the carnage. How many times to people want to sprint over to the IMPACT point to find their friend lying on the ground, blood, piss and shit coming out of every orifice making grunting sounds as they drown in their own blood? How often do YOU want to do it? My statement is that it will continue to happen until the community says NO MORE! We've gone more than 2 months before without a fatality. Well that's an interesting statement isn't it! How about we go more than 12 months without a totally avoidable fatality? Is that achievable? That is what I'd like to see. The community is starting to say that this is what they want. The authorities are starting to say that is what they expect Cheers

Hi Wendy and Squeak. With the greatest of respect you have missed the point of the article. The point is not about the fatalities happening, it is more about how we react to them. When they cause enough psychological pain the community will react by limiting that which causes the pain. For some that limit is higher, for others it is lower. For the operators of Elsinore and Perris (Please excuse me if I have named the wrong DZ's) they have reached their limits. Whether that is because of commercial considerations or the fact that they are sick of scraping up bodies is irrelevant. It's been nearly 2 months since the last fatality which tells me that SOMETHING is happening within the communty.

Substitute Swooping for driving and, maybe, that is where we are now. (Page 6 of this article http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/17724/#.T67PfCJOXzc.facebook) Smeed interpreted his law as a law of human nature. The number of deaths is determined mainly by psychological factors that are independent of material circumstances. People will drive recklessly until the number of deaths reaches the maximum they can tolerate. When the number exceeds that limit, they drive more carefully. Smeed's Law merely defines the number of deaths that we find psychologically tolerable.

Which could all be summed up as: " Ignoring any rule (or law) that doesn't suit and putting the evidence on U tube for the authorities viewing pleasure" BTW re New Zealand. Jumping was banned in NZ in the late sixties after a spate of fatalities. It took SIX MONTHS of lobbying to get this reversed. How many operations would survive six months with no cash flow and legal bills to try and reverse the ban. Just something to ponder.

And if you super experienced swoopers are killing yourselves who is going to teach the newbies?

Hi Dave My point is that we can understand (not condone) what happens to low number jumpers but it is very hard to understand what happened to jumpers of your skill level that died or ended up in a wheelchair for life and there is many of them! It goes back to what I have said time after time. There is NO MARGIN FOR ERROR and it is only a matter of time before YOU are a fraction of a second out and YOU end up on the incident list. (I really don't want to see that) No Margin for error means you have to be perfect on EVERY JUMP! Are you really THAT GOOD?

Quote Some day skydivers are going to realize that shit doesn’t just happen. There is a cause and effect for every incident. The most common cause is something the jumper did do or something the jumper didn’t do. By saying “shit happens” you put your head in the sand and say there is nothing that can be done. And that is wrong. That's only wrong when you rush to that conclusion without a full investigation of the incident. On that case, you're short-changing yourself and the sport in general. However, accidents do happen, and sometimes the result of an investigation is that it was indeed an accident, with the only lesson to learn being a simple 'be careful'. In that case, there's nothing wrong with calling an accident, an accident. I've had a riser slip through my hand before. I've missed a grab at a riser. I've had a toggle 'slip' through part of my hand (but not all). The point is that things do 'happen', and things do go wrong. We've all tripped or dropped things 'by accident', and there's no reason that the same can't happen in skydiving. So what is being said above is that , if you are a low time swooper the cause is lack of training. If you are a high time swooper the cause is " Shit Happens" Sorry guys, you can't have it both ways!!!!!!! It's either low time swoopers or LETHAL CANOPIES. If the injuries and fatalities were all sub 1000 jump swoopers I could accept the call for more training. But when 5,000-10,000 jump swoopers are going in at almost equal rates there is only one common denominator between the two groups. It's the LETHAL LITTLE CANOPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dave Lepka: I accept your skills (Note, Not Mad Skillz) but I wonder why are you still alive and several very experienced swoopers have died lately? Is it because your skills are so much better than theirs or just that your appointment to meet the reaper hasn't occurred yet! It's either one or the other! Bon chance mes ami's

So if you REALLY want to stop this, the answer is to reduce or eliminate access to HP canopies. The ongoing incidents prove that a ban on -- or severely restricted access to -- HP canopies is the only thing that would be effective. People keep talking about training and mentoring, but that alone is not working. It's just more talk. The time for talking has come and gone. It's time to DO something. . Well then what do you propose? You are talking about banning hp canopies. That will never happen and it shouldn't. Everyone has a choice. Yours may differ from those who are qualified and choose to jump hp canopies. If you want 100% guarantee nobody will get hurt or die this isn't the right lifestyle for you. So your answer is to just accept the collateral damage. It's just a cost of jumping HP Canopies??????????? You've had twenty years to stop this little problem and despite all the efforts of those that can be bothered sweet fcuk all has happened. I've said it so many times in this thread: Stop the carnage or someone else will do it for you.

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