Marisan

So, given this, what are you guys going to do? As I said earlier, best save up to buy a BIG SAFE SOFT CANOPY. Because, unless you sort out the fatality rate under an open canopy, that's what you are going to have to do. It's either that or buy shares in a Tunnel Manufacturer. Thanks for screwing a sport that I once loved. (and still do from a distance)

Told you so! You now have two choices! 1/ Figure out how to stop this carnage (And quickly) 2/ Start saving up to buy a nice BIG Soft Canopy. My money's on number two.

Hate to rain on your parade Chuck. It's a great idea though. The only problem I see is how many more people have to die (5 in the last month) before you have a statistically significant data set? Near misses are very relevant. It's the difference between a fatality and " There but for the grace of god go I"

Now you're catching on kid... As sad and tragic as the events of the past few weeks have been, it's the same old story...only the names have have changed. If skydiving is truly a 'family' then what you're seeing is a modification of the stages of grief...when acceptance finally comes, things will go back to status quo. I read the demands for change and the ideas spit-balled ad nauseum in the other threads...it's meaningless. I've seen the barrel turn so many times I can't count it anymore. Not until either our governing organization, or the big brother above it steps up and says definitively...do it 'this' way or don't do it at all, will any true resolution to this problem be realized. A few folks went in fighting Blast Handles...they're gone. A couple people slipped through the hole...Y mod. 75% of the fatalities the past few years were after the canopy was open and flying...I guess it needs to be 90% or better before some real action is taken. History seems to show nothing will change, until the gear undergoes some modification to prevent the human element from using it wrong...is THAT where we're at...REALLY?! Booths Law it seems, isn't just a 'theory' What you mean " Kid" I did my first jump in 74. I believe that beats you. Anyway less of the point scoring. Those killing themselves are the current version of those who, in our time, had low pull contests. A very long time ago a friend of mine called Base " Suicide for cowards" Now swooping could well be called the same. Taking out and killing someone else could be called " Murder for Cowards" and the people that make and sell these LETHAL canopies could well be called " Accessories before the fact of suicide or murder" A lovely quote from the book Flight of the Intruder. " If you kill me I'll kick your arse (I'm english) in hell for a thousand years" Prove me wrong gang, fix this ...I dare ya! ~grumpy old fart rant over~

Read this! 3 years later and nothing has changed

Anyone thought of chasing said partner? Depends how it's set up, if they're limited you'll be SOL. Just remember that that guy got screwed bigger than anyone because he put cash into Karnage Krew for a portion of the company and ended up with a share of what you see unfolding. Not the partner I know of. I'll bet he got his money out in time. (Against the bankruptcy laws in Oz and he's got plenty of assets too)

I'm not here to join the pile-on, I just wanted to offer the observation that I think Gary has been here before and dug his way out, but that was before he had the overheads of his store etc. and while his reputation was still intact and his suppliers weren't pissed off. The story I got was that a few years ago Gary got a load of orders from the UK and wound up losing a small fortune due to a sudden change in the exchange rate ( I think the markets bear this out ). Anyway he kept everyone happy, and clawed his way back to success. Once he'd recovered he found a partner and invested in a store. He seemed happy and excited about future prospects. He was ordering demo/loaner rigs to cover order periods etc. with hindsight adding to his overheads in unsustainable ways. Anyone thought of chasing said partner?

This is how the Military do it. To quote my JP instructor. "You're about a second behind the aircraft. You'll get away with it here, but on Gnats it will be dangerous, and on Lightnings it will be fatal." So no fast jets and off to helicopters (see, I wasn't actually "chopped"). He was wrong on one point. It would probably have been fatal on the Gnat. Would have loved to have had a try though.

I've been out of the sport for a bloody long time (20+ years) but reading the incident reports there is one common factor. The Canopies. I started in 1974 and went through the transition to the modern (for my time) squares. Turn to low, not a problem, flare out with the other toggle. Worked a charm and even gave you a softer landing. Canopy collision. They just bounced off of each other. Might break a leg but that was it. High speed spinning mals, unheard of. These modern miniature canopies leave absolutely no margin for error and jumpers, like all other people, make errors. And, believe me, those Mad Skillz tend to run out at the most inconvenient time. Just my 2 cents worth and I'm prepared to be flamed by those that haven't hurt themselves yet.

A 100 years ago and he was a Republican! http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/speeches/trnationalismspeech.pdf

Ahh The Old Days, And we needed those helmets too.

03/08/1980 at Elderslie, NSW Australia. It's hard to believe it's been thirty years Janice. Your photo still hangs at the DZ

Just for you airtwardo http://fireheli.com/Files/hearingvoices.pdf

Interesting thread from PPRUNE on gear checks (Non Skydiving but still relevant) on how the human eye (and brain) tend to see what they expect to see and not necessarily what is actually there. http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/407864-intreresting-reading-about-human-factors.html

Interesting article on the psychology involved in reading Incident Reports. Written for Pilots but still relevant for Skydivers. Thanks to PPRUNE What Can You Learn from Accident Reports? by Gerry Binnema, Civil Aviation Safety Inspector, System Safety, Pacific Region, Civil Aviation, Transport Canada A lot of people who work in aviation like to read accident reports. The reports serve as good reminders that aviation can be dangerous and that we always need to be vigilant. But if we were all being completely honest, sometimes we read them because it makes us feel smugly superior to the people who messed up. So, how much do we really learn from reading accident reports? Surprisingly, there has been very little research to see if accident reports actually have any positive effect on the people reading them. It seems very obvious that accident reports would be helpful, but there are a number of things that interfere with our ability to learn lessons from them. Our brains process information and organize it before it is presented to our conscious attention. This processing follows certain relatively predictable patterns, which serve to help us understand the world around us. However, this processing can also distort our view of things, as information gets processed in such a way as to protect our self-esteem and our confidence. The patterns of processing that are very relevant to our understanding of accident reports are hindsight bias, attribution error, and invulnerability. Readers will recall Heather Parker’s series of articles on the "new view" in the past three issues of the Aviation Safety Letter (ASL). In these articles, she described hindsight bias and attribution error. These concepts also apply when we are reading accident reports. By way of a brief review, hindsight bias refers to our tendency to look back at events and believe the events should have been predictable beforehand. A classic example of hindsight bias is the Monday-morning critique of the weekend’s sporting events by armchair athletes. The coach should have anticipated the other team’s strategy. They should have known that the goalie would get re-injured if they put him in so soon. In reality, as we try to anticipate what will happen next, there are many different potential outcomes and we make the best decision we can with the information that we have available. As we read an accident report, we already know how the flight ends, and so we tend to judge all the decisions that led up to the accident with hindsight bias, believing that the pilot should have known better. Attribution error refers to our tendency to overestimate the contribution of personal factors when we observe other people’s errors. This means that when we see other people making a mistake, we tend to believe that their errors are a result of their own inadequacies (ignorance, incompetence, laziness), rather than a result of situational factors. Even when a situation arises over which the pilot had no control, we still tend to believe that they were at fault for allowing themselves to get into that situation. Invulnerability refers to our tendency to believe that bad things will not happen to us. Of course, there are hazards all around us, so in order to enjoy life we suppress our fear and deny the possibility that anything will happen. But an unrealistic sense of invulnerability actually places us in danger. Young people, especially males, have higher levels of invulnerability, and this can be observed in the number of accidental injuries and deaths among young males. A strong sense of invulnerability will prevent us from taking the lessons of an accident report to heart. In combination, these three factors make it easy to read an accident report and learn very little. It would be almost natural to believe that the pilot should have known better, that their errors were caused by their own ignorance or incompetence, and that this kind of thing could never happen to you. I recently had an opportunity to conduct some research to see if accident reports were having an impact on readers. Eighty-nine college aviation students participated in the study by completing a questionnaire, and then six weeks later reading an accident report and completing another questionnaire. The questionnaire was intended to measure invulnerability and attribution error. The participants’ responses to the questions on invulnerability showed very clearly that they did not believe they could be in an accident. The participants also clearly demonstrated a willingness to place the entire responsibility for an accident on the pilot, even when a number of situational factors contributed to the accident. However, the most interesting finding was that there was a remarkably consistent, but small, decrease in the measures of invulnerability immediately after reading an accident report. This means that reading an accident report does have an impact on the reader and does help to make a pilot think about their vulnerability to an accident. The participants read one of two accident reports. One was a typical accident report format, while the other was written in a narrative format, describing the unfolding events from the pilot’s perspective. Both report formats achieved the same level of change in invulnerability. However, the latter format was able to build sympathy for the pilot so that participants who read this style of report were more likely to believe that they could commit the same errors and be in a similar type of accident. This is good news for those of us who read a lot of accident reports. It really does give us a more realistic sense of the fact that we could be in an accident if the wrong set of circumstances hit us. In addition, earlier research (see http://psy.otago.ac.nz/cogerg/Rememb...ses%20Past.pdf) conducted in New Zealand, and repeated here in Canada, demonstrates that we do recall lessons from accident reports while in flight. However, in order to make the most of these lessons, we need to keep some things in mind. Here are some practical suggestions for reading accident reports: • Be aware of the fact that hindsight bias and attribution error do alter your perspective on an accident. As you read a report, think about how the unfolding events might have appeared to the pilot. Think about the decisions the pilot made, and try to ignore the fact that they resulted in an accident. Could you have made the same decisions? What circumstances might have led you to those decisions? • Be aware of the fact that the majority of people have an unrealistically optimistic belief about the probability that they will be in an accident. Ask yourself if you are really being as cautious as you should be. • Finally, as you read an accident report, remember that the pilot’s actions made sense to them at the time. If you cannot make sense of the actions, you do not understand the situation as the pilot understood it. Try to step into the pilot’s shoes and see if you can build sympathy for their predicament. Could you fall into the same trap? Could some external pressures or stresses cause you to behave in this way? • If we all use this kind of strategy as we read accident reports, we are more likely to learn valuable lessons from them, and this may prove to be the critical piece of information in some future decision you need to make. In the next issue, I will look at how to apply these same ideas to the way organizations think

Hi Does anyone have a packing manual for a Delta II Parawing with the original OSI and Stall Panel? Your help would be much appreciated.

Parasled?

It was perception more than events. With the OneShots ( and I had them on a military surplus rig because I knew they were State-of-the-Art ). The design concept was that you would pull the covers open about 3/4 of the way & then just pull them both down further to cutaway. Often ( when on the ground ) when activated they would snap all the way open and you would have been cutaway before you wanted. Or so the rumors went . . . . JerryBaumchen Oneshots were mechanically identical to 1&1/2 shots except the activation cable was attached to the cover. You had to pull the covers open then push them down HARD to release the claws that held them to the metal part of the riser. Any system that just snapped open would have been junked. Problem was that they looked identical to 1&1/2 shots except for a bit of cable showing on the face of the covers. If you didn't realise what you had you were in trouble. A streamer at 2000 feet is not the time to learn a new cutaway system. Similar to Tapewells where you had to pull them DOWN not out as with Capewells

Back in the Seventies. 28 Foot C9. 9 TU! With Derry Slots!!! Came down slightly slower than a pilot chute in tow

If people out there are really thing this(And I suspect they are starting too) then we truly do live in interesting times http://rocktrueblood.blogspot.com/2009/01/funniest-commentary-about-our-economic.html?ref=A1ANEWS.COM And, yes I'm another that doesn't know how to make a clicky

The container "looks" like the container supplied with the original reefed stratostar. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

They are 2 shot capewells. Pull the cover off, squeeze the buttons and pull forward to release

I had them and loved them. But you had to pull the tabs DOWN not out as you did with Capewells. Nearly caused a couple of fatalities in NZ until they were banned.

Years ago (1/4 of a century) when I used to instruct I initially did a running PLF on concrete to show it could be done. (They never saw the bruises) Then I taught them how to PLF on the matting. 1/2 way though when they had learnt the basics I made them do a standing PLF on the concrete. This showed them the mistakes they were making and when they went back on the mats they were very good at tucking the hurt bits away during the roll ensuring a perfect PLF

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3061865;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread Hi Guys, The link is to a question I asked on my first post on this forum. Some of the responses are interesting. They range from "Fcuk off you old fart what would you know" to"Yes we are aware of the problem but we don't know what to do about it" It appears to me that the insane have taken over the asylum. I have seen 2 fatalities, one a terminal impact (I still remember the WHOMP sound to this day) another where I was first on the scene and had to cut the harness off of a friend who died in hospital an hour later. I was also a Pallbearer of another friend who also had a terminal impact in another country. I myself had 2 incidents where I knew I wouldn't survive (Hey I did) How can you accept 37% of fatalities coming after a successfully developed main parachute. How can you accept main parachutes that are so sensitive that the smallest error below 500'will kill you. How can espouse a discipline (Swooping) that has the term "Femuring In) as part of it's lexicon (For those that don't know Google broken femur. It's not as nice as an ordinary broken bone). When you have had a collision at 300"I bet you are screaming at YOUR imminent demise not apologising to the person that YOU have just killed or their family or the people that have to pick up your sorry carcase and your victim's. I know most young people are indestuctable (I was too) but you are killing Skydiving. If this continues THE SPORT WILL BE REGULATED OUT OF EXISTENCE (Skydiving was banned in New Zealand for 6 months in the late sixties. Don't think it can't and won't happen in your country) I suppose you will have to go Base Jumping then and destroy that "Sport" Rant over but be careful out there!