dudeman17

Again, I get your frustration and wasn't implying that you should just suck it up. I was mainly addressing a particular thing you said, and trying to give you a few other ideas as to why that may have happened. But to be sure, if you called to make a reservation and were told that there would be an instructor for you, then one should have been assigned to you. Definitely talk to someone. The dzo may have a lot of other stuff on his plate, the instructors deal with the students they're assigned to, so ideally if there's a school manager between them, that would be the person. Something else you said, though... You said that you're still jumping with an instructor, but then you said that they have sent you up by yourself before. That doesn't make sense. If you're just a couple jumps in and still under the direct supervision of an instructor, they shouldn't be sending you up by yourself. Could you elaborate on that?

Depending where you are in your progression, that might not be something you should worry about. If you're still jumping with an instructor and one isn't available at the moment, and/or you have yet to be trained for your next jump, then that doesn't really affect you, they're just looking for an up-jumper who can make a quick call. But if you're cleared for solo's and wind/weather isn't a factor, then yes you should be offered one of those slots. The same for there being student rigs packed and hanging on the wall, that's not really the factor, it's whether there is an instructor available. I understand your being frustrated, but it sounds like this wasn't your normal experience with them. Unfortunately, they often favor the walk-in tandems because they don't want those people steering their friends to the other dz. You should have said something before you left, and you should definitely talk to the dzo about it. Don't be confrontational, just express your frustration with the situation and see what they have to say.

I would have to agree with that. Perhaps mikelock34 is new to the sport and found that it is practiced more safely than he expected. It would be interesting to hear from him again and see if his perception has changed since his original post.

Geez, it's hard to rely on the details of 30 year old memories, but now that I watch that and think about it, I seem to remember him saying something about starting out on flipped-over right hand guitars, and when he got left handed ones he was used to the strings that way, so that's how he strung 'em.

I was saddened when I saw this on the news last night. Many years ago, probably late 80's - early 90's, there was an extreme sports expo held at a lakeside resort over a 3-day weekend, with vendor booths promoting dirt bikes, jet skis, that sort of thing, and a buddy and I ran a booth promoting our dropzone. Dick Dale was the entertainment, playing sets on Saturday and Sunday nights. Absolutely shredded, and if I remember correctly, he played his guitar upside down and backwards, like Jimi Hendrix did. He befriended us, and my buddy and I hung out with him and his wife all weekend. Genuinely nice, down to earth people. I still have a hat that he gave us. He lived on a ranch in Twentynine Palms that had its own airstrip, and he even invited us to organize a skydiving boogie there. But he was many years clean and sober and said no drugs or alcohol would be tolerated on his property, so out of respect we didn't even try to organize it. Talented performer, class act. A great loss to the music world.

I won't give you crap about believing. But I am very amused by your belief that I will come to believe you are correct. How conceited of you. And yet you have given me crap about it. Jump a rig without an AAD. Don't deploy either parachute. You will go in. Is that my conceited belief? Nah, just reality. I get that you don't believe me, and I don't expect to convince you. But you might as well be trying to convince me that my neighbors don't exist because you haven't met them. Rest assured, there are others who live on my street. Back to the jokes...

I actually believe in God. Yeah yeah, most of you will give me crap about that, but I don't give a fuck. I guarantee you that there will come a moment when you do too. Whether that moment comes in the nick of time or an instant too late is your problem. Anyway, here's a few that might make you snicker... ------ A bumper sticker I once saw- Jesus is coming - Look busy! ----- An oldie I remember from somewhere- The scene is the parable where the folks are about to stone the hooker to death. Jesus walks up and says, "Ye who are without sin cast the first stone!" This old lady steps forward and beans the chick right in the head with a rock. Jesus turns to her and says, "Mom, you're missing the point." ----- My own cynical joke- The Rapture has already happened, but so few people went that nobody noticed. Flame on...

Craig you're mistaken. You're thinking of Dan Foley, who is still very much alive.

It might be worth a try to notify manufacturers and other dzs to be on the lookout for someone trying to buy the same number of pax harnesses.

Since everybody is getting into the minutiae, I suppose turning the rings might make it easier to tell if they've been stretched/warped/oblonged. Varying the direction in which they take the load of opening shock may help prevent them from becoming so. Whether that's better or worse than the grease/dirt/wear issue is something I'm sure one of you will speculate on.

Alright, admittedly I'm a dinosaur, but here's my nickel's worth. The best altimeter on the planet is - the planet. I jumped for years without any altimeter, because a good visual sense of altitude is the one altimeter that will never break down and lie to you. Get a good visual sense of altitude, and not by looking down at the ground or objects, but more in the periphery at a 45 or so, where the 'shelf' is. That way it's not dependent on familiar topography or a definitive look, it's just the 'shelf' gets to a point where you know it's time to go, then from there it's just degrees of urgency. It even transcends putting a number to it. Here's a drill: On your ride to altitude, at points when it occurs to you, look out the window, not at specific objects, but just the lay of the land around, and guess your altitude, then check your altimeters to see how accurate you are. I started wearing an altimeter again when I got instructor ratings. I wear an analog, because that's what I've always had, they're easy to see, and they never need batteries. I've never worn an audible, 'cause I just can't fathom the idea that I ought to need one.

Donald Trump for USPA President! (After all, Ivanka has done a tandem.)

I'd like to see evidence of that. My guess is when suspended from the harness connection point during a malfunction, a jumper's head position has little or nothing to do with what happens when the cutaway occurs relative to other factors like spin-induced body attitude, body position at the time of release, etc. I don't have any evidence for you other than that I've watched it happen and have talked to others that it has happened to. As you've said, certainly there are other factors that can have an effect. Someone chopping from a spinning mal is going to get flicked however it happens. A MARD would probably affect one's body position, an RSL perhaps less so. But someone under a larger, docile canopy with a non-spinning malfunction, if the weight of their head is craned back behind their center of gravity, certainly that could effect a backwards roll post-cutaway. I'm not saying that this is the end-all be-all reason not to look up, just another factor in the argument against it.

Something else that I'm not sure I've seen mentioned is that your body often follows your head. I've seen people who were looking up at their malfunction as they cut away roll backwards onto their back because of it. Looking down at your handles helps ensure that you'll roll forwards. A lot of people think (and this comes up a lot for tandem pax exits) that if your head is back it helps you arch. That may be so, but the important element of the arch is hips forward, shoulders/knees/legs back. If you've got that, you really shouldn't need your head back. And a couple people mentioned that looking at the mal or the ground can cause stress and hesitation of the EPs. As NickDG used to say, "Don't look at the dogs, work the lock".

This brought me a smile. My first reserve ride was on a 26' Navy Conical that was four years older than I was.

My guess would be in the 80's, when the 'higher' performance 7-cells were the norm. Ravens, Cruiselites, Comets, Pegasus', those sorts of canopies. When you could skydive and base jump with the same gear. I kind of liken that era to the muscle car era of the 60's and 70's. They didn't go as fast or handle as well as what you can get today, but they were badass and we had a lot of fun with them.

Heaven by Rusted Root https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAF8ksUNSCo

Scary story. Just to clarify, the skyhook disconnect that I, and I believe skytribe, refer to is NOT the RSL/skyhook shackle disconnecting from the riser ring. That should be part of not only a gear check, but also the final check before getting into exit position, as well as the handles check after setting the drogue. The skyhook disconnection referred to is that the hook connecting the main canopy to the reserve bag can come off, rendering the system a standard RSL.

Interesting discussion of EPs. The guy definitely should have had his hand on the reserve handle, not the riser. As others have stated, having his hand on the riser could result in an hesitation and entanglement, or an injury that could prevent a reserve pull or correct control of the reserve. I can kind of see some peoples' point that with a skyhook, in the moment it takes to confirm a successful cutaway you're already at line stretch, but as has been said sometimes they disconnect. I have had that happen, and you can feel the difference. Personally, I advocate pulling the handles. Anyone else here old enough to have gone through a static line student program, remember DRCP's? *Shrug* But what got me to write was this: I don't think we should be promoting races to see who's quickest. Yes, we teach students a two hands each handle sequenced EP, but most people at some point will transition to a one hand per handle EP. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's seen someone on their first cutaway immediately grab both handles and jam them simultaneously and nearly have an entanglement. Smooth, deliberate and accurate is better than fastfastfast.

OK, further speculation just for the heck of it... So the aircraft has catastrophic damage, it is going to crash, but everything else is in your favor - it is stable, you're at a reasonable altitude, there is a safe exit point and you have every chance of exiting, opening, and landing safely. You have a tandem rig, meaning you can take somebody with you. Who do you take? The hottest girl/most attractive person to you? The young brilliant kid with a lifetime of potential ahead of them? The wealthiest person in 1st class? Who, indeed...

And when somebody thought they were 'inventing' the PRO pack, they were really just cleaning up the good old fashioned trash pack.

I got my D just before the '84 Nationals ( I need a license for this?!) and it was just into the 9000's.

Yeah, a guy named Eddie Lira tried one of those back in the late 70's. It came loose in freefall, trailed behind him, caught both his canopies and he went in. Don't do it.

PM sent, if you haven't seen it.

He could be Bozo the Clown for all I care. I was just continuing the comments about stuff of that era.