pchapman

Well that's odd. So are they saying it is only their EASA approval that lapsed? And is it because of a paperwork snafu ? Or not getting the required inspections for production authorization? Basik must have gotten a TSO too, in addition to any EASA certification, otherwise it wouldn't be selling in the USA. As far as I know, "having a TSO" also requires the production facility & processes to have some sort of production authorization, otherwise the products coming from the factory are not considered to be TSO'd (even if the original design is TSO'd). Since the FAA isn't grounding the rigs pending inspection, I guess the TSO production authorization is still valid. Yet the FAA is still strongly recommending following the bulletin, grounding pending inspection at the manufacturer. So do they or do they not think that the TSO production authorization is still valid? Their concern suggests it is more than just misfiled paperwork. (Even if the rig manufacturer is doing the best it can to produce a quality product, just like all the other companies.) A curious situation. Most of us skydivers don't actually know anything about producing goods to TSO standards, so all I can do is throw up lots of only somewhat informed questions. Presumably we'll hear more eventually about what the error was and its implications.

And now you want to break the law and start assaulting people.

Yeah! (Some people shouldn't jump with chest straps until they have 200 jumps!) It's a valuable "download it before it's gone" video. The jumper is remarkably distracted even under canopy, seeming to not figure out a landing plan until the last moment. Then he even tried to run it out, despite having had a bunch of brake on with little additional flare left. At least he did seem to do a decent flat turn and not hook himself in! Edit: Seems like being back to earth gave him some extra altitude on the AAD fire (as one expects). He got a pretty good 34 seconds or so under the reserve until landing.

The whole argument basically keeps on being this: "Do what the the pilot says because he knows what's going on with the plane." "Yeah! Unless he does something wrong and endangers me and the other jumpers." "But you have to listen to the pilot!" "Sure, but not if he's wrong!" "Well I don't trust skydivers!" "Yeah well I don't trust pilots!" Repeat ad infinitum. Rules can go out the window in an emergency -- same as for pilots -- as long as you can defend yourself afterwards... (One could I suppose make a list of how many skydivers were killed by pilots, vs. pilots killed by skydivers. There are definitely a few of the latter, but many more of the former. Naturally there will be plenty of grey area in between, say when it comes to arguing whether the jumpers or engine failure caused the plane to stall or whether the pilot caused it to stall...)

On my Sabre 135, before adding a pocket to the slider, I would sometimes brace my head, by crossing my arms infront of my chin, hands at the opposite shoulder. Don't know if anyone else did something like that, but it helped me. (Should be no problem to move hands around, assuming one is still stable for deployment. After all people also often reach up to put their hands near their rear risers on deployment.)

Took too much time, or too much altitude. Take your pick.

Hi popsjumper, I know you're a fan of looking at the alti and not using "time". But one still can get into problems: So a guy with the mal does go check his alti and finds he still has plenty of altitude to mess with his mal to try to clear it. He plans to give it 5 seconds before the next alti check. He still has to have a decent appreciation for time or his perception of 5 seconds might be totally off, and do the next check too late. So I get what you're saying about confirming your altitude with the alti -- it's a great tool that shouldn't be forgotten in the heat of an emergency -- but I'll argue that you still need to use a sense of time. If you get distracted or don't perceive it properly, relative to the speed of descent of your mal, you still can get in trouble.

We had a Lady McNasty who was so focused on sticking it to the skydivers, that she collected wind drift indicators, rolled them up again, and collected them on a shelf in her garage. It must have given her great satisfaction! (One or two free bags went missing too. Nobody ever told her about the value of a used wind drift indicator, and she has recently sold the house & moved.)

Sometimes just sticking one's face out into fast moving cold air can make breathing hard for someone not used to it. Depending on the aircraft etc there might be a chance for your instructors to let you stick your head out the door for a little bit to try to get used to the air more. Otherwise the advice is to "breathe normally" -- easier said than done when tense or hyped up. And breathe through your nose.

As you probably know but just to clarify for the thread, the advantage of the system is that the vertical butt strap is has a soft bungee system on it, pulling on the webbing. (In parallel, not in series!) So the strap can be be made 'tight' -- as in not hanging down loosely -- yet still stretch as needed for passenger movement for sitting in the harness and getting legs up for landing. Then it can usually just stay in place the same way for most passengers without having to adjust the buckle. The advantage of the system would be lost if the strap were buckled up so far that the strap were fully tight, as in no slack in the webbing itself. Other viewpoints and experiences welcome.

I don't know the British system in detail but they have things like the below. This is part of the BPA's Canopy Piloting 1 signoff (after Canopy Handlign 1 & 2): Like other signoffs for licenses etc in other countries, it does take time for the jumper to get someone to watch (rather a lot unfortunately). Also, a jumper may do things they aren't supposed to, and signoffs can be done without the skills being properly demonstrated. But at least the concept is similar to more traditional things, like getting signed off for a certain number of landings within X distance of a target. I like it that such a system doesn't stop people from trying out a range of different canopies based on arbitrary jump numbers, but it can help channel the type of thing people do with their canopy. It won't stop all accidents, but at least gets people into thinking about the concept of a progression program. I'm not advocating any particular system though.

Ill-informed? Sure, all we had was an abstract and a press release by the university. No harm in asking questions. One gets the problem where in an original paper, all the limitations and caveats of the study are made clear. Then the news gets a hold of it and say, "Scientists conclude that ....", at which point we may complain about the presumptuousness of ivory tower elites. The real problem is that we get a very filtered version of events to which to react to. (We haven't gotten that far with this study, since it isn't exactly all over the news at this point.)

Well that's science - for every thing you learn, you can come up with a couple questions. Still some interesting results, even if one would want to see what literature there is on other sports and activities (beyond public speaking), and trying to find the source of the stress response. Of course I haven't seen the paper so these sorts of ideas might be touched on already. From a web search, it looks like the published info is just starting to make it into the blogs and other news-ish sites, so it'll be interesting to see how much interest it gathers elsewhere as a bit of offbeat info at bigger news sites. (And I bet a lot of the little articles will be written just based on the university press release, instead of reading the actual paper.)

I'd also like to know the conditions of the jumps. How does the stress level vary with the type of jump? Is it the same for a playful solo jump, compared to when one is trying to do the best formation work possible, and not one's friends down? (Even in a non-competition setting) I'm asking whether it is the "jumping from a plane and not dying" that is stressful, or the challenges that we set for ourselves in under a minute of freefall? How does this compare to other sports & recreation? How stressed is someone going down a ski run, depending on its difficulty relative to their skills? Still, the study sounds interesting, and maybe some day someone will have a copy they can share freely. Edit: As for the low sounding experience level, the abstract for the paper does at least show that jump numbers are often higher. I might as well quote the whole abstract to have it here, minus the graphs:

Of course you mean something different -- after all this argument does depend on the precise meaning of sentences! There were a few interesting big debates on the topic in recent years on dz.com, which have included some of the riggers in this thread. But how best to search for the threads, I don't know... It still comes out to the current language suggesting that a rigger is required to do any work on mains that affects airworthiness. That's the simple answer. But as you've seen here, it can then be argued whether that term is intended to be applied to non-certified equipment.

No big deal, but what I meant is that skydiving is not prohibited by my insurance company. But the company says that their coverage is superior, because some other companies might not cover some stuff they list -- hence a 'scare tactic', "we're good - but watch out for those other guys!". In any case, we now have examples both an insurance company that does not exclude skydiving, and one that does. So as you say, one should check the policy.

I don't personally know about that, either way. Normally for insurance to be valid one does have to still be in weight & balance, follow the air regs, not be using the aircraft commercially (unless the insurance is for that), etc. One aircraft policy I had, advertised that that company had few restrictions, unlike some which might exclude formation flying, aerobatics, dropping things from the aircraft, etc. To what degree that is typical or a scare tactic I don't know. So it is indeed possible that skydiving would be excluded, but not necessarily so.

Like others are saying, the best way to move forward in the sport is to be around others in the sport. But in general there aren't any huge legal obstacles to 'going it alone'. In Canada there are a few airspace rules about what sort of notification is needed to air traffic control depending on the Class of airspace. Nothing terribly onerous, especially as you'll be sure to have some simple Class G and E airspace up there. (There are both some Canadian Air Regs that apply, and some harder to find online Exemptions that are always renewed.) One also needs the land owner's permission to land. Some aircraft are allowed to have their door taken off according to their manual; while on others squeezing out with the door still on is tricky. Again, if you want to take up the sport it probably makes sense to make it a "vacation down south" thing.

This may well be in line with what you are thinking, who knows: I figure it is to add practical experience to the book learning. The book learning on stalls is a start, but not necessarily easy to apply when someone actually stalls. (Exhibit 1: popsjumper's tale above) Therefore the procedures should be put into practice in an actual stall, rather than just learned as theory. Learning to approach the edge of a stall and then back off is good too, as one should know the stall point of a canopy. But going the next step and actually stalling allows for more to be learned. Beyond the recovery, there probably isn't really any vital reason to explore stalls? It can be interesting, fun, and expand one's knowledge, but not really vital at all to regular skydiving. One might say the same of CRW for example. (And I say that as someone who likes CRW, so that's not a slight.)

No problem, we're all just discussing stuff here, and the audience is more than just the original poster. Yes I like doing stalls...but they are going to be intimidating to newer jumpers, and those who have never been taught much about them. If someone has downsized a bunch and has never done full stalls, I am not yet sure to what degree I would advocate the jumper trying them. If someone has never done them, they should start on a docile canopy. So (as the USPA seems to be doing) it is easier to start with the newbies and at least give them some exposure to stalls, whether or not they want to play with them down the road, beyond just testing the stall point. Hearing from people who have recently gone through the USPA B license requirements is useful!

I got my new profile picture upload to work. The photo I had was 'skinny' vertically so it would have been cropped and look ugly. I was able to do an edit at home, adding the skinny photo to a square canvas with transparency, so that when uploaded no cropping is necessary (as the overall photo is basically square), while the real image is still visible as a tall skinny image, with no black bars or anything like that at the sides. Creating an icon image editor for the site would get into another level of complexity & programming time, so I can't fault you for that! All ok for me now.

I notice in the USPA B license card, the Canopy Proficiency card, jumpers are required to do a Full Stall both on toggles and risers. In the SIM, a Full Stall is defined as where the canopy 'begins to fly backwards', 'collapses', etc. Are people actually teaching that way? I personally like the idea of learning about stalls (and have done stalls on a wide range of canopies) but am not used to people being actually taught to fully stall their canopy. However, I'm not in the US so don't see how things are taught there. I'm used to most people only exploring the stall to the point of the edge of a full stall, where the canopy begins to rock back, and then immediately recovering. That's quite different from actually having the canopy fully stalled for a few seconds before recovery. One gets into the philosophical issue of whether one is in a "full" stall if one is in the edge of a full stall for a split second only. Anyone want to comment on how the B license stuff is taught? Are jumpers only passed if they do have their canopy in a good stall, bucking around, pulled into a horseshoe shape for some canopies, etc.?

Why is that relevant? Stolen gear is stolen gear. Someone has to pay to replace it..... Seinfeld: Kramer: It's a write-off for them. Jerry: How is it a write-off? Kramer: They just write it off. Jerry: Write it off what? Kramer: Jerry, all these big companies, they write off everything. Jerry: You don't even know what a write-off is.

While rare in general, there have been some accuracy canopies that at times have used large D-ring shaped slider rings, sewn to the corners of the slider. These are some sort of custom welded assemblies that are slider rings but not acutally grommets. They allow pulling a large slider down behind one's head, even with full width risers. This is in place of having the old split slider system to allow the canopy to spread out. I don't have any good photo handy, but I've seen in on a number of ParaFoils including my own.

An accomplished jet pilot! Bit awkward that he went in at the DZ that initially didn't want to train him a couple years back because of his older age. But plenty of younger guys have gone in too...