davelepka

Rachet up a few posts, and you'll see that I'm not talking about post-A license training, I'm talking about fnishing the job that the FJC started. Again, the canopy control portion of the FJC is adequate for students who are borderline overwhelmed with other, more important, issues. While you are a student, or even on the coach jumps, you are largely supervised, renting student gear, and not really 'on your own', Earning an A licese represents a significant shift. Maybe at your home DZ you are still watched over, being known as a 'new' jumper and remembered from two weeks ago as a student. When you jump a new DZ, however, all of that is lost. Manifest might know your experience based on checking you in and seeing your logbook, but beyond that none of the jumpers know you or that you only have 26 jumps. You are truely on your own, and this by design of the USPAs licesne program. You properly earned your license, and the other jumpers at the new DZ are honoring their responsibilities as per the USPA, which are none with regards to you. The situation I outlined above is possible and probable given the structure of the USPAs license and trainging system. I contend that this is not OK, and that the canopy control info left out of the FJC in the interest of brevity needs to be re-visited at some point before a jumper is given a license and 'cut loose'. For example, are you sure that every jumper granted an A license has a complete understanding of the use of brakes or rear risers, its effect descent rate and air speed, and it's application for exstanding your glide with the wind and shortening your glide into the wind? Let's face it, this is a fairly simple proposition, and one that can go a long toward avoiding off field landings (and the related dangers) and improving accuracy, two things that can be very valuable to new jumpers. Do you really think that every new A licesne jumper is 100% clear on that subject? How about the concept of a windline, and that as the wind increases, your landing pattern needs to stay tighter to the windline due to the increased crosswind component on the base leg? Again, a simple situation, easy to understand, and valuable for helping to keep jumpers where they want to be when the winds pcik up. Despite this, I have little confidence that every new A licensed jumper has an understanding of this and how to apply it. How about object turbulence, and how it works? Even if jumpers know this, if they stray too far off the windline in the pattern on a windy day. and can't make it back to their intended turn-in point for their final leg, they are forced to fly an alternate final, which may or may not be free of the turbulenxce they were tyring to avoid by selecting the final leg they chose in the first place. Those are just a handful of things that a jumper should know and understand before being cut loose to self-jumpmaster. Too complicated and too involved for the FJC? Yes. In every way possible, yes. Too complicated and too involved for a jumper with 20 jumps attending a dedicated canopy control course? Not in the least. As per my example from a few posts up, with no planning or a syllabus of any kind I managed to cover everything I could think of in two hours. With some work and some polish on the presentation, it could probably be cut back to 60 - 90 minutes. You don't even need to do any actual jumps, I did my 'course' at a Starbucks. A classroom with a dry erase board would suffice. This doesn't have to be a big deal, it doesn't have to take a lot of time, and it doesn't have to be expensive. An hour or so, one evening at the DZ (or any location of the instructors choice) and maybe $20 a head for the instructors time is all it would take, but it does have to happen. In addition to getting a full set of information to the students, it has another effect, that being the importance granted to the subject of canopy control by virtue of it getting it's own dedicated traning time, and that the training is required to earn a license. New jumpers will believe almost anything we tell them, and if we tell them this is an important subject, and required for advancement, this will make an impression on them. When we tell them it's important, but taking a canopy control course is optional if you can even find one, that also makes an impression on them, and it's not a good one. CRW guys will tell you taking a CRW seminar is a great idea, and freeflyers will all reccomend one-on-one coaching, but neither of those are required and as such, not many jumpers follow that advice. To expect the subject of canopy control to be any different is just plain silly.

That's fair, lot's of people have questions. How about this, you answer a couple of my questions, and then I'll answer your question. Why is it that you feel that 250 jumps and 1 year in the sport qualiifes you to jump one of the highest performance canopies made? Why is it that you are looking to go from a Spectre to a Xaos, skipping an entire class of canopies such as the Katana or Crossfire?

It's been clear for many years that this is not 'advanced' training. This is training that should be considered remedial, and required for every jumper looking to earn a license and self-jumpmaster. Scream? How about die? How many people have to die for something before the USPA takes notice? Easy option? Easy, hard, or close to impossible, they should be (and should have been) doing someting.

OK, how many people do you think would be willing to jump with an abbreviated FJC? Not many, but there would be some, There is always that guy who thinks it's no big deal, and that he doesn't need all day to train for the jump. Why does he then end up spending the whole day training for the jump? Becasue the USPA said he has to, and due to that students, instructors and DZOs all believe that, and give the concept value. How many jumpers would be happy to get a B license without doing live water trianing? I would bet a good portion of them figure that they know how to swim, and don't jump near water anyway. Of course, they all end up getting the training, again, because the USPA says they have to, and that makes it important. All the jumpers who don't think they need to take a canopy control course all spent 8 hours in a FJC, and all end up doing live water training for their B. If the USPA required a canopy control course for an A license, people would take it seriously. It would be looked at as a thing of value, and it would make a mark in the mind of the students that canopy control is a real and serious issue that needs to be given due consideration for the duration of your skydiving carreer, That's irrelevant to this issue. As previously discussed, the canopy control portion of the FJC is sufficient for making the first handful of jumps. Between the student canopies, wind limits, instructor oversight, and radio assist, the student doesn't need any more in the way of canopy control then is already presented. The student has more pressing issues to be concerned about like EPs and altitude awareness. In the example I gave above, the 'chat' I had with the new jumper was about 2 hours in length. There's no way to work that into the FJC, and the truth is that it would take even longer at that point. The fact that the jumper had 20-some jumps at the time really helped with his understanding of some of the concepts covered. His practical experience with winds, landing patterns, and canopy controls made him an ideal student for the rest of what he really needed to know. This isn't about the FJC. How many FJC students make it to jump #2? It's a huge waste of time to teach the bulk of a canopy control course to anyone unless they plan on getting a license and jumping without supervision. It's easier to teach a guy with 20 jumps under his belt, and he'll get more out the course based on those 20 jumps. They provide a frame of reference making the information that much easier to understand. No we're not. Not anymore. Ten years ago we were on the same team. Five years ago we might have been on the same team, but not anymore. How can you justify what amounts to no efforts in the way of improving what has consistantly been the number one killer of skydivers for better than a decade. In that time, they have wasted their time left and right with bullshit. Who remembers the BIC? Where is that now? How about the ISP? In retrospect all that did was make it harder and more expensive for someone to become a skydiver. New jumpers aren't any safer or better informed than they used to be, just poorer. Meanwhile, the elephant in the room has been there all along. An occasional statistical anomoly made things look better in one year or another, and they hitched their wagon to that like it was their own doing. The following year there was 'no news' becasue the anomoly worked itself out, the fatalities were back on track. It took the elephant walking up to the board room table and taking a huge dump on it for them to even notice. That huge dump, of couse, was when open canopy fatalities hit 75% of the overall fatalities, but even then their response was the equivilant of putting some newspaper on the giant pile of shit. Nobody can argue that a canopy control course would be a good thing for all jumpers. Some argue that canopy type and WL limitations aren't helpful. but some argue that they would be, but in either case those types of limitations would 'do no harm'. With thses points in mind, and open canopy fatalitied being the #1 killer of skydivers, it would seem like a no-brainer to put one or both of those programs in place, however, as we all know, nothing has been done. Nothing. I'm going to re-quote one of my favorite lines of all time. When I first read it some 10 or 12 years ago I liked it because it was 'clever' and seemed like a funny concept. The more time that passes, the more I realize that Al Frisby knew more about what he was saying than he thought when he said in reference to new jumpers, "We're advertising Disneyland. and delivering Death Valley".

Then it's simple, anyone doing a wingsuit, tracking dive, or CRW dive who land off is fined $50. If you intend to leave the aircraft and 'fly around' in some way, you take responsibility for ensuring that your flight path returns you to the airport. Maybe take it one step further. Land off a second time, it's $100 for the second occurance. Land off a thrid time, expect to banned from wingsuits, tracking dives and CRW. You can still jump at Lodi, just not doing anything that could put you off. Bill and Kathy get to keep a customer, and the neighbors get to stay happy. Of course, if you sneak your way onto a tacking dive or the like, expect to tossed off the DZ all together. If you figure that the average jumper is saving at least $50 a day by jumping at Lodi, one off landing puts them financially on par with a days jumping at another DZ. Furthermore, the extra cash in Bill's pocket can go towards covering the extra effort needed to round up wayward jumpers, and padding out the neighbors pockets so even if they get to the point of being 'angry', they won't stay that way for long.

I had a similar reaction to that same peice, was considered writing a post similar to yours. One of the areas I surprised to see was when he revealed that 75% of the 2010 fatalities were canopy related, and that this high number is prompting both the piece and the 'action' of the USPA. For comparison, he states that the number was clsoer to 40% or 45% for the last two years. Are we to believe that 40% or 45% is acceptable, and not worthy of the increased attention and focus on the issue? Keeping in mind that 40% or 45% still represented the vast majority of the pie chart, with the remaining 60% of all fatalities split between 4 or 5 other catagories. That's not bad enough to warrant a 2/3 of a page in Parachutist? I was also amused by the summary of the 'work' the USPA has done on the subject. A video that was not 'required reading' for anyone, and a poster reminding everyone to 'be safe out there'? That's the master plan? Don't they realize that without a clear and detailed definition of what it means to 'be safe', it does not suffice to simply tell people to 'be safe'. As mentioned many times on DZ.com, every jumpers who went in left the plane thinking they were being safe. The problem was that their definition of being safe, and the reality of being safe were two different things. It's like me instructing someone to 'make me a tasty sandwhich'. Should I really be surprised when they produce a sandwhich that they think is tasty, not one that I think is tasty? Then he touts the USPAs 'unprecedented' step of releasing two safety advisories. The first amounts to nothing more than another poster for the wall suggesting everyone to 'be safe', and the other was directed to the group member DZs, who all signed a pledge to do one thing or the other, of course with understanding that like with most aspects of the group member program, there would be no actual enforcement of said pledge. Again, does the USPA really think that jumpers are going to read the advisory and suddenly realize, "Oh, I'm suppsed to follow the DZs landing pattern, not just do whatever I want" or, "So I should leave plenty of room for seperation at pull time, when I was thinking I wanted to be close by the other jumpers in my group". This is one area where I with agree and disagree with you. There are very few jumpers out there who could not benefit from a canopy control course. Some jumpers need different courses than others, but we all have room to learn. I picked up a tidbit or two listening in on Luigi giving a canopy control course last year. The point is that everyone would be a better, more informed pilot if they dedicated some time toward developing that skill. That very dedication can lead people to put a little more thought into their canopy flight, and take some pride in 'doing it right'. So I disagree that a canopy control course isn't a good idea for everyone, but I do agree with you that the USPA is going about it all wrong. One of the key purposes of the USPA is to train and educate skydivers. Case in point, the safety advisory being discussed here. It's their position as a training and educating body that allows them to even release such an advisory and expect people to read it and take it seriously. Know why the Muff Brothers didn't put out an advisory on canopy control? That organization is not looked at as the authority for skydiver education and training, but the USPA is. So for the 10,000 time, the USPA reccomends taking a canopy control course. OK, fine by me, when and where is the next USPA canopy control scheduled? I'll go anywhere, in fact with the end of the season coming up here in Ohio, I could work it into a winter trip down south. Just let me know the dates and location. You could e-mail it me, or just print it in Parachutist, I'll see it there. There it is people. That's the end of the line for the USPA. Expecting them to develop and implement a canopy control course is more than the USPA is willing to undertake. Five years ago I was in contact with the head of the safety and training ccomitte over at the USPA reagrding this very issue. They were well aware of it then, and are well aware of it now. Still they take no action beyond suggesting you take a canopy control course given by an unknown jumper, at an undisclosed location, containing information of unknown validity, given by an individual who is charging enough to cover his time, travel and efforts. If the USPA would get off their duffs and put together a USPA endorsed canopy control course, and bestow local S&TAs the right to conduct the course themselves, or the authority to appoint a qualified local jumper, suddenly many of the above problems disappear. The couses would be available at every USPA group member DZ, with cirriculum developed and approved by the USPA, conducted by a USPA approved instructor, and with the whole enchilada being a 'local' affair, it would cost 1/3 what people currently pay for a canopy control course. Take it one step further, and make the course a requirement for an A license, and in addition to making the courses more accessible to more people and regulating the quality of the courses, you take the stand that, "This is important. Important enought that every new jumper needs this information before being licensed becasue without this information, you're at risk for suffernig the most common fate among skydivers, losing your life with an open canopy above your head". Quick story to prove my point - I got a call from an old business partner who told me his son (now 19) had done a tandem, and was now looking to learn to skydive, and he asked me to help his son through the process and keep an eye on him. Fast forward, the kid sails through AFF and right as he earns his A license, a Skyvan shows up at a DZ not far from us for a week or two. I suggest that he head that way to jump the Skyvan because, hey, it's a Skyvan. About this time I realize that this will be his frist time at a new DZ, with a new plane, and nobody really watching him becasue now he has a license. With this in mind I suggest we meet for a coffee before we head down to jump the Skyvan, and talk about canopy control and new DZs. The majority of the discussion was about spotting, jumpruns, windlines, patterns, accuracy, and stratagies for landing off. He had 25 jumps, so his experience allowed him to easily understand what I was saying, but afterwards he admitted than 90% of what I said was new information to him. He had a rough understanding of each of the topics, but a detailed understanding of the mechanics and theory, such that he could use them as a tool in his jumping, had not been taught to him thus far. Sure, he knew enough to jump safely at his home DZ, out the familiar plane, in familiar surroundings, but the majority of that was just through repitition. When it came to planning a parachute descent at a new location with whatever conditions prevailed that day, he was largely unpreparred, and while he might have been fine, it would not have been due to thourough and prudent planning on his part, it would be due to luck and the general good fortune skydvers seem to enjoy. This was an A licesned jumper, certified by the USPA to self jumpmaster in all aspects of making a skydive, and would have been treated as such by any DZ in the country. This is what the USPA is producing, and then they are surprised that people are dying under open canopies?

Some DZs will actually video tape you signing the waiver as proof that it's your signature, and I think they make you confirm that you knew you were signing a waiver. Perris did this at one point in time. My DZ has a paragraph explaining the fact that this is a waiver, and you are signing away your rights, and you have to re-write the entire paragraph on the page below to confirm that you at least read that part. Your boss is correct, that if you are doing the work, you will be named in the lawsuit. If you start an LLC and hire an employee who is involved in an incident, they will personally be named in the suit and so will the LLC. In that case, the LLC can get away 'free' as long as the employee was properly rated and qualified for the job the LLC had the employee performing. As a single person LLC, your benefits will be largely in the area of taxation. Every state has different regulations, but through the LLC you can write off a good protion of your income for things like travel to the DZ, gear purchases and upkeep, and additional training (aka fun jumps). Check the local laws in your area. As far as personal liability goes, the best you can do is adhere to the 'standard industry practices' when dealing with students. Toe the line in terms of everything from wind limits to cloud clearances. Don't be a part of anything that could remotely be construed as 'negligent'. Go over the SIM and the ISP with a fine toothed comb, and read as far into everything as possible becuase you know that the lawyers who bring a lawsuit will be doing just that. If you do everything by the book, the DZ waiver should cover you. People (juries) know that skydiving is dangerous, and that people sometimes get hurt. If you can show that you followed the rules, and did everything exactly like you were supposed to, you should be able to avoid liability. This means that when other instructors, who may be counting on jumping to pay their bills (and have less to lose) want to push the wind limits to get the students out, you have to stand down. Just don't be a part of it.

Yeah, times have changed, but not in the ways the new guys think. What's new is the internet, and yes, specifically DZ.com. There is so much good information availble about virtually anything related to skydiving on the internet, and now thet everyone is online (and I do mean everyone), there's no excuse for being a dumb-ass. It wasn't that long ago that a DZ could be 'cut off' from the rest of the world. At a small Cessna DZ in the north where they only jump in the summer, it was possible that no visting jumpers would show up with new ideas, and if the DZO and staff didn't travel in the winter, it wasn't odd to find a DZ that was a few years behind the times. I remember when freeflying was new, the first time I heard about head down was from an instructor who used to summer in Ohio and then winter in Deland. Anyway, he's telling me about it and describing the body position, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. There were no pictures published anywhere, no videos had been released (VHS no less), so I had no concpet of what he was saying. It wasn't until we did a jump together that I finally 'got' it. I was in a sit (as usual) and he flipped over to head down. It tool all of 3 seconds for my understanding to become crystal clear, but without that example in front of me, I was lost. Back to today, nobody has any excuse to be 'lost' about anything, to include being smart about cameras, camera helmets, and camera flying. Things have changed, and what has chnaged is that you have to be an ENORMOUS asshole to still be doing dumb things at the DZ and thinking that it OK.

Lot's of people finance their first rig, It's big hunk of change, especially after getting licensed and renting gear of awhile. Try looking into 'creative' options before you go the conventional route. Ask around the DZ, the staff, DZO, fun jumpers, riggers, etc. See if anyone has anything that would work for you, a canopy, container, or reserve, and see if you can score a 'pay over time' deal. You may have to agree to leave the rig at the DZ unitl it's paid, but sooner or later it will be yours. I don't know if you pack, but you can trade pack jobs for gear with the DZO, or even other jumpers. If you can find a guy with a main for $500, maybe you can owe the guy 50 pack jobs and $250 cash. Even if not, pakcing is an easy way to make a couple hundred dollars a weekend, money you can put toward your rig. Just like conventional financing, if you have some money to put down, you stand a better chance at getting financed. If a guy has a container for $800, and you can give him $500, and $50 a week for 6 weeks, he might go for it. Let's keep in mind that his might not be 'top shelf' stuff, but if it's airworthy and gets you in the air it does the trick. What you do is put together a cheapo rig for $1500 or $2000, and save your pennies while you jump it for 6 moths or a year. once you have $1500 or $2000 saved up, sell the cheapo for what you paid for it, and take your $3000 or $4000 dollars and get something a little more 'modern'. Once you get that first 'modern' rig, the rest is easy. When you want to change rigs, keep your eyes peeled for a good deal and often times you can upgrade for little or nothing out of pocket. Sell what you have and use the cash to buy the next one. Even if you ened to kick in some cash to get what you want, again you have time to save your money wihile you jump the rig you currently own. Otherwsie, credit cards are probably the easiest way to finance anything, and with Paypal available to anyone, you can use your CC with private sellers. It's not the cheapest, but probably the easiest.

I don't think the market would supprt an all new design of that type. Today the GoPro is all the rage, and maybe tomorrow it's the Contour, or some other brand we haven't seen yet. What does the manufacturer do with all helmet they already made, all the tooling to make those helmets, and all the time they spent designing them. By the time the PC series cameras came out, Sony was pretty well established as THE standard for skydiving cameras, and in true Sony form, they used the same body for many different models of cameras, just with varying levels of features installed. For this reason, it was easier for manufacturers to build the model-specific boxes for the Sony cameras. Keep in mind that even then, these were just boxes, not complete helmets. Fast forward a few years when Sony went ape shit with the PC cameras, and there were like 10 different models popluar for jumping, and they were all different sizes. This is about the same time you started to see the 'generic' sized boxes where the jumper had to trim the box, or pad out the inside. The reason for this is the same reason you won't see a GoPro specific helmet, there's just not enough business out there for model specific designs. I propose this solution, nobody jump a camera of any kind until they have the skills and know-how to safely set-up a camera helmet, fly the camera in the proper manner. There, I said it.

Doubtful. Mostly becasue there's no way to cutaway the canopy. In skydiving you can cut away both items that are entangled, that being the helmet and the canopy. Even if you could have cut away the helmet in this latest incident, the question then becomes if the PC has enough drag to lift the helmet and deploy the canopy at the same time. Maybe so, maybe no, maybe in enough time to get some inflation, maybe not. This goes for skydiving as well as BASE jumping, why even bother wearing a camera unless there is something to video? Doing a solo or a short delay seems like a stupid place to have a camera, and not because of the fataility, but just becasue there's nothing to film, so you're taking the added risk for no reason.

Hey. I know, why don't you stick all three rings up your ass? You have no problem acting like a shithead when you post here, but as soon as you want a serious answer, you abandon your BASE pals because you know that all you're going to get is a smart-ass answer, the same kind of reponse you make to posts here. Seriously - fuck off.

It's related to comfort, or the lack of. Of your first 100, the first 25 are closely monitored. Maybe the next 25 still find you under the watchful eye of a mentor, or out on your own where you tread carefully adjusting to being in charge of yourself. If you figure that different jumpers progress at different rates, you can see that the majority of jumper will spend the majority of their first 100 jumps probably being more careful than their next 100 jumps. Additionally, when you figure 25 (at least) jumps on student gear, and most jumpers start with a still-large transition canopy, the bulk of the first 100 jumps are made on very conservative gear. On top of that, the jumpers probably have lower overall wind or condition limits. Once they work into a 'sport' canopy, and become more comfortable in general, several layers of safety are shed with the first 75 to 100 jumps. Keep in mind that when I say this, I don't mean that jumpers with 100 jumps are unsafe. We all know that jumping a 280 or 260 is safer than jumping a 190 or 170, and this is why students end up jumping 280s and 260s. The rest of us have foregone the safety an oversized canopy can provide, and accpeted the risks of jumping a smaller wing. We may view it as an 'acceptable' risk, but it is added risk none the less. The same could be said for pull altitudes, jumping in bigger groups, and jumping in less than ideal weather conditions. All considered 'acceptable' risks, but the fact remains they are indeed added risks. Students, and many jumpers with less than 100 jumps do not have these risks present on their jumps, and therefore would be less likely to suffer an incident due to those factors.

In that case, do you think camera would be an asset or a liability? If those can happen without a camera, the possibility of them happening with a camera surely must be higher than without.

A known horseshoe? How would you know? By virtue of the problem itself, your vision or the limits of your vision will be comprimised. You can't see the back of your head in any situation, and with a camera snag your ability to move your head to look around will be comprimised. You're making the classic mistake of thinking that you 'just do this' or 'just do that', but in real life it;s never that easy. You yourself cutaway from an unsnagged camera helmet if I'm not mistaken. Who in their right mind would have ever suggested you lose an unsnagged helmet? Nobody would, but in the real world that's exactly what you did. The girl who had both shoulders pop out of the sockets (recently in NJ) is a great example. That thread had all sorts of monday morning quatrebacking about what to do with dislocatesd shoulder(s) in freefall. When the girl got around to posting her account of the incident, it turns out she wasn't even aware that her shoulders were dislocated. All of the talk about dislocated shoulder protocols was for naught because she wasn't aware that was her problem, and even if she knew those protocols, probably wouldn't have gone to them as she wasn't thinking about dislocated shoulders. She was thinking about not dying. It's never as easy as you think it is. You'll never do as well as you think you will. Expect everything to be harder than you think, and that you will fuck up whatever you should be doing. If you can account for those two factors, and still see a survivable situation, you'll be fine. If you attempt to cut it any closer than that, expect reality to bitch slap you in the face right before impact.

No, that data is not available. In looking at 'what we can get', we have to assume that the presence of non-fatal injury data would paint a much, much darker picture. As bad as the fatality data may make things appear, the truth of the matter is far worse. Consider briefly the number of fatalities you have witnessed, and then the number of non-fatal incidents. For the purpose of this discussion, let's call a non-fatal incident an 'incident' if the jumper requires a hospital visit as a result, everything else is just a 'hard landing'. Personally, my ratio is at least 10 non-fatal incidents for every 1 fatal incident. I would be surprised if other jumpers didn't have a similar ratio. With further regards to 'working with what we have', even that is not detailed enough to really pinpoint the problem. it would take a detailed report of every incident, to include the jumpers overall jumps, canopy progression and training, size and type of canopy involved, and a myriad of other details that would allow the reader to determine the root casue. In the absence of such data, we can clearly see that open parachutes are the area of concern. The obvious stpes would be to increase the training and awareness about canopies and canopy piloting. In addition (here it comes) some restrictions on the size and type of canopies jumpers can access with regards to jump numbers has proven to 'do no harm' in other countries, and most likely has done some good. Jump numbers are not a guarantee of anything, but like most areas of risk management, we need play the averages. If an average jumper seems to be able to handle a WL of 1.2 at around 200 jumps, then that's the number. Some will be ready sooner, and some will not be ready by 250 jumps, but you need to 'run' things such that the majority of jumpers will reap the benefits. The number of jumpers who will avoid or reduce the severity if injury will far outweigh those naturally talented jumpers who will be 'held back' jumping a canopy beneath their skill level. Even if there are more naturally talented people being held back in comparison to the number of jumpers who avoid injury, I would propose that if we hold back 5 jumpers for every 1 who avoids injury, the sport is still ahead in the 'big picture'. If one person can avoid injury, that's worth having 5 guys feeling 'oppressed' (which is an interesting word for a jumper in the US with the financial wherewithall to persue sport skydiving, there are worse positions to be in out in the world). We're talking about people being made PIC of an aircraft with very little training. A jumper who does reasonably well with a student canopy will not hear much about canopy flight beyond the FJC with the exception of an 'atta boy'. Meanwhile, we have privately run canopy control courses where if you took the beginner, intermediate, and expert courses concurrently, it would run a solid week of 10 hour days discussing nothing but canopy flight. With this much information at hand, all we require is one section of the FJC, and some precursory 'tips' offered in order to satisfy an A license proficiency card. Beyond that, everything is optional, and by virtue of being optional not bestowed with much value in the eyes of newer jumpers. I'm not suggesting the FJC have the canopy control portion expanded, there are more immediate issues at hand, like teaching EPs, and with the conservative student gear in use and watchful eye of an AFF I making sure things go well, the first jump student doesn't need to know anymore. What about when they go from a 280 to a 260? How about to a 240? Or when they're cleared to self-supervise? Or given a license? We whittle away the layers of protection put in place on AFF level one, but never turn up the flow of information to match. Nobody should be surprised that 75% of the fatalities thus far in 2010 happened under open canopies.

Just to back up what grimmie said, any of these fatality reports are just that, fatalities. None of these take into account the number of non-fatal incidents under open canopies, and in turn, the level of injury within those incidents. A rash of twisted ankles is one thing, and a rash of compound fractures or incidents resulting in paralysis is another. They also don't reflect the jumpers who are injured as a result of others while under an open canopy. There have been a good number of collisions where one jumper was killed, and the other was injured, but the data will only reflect the fatality. Again, since the jumper was not killed, the data will not appear on a fatality report, but the incident and injuries were the result of poor canopy piloting, and would need to be considered along with the fatalities.

With experience in FF coaching, it would depend on the jumper. If they were an experienced camera flyer who wanted to wear video, I would suggest that it's a waste of time, but it's their dime. If it was a jumper with less than a couple hundred camera jumps, I would tell them to leave it on the ground. In either case, they're not going to be able to get any usable footage, as they'll be working on holding a heading, and I'll be somewhere else trying to get whatever they're doing wrong on video. With just the two of us in the sky, doing to seperate things (they're learning and I'm teaching) you're going to get a lot of blue sky. Not surprisingly, anyone with any sort of skill or understanding of camera flying will realize that there's no real footage to be had, and they don't even attempt to bring a camera. As for the others, there's something about that moment where you realize you're coaching an idiot that just makes you want to pay your own slot, and jump with somebody else. Or do a solo.

Experience might have, in that the more aware you are of your 'parts', the less likely you are to to get them tangled up with each other. Additionally, if the crosswind was a factor, than more BASE experience might have added the crosswind, and how it apllies to a camera, to her list of pre-jump considerations. All of that aside, you have missed my point entirely. The new jumpers who believe that a GoPro is an acceptable camera for a newbie hold this belief based on the fact that it's a small camera that doesn't seem (to them) to present a snag hazzard. Of course, the more experienced jumpers are quick to point out that in addition to the snag-factor, cameras also introduce a distraction to the process of making a safe skydive. Back to the newbies that don't think the GoPro presents a snag-hazzard, they choose to ignore the suggestion that a GoPro also adds a distraction, and more or less use their conclusion that it does not create a snag-hazzard as their justification for jumping a GoPro. They don't believe that the idea of a distraction is valid, or that it would not apply to them. So the distraction thing is out, and the snag deal isn't a problem, and presto-chango, they feel they are ready to jump a camera. Now this incident proves that the snag-factor is real, even with a tiny little GoPro. I believe that a larger camera would have only created a larger hazzard, and don't buy the idea that a box around a bigger camera would have made this a non-issue. However, the real point is that the small camera DID create a hazzard that resulted in a fatality. Yes, that is what I'm saying. Adding anything on top of the basic equipment needed to make a jump can subtract from the safety of your jump. The only way to ensure that a camera never distracts you from your jump or snags any part of gear is to never wear a camera. Jumping a camera of any kind is adding risk to your skydive in several different ways, and if you are not preparred to deal with them, the consequences can be dire. It may seen like a revolutionary concpet to you, given your time in the sport and the state of video cameras when you started jumping, but not everyone intends to, or has the desire to, ever jump a camera of any kind. Before HD cameras were small enough to stick to any helmet, and cheaper than a weekend at the DZ, flying a camera required a significant investment, and as such you generally had 'camera flying' in mind when you got into it. Your sights were set higher than POV video, so the pool of 'interested applicants' was significantly smaller than today. Go back another notch, before MiniDV, and the pool was even smaller because the gear was just as expensive, and three times the size and weight of MiniDV. The point is that jumping a camera is an added risk to any skydive, regardless of the camera, jumper, or intent of the jumper. Those considering it should know that the GoPro only solves two problems with camera flying, those being A) it lowers the cost of the equipment, and B) it lowers the weight of the camera helmet. The possible distraction it adds to your skydive, and the snag-hazzard it creates (as evidenced by this incident) are both alive and well, and no different than any other video set-up out there.

The point here is not that a larger camera would have been a better choice. Clearly a larger item would have more of a snag potential. The point here is that a small format camera casued a snag that resulted in a fatality. To those jumpers who either ignore, or are unaware of, the distraction a camera can add, their defense that the GoPro is too small to be a hazard has now been proven to be incorrect. Coincidentally, just this weekend I had a jumper snag his GoPro on my jumpsuit in the plane. This was several minutes before exit during gear checks, he looked down to inspect his rig and was unaware of his GoPro and hit my arm with it, snagging my jumpsuit. No damage to jumpsuit or camera, and the snag released quickly on it's own, but it never would have happened if his helmet was camera-free.

You realize that your argument against option 5, that being that you have to indentify 'problem' jumpers before hand to counsel them on tracking, also applies to options 2, 3, and 4. In all cases, you have to know beforehand who to target, and take corrective action beforehand. That said, option 5 allows you to speak to every jumper, and make it a standard thing to tread lightly if you track up or down jumprun. Once you spread the word, your corrective measures are complete, and the rest is up to the individual jumper who finds themselves tracking along jumprun. If you go with options 2, 3, or 4, you still need to inform jumpers of the problem, how to handle it, but beyond that, you have to count on large groups of people to act to make that solution work. Entire loads, or individual formations have to alter their plans in order for these solutions to be effective. The last time I checked, the simplest solution with the fewest 'moving parts' is generally the best bet for actually working in the long run. Option 5 relies on the single jumper to perform, and the other options rely on groups of jumpers performing properly. Option 1 may be viable for you folks in Perris, where there are multiple fast turbines available, and 12 months out of the year to jump them. In other parts of the country, where we don't have those luxuries, making multiple passes can eat into the overall number of loads flown per day, and in turn, per season. If the problem could be sloved by telling people not to burn it up or down jumprun, that is far preferable over adding additional passes to jumprun.

I'm not sure how the location would have an effect on the practicality of your list. Option 1 is impractical for obvious reasons. It increases both cost and time for the loads. You wouldn't want to do it on every load, just the applicable loads, but then how do you determine which loads are, or are not, applicable? With the myriad of variations between groups, fall rates, wind speed, etc, it just isn't practical. Options 2 and 3 are not reliable becasue, for one, they rely on the entire group understanding the problem, agreeing to the solution, and all performing correctly on the bottom end. Furthermore, by essentally shortening the time betweeen break off and opening, you are putting the squeeze on those jumpers who do not have a rocket-track, and need more time on the bottom end. The fourth option is similar to the first option in that it requires someone to indentify the problem situation, and devise a plan to correct. Again, when the call is made, and when not, becomes subject to a judgement call. The 5th option - -relies on only one jumper, the exceptional tracker, taking action and only in one specific scenario. If they find themselves tracking along the jumprun in the direction of another group, slow down, go easy, and fly your canopy back the other direction after opening. It's a contained situation that only requires the participation of a single jumper who has a vested interest in avoiding a collision casued by tracking too far along the jumprun. A jumper with the skill to out-track the group seperation needs to also be aware of the jumprun, and able to recognize when they are tracking along it toward another group.

If you read the rest of my post, this is exactly what I propose as a solution. The remainder of your list is either impractical, or not reliable in their implementation. My choice, #5 from above, only requires the participation of one jumper, the exceptional tracker, and seeing as how their performance can effect their safety, it's a fair bet they will comply, in full, every jump.

Granted, and that's why bigger formations should be given more time between them and the group following them. Let's say that an average jumprun for an Otter is 50 seconds. If every group is the same size, you would divide that time up euqally between the groups, and there is your exit seperation. If a group is larger, and putting more of the load out in one exit, the remainder of jumpers in the plane can dedicate more of the overall jumprun time to that group, and still expect that the rest of the groups will have adequate time for good group seperation and still make it back to the DZ. I am aware that jumprun isn't a 'timed' affair, but in the end, each jumprun does take a specific amount of time, and division of that time between the groups is what allows you to give an 8-way a little more space, and a solo a little less. While reducing the seperation between solos or two-ways isn't neccesary, increasing the seperation for bigger groups is essentail for making sure that everyone has their own space. Even in the case of increased seperation due to a larger group, the fact remains that a jumper who is on the jumprun, and aware of it, should moderate their track to the minnimum required for seperation from the jumpers in their own group, and no more. While this minnimum will be more on an 8-way than on a 4-way, it may still be less than a full on track from break off to opening. Establish the group seperation with average sized groups and average jumpers in mind. Adjustments need to be made to the seperation for bigger groups, and to the magnitude and duraiton of the tracks for good trackers who happen to be going up or down the jumprun. Skydiving is dynamic environment, and the bigger you want to go, either in group size or tracking ability, the more important it becomes to stay on top of those changes and adjust your plan accordingly.

These would be the last people the rule is directed at. Group seperation is generally such that anything equal to, or less than, a moderate track is acceptable for tracking in any direction from break off to opening, and still allow for seperation between groups. It's the more experienced jumpers, those that can go from RW to max track almost instantly, reduce their vertical speed to extend their time-in-track, and trypically pull lower than the newbies allowing even more time-in-track, that need to be aware of the jumprun and it's relation to their track. A good tracker can cover an easy 1000ft horizontal tracking from 4.5k down to 2.5k. A great tracker can do 1000ft from 4k down to 2.5k. If you have one of each on two subsequent groups, you would need in excess of 2000ft between groups to make sure those two jumpers can never 'meet' in the middle, and you just can't do that in one pass and expect all jumpers on the load to make it back to the DZ. Group seperation is set up to allow for adequate seperation from the other jumpers in your group, and no more. Group seperation is not an open invitation for any jumper to track any way they see fit in any direction.