davelepka

No. He should take the same course as any other cantidate, and follow the same guidelines. If he doesn't like it, he should have thought of that 10,000 jumps ago, and got his rating then when he had 800 jumps or so like everyone else. Despite all of his accomplishments, if they don't include the USPA mandated experience for becoming an instructor, than he's not qualified. He may be the head of the class at his coach course, and he may sail through the AFF cert course, but he needs to follow the rules like everyone else. All of his experience is an asset for sure, but if it doesn't include what the USPA says it should include to be an instructor, then he's not qualified to be a USPA rated instructor.

That's not true. She could easily do 110 or 115. With additional training, hard work, and I think you mentioned some tunnel coaching, she is now able to fly 135 on her belly, and even then I doubt that it's easy. So while the OP is busy training to fly comfortable and compact, Joe Jumper is busy being easy and relaxed, having fun with his friends right in the middle of his comfort zone. As opposed to putting all the effort towrds learning to first adapt to her different body type, then learning to fly with others while compensating for that body type, how about the 20 second solution, put on a weight belt. From exit to break off on the very next jump, the OP is able to keep up and be comfortable with her current skill level. She gets to have fun with her friends minus the stress of exsessive fall rate mangement. In 100 jumps, after she know how to fly her body in a nuetral position, and has developed some skill, maybe then drop the weights, and see if she can manage without. At that point she will have a solid foundation to fall back on while learning to go fast without weights. But that comes later. Taking it easy and having fun is for now.

You want to make a vibrator for skydivers? OK, let the jokes begin....

Skydiving is a high speed, dynamic environment, and as such it is key that jumpers are visually paying attention to their surroundings. This is one reason that audible altimeters have become so popular, they beep into the jumpers ear at preset altitudes so the jumper can keep their eyes on the action. With this in mind, a vision based device is not what skydivers need. Audible devices are the best fit, and they are already in existence. Ground to air radios are in ude for almost every skydiving student in the US, and are used after the parachute has opened to help the student navigate to a safe landing. Air to air sytems are in use by higher level coaches teaching advanced techniques, and are used both in freefall, and from canopy to canopy after opening.

The idea is that the descent rate and forward speed of the canopies will both go up in the thin air. Even if you made your first, and every jump, at Mile-Hi, you would still be required to deal with those higher values. Just because it's all you know doesn't make the force of an impact any less. In regards to what Bill posted, it was an example, not a suggestion. For starters, 1 to 1 with 500 jumps was arrived at by factoring in the altitude and the type of canopy jumped (a Velo in this case). Both of those factors call for a lower WL, and that's how he arrived at 1 to 1. Even then, 1 to 1 is the 'general' idea that the WL chart provides. Let's say that you factor in that jumpers GL experience, and that maybe he's an above average canopy pilot. In that case, maybe the 1.3WL he was jumping at wasn't so bad. But the point was that the jumper who made the 'rude' comments doesn't know about the guy's GL experience or abilities. All he had to go on was 'common knowledge' and, as shown by the WL chart, common knowledge states that a guy with 500 jumps at 4000' or 5000' msl should not be jumping a Velocity at 1.35. With this in mind, the 'rude' comments don't seem so rude, and it becomes easier to see the veiwpoint of the guy who made them.

Aerohio does not accept Skyride gift certificates.

I agree. That's why you have to take Skyride's cut into account. Let's say it is 20%, and the DZ gets $160 for a $200 tandem. A group of four tandems will bring in $640. Subtract $140 to pay four TIs, $40 for four pack jobs, and your left with $460 to pay for two loads in a 182 plus the pilot. Now drop Skyride, and make it three $200 tandems, for which the DZ will collect $600. Subtract $105 for three TIs, $30 for three pack jobs and you're left with $465 to to pay for two loads in a 182 plus pilot. You reduced the number of tandems by 25%, and still made $5 more than doing four tandems for Skyride. If you happen to have two fun jumpers around, you can put them on the second load, and collect another $35. I know it's about the money. That's what I'm saying, but the money I'm looking at is the cash the DZO gives away to Skyride. Once you're in bed with them, it's easy to say that they funnel you business, so you just stay with them, but sooner or later it has to end. Do the DZOs intend to have Skyride taking a cut of their profits for the rest of their natural lives? At first it may have sounded like a good idea, but now, years later we know for sure that these guys are crooks, so now it has to end. The best way to make it sop without leaving anyone in the lurch is to make it stop all at once. It puts everyone back on a level playing field, and keeping 100% of their profits for themselves. DZO's can make more money doing less work by dealing directly with all of the prospective skydivers in their geographical area.

If you make a plan with other jumpers on the load, you have an obligation to stick to that plan. You, as well as the others, are all counting on each other to perform as agreed, and deviating from this is inviting an incident. If you don't like the plan before boarding the aircraft, speak up. If you don't think the jumper who will probably land first is qualified to pick the direction of landing, speak up. If you don't think the contingency plan for changing wind direction is adequate, speak up. If you choose not speak up, you are responsible to uphold your end of the agreement, and follow the plan. One thing you can do is work with a canopy control coach, and learn about landing downwind and crosswind. These skills are key to being preparred for landing off the DZ, and in this case if you had been trained to land downwind, this would have been a non-issue. This training should include the theory of landing in different directions, and under controlled conditions (favorable weather, and no other canopies in the air) actual practice of cross and downwind landings. It was mentioned upthread to just 'make your own decisions', and this is the worst advice of all. If everyone followed this adivce, people would be landing in all different directions on every load. You are sharing the sky with other canopy pilots, and in order to avoid problems, everyone needs to follow the same rules.

I'll just reply to myself here, but that's actually a really good idea I had in my last post. Why don't we see if we can't get the DZOs to agree just to drop the Skyride business all together? They would surely like to see 100% of their profits going back into their pockets, and as I;ve mentioned before, Skyride isn't actually bringing new customers into skydiving, they're just garbbing onto people who are already interested in jumping and searching for info on the net. If there was no Skyride to intercept them, they would just end up at their local DZ website anyway. Losing Skyride doesn't mean losing business. In truth, if Skyride is taking 20% of the price of a tandem (I heard it's $40 a head, right?), a DZO who drops Skyride could lose 20% of the business, and still make the same amount of money at the end of the day, with 20% less work. If they lose 10% of the business, their revenues are up 10% without Skyride's hand in their till. It's a win/win all around. Anyone interested in giving this a shot? If everyone took a DZ or two in their home state, and made it their business to speak to the DZO, and see if they would play ball, that would be a start. We could go on to draft a letter of 'solidarity', outlining the expectations, and 'start' date where Skyride would become persona non grata at their DZ. I think this is a good time to look into this. Much of the country is gearing up for Safety Day, which would be a great time to bring this issue up with the management, staff, and fun jumpers. Let them know the deal, and that an effort is in place to unilaterally dump Skyride and see what the general response is. Seeing as Skyride raped the USPA for all that cash, and now Arizona has levied a $6M dollar fine against them, it's quite clear to all that this is not the way our industry should be run. It might have seemed like a good idea at one time, but that time is long past. Let's stop the bleeding, and just cut this thing off at the stump. Here's how we get started, everyone who wants to help needs to identify local DZs, and agree to be ressponsible for working with the DZO and getting them on board. We need someone for every DZ, not just Skyride affiliated DZs because part of the plan is that the DZOs know that NOBODY will be taking up with Skyride, and they can be secure that if they drop them, the field will be (and remain) level for all. Anyone? Anyone?

Re: the smaller DZ's, I wouldn't cut them any slack on this issue. Skydiving is a VERY small industry, and DZO is one of the rarest jobs in that industry. There aren't that many of them out there, and you can bet they sure as hell know what's going on. I mean really, this is 2010, and even if the DZO isn't online, 90% of the staff and fun jumpers are, and they all talk about everything skydiving. On top of that, once the USPA had to bend over a pay out that cash to Skyride, it suddenly became everyone's business. That's the really sad part about this whole thing. Skydiving is such a small industry, and fighting Skyride is on an even smaller scale. Take SoCal for example - if you could get Perris, Elisinore, and Skydive San Diego to all agree to dump Skyride, they could easily contact the all of the smaller SoCal DZ's and literally strongarm them in to playing along. Sure, you tell them that you'll drop the prices, advertise in their backyard, steal all their staff, etc. unless they agree to refuse to get into bed with Skyride. Yeah, it's a little mafia, but the end result is back to being a level playing field for everyone where nobody takes Skyride, and everyone makes 100% of the profits again. It would only take a half dozen groups of these 'brothers in arms' to cut Skyride's DZ list in half, and each of these groups would only require a handful of DZOs to work together. It's such a simple proposition that would be good for everyone in the end. There's no excuse for just rolling over and taking what Skyride is giving. No excuse.

About what? No really, I have no idea what you're talking about. You turned an entire post into a quote, and the sum total of your comments are "You guys have no idea". I would suggest that we have some idea, and if you read the thread you'll see that the OP has also agreed that we have a valid thought or two, so your comment is even harder to understand. Care to elaborate on your thoughts? Maybe share an idea or two? Even before you reply, I'm willing to bet that for every idea you have regarding canopy piloting and selection, I have two ideas and each of them are three times as good as yours. That's how confident I am in my position, now let's see how confident you are in yours.

You keep referencing all of the things that YOU know, and know about, but the guy who talked to you most likely didn't know any of that. Think about what it must have looked like to him. It's a picture that doesn't add up - a guy he doesn't know, who doesn't look like a high time jumper but is jumping a top of the line canopy, and now has questions about how to pack it. It doesn't look good. Here's the other thing, if you did turn out to be the next FNG to drill himself into the runway, what will that do to the DZ? It's guaranteed to shut the place down for the day, maybe the weekend. All of the jumpers and spectators there will have to witness a fatality. No doubt the news cameras will show up, and it will be in the local papers for every prospective tandem student to see. None of this is good for business, and if your family gets a hair up their ass and sues the DZ, that could very well shut the place down. With these things in mind, I would have done the same thing as the dude the spoke to you. I am very territorial about my home DZ because I'm concerned for the people and the life of the business itself. I'm not going to stand there silent as some dick-licking asshat shows up and puts the whole operation at risk (remember, it's what it looks like, not the reality that the guy was dealing with). Again, to put in terms more personal to you, hwo do you react when some shithead dayblazes your favorite exit point? Or is there with you on a night jump, and is talking too lound and taking calls on his cell with the ringer on. You'd be pissed, for sure.

The problem is that you didn't ask anything about flying a Velo, and by virtue of having an unpacked one over your shoulder, you already had. Then you asked how to pack it, which is very basic info a pilot qualified to fly a Velo would have. Imagine if a pilot showed up to your GL site with the highest performance speed wing they make. Picture this guy, in your experiecned eyes, acting like a moderately experienced pilot, not an expert pilot. Then, to top it all off, he asks you a question that should be common knowledge and key to piloting such a glider, such as, "Hey, how do you launch these little wings, with brakes or rear risers?". That's essentailly the situation for the guy who spoke to you. Imagine the other sceanrio, and you mention to the guy he might be out of his league with that wing, wouldn't your opinion change if he said to you, "I know it's a small wing, but I'm a professional swooper, and my normal canopy is even smaller then this. I've got 5000 jumps, and am a high performance canopy competitor and coach". It changes the picture, and probably your attitude towards the guy. You could have done the same, and changed the other guy's attitude towards you.

I think that you're the one with the problem, not the other guy. The reason being that the other guy has two choices - his first choice is to assume that you know what you're doing (which he has no reason to do if he doesn't know you) and either say nothing at all, or just help you pack. In either case, if you end up hurting yourself under canopy, he'll know that he could have said something and didn't. The other choice is to say something to you, where the worst thing that happens is your feelings are hurt. The best thing that might happen is that you get the idea that the canopy is something to be concerned about, and you proceed accordingly. Here's where I think you have a problem - you should know full well that open canopy incidents are the number one killer in skydiving. You should also know that in the last few years canopy collisions between swoopers and non-swoopers have done some serious damage. Now keeping in mind that this guy doesn't know you, and maybe he had seen you act like a jumper with 500 jumps earlier in the day. After all, you do only have 500 jumps, and all of your canopy related expereince will only help you with the last 100ft.(which is important and a real assest to you), but in the end you probably look like a guy with 500 jumps, which in general terms is not enough to be jumping a Velocity. So when you look at the situation, you can see that the guy had reason to believe that you might just be another FNG who's in over his head, and doesn't even know how to pack the high performance canopy he's jumping. I think I laid out a fair and realistic view of the situation. Given the above, your choice was to lie about your jumps, and ignore the guy. The far more productive route would have been to explain that this was a borrowed rig, and that your usual canopy was a 120 or a 107 due to your extremely light weight, and that you don't really swoop any of them, including the Velocity. This would have opened up a course of conversation where you would have had the opportunity to explain your related experience, and then maybe, just maybe listen to the viewpoint of a much more experienced skydiver and accomplished swooper who probably would have had good advice for you in general. While it's too bad your feelings were hurt, you should see your situation for what it is, and what it must look like to everyone else. On top of that, how about being realistic with yourself with regards to your related expereince. While you might be one bad ass motherfucker on a GL slope, or the side of a mountain, on the DZ you still only have 500 jumps, and you're not a bad ass motherfucker. Maybe try seeing a guy questioning your skydiving choices as a guy you could learn something from as opposed to guy you should blow off, and then mock on the internet.

The DZO is close to the end of the piece http://1800skyrideripoff.com/skydiving/skyride/Racing/tabid/56/Default.aspx

You're doing a great job of it by becoming defensive when someone makes a point you don't want to hear, and then deleting your jump numbers after that same person points them out. Anyone who's interested, he had his jumps listed at 900 before I called him out and he deleted it. Just so you know, you don't have 'alot' of jumps on a Velo 79, because when it comes to high performance canopy flight, you don't have a lot jumps on anything. You should be looking at 900 jumps on one high performance canopy, similar to a JVX (Velo, VX, Xaos) and close in size to a 69 before thinking about a JVX 69. I'm sure that's not what you want to hear, but again, this isn't the 'Whatever mar.rie wants to hear' forum, this the 'Swooping and canopy control' forum.

Look man, everyone is entitled to their opinion about openings, and what they like or don't like. You said that you jump a camera all the time, and because of that you needed on-heading openings, and I'm just wondering what the connection is. None of that addresses the fact that you're asking about the highest performance canopy in production in one of the smallest sizes they're willing to produce. Jumping a Velo that is 40% larger, or a Nitro that is 30% larger will not prepare you for a 69 JVX, especially with under 1000 jumps total. Not what you wanted to hear? Too fucking bad, you post a question, be preparred to hear every possible answer, good or bad.

What problem? The problem of trying to figure out which DZ accept Skyride, and which don't? Yep, that problem would vanish. The bigger problem, which is some dumb fuck trying to weasel their way into the relationship between a DZ and their local customers, that problem would get much, much worse.

Aerohio does not accept Skyride. However, I noticed that Start Skydiving, also in Ohio, does accept Skyride. I went on to look at the Racing page of that website, and the news story about Thrill Planet was running, and they did mention that skydiving was another industry where these 'gift certificates' were also a problem. They went so far as to travel to their local DZ looking for a comment, which was no other than Start Skydiving. They interviewed DZO John Hart on camera, and he stated that they were not affiliated with Thrill Planet, and they don't accept their certificates. Well, which one is it? Is the list correct, and they don't accept them, or did their DZO lie to the news camera?

Do you mean a 69 JVX or a 96 JVX? Your profile shows you used to jump a Velo 96, and moving from a 96 to a 69 is a VERY big downsize, and in truth there are very few people who should be going anywhere near a 69 sq ft canopy. What is it you're doing with a camera that requires an on heading opening from a small x-braced canopy? I could understand if you're BASE jumping or shooting Crew, but an X-braced canopy isn't good for either one of those.

That's not a PC in tow, that's a PC hesitation. You can see that the pin is pulled, and the container flaps are open. In that case, the problem is not a mis-rig, the problem is the PC is not pulling hard enough to get the bag out of the container. Student rigs will have this problem for a few reasons. The canopies are always on the large side, which makes them heavy, and also due to their size, they'r eoften a tight fit into the container to keep the container size reasonable. Add to that a PC that might have been through a 'few' jumps, and lost some of it's power, and you have a PC hesitation. A weak PC trying to pull a heavy bag out of a tight container. Finally, the instructor themselves is adding to the problem just by being there. They create a larger burble, and give the PC less wind to work with. Hesitations on student PCs are common, and delt with in different ways, punching the container is one of them. Using your elbow to jab the side of your reserve container is a great idea if you pull silver and nothing happens. At that point anything is a good idea, right? If you have a hesitaion, or PC in tow, you can reach back and punch the side of your container once, but only once. The rule with high speed mals has always been, 'two tries, two seconds'. Pulling the PC is your first try, punching the container is your second, and if there's still no canopy, you've got yourself a malfunction. Of course, run this by your instructors before inserting it into your brain.

For a guy who claims to not be interested in flocking 'at all', it seems to be your favorite topic of conversation. I'm not sure what your beef is with how other people choose to conduct their skydives, but whatever it is, it really makes you sound like a dick. Just because of another persons choice of fall rate or forward speed does not match your own, they are to be mocked, repeatedly by the likes of you? Get over yourself. I don't like your choice of screen name, but I don't mock it, do I? 'Yuri' sounds an awful lot like the american word 'urine', which means piss. However, you don't see me addressing you as 'Yurine_base' do you? No, I let you be, now you can let others be.

We used to daydream about that in the bad old days. Looking at big, bulky Hi8 cameras, we alwas thought it would be great if you could have the lens in the center, the tape drive on one side and the battery on the other, just to even out the weight. Even after minDV and dise mounted cameras came out, there was always talk about the 'perfect' skydiving camera, with the components laid out just so that it would almost seem like there was no camera at all. By 2010, it's all a moot point with the CX100. The camera is so small, and so light that there's space for it anywhere you want, and it's not heavy enough that it 'needs' to be centered or anything like that. Let's face it, cameras aern't getting any bigger or heavier, so at this point I'd be more inclined just to spend the $500 on a CX, and get the warranty and all of the Sony smarts built right in. Even the price is fantastic. I paid $1200 for my PC-1 ten years ago, and a decade later, inflation be damned, I can get a much better and lighter camera for $500. The price of everything else has gone up, but video cameras are so cheap you can make the cost back in a weekend or two, and it's HD. Of course, the PC-1 was built on a magnesium frame which is cool as hell, and it did last me for 7 seasons and 2500 jumps.

The real question is if another person could do the job for less money. What if that same person was willing to do the jov from USPA HQ, further reducing the costs invloved with whatever it is he does? This appears to be just another case of the 'USPA way' which makes no sense to anyone but the people who profit from it. Why doesn't the USPA arrange travel, and keep frequent flyer miles for the organization? Sooner or later it will build to the point somebody will ride for free, and save the membership a few dollars. Instead, they let this guy make his own arrangements, and because he gets a deal on travel, he gets to profit above and beyond his normal salary, on the backs of the members, and that's bullshit. Buy his ticket for him, and mail it to him. His travel expenses are covered, and the USPA get the benefits. On that same note, how many employees who work out of HQ attend each board meeting? It was to be handful, at least 5 or 6, right? Why not hold all of the board meetings Va., at a hotel down the street from HQ, and save the membership the travel costs of all of those people. They can drive to the meetings in the morning, and sleep in their own homes. No airfare, no rental cars, no hotel bill. What does is cost to send one person to a board meeting? $1000? You could shave $5000 off the price of each board meeting by holding them close to HQ. On top of that, I would have to bet that they could strike a great deal with a nearby hotel for a block rate on rooms if they were going to be reserving those same rooms on a regular basis. They get a block rate now, but that's based on a single event. If the recurring event was to be held at the same place, I'm sure the hotel would be willing to deal. As much as I hate to say it, what we need is a Ross Perot runnning the USPA. If there was a businessman running the place like a business, the no-brainers I mentioned above would have been capitalized on a long time ago. As it sits now, there's no motivation for the management to do anything but scrape by. Let's face it, the USPA is essentailly living paycheck to paycheck, and nobody there has any reason to change that. Why bother buildign up a 'savings' and getting your head above water when your own paycheck is always the same, and the long term benefits of running a tighter ship won't effect you because your employ will eventaully end. How about a performance based incentive program up there at HQ? If you cannot increase revenue and lower costs, your salary is at the bottom and of the appropriate payscale. If you maintain revenue and costs, your salary moves up to the middle of the range, and of course, if you can both increase revenue and decrease costs, you become the highest paid whatever in USPA history.

That would be on a suit with a full wing where the bottom hooks ot your leg, close to the PC. The suit the OP is using is a small wing, which doesn't go beyond the 'armpit' area, and uses no swoop cords to maintain wing tension, so PC or other entanglement problems are not a factor. Additonally, he has logged 7 hours in the tunnel with that suit and his AFF instructor prior to jumping.