davelepka

You just answered your own question. The reason nobody wants to sell just the Cypres is that the supply is low and the demand is high. The old (and cheap) Cypres might be the best part of the rig they're trying to sell, why would they want to part it out? There's also the hassle of removing it, and then having to make multiple transactions to sell the gear. Maybe just buck up and buy a whole rig, remove the Cypres and sell the rest. If you can find one that's priced right, you might end up with a Cypres for free or almost nothing. That's actually how I got my first Cypres, I bought a complete used rig for a very good price, removed the Cypres, and sold rig for what I paid for it. Or just buy a new Cypres, knowing that it has a fixed market value, and that you can sell a used Cypres in a day or two. If you quit jumping, you get the balance of your money back, and if you dont' quit jumping, you'll need a Cypres anyway.

I've seen a dozen or so, most of the time it's just after the drouge toss, when the TI taps the student on the shoulders indicating they are free to release their grip on the harness. I guess they think it's the pull signal, or they just get spooked and go for the handle. It is a concern, especailly in the colder weather. You may plan on being out in the elements for 6 or 7 mintues, then with a light student, and cold dense air, you're under canopy for 15 or 20 minutes. Not letting them pull is one solution, but a better one is to go right from the shoulder tap to a handle block. Just cover it for a second, just to be sure they're not going to make a play for it. If they don't do it right out of the box, there's a pretty good chance they're not going to until they're prompted to do so.

Nope, original image, student deployed himself. The main side AFFI has a refusal to drop his grip until it's ripped from his hands by the deploying canopy. I know that's not the SOP, and I think he knows that not the SOP, but that's how he does it. I was actually wondering if anyone would pick up on that or not. I still like the composition of the pic, even if it's not technically correct.

I always liked the look of this one.

Pass on the Yamaha. The cheapo repaint is never a good sign. Look for original paint, and an original owner is possible. A guy who has a bike for 10 years since new, that still looks good, probably took care of it. Either way, if you find a bike that passes your inspection, and you can agree on a price, see if the seller will take it the nearest dealership for that brand for an inspection. It will cost you $75 or $100, but to have a professional tech who works on those same bikes everyday go over it is well worth the money. Even if they find a small problem, it could easliy cost you twice the inspection fee to repair it. There's a chance the seller might even work with you if the inspection turns up some issues. Look at the Suzuki Katanas. They make 600 and 750s, and they have a reputation as being 'soft' sport bikes. They don't have all the racetrack hardware, so the 'xtreme' kids all turn their noses up at them and won't touch them, which is what you want. In reality, they perform well enough that a skilled rider could lap one of the 'extreme' kids on a full race GSXR anyday. They're more comfortable, less maintenence, and cheaper to buy, own, and operate than the race replicas. Whatever you buy, hold out for a clean, stock bike with maintenence records and a seller who is game for a dealer inspection. They're out there, but it takes a little looking. Your in Texas anyway, so riding season is 363 days long, you've got time. Also, have you asked around the DZ? Lot's of bikers at the DZ, maybe someone has a bike for sale or knows of a good bike for sale. Always better to buy from someone you know.

Think about the normal situation when you unstow your brakes. Sitting still under your canopy, which is flying slow because the brakes are stowed. Think about the amount of tension on the lines. Now think about your canopy in a hrad turn. G-loads are building, and the line tension is way up. Now think about how the toggles are stowed, and imagine all that tension pulling up on the stowed brake. The nose of the toggle would be pinned to the guidering, and the steering line would be under tremendous load, and not likely to easily slip off the nose of the toggle. Sometimes you can overcome the tension, and just unstow the other toggle. Sometimes you can counter the turn by pulling on the rear riser on the side with the unstowed toggle. This will stop the turn, and lower the line tension, making is easy to unstow the other toggle. Sometimes the steering line or the guidering may be twisted, and the increased tension actually 'locks' the brake in the stowed position.

You said the main and reserve are both PD, but then you said the reserve is a 168, and PD does not make a 168 reserve. They make a 160 and a 176. If the rig has a 176 reserve and 170 Spectre main, then you're right on the border in terms of canopy size for a guy who weighs 165. If your instructors agree that your canopy control has been good, or above average, and you have put enough jumps on a 190 to be comfortable with that size, then the rig might be OK. It's still borderline, but right on the line, so you could go either way. If the rig has a 160 reserve, you might want to keep looking, or maybe upsize the reserve. If the container can hold one size bigger reserve, you should be able to sell the 160 and buy a 176 for even money. You may even be able to find a jumper willing to trade a 176 for the 160. As long as they are both PD reserves with no more than two jumps, the values would be the same. The idea is that you don't want your reserve to be the smallest canopy you've ever jumped. The smaller size is one factor, and the other is that reserves are 7-cell F-111, which is a little different than a Z-po canopy. Jumping the Spectre, which is also a 7 cell, will help you when you have a reserve ride, but you really want to upsize when you cutaway and dump a reserve. You're going to be lower than usual, and in the middle of an emergency situation, so the last thing you need is the added challenge of the smallest canopy you've ever jumped. That said, the G3 is a great rig, and PD canopies are the best around. I'm sure being in Deland you've heard all about PD because it's around the corner, but even if you were jumping halfway around the world, PD is still the best. The Spectre is a very docile canopy, and is known for soft openings. Choose carefully. No matter whan anyone tells you, you're the one who has to land the canopies you jump, regardless of the situation. If things are going wrong, and the world is working against you, it's your ass in the harness, and your brain doing the flying. You'll never be sorry that you have a few extra square feet of canopy above you.

No contest. Do the 70 actual jumps. If 30 of them are with a live coach, and include video and good debreif, you'll learn a ton. You'll also get to fly your canopy 70 times, ride in a plane 70 times, see the sun 70 times, hit on the hot tandem students 70 times, and basicaly remember that it's good to be alive 70 times. You could even cut it back to 68 jumps, and get an outside camera to shoot stills of you and your coach on your last jump. There's nothing like a few badass stills to show off what you accomplished on your trip.

Not to hammer the point home, but since the actual guy isn't a poster here, I'll add that not only did he cum inside her, but he came inside a woman he had previously accidentally impregnated. He already knew that they were 'compatible' and that it was possible, so I can't really feel sorry for the guy. On the upside, his life is going to be waaay easier with just one baby mama, instead of two.

This is more or less why I've stated my doubts that any actual change will take place. However, I still feel that some change would be a good thing. How about this - let's say you're a baker who bakes bread. This bread is for the exclusive consumption of people who have never tasted bread before, and you are only allowed to sample the first loaf you make to see if it tastes good. Moving forward, how are you supposed to know if it tastes good? Your 'customers' have never had bread before, so they are of little help. The bread may suck, but they might just think that's what bread is supposed to taste like. If it doesn't kill them, or make them sick, you would never know if your bread was dry and salty and gross. An AFF I/E is in the same position today. They are producing a product intended for the exclusive consumption of first time consumers (the students). These students don't really know a good instructional experience from a bad one, so if they don't end up injured or killed, they will be satisfied with the performance of the product (the instructor). This is, of course, leaving out terrible instructors who would, say, bail out of a striken aircraft without their students. That is obviously a bad product. So what it comes down to is an issue of quality. You can offer students an instructor who may or may not be ready to do a 'good' job, but are definitely ready to do an 'acceptable job'. It's always a good thing when students are not injured or killed, but it is a better thing when students are taught in a way that caters to their own learning style, by an intructor who can indentify and capitalize on that individual learning style. Now we are all in agreement that becoming an instructor is a long process. It begins with passing the cert. course, and moves forward from there. The course provides that you are capable of the min. performance required to do the job, and nothing more. It's a baseline. From there, experience will carry you forward. The more time you spend working with students, the more unusual circumstances and scenarios you encounter, and these will all get filed away in your personal 'hard drive'. Without these files to access, you may not know what to do in certain unusual situations. The abilities you used to pass the cert. course will allow you to produce an 'acceptable' solution to the situation in that nobody dies or gets hurt. Was this the best solution? Was it the one that gave the student the most opportunity to learn in the safest way possible? We don't know, and never will because an 'acceptable' solution was applied, making the event not worthy of further scrutiny. I don't think any AFF course, or prerequisites to an AFF course are going to produce good instructors right out of the box. I don't think it's possible. There are too mnay variables in the business of humans teaching humans for an instructor to learn what they need to know without actually instructing. This is why I think that one year as a JM, only jumping with another instructor present is the way to go. It ensures that every 'I' has the benefit of real time experience to bring to the table. Should they fly main and reserve side? Absolutely. Should they assist in training, ground prep, and debrief? Absolutely. These things are essential to building up your 'hard drive', and preparing you to work one on one with students. This is how you improve the quality of the instruction. Give the students, every one of them, experienced instructors (at least on one side). This brings us back to the bakery. The AFF I in this example is an experiecned baker who works as your taste tester. He's there to sample the product, and adivse you along the way how to make it better. He's also there to make sure that you're at least trying to make the bread good, even if the customer doesn't know any better. Sooner or later, you too are an experienced baker, who can tell by the look and feel of the dough is the bread will taste good or not. (I'm not suggesting you eyeball and feel up your students) I know you haven't had your rating for very long, and had a little down time since then, but ask yourself this - who got the better learning expereince from you, your first student, or your most recent?

This has got to be a repost, but... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QRHa32O2oM&feature=related

That's true, but in between a jumper with no experience and jumping alone with a student was the AFFJMCC. If you want to bring back the Yharling standard to the AFF certification process, than all of this other talk is moot. In that case, all jumpers are welcome at the course, and if you can pass, you're in. Most people didn't pass. If you want to continue with the current certification courses, than something needs to change. You can't make the course that much easier, and not change the rest of the system to match. The only reason the old system worked was because the course was a meat grinder. Once you turn it into a hand-holding session where everyone gets to talk about their feelings, you may have to build up the rest of the system a little to match.

That's true, but you have to earn the instrument ticket and the multi-engine ticket first. There'a a written and a checkride for each of those. Once that's done, you still have two more checkrides to get the instructional rating for each of those. So a pilot with zero instructional experience needs to pass 5 written exams and 5 seperate checkrides (instrument, multi, CFI, CFII, CFI-multi) before being let loose to teach at the highest level. Even if you could manage all of that in a week, it would only be after a long period of intense sudy and preperation. As a skydiver, you can go from zero instructional jumps/experience to being an AFF I in 10 days, and be instructing one on one students in freefall on the 11th. Under the current system, the 10 day wonder is afforded the same liberties as a 10 year veteran AFF I.

I agree that outright abuse of the I/E position should be delt with, but in terms of overall instructor quality, I don't think that any group of I/Es is going to be fool-proof. Even those with the best of intentions will be forced to make 'judgment calls' from time to time, and like all humans they are subject to make mistakes. This is why beefing up the requirements for the cadidates, and bringing back a JM type rating for AFF makes so much sense. For example, if a shithead wants to take the coach course, at least it will be a shithead with more expereince in the sport, which I'm sure we all agree is a good thing. For the AFF candidates, a min, jump number will of course increase their experience level overall, but a requirement for a min. of one year as a coach (and the required number of coach jumps needed to maintain the rating) will make for a better instructor on day one after the course. If a guy just barely squeaks by the AFF course, now he has a year as a JM to ride shotgun, and hone his skills in the presence of an AFF I who can provide guidance and assitance. Just booting a couple of I/Es and trying to tighten up the remaining I/Es will have little effect in the jumpers coming into and moving through the various courses. By building some required time into the various steps to becoming a full fledged AFFI, you make sure that every jumper has the benefit of time and experience on their side as they move forward and gain more and more responsibility along the way. I can't help but look to GA as an example of tiered progression. You become a basic flight instructor and are allowed to teach single engine land VFR students. Then you can continue on and add an instrument rating, and then a multi engine rating. It's a building process that leads up to being certified to teach multi-engine instrument flying. In skydiving, a jumper can go from zero, to AFFI in 10 days. Take the coach course one weekend, and start the AFF course on Monday. By the end of the week, you're an AFF I with the same responsibilities as a guy who's been an AFF I for ten years. It just doesn't make sense.

That's a fine reserve canopy. The Racer - how many jumps? Keep in mind it's going to have velcro riser covers, pin covers, and toggles, all of which need to be maintained. You can bet it will all need replacing, so figure $50 for that. Also, it may have the pilot chute pouch on the leg strap, so you'll need to have one installed on the bottom of the container and the velcro for the bridle leading to the pouch. Another $50 to $75. In the end, it would work if you never ever even try to freefly, even just a little. It might be overpriced considering the work it will probably need. Maybe if you can get the container/reserve for $250 or $300, that would be better. The main is another story. It's F-111, so the jump numbers make a huge difference. 350 is one thing, but if it's really more like 550, that makes a big difference with an F-111 canopy. Also, you need an extra low wing loading for an F-111 canopy. You can jump an F-111 218 if you normally fly a 190 ZP. Save yourself the abuse, and skip it. Maybe skip the whole deal. You should be able to find a rig from the '95 to '99 era for not too much more. If you're open to ugly or beat up looking rigs, there's solid cheap gear out there, and you can probably freefly it. For mains, you can find a Sabre with 1000 jumps on it that will fly better than the Raven anyway. A complete rig for $750 is a fun idea, but the reality isn't going to be as fun as the idea. Try to bump your budget up to $1000 or $1200 and you have much better options. Maybe you and your buddy can pool your money, and each chip in 50% for a nicer rig. Share the rig, and each of you save up another pile of cash in the meantime. One guy can buy out the other guy and own the rig outright, and the other guy buys another rig with the proceeds.

The first line fo your quote is the most relevant, where you say, 'IF candidates are held to an adequate standard'. This whole idea was based on the idea that the AFF cert. course may not be adequate, and is allowing substandard cadidates into the instructional ranks. Reverting back to the old standard is not likely, so this idea is designed to put another layer inbetween AFF I cadidates, and unrestricted access to students. The year of riding shotgun with an AFF I will grant the JM the experience to let them do the job adequately. Actually I have run into newer AFF Is that I would not like to see solo on certain jumps. I personlly witnessed a student who was very borderline in passing or failing their level three. The idea was floated that they could move on to level four provided they were going to jump that day (the student had already planned and paid for two jumps) and that one of the more senior instructors would be jumping with them. As it turned out, the only available AFF I on the next load was the new guy. The student was bumped back a load in order to jump with a more senoir instructor. The new AFF I passed the course like everyone else, but was uncomfortable with the idea of a borderline student in a one on one skydive, and the more senoir instructors agreed. The new guy has never had a problem, or shown any lack of confidence, but all involved realized that there is a big difference between the new guy, and the more senior staff members, even though they are both afforded the same liberties by their AFF I rating. The JM idea is good step in terms of 'quality control'. Even if the current crop of course grads is fine, all this will do is improve the standard, and create a sharper more experienced instructional corp. Without a stack of student related incident reports all pointing toward unqualifed instructors, it's very hard to tell if the standard is right or not. In the absence of a clear answer, you can never go wrong with a step that will increase the quality of instructors. It's simply erring on the side of caution.

That's roughly the idea, however when it comes to harness hold freefall instruction, you really do need to pass some sort of certification course to prove your basic abilites to do the job. It's not like SL or IAD where in-air skills are not relevant. An overview of what's suggested - 1. A min time with a coach rating of one year. As it sits now, a jumper can get a coach rating one weekend, and take the AFF cert. course the next week, without exercising the coach rating or learning anything from exercising the rating. 2. After a year with a Coach rating, you can take the AFF cert. course. Passing will make you an AFF JM, allowing you to jump with students only on jumps where two instructors are required, and the other instructor would need to be a full fledged AFF I. 3. After a year (and a min number of AFF jumps, and a sign off from an AFF I), you are upgraded to an AFF I. So the only real delay to jumpers is the one year as a coach rating. After that year, they are eligible to take the AFF cert. course, and become an AFF JM. These aren't my ideas, but I've been following the thread where they originated, so I figured I spell them out in this thread.

Check out the thread that spawned this petition. I address the issue of data in post #326 and up. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=2469164;page=14;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;

That's not what's being suggested. The JM rating would apply to AFF certification course graduates for a one year period (and I'm sure some min. number of AFF jumps), and it would limit them to only doing AFF jumps with two instructors, with the other being a full fledged AFF I. As it sits now, a course graduate can literally be paired one-on-one with a student 24 hrs after passing the course. They have no jumps with actual students, but now they are going to be the sole instructor in the air with a student who may have as few as three jumps. The idea is to pair them with a more experienced instructor and let them build their experiecne with actual students with the assitance and guidance of said instructor.

This is because people aren't thinking about the degenerative effects over time. They jump their lid all day and feel fine, so it must be right. When they do have a slammer that causes injury, they tend to blame that one opening, not realizing that the years of abuse weakened their neck, and allowed that one opening to do the damage it did. It's entirely possible that they could have handled that same opening earlier in their skydiving career. I've been jumping a digital Rebel with a kit lens for years. I've thought about upgrading to a 15mm lens, but never pulled the trigger. Earlier this year a buddy picked up Cannon 15mm lens, but he wasn't going to be jumping it for a few months, so I asked if could fly it for awhile and see if I liked it. He brought me the lens, and when he handed it to me, the weight was immediately noticable in my hand, and I knew that I wouldn't be jumping that lens on any regular basis. In fact, I think I only put about 4 jumps on it, and one of them was a special occasion (an ash dive). The point is this, for $40 on a tandem video the kit lens produces very nice images, and at a minimum of weight. I do feel that an SLR is an essential tool for me to do my job, just based on the frame rate, but given that, the extra weight of a big hunk of glass it too much. A flash? Come on, it still only pays $40. For all the new (and old) camera flyers, think about what you're doing. I know everyone gets excited, and is all gung-ho to be the next Mike McGowan, but keep in mind the two most prominent physical features when you see Mike - he's old, and built like an ox. If you want to shoot like Mike, first you need to get old. He didn't learn what he knows in a day, or a decade for that matter. It took years and years, and unless you think long term, you'll never get there. You probably don't need to built like an ox, however. Once your skills are close to Mikes, the gear will all be much ligher, and you won't need the muscle to haul the pro gear that Mike does.

No. Every rating has a minmum activity level that must be exercised with that rating to qualify for renewal. If you don't exersise the rating, you cannot renew, and cannot use it meet the requirements for earning a higher rating. All of that aside, the minimum time as a coach would just be a requirement for taking the AFF cert. course, not a qualification for an 'auto pass'. Any potential candidate would have to meet the requirements and successfully pass the course.

I thought I saw her booties were rolled up and tucked inside her jumprsuit leg up by her knee. If we both saw what we thought we saw, she should have thought about passing the student to a bigger AFFI. Putting on a weight belt, or rolling up your jumpsuit is one thing, but when you need weights and to roll up your already tight RW suit, you might be pushing your personal limits a bit. Overall, the student didn't do too bad, but if he had really balled up, I think he would have given that AFI a real run for her money. Don't even get me started on the camera guy. When the exit rolled on the hill, I understood how they got away from him, but nothing can explain the rest of the jump. I hope the student wasn't paying for that video.

I have two problems with that statement - 1. It would be very difficult to take a student incident, and conclude that the root cause was insuffucient training/experience of one or both of the instructors. There are so many variables at work, that you could never rule out enough of them to place the blame squarely on the instructors training/experience. Not every student can be caught. Let's face it, events can transpire that would allow a student to fall into a Cypres fire dispite the best efforts of the instructors. How would you conclude in a student Cypres fire that the instrucotrs did a sub-standard job, and furhtermore that the substandard job was the result of poor instructor training? Maybe it was a bad day for an otherwise qualified instructor. The point is that in order to have statistics, you would have to be able to connect a student incident to poor performace on the part of the instructor, and then connect that poor performance to a lack of expereince or inadequate training as an instructor. It's long way to go to make that conclusion, and as such you probably won't see many incidents that would fall under that heading. 2. Again, in order to have any statistics, you need to have incident reports from which to compile them. Keeping my above point in mind, think about how many overall student incidents we would need before we had enough that were directly linked to poor instructor performance to compile any sort of meaningful statistics. It would be too many for my taste, and I can't accept the idea that we should wait until such time to take action. Nobody can provide such proof, and in truth, I would think that 'better mangement' would be a much better idea. The rub is that the management are the ones making the decisions. In truth, 'better management' would mean going back to the tougher AFF cert. course. If you have higher standards for graduating, you have more qualified instructors entering the work force, but I can't see that happening. That would mean the 'management' would have to admit that they were wrong to ease the performance requirements to graduate, and go back to a presumably lower pass rate, and the lower attendace rate (and related reduction in course fees paid). I do think, however, that bringing back the JM status would put an addiitonal layer of training for the new instructors, and that the management would be more likely to back that type of plan. You would still need to pass the course, but then you would have an additional year of experience under your belt before being cut loose for one on one interaction with a student. Let me ask you this question - as a new AFFI, would you imagine that your skills as an instructor would improve after your first year 'on the job'? I would suggest, like most other learning experiences, that the early part of your learning would represent the steepest part of the learning curve. So if you start off at zero, you'll learn as much in your first year as you may learn in years 2 and 3 combined. With this in mind, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that a period of 'limited responsibility' coming out of the AFF cert. course is that unreasonable. Keep in mind that I'm not suggesting to furhter ease the AFF cert. course, and then let the remainder of the learning take place on the job. Keep the course requirements what they are, and make sure that every grad is an instructor would feel comfortable jumping with your mom. Beyond that, recognize that these instructors do have zero in terms of real world experience, and look at a gradute not as a jumper who is 'ready to instruct in every situation possible', but as a jumper who is 'ready to learn to instruct in every situaiton possible'. It's just not something you can learn in a week.

Here's the problem with stats, something has to actually happen (more than once) for there to be stats. In this case, that something would be a student injury, fatality, or Cypres fire. Are you suggesting that we would need to see a 'reliable' string of these events occuring for you to agree that there is a problem? The issue here, is the decline in the quality of the new instructors we are seeing (not all new instructors are bad, but the average certainly seems to be lower than before). This is not something you could quantify with statistics because, for example, there is no record of every time an AFFI is out of their slot at pull time. If the student managed to pull on their own, or the other AFFI was able to assist, the event is not recorded. What's worse is that it's probably not even given a second thought by any of the parties involved. So do we wait until that same scenario plays out without the happy ending to recognize that there is a problem? Do you really want to wait until you have a stack of incident reports in front of you? Until the criteria for reporting poor performance on the instructors part changes, we cannot look to statistics to guide us in terms of 'quality control' with regards to AFFIs. The real question is this - regardless of the existance of an actual problem, wouldn't the ideas being put forth here only serve to produce a more experienced, more qualifed group of instructors? What's the harm in instituting an min. one year with a Coach rating to qualify for the AFF cert. course? Why not bring back the JM rating, and make sure that new AFF course grads have a chance to ease into freefall instruction? Statistics or no statistics, these ideas only serve to make for better instructors, and in turn, better instruction. What's the downside?

To you, or anyone who already has a rating, there clearly is no downside. To a jumper on the cusp of earning any of those ratings, or any jumper who holds future ambition of earning any of those ratings, all of your suggestions represent addiitonal time and effort, both of which would be considered downsides. To an I/E, those are all downsides as well. The longer the process, the more possible candidates you'll loose to attrition, injury, or marriage. Fewer candidates mean less money in the I/Es pocket. To a DZO those are downsides because it gives them fewer intrsuctors to work with. It's supply and demand - the more intructors there are, the more valuable the instructor employment slots at the DZ become. You don't want to toe the DZOs line? Well fuck you, there are ten guys with a rating in the hanger who would love your job. For the USPA, less intructors means less money. Even if you put the money issue aside for the USPA, you can see how it would effect I/Es and DZOs, and those poeple seem to be high on the USPAs list of 'friends of the board'.