davelepka

These are two areas where I see alot of camera flers not really doing what they can to prevent injury. In choosing your equipment carefully, you have to look at the job you're doing. If you are just shooting tandem videos, you don't really need the biggest, heaviest piece of glass you can mount on your still camera, a seperate flash unit, and a 16 hour battery on your video camera. It's true that some of those things will contribute to the quality of your image, but MOST camera flyers have a long way to go before a kit lens and natural lighting is what's holding back the quality of their images. Even with the right stuff on your melon, keep everything mounted as low and tight as humanly possible. The more distance that weight has from your neck, the more leverge it has when your neck (and body) come to a sudden stop, and the weight (your cameras) wants to keep going. When it comes to packing, there's no substitution for doing it yourself. If you're busy, hire an editor because an editing mistake won't kill you. I know everyone will read this and think, "I'm fine. I jump my Bonehead Mega-Lid with this camera, and that flash, and that lens, and everything has a quick release, and I use a great packer who does a really super job, and I have no neck problems at all", which may be true today, but keep it up for 1000, or 2000 more jumps, and get 10 years older than you are now, and see what happens. I learned very early on from a very smart guy that it's not the instant-canopy slammer that will get you, it's the 'ok' openings, that will add up and wear your inside parts down, little by little. To the OP, glad you're going to be back in the sky. I know that you did get sidelined by a mega-slammer, but but theres a chance that years of flying heavy cameras may have worn you down to the point where that opening could do the damage it did. That's why I encourage camera flyers to do what they can today to prevent this from happening in the future.

Why not reverse that order? Bringing back the JM status will really solve a buch of the problems by keeping the new, inexperienced instructors away from one or one situations with students. Even if you got your coach rating one week, and AFF the next, you still have a year as a JM to get into the swing of things under the supervision of a more experienced instructor. Of course instituting a one year min. as a coach to even qualify for the AFF course would put another level of experience and education into the perspective instructors tool kit. Of the least importance is upping the requirements for the coach rating. Coaches themselves can do very little harm, as they don't get near a 'student' in the air until an AFF I has cleared them for self supervision. These jumpers could make the skydives with no help what-so-ever, but thanks to the ISP, they end with a 'buddy' to tag along and watch. In the end, I'm going to stick to my theory that the USPA isn't very fond of making things harder for anyone, and that what you and I see as a 'problem' might look different to the USPA, I/Es and DZOs. Even so, if you are going to push for change, make the JM rating the primary focus, and have the other ideas as secondary.

Nobody does. That's why every instructor doing harness hold jumps needs to start off by straight up passing the AFF cert course. Not almost pass, not real close to pass, but completed the course and met the minimun requirements. Lets keep in mind that this thread started off discussing the level of difficulty involved in the AFF cert course, and that some think it's not hard enough. If you then go to the level where you're 'passing' jumpers who are so marginal that they have to have a 'conditional' rating, can you imagine the skill level of said jumper? Back to jumpers who can at least manage to pass the course 'straight up', the reason you then put them on JM status is not because you doubt their skills, but because they lack experience. Even the top of the class at the AFF cert course graduates with zero jumps with an actual student. The JM status allows them to gain experience from more seasoned AFF Is, and really hone all of their skills before being cut loose to handle students one on one. Those skills are not limited to just the in-air work, but the whole experience from trainging, to gear up, to student supervision, and debreifing. These are all skills that need to be developed, and much like the in-air work, you're short changing a student by assigning them a guy who has had a rating for a week as their sole instructor. For the instructor, that student is just one in a long line of students that the instrucotr will use to devleop their skills, but to the student that is (presumably) their one and only lv. 5 or lv. 6 skydive, and they need a full and complete learning expereince they can use to begin their skydiving career.

Live, on LSD, in front of a half million people, 40 years ago. Nuff said. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT8sJn_GlHU

Good stuff, but where's the swooping? No really, some cool flying. In the beginning they looked like they had some problems with heading control, but towards to middle it looked like they got it worked out and turned a few points. Of course, toward the end the heading control went south again, I'm guessing they were just tired. That's it, they were tired. One day if I'm lucky, I'll be that tired.

It looks like a line from the rear riser up to the steering line cascade. I think it 'boosts' the performance of the rear riaers by bringing some steering line input into the mix at some point. For some reason I want to say that this was done years ago and called the 'J mod'. I don't remember if the 'J' was for Jay the PD pilot, or for Jim as in Jim Slaton, or maybe some other 'J' that I don't know about. I'm 99% sure that the 'J' does not refer to a joint (a marajuana cigarette).

My impression of the DZs in Hawaii is that they frequently have higher winds (not good for students) and that often times they don't jump for a full day. As a student, you really need a DZ that runs from sunrise to suset to fit in several student jumps per day. Of course the first jump takes all day when you include the ground school, but the other levels each take a few hours to complete between the training, making the jump, and the debrief. Look into Perris Valley. It's in California, between Los Angles and San Diego. If you are planning to go to Hawaii, you'll be flying ouy of one of those two cities, so you'll be close to Perris anyway. They've got an on-site wind tunnel, and for a guy looking to get the program done in a short period of time, the tunnel will be a great thing to have available to speed up your progression. I'm sure they have an AFF package, or an A license package that includes all the jumps plus tunnel time, and they certainly have the aricraft, and instructors to keep you jumping non-stop. They also have on-site housing so if you can get to the DZ, there's no need to drive yourself back and forth all week.

According to your profile, you were loading your Sabre 150 at 1.5, which puts you at 225 out the door. Are you really 225 out the door, and are you really loading a canopy at 1.5 with 70-something jumps? The Swift might be the least of your worries. At that loading with those jump numbers, I'd be more worried about safely landing your main.

Really? I don't have to be high to shoot 4-way, there's generally enough action to keep me interested. Now if you're talking 20-ways, I have to be high as shit to shoot that. It takes forever to build the first point, and then the thing just falls straight down as they bang out another point or point and a half. A good buzz goes a long way toward making that fun.

That in itself might be a problem. As far as the BOD, the I/Es, or the DZOs are concerned, is there a problem? Lot's of AFF cert. courses generating lots of course fees for the I/Es and lots of ratings fees for the USPA, all resulting in lots of instructors for DZOs. I'm not sure many folks in any of those groups would say that there is a 'problem'. Even in the wake of a fatality, how would you prove that the primary cause was instructor inexperience or under-qualification? There are always a myriad of possible causes, and just as many unanswered questions in any fatality, let alone one involving a student and all of the things they're apt to do (or not do). I think it would take a string of student fatalities with very clear connections to the instructors experience level or qualifications to really make a dent. I don't like it any more than you may, but I do think it's a realistic view of the situation. Hell, small canopies in inexperinced hands have proven to be killers, and the USPA won't put any teeth behind stopping that, so with all the people the status quo makes happy and no directly visible downside, I won't hold my breath for change.

That was on a tandem rig with, I believe, a smaller canopy than the rig was designed for. Of course, the bigger factor was that the rig was not designed to be operated without side flaps. On a purpose built rig, canopy/d-bag sizing would be more critical than on current rigs, and if the container was built with only two flaps in mind, other things could be changed to suit. Maybe the sides of the rig would be built up like riser covers, and the the bottom corners would be built into the bottom flap, and designed to stand-up/wrap around when the rig is closed. Of course, with only two flaps we'd have to figure out another way to stow the excess bridle. On the upside, maybe you could pay less for a two-flap pack job than a regular pack job.

That's a terrible idea. Putting a jumper who has not passed the AFF cert course on a harness hold jump is doing a great dis-service to the student. The better idea is to bring back the JM rating, where you take a jumper who has passed the AFF cert course, and limit what they can do for a period of time after the course. This will give them time to learn 'on the job', and ensure that a student doesn't end up being a 'learning experience' for a pair of new instructors (or one new guy on a single JM jump). Allowing coaches to do harness hold jumps is moving in the wrong direction. Additional training or not, you're giving the coach more responsibility when what really needs to be done is giving new course gradutates less responsibility. There should be no flexibility when it comes to passing the AFF cert course for doing harness hold jumps. That has to be step one, and any changes that need to be made should be done with graduating the course as a starting point.

Well, the cat's out of the bag now. Before we get the TI, here's a tip for you - zoom in one notch on your video camera. The inside of your D-box and the sliver of your googles/face will disappear from your videos. That guy has 1000 tandems? He's not doing anything to position himself into the relative wind. His arms are wrapped around the student, and hold their hands on the harness, and his legs are wrapped around the students legs which prevents him from arching. Either punching out an arch, or getting his arms and legs into the wind to use as control surfaces would probably result in a belly-to-the-wind orientation at least 75% of the time. Doing both would up that to 95%. It's scary, and I don't blame you for hanging back a bit until he gets the drouge out. I'm not sure I'd want to be tight to that action either. Your DZo has to be able to recognize that this is not a good situation, and that some remedial training and tiny bit of effort on the part of the TI would make this go away. 1000 times? Really? The amazing part is that nothing has gone wrong thus far.

Step 1 - report to your nearest dropzone Step 2 - say "Hi, I'd like to make a skydive" The rest will work itself out.

Did you even think about that before you posted it? So there is a TI in question, and your solution is to take the time to send a 'spy' to the DZ, and have that person actually make a tandem with said TI? You do realize that even Bill Booth could easily be killed as a passenger of an unsafe TI, right? You really think someone would step up and accept that job? If there is a TI in question, the idea would be for them to NOT do anymore tandems until the 'questions' had been answered. If there is no 'question' about a TI, your idea involves sending someone around the country doing tandems with random TIs. You never know which TI you're going to get at a given DZ, or if you're catching the guy on his best (or worst) day. I'd suggest going back to the drawign board with your idea, but I don't think there's way to rework your plan and have to make sense. Sorry.

You're right man, I didn't mean to say that short people couldn't do tandems. I have worked with a couple of guys in the 5' 6" range, and they had no problems. In the context of the story, that was just the picture that popped into my head. Any new TI would need a few jumps to get the hang of things, but it turned out the guy had 950 more tandems than I thought.

I have to agree with you. When I first read the OP, I pictured a very new, very short TI, who just couldn't get his little wings out in the breeze, and maybe wasn't really punching out an arch. Then I read he's got 1000 tandems? I don't care how stubby you are, after 1000 you should be able to do that shit in your sleep. In the last five years I've watched a handful of guys get their ratings, and begin working as TIs, and none of them took more than 10 or 15 jumps before they were peeling exits off the plane smooth as silk, every time. One of them regressed, and did some tumbling while they were trying to figure out how to do tandem gainers, but even then it was only a handful of jumps before it was dialed in.

I appriciate your enthusiasm, but I caution you not to get too excited. Like I said, the USPA as of late hasn't been real keen on making anything harder for anyone. It's almost like they got all 'PC', and are trying to make ratings and such more 'friendly' for everyone. If anything you metnioned to them involves making the road to ratings either longer or harder, my money is on the subject getting little to no attention out of the BOD. An interesting exception to this, of course, was the ISP. That certainly did make it much harder and more expensive for students to get licensed, but of course you have to consider that the USPA, in addition to being a skydiver organization, is also a DZO organization. The longer you can call someone a 'student', the longer you can charge them for 'student jumps', which always cost more than just a slot.

I wouldn't count on the USPA making any changes that will make things harder for jumpers to get ratings. Somewhere along the line they got the impression that if you make it easier, more people will become involved, and that will benefit the sport (and of the course the USPA with increased course fees and ratings dues). Take the coach rating for example. It was preceeded by the Basic Instrcutor Course, which was a good idea. For those that don't know, the BIC was a two-day class that taught effective teaching techniques, and it became a prerequisite for any instructional rating course. The BIC was certainly an additional hurdle toward getting a rating, but in itself the course afforded you no new privledges at the DZ. It was like a medical certificate for a tandem instructor, you need it to get the rating, but by itself it means nothing. No surpirse, the BIC was very short lived, and replaced by the Coach rating. Of course, the coach rating was now the prerequisite for all instructor courses, but the coach rating also offered the privledges of jumping with certain students. The BIC was a rare case in which the USPA made it to harder to get a rating, so they replaced it with a new, much easier to get rating that would be more appealing to the potential instructor. It's somewhat similar to the (lack of) regulations regarding canopy type and size for upcoming jumpers. The USPA has refused to implement any such regulation despite the fact that open canopy incidents have been the largest protion of yearly fatalities for many, many, years. Most other countries have some sort of system in place to regulate this area, but the USPA has limited it's invovlment to making 'reccomendations', which aren't even worth the paper they're printed on. When it comes to instituting a new BSR for this purpose, they will not. Again, it would be a case of making things harder for jumpers, and like I said, that's not the USPA's forte.

That's crazy bullshit. Skydiving is a recreational activity that's supposed to be fun. If someone wants to make one jump, or 1000, that is their choice, as is how they go about it. Want to make one jump a month? That's fine. You may not pass, and have to repeat levels, but that is the student's business. Instructors read logbooks, and look at currency, Students are treated accordingly. The idea that you have to make such a commitment of time and money is surely a detractor to many potential students. Of course, you would never know how many, because we're talking about the ones who never make it to the DZ. It would be smarter to offer a pre-paid package that included guaranteed slots every weekend until they were licensed, along with a traditional pay-as-you-go program. By all means let them know that they will learn faster, and for less money with the pre-paid package, but to not even give them the option of pay-as-you-go is foolish.

For the record, I don't really think the panel idea is neccessary, I think that DZOs and chief instrucotrs will weed out the losers on their own. The concept of written regs and a panel to enforce them was just an example of what it would take to regulate AFF Is post-certification. As far as a 'panel', or at least a second opinion at the certification course itself, that's not a bad idea. It ensures that personality conflicts, or personal relationships, wouldn't have an un-checked effect on who does, or does not, get a rating. The downside is this - it makes it harder to earn an AFF I rating, and takes away opportunity from new rating holders because they won't be able to do single instructor dives at first. I think that the JM rating is a great idea, and it would absolutely increase the quality of the instructional community. In reality though, the new AFF course was implemented because the previous course was deemed 'too hard'. The USPA feared that if they didn't make it easier, not enough jumpers would even try to get the rating, and eventually we would run out of instructors. With that in mind, I cannot see the USPA taking a step that will be seen as an additional obstacle to the AFF I rating. Yeah, it would be smart, but the same bitching the got the AFF course turned down a few notches would either prevent it from happening, or make it short lived if it ever happened.

If you realize that landing out is a different game, then why when you have the chance to safely practice spot landings (on the DZ) would you use a technique not suited to off-field spot landings? If you practice the things that trouble you when they're not a neccisity, then you'll be preparred for when they are.

No. Good canopy control leads to good accuracy. Canopy control encompasses all areas of canopy flight from pattern flying, accuracy, and actual handling of the canopy (turning, flaring, flat turning, etc). Any canopy can be landed accurately, regardless of canopy size or design. It's the pilot that makes the canopy do what needs to be done, not the other way around. In terms of practicing accuracy with a modern canopy and a busy traffic pattern, the peas is just one target, you can choose any target you want to practice or demonstrate accuracy. You can toss a frisbee into an unused corner of the landing area that will keep you clear of the traffic. Beyond that, how about doing a hop n pop, or a high pull and sitting in brakes? Sure it may cramp your awesome freefall plans, but accuracy and canopy control are important, and worth the time and effort needed to practice them in a low traffic environment. Let's not forget that a good number of jumpers are from Cessna DZs, where there are at most three other canopies in the air with them. They have an ideal opportunity to practice accuracy on every jump. Should we have different standards for them? Trust me, the last thing we need to do is loosen the accuracy requirements. The modern canopies that you suggest create a roadblock actually do the opposite. These canopies are far more capable than older models, but they do require higher performance on the part of the pilot to exploit the higher capabilities of the canopies, and lesser requirements will not help the performance of the pilot.

That doesn't have anything to do with weed, right? Seriously, the USPA cannot keep track of instructor performance until they put some sort of operational criteria down in writing. Even then, it would have to involve some sort of concrete actions or event that would trigger a review by a multi-person panel. For example, a student cypres fire, student fatality, instructor cypres fire (on a student jump), etc. An S&TA would be the one to request an investigation, and then the panel would review the facts as submitted by the S&TA, the instructor in question, and any other instructors/video involved in the jump. You can't put the responsibility on one person (S&TA) who is directly involved with the DZ, and may have personal ties to the instructor or the DZ. It just wouldn't allow for an impartial conclusion. As far as the written standards go, you have to have a 'rule of law' to refer to. You can't take action against an instructor because an S&TA thinks the guy is an asshole, and doesn't like how he works with students. The job of regulating who is, or is not, an asshole lies with the DZO or chief instructor. There's a difference between training a student within the minimum standards of the USPA, and just being a shithead. The USPA standards are the business of the USPA, the shithead factor is the business of the guy signing the paychecks.

The only real mistake I can see so far is when you named this thread, and added "WHAT WOULD YOU DO". What I would do, or any other jumper would do is of no consequence. You only need to worry about what you would do, and seeing as you are uninjured, you did the right thing. I never would have cut that away, but that's because I can make a safe landing with a broken steerting line, or several broken lines. However, what I can do has nothing to do with the correct solution to your problem. Some other jumpers have suggested ways you might have arrested the spin, or that there was no need to cutaway 'so far' above your decision altitude. Well, all of that is bullshit. You know very well that a broken steering line is a major problem for you. Even if you do stop the spin, what then? You still need to cutaway, and you've just wasted time stopping a spin. Of course, being so far above your desicion altitude, you've got the time to waste, right? Nope. Not at all. Your desicion altitude is the absolute lowest you want to initiate your emergency procedures, not the altitude you want to wait for to initiate your emergency procedures. Here's a good rule for you to use for both your main and reserve - open a parachute as soon as it is safe to do so. If you track away from an RW jump, and you are in clear air by 3000ft, pull at that time. Do not wait for 2500ft or 2000ft 'just because'. The same goes for your reserve. As soon as you realize that you will need to cutaway and/or open your reserve, do it as soon as possible. The reason being that if you encounter any delay in opening or cutting away a parachute, the extra altitude will give you more time to sort things out. Important things like saving your life, and if you need every foot you have to make that happen, you'll be glad you didn't waste them trying to stop the spin of a canopy you're going to cutaway anyway. You did the right thing for you this time. Continue to learn things about your gear, how it works, and the different things you can do with it. This way if you find yourself in a similar situation in the future, your increased knowledge and capability will make more options available to you. Let's face it, if you can avoid the expense, hassle and risk (yes, there's added risk) of a cutaway, then you should. If you cannot avoid the cutaway, then get on with it and screw what anyone else thinks.