davelepka

I never suggested that. What I suggested was that alot of the 'good intentions' that people have will run into the realities of working on the DZ. It's not that working on a DZ is so bad, it's just that when you make a commitment to a certain job, you need to keep that commitment. DZ are working on a limited amount of daylight, and usually trying to cram as much business as possible into the weekend days. For this reason, it gets busy, and hectic, and you as an individual loose your ability to pick and choose. If you have an injury or illness, then you can simply bow out, but otherwise, you need to do your part, and be a part of the team. Doing it as a replacment for coaches means it HAS to get done. It' snot optional, and expecting people to reliably do that, at their own cost, seems a little far fetched. I completely agree that if a qualifed jumper wants to do it for free, and wants to do the same job a coach would charge for, they should be able to. I know of coaches who waive their fees for certain students. It happpens, but not all the time, and thats my point. Without the coach program, newbies are dependent on the generosity of qualified jumpers to have some one to jump with. When that runs out, what are they left with?

It's a big switch from jumping for fun, to being responsible for pleasing a cusotmer. Maybe you're lucky that all that happened in one day. At least now you know what to look out for, and can work to keep those things from happening again. Gear maintenence is huge. Clean packing is huge. It's hard to beleive that I have to say that, but alot of jumpers get sloppy on both of those. Aside from the obvious safety issues, now you have to deal with an unhappy customer, unhappy boss, and the crap your fellow camera guys will sling at you. This is all on top of the personal failure you feel. Keep in mind that 'gear' applies to jumpsuits, helemts, cameras, gloves, altis - whatever you need to have you jump go as planned. Any one of those things failing during a jump could be enough to ruin the whole video. There are always factors outside of your control the you cannot help. A broken swoop cord is not one of them. But when something does come up, you stand the best chance of over coming the problem, if everything else working on your favor. Go ahead and get a little wierd about covering your bases. Others may say it's excessive, but you can never be too ready. I jump with a guy who carries a ton of shit in his jumpsuit - batteries, film, tapes, goggles, lens cloths, rubber bands, and abotu ten other things. I think it's stupid, but his collection of stuff has baile dout many jumpers (not just camera guys) on mnay occasions (I'd say at least twice a month). Oh, yeah, don't forget to have fun.

All of the things I mentioned aren't a big deal when you're getting paid to skydive. I can only imagine putting up with it for free. Having to pay, and put up with it, is out of the question.

It's pipe dream. Not everyone had soemone to jump with and not everyone was taught anything useful. Even if it was a shared thing, people don't realize the huge step between going to the DZ, and working at the DZ. It's work when you can't get on the fun dive your friends are planning. It's work when manifest tells you how to spend your time. It's work when you have to jump with a student you don't like. It' swork when you don't feel like doing it, but manifest needs a coach on the next load, and you're the only choice. These are the realities of working on the DZ. To suggest that someone do it for free is a long shot, but a maybe. To suggest that someone do it at their own cost is delusional.

You say that now. What happens when they want you to do ten coach jumps in a weekend. Dirt diving, jumping, de-briefing, packing, dirt diving, jumping, de-briefing, packing, dirt diving, jumping, de-briefing and packing. When it's all done, you haven't had a minute to yourself, and you still have to settle up for $200+ worth of jumps with manifest. Sounds like fun, huh?

No, they don't get paid, but they also aren't inducted to the BOD at gunpoint either. Even if we didn't have the best RD of any region, I wouldn't run for RD because I don't have the time to commit to doing the job properly (lets leave the likelyhood of my actually being elected out of this). If you're going to run, if you're going to put yourself out there and ask for votes based on your porjected performance, you have a duty to follow through with that.

If the BOD members wanted to do their job, and serve the membership, they would use every outlet available to them in order to do it. It like anyone in sales. A guy who wants to succeed will knock on doors, make cold calls, send e-mails, snail mail, whatver it tkaes. The guys who hang out and wait for the phone to ring are the ones who are just 'geting by'. There's no reason any BOD member couldn't use DZ.com as a tool. Post issues, and ideas, and read the feedback. There's no requirement for them to reply to anything. We'll post our thoughts, and I guarantee that any question, point or counterpoint a BOD might want to make via a reply, another poster will chime in a make the point for them. It's really the best scenario possible for them. Hundreds of skydivers, of all experience levels, and from all over the globe, gathered together in one spot. They can post a statement or topic for discussion, and then read the replies at their leisure. Try the same thing live, maybe at the WFFC, and see what happens. I'm guessing yelling, and general disorder for several hours. It's simple. This is another area where the USPA is dragging behind the rest of the world. Their refusal to look ahead, and make changes is because they are too tied to the past, and the way things used to be done.

This Korman guy got off easy. Just the cost of stationary and business cards. Imagine the cost of the damage that chick would have done to her clients, and in turn, the firm itself.

Fuck that. You can only teach the basic procedures. What to pull, and in what order for a given situation. Any insight you may take away from an actual cutaway is limited to that cutaway. Each situation will be different in the details, so all you can teach is to pull what when. Intentional cutaways represent an additional risk, and that should risk should be limited to those who choose to take it, not as a requirement for a rating. The tandem thing is an exception, as you are being entrusted with the well-being of another person, and a complete failure to respond could result in their death. You could teach EP's all day long, and then ride in a spinner on the sunset load, and your students still got trained, and you're the only one who's dead.

Oh yeah, the other thing is that the learnig curve for camera operation got waaaaaaay steeper, almost vertical with the introduction of digital photography. Being able to see pics on the spot makes the learing so much easier. You used to have to take notes about your settings, than wait for and pay for processing to see anything (it's no accident that I worked in a camera store right after I started flying a camera). On top of that, you can do a jump, see the pics, make changes, and repeat the jump in almost the same light. It really makes the bad old days look really bad.

I agree 100%. But keep in mind that first you have to learn to see that in freefall, and sometimes that means knowing how to see things in 360 in your mind, while you are in one place. The next hurdle is having the flying skills to get there before the shot goes away. I'm not sure which is more challenging. In the time it takes to develop those skills, you've got time to fiddle with the thing on the ground.

Any way you slice it, the Xfire and Katana will dive almost twice as far as a Stiletto. Keep that in mind if you are going to downsize, and switch canopies. I know they make some bigger Xfires, like 139 or 129, those might be good. The Katana is pretty hard core, and going straight to a 120 might be a bad idea. If you jump one of the Xfires for awhile, then maybe go to the Katana from there. All of this is dependent on your not being a dumbass. Ask some of the swoopers at your DZ (and loook for the older ones who have been around awhile), and ask them what they think, and in terms of your abilities. Maybe have them watch a few landings to see where you're at now, becasue that has everything to do with what canopy to consider. You could always just buy a Stiletto 135 and jump that too.

Yeah, here the thing though, with the 20D being a small sensor camera, and news of Canon switching over to all full frame sensor cameras, buying a 20D now to jump with in a couple years seems a little short sighted. Even if he bought a camera a month before he wanted to jump it, that would give him four weekends at the DZ to play with, and who knos how much time at home. And really, we all know that for the fisrt 100 still camera jumps, he won't be 'framing' anything. It will be more a challenge just to remember to keep working the bite switch.

You do want to have a couple hundred jumps, at the minnimum. At that point, maybe go and jump with one of the local video guys. Have him lay a base for you, and you'll need to fly with and around him as if you were filming him. This is the best way to know where your skills are, and they can point out anywhere you're lacking. Once they give you the thumbs up, set up a VIDEO helmet start with. Shooting stills adds another layer of complexity as you have to operate the camera in freefall. At least with the video, the camera takes care of itself. Once you are feeling comfortable with the video, and producing nice footage, do a few jumps, and see if you can think about where you'd like to take stills.If you can do that, and maintain the quality of the video, THEN you can strap on a still camera, and jump the full set up. Unitl then, have fun with your jumps, and don't worry about video. If you have a 20D, great, go out and take stills of landings. If you don't, try to not buy any cameras or helemts unitl you are less than a month away from juping them. With the way new technonlogy appears, and prices swing, you may end up wasting a huge amount of money buying something too soon.

OK, then cut them off, and forget the whole thing.

Yeah, I saw that. For one, the Nano is a far cry from a paraglider, and for two, I've already expressed my feelings that paraglider pilots will soon learn that femur is a verb, and it will be because of the differences in flying a Nano and a paraglider.

You realize that ground launching skydiving canopies (or a GLX) does not involve thermals, right?

I love the fucking irony that this thread and one called "Stratagies for landing out" are right next to each other. The guy who started the thread has 25 jumps, and alot of questions about landing off, and how to handle it. It's clear that he was not giving a full set of information with regards to canopy control. I'm glad the USPA is here to offer him a poster. Thanks USPA, for everything.

I don't think so. However you get it airborne, or open, once open and flying it's handling and flight characteristics are the same as a skydiving canopy. According then to your logic, if I were to deploy a paraglider from freefall, and it opened fine, and then I had an accident on landing, you would call it a skydiving accident, even though the skydiving portion of the jump went well? It would be paragliding accident, as the skills needed to safely complete that protion of the jump would be exclusive to paragliding. Much like once Jim was airborne, the paragliding portion of his activity was over. The rest of the flight was using skills developed during, and limited to skydiving. If you took a paraglider pilot, and gave him a GLX, he might be able to launch it, but beyond that, he's in new territory, as he's not flying a paraglider, and paragliding principals don't apply.

Isn't there value to the student in terms of the information they recieve? Or the experiecne they have? I understand that SOME people at SOME dzs had mentors who whould jump with them, and provide them the same service as a coach, but at no cost. What about the jumpers who didn't have that luxury? Or the ones who ended up jumping with up-jumpers who were poor teachers, or taught mis-information? Maybe they would have preferred to pay the additional fee to have a guarantee that they would A) have someone to jump with and that B) they would be teaching from an established cirriculum and with established methods. I can understand your dissatisfaction with the situation, but you need to deciede if the supervised jumps are needed or not. If they are not needed, then thats the answer, get rid of them. If they are needed though, you can't leave it up to chance, and the generosity of other skydivers to get them done. There has to be a guideline there to ensure the quality and safety of the jumps. Without a guideline, you end up with the same situation we have with canopy selection. It's just up to the DZO, or S&TA, or who ever to determine who is qualified to do what, and with differing opinions on what that means, you'll have different standards from DZ to DZ. We've seen the results of this approach with canopies, and I don't see how the same approach to supervised jumps would net any better results.

Well, if you follow my definition of experience, outlined here.... Once you can accept your posittion in the line-up, you're there. Even a guy with 50 jumps. If he knows where he stands, and acts accordingly, he's already got it. ..... then is appears that you are not an 'experienced' jumper. Lets review, you state that people you consider to be 'experienced', meaning they have more jumps than you, land like crap. The hard truth is that they are still jumping, and apparently have been for longer than you, so it's interesting to that you question their methods. Another thing, watch the 'big shot' talk. One day, you'll twist your ankle on a landing, and instead of rushing to your aid, expect the 'experienced' guys to point and laugh. And laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Oh, how they will laugh.

In all fairness, the slope is covered with snow. When they start footlaunching them without snow, near cliffs, and other hard stuff, the femurs will start snapping.

I already brought that up Also curious why whould (3 year old?) daedalus line of canopies be 3 steps ahead of an established paragliding canopy manufacturer?*** Becasue 'speed flying' is closer to swooping then paragliding, and we've been developing swooping canopies for ten years.

I know a skydiver with one eye (well, he's got two, but one is glass), and he IS the king. When you're right, you are right.

Fuck that. Someone will put a slider on and have at it. I gurantee it. Thanks for the link. I watched the video and have a couplethougths. First, off, the canopy looks soft. It seems to be breathing, and wobbling alot. It might just be a shitty skydiving canopy, which in the end, would be much different that regular paraglider. Second, how long before the speed flying guys are hooking themselves in? Paragliders seem to able spin around with little or no altitude loss, and if thats what the pilots are used to, and then they fly that thing........