davelepka

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Everything posted by davelepka

  1. This is a lesson I try to teach to every new tandem video flyer. There are two acceptable exits, an 'on time' leading exit, or a trailing exit. A 'late' leading exit is asking to get a drouge in the face, so either you 'hit your mark' and get off ahead of them, or hang on and peel off after them. It's one of the hardest things to do, hang on when you're 'sprung' on the step ready to react, but that's what seperates the men from the boys (even for the female camera flyers). This thread is the reason I like to point this out to the new guys. There's no good solution to a druoge/camera flyer entanglement, so you have to make not having one a 'prime directive' on every jump.
  2. You need an A license proficiency card, it will list all the requirements for getting the license. Some of them are coach jumps, and your coach will tell you the plan for each dive. All of these requirements need to be signed off, so make sure you get the card and start getting it filled out. Most DZs will give you a card during the later stages of AFF and start teaching some of the stuff off the card during AFF. Get the card, start off be seeing what items the DZ will sign off due to you finishing AFF, and then work up a plan to complete the rest. You really want to get the A license ASAP because that's your key to easily jumping elsewhere, and once you have it, it's your's forever.
  3. I don't think anyone believes they are the 'same' thing, but the simple fact of the matter is that you are not the 'same' as a guy with the skill and experience to be paid to jump. So while his job may require more effort, his skills and experience are appropriately more developed. However, many areas are similar. You both have camera equipment to deal with. Yours may just need one button pushed before exit, but doing that and then re-checking it right before you exit will add to your workload in the plane. Will it add a lot? No, but with 40-some jumps over 16 years, how much more do you want aside from gear checks, being aware of your rig/pins as you move around, and getting ready for your skydive? In freefall, you both have another job to do besides making a parachute jump. The camera flyer actaully has the benefit of filming others, so he has a much better chance of not getting sucked into the jump and going low. There's a good chance that one of the people being filmed will break off on time, and end the jump. Even if they don't, his greater experience probably has him better preparred for taking care of his own altitude awareness. What's to stop you from looking into your little camera and smoking right through your pull altitude? Your finely tuned sense of timing based on 1000's of jumps? If you're filming yourself, it's a closed loop. It's just you, and if you make one mistake, there is no 'back up' like another jumper to track off at the right time. Even if there was, what's to stop you from looking into the lens after break off for a little too long. How about under canopy, were you planning to just shit-can that part of the jump, or did you want shots of you under canopy? All that's going to do is take your focus off the canopy ride and traffic. An regualr camera flyer cannot film themselves, so their attention is always outward under canopy, so they are actaully better off than you would have been in that sense. Don't fall into the trap that you have been 'jumping' for 16 years. You haven't. You have been jumping 46 times, no more, no less. A lot has changed, and a lot has been learned in the last 16 years, I've been jumping that whole time and have seen it happen. Skydiving can be 'safe' provided that you act according to your skills. People with zero jumps make safe jumps all the time via AFF lv 1. It takes all day, and two highly trained instructors to make it safe, but it's possible. You're not at that level, but you're not that far off either. Ask around the DZ, and see the average time in the sport of the other jumpers with 46 jumps. You're going to find that most have been in the sport less than a year, and that's what you're up against. Act like a guy with 46 jumps and a limited amount of exposure to the sport, and you'll do fine. Act like a guy who's been jumping 'for years', and you'll find yourself in over your head. You won't be the fist guy to do that, and you won't be the last, but it's never a good thing to find that you have become 'that guy'.
  4. I'll second the vote for a hole saw. You don't need to use a 45mm saw, just use the closest, smaller standard measurement hole saw, then use a rotary type tool with a sanding drum to slowly work the hole up to 45mm. Keep in mind that a hole saw isn't always going to produce a 'percision' hole, not as percise as the machined surface of the mount, so that's whay you want to use a smaller one, and work your way up. You can hold the X-shut behind the hole, and just slowly work the hole up to size and achieve and very good fit. Carbon fiber is very easy to work with, cuts and drills easily with a minimum of splitering or other trouble. Do use making tape to cover everything for protection and to write on. I have had success using a clamp to hold a helmet to a workbench. If you use a block of wood on the inside for the clamp to rest against, and a rag or towel between the bench and helemt, you can get away without damaging anything. If you want to work on the left side of the helmet, remove all padding, and lay the right side down on the workbench, then use a big C clamp with one side on the bottom of the workbench, and the other side pressing on the inside of the righ side of the helmet. This should the helmet down, and leave the left side facing up and free of obstructions. Use a mask or other breathing protection. I don't know what CF does to you lungs, but it gets in there. You'll be blowing black snot out of your nose for a day or two without a mask. Ditto for the general area, expect fine black dust to get everywhere. If you have a helper, have them hold a vacuum cleaner hose 2 or 3 inches from the hole saw/grinder to suck up the majority of the dust, and this takes care of most of the problem. Wiping down the shell with a damp paper towel after any cutting or grinding, and before you handle it will also help control the dust. I also have never sealed any edges with clear nail polish and never had any trouble. As mentioned, it can't hurt if you want to do that.
  5. I think it was Chuck B. aka SkymonkeyOne. I don't know if it's still there or available, but that's one idea if he can get a motorhome to Eloy, use the Chuck-mobile for daily running around. Of course, with 850 hours of tunnel time booked, when is he going to have time for running around?
  6. I don't take it personally. I almost think it bolsters my point that the only response the guy could muster was ranting and name calling. You would think if he had a logical counter-argument to make, he would have made it.
  7. OK, bro, here's some help. The only way you get 'on the books' (fatality statistics, that is) is by dying. You have to do the deed al the way to get your name, rank, and serial number recorded for all of time. Come up short, and put yourself in a wheelchair for the rest of your life? Nobody will remember that. Have to shit in a bag and have a nurse turn you so you don't get bed sores for the rest of your life? That's not going to get your name in the book either. See the point? The only statistics we have are for the dead guys. All of the guys who came soooo close, but managed to live, we have no record of that. Too dramamtic for you? That's fair, here's a real life story that happened to a good friend of mine. Good jumper, 500+ jumps at the time of the incident, not a swooper or tying to be a swooper. The guy di about a 45 onto final to build a little speed, and was just too low. Impacted kind of sideways, and hsi sole injury was a cracked vertibrae in his neck. Of course that's pretty serious, so he was rushed to the hospital where he spent a couple weeks and went though a couple surgeries. Vertibrae fixed, no other injuries. Lingering pain in his neck persisted for about 2 years. The good job he had been at for almost 10 years was lost. Never jumped again. Burned through his savings in the process. Ultimately he ended up going back to school, getting a new career, meeting a nice girl and getting married. The point is that this guy made one small mistake, and it turned out to be a knock-out punch to his entire life for about 5 years. He went from being a single guy in his early 30's, great job, lots of money, lots of jumping, lots of girls, the works. The guy had it made. One mistake took it all away and side-lined him for 5 years. No jumps, no career advancement, no income, no nothing.
  8. You're going to SDA, right? Something about 400 hours in the tunnel..... Anyway, look into renting a room from a local jumper, and renting a tiny little car from a regular car rental place. Both will offer discounts based on the rental being for an entire month, and the tiny little car will get 40 miles per gallon, saving a ton on gas. If you rent a motorhome, it's a fortune to rent and pay for gas, and even then it sucks for running into town or to the store. The little car is perfect because you can rent a room within 20 min of the DZ, drive back and forth every day and still not use much gas. It's just a thought, but you might be able to meet or beat the price of the motorhome rental, and be more flexible going this route. You've got 6 months before your trip, so it's not like you don't have the time to look into it.
  9. I was trying to avoid getting into a pissing match with you because it could go on forever, buuut... This is not correct sir. I caefully consider the source and and nature of questions and comments, and tailor my response as such. News flash for you - swooping is not for young jumpers. If you consider yourself a young jumper, than swooping is not the game for you. There is no way to go faster closer to the ground in skydiving than swooping, and the only way to do it under canopy whcih has proven to be the most dangerous time in a skydive. If you think that's a place for young jumpers, than you have made another mistake on top of all the others I outlined above. What to be a big boy? Quit your whining and take my advice for what it is. Again, I'll point out that I didn't create this situation. I didn't post a new thread guessing that some guy in MO was making some bad decisions regarding swooping, nor did I PM you and suggest you post what you did. All I did was respond to that what YOU wrote. Without you writing what you thought, I would have had nothing to comment on. So you don't like my comments, that's fair, but one of us is right, and for you to completely discount what I said and assume that I'm just trying to fuck with you is extremely short-sighted, and not an attitude that will serve you well in skydiving. People tried to help you out. People suggested coaching and good reading material, and your response what that coaching was unavailable and that you ordred the book but it 'hadn't shown up yet', despite that fact that you indicated you were already knee-deep in swooping and progressed through 180s. Again, people tried to help, and YOU posted reasons why that help didn't apply to you. Just becasue it wasn't what you wanted to hear (much like what I posted) doesn't mean it's wrong. You live in fucking MO. You're less than a day's drive from a half-dozen DZs where you can find a canopy coach. You couldn't be bothered to read the book BEFORE doign straight-ins, 90s, and 180s? I took all of this into account before posting what I did. Suck it up cupcake. It's a long bumpy road, and if this little ripple in the pavement is going to get you all out of sorts, you're not going to like the 'real' problems that are coming your way.
  10. I'm content to let the people read my stuff and draw their own conclusions. I doubt the majority would agree with your above conclusion. BTW - ask anyone who knows, me, I'm the same guy here, there or anywhere. I don't make this shit up, I just put in the proper perspective. Everything I wrote in my response to you was just that, a response to what you wrote. You wrote it, you put it out there, no deal with it (hint - calling me names isn't dealing with anything except maybe your hurt feelings).
  11. Where did you order it from, China? Is it being shipped via container ship through the gulf and up the mississippi? The book shouldn't take more than a few days to reach you from anywhere in the lower 48. If you really wanted to do this 'right', you would have at least waited the couple of days for the book to show up, and read it before you started swooping with no coaching or mentor. Even then, just reading the book isn't going to really cut it, but at least you could have done that. My read on the situation so far - no coach, no mentor, not willing to wait for the book, looking for adivce on the internet. It all adds up to you just stopping now and giving up swooping. You haven't made any good choices and I think you know it. Why esle would you want to conceal your inquires over PMs only? Hoping you'll stumble onto a swooper who will agree with you, or maybe you just want to deal with one 'hater' at a time when they don't agree? In case you hadn't noticed, the majority of jumpers killed in the last decade or so did so under an open canopy. How about giving that part of skydiving a little repect, and either slow your roll and ease into these things, or do it right and get some training and real-world, first-hand information. I'd love to learn to fly a helicopter, but I can't afford to rent one and pay an instructor. My solution is not to buy a cheap helo and learn on my own, my solution is to wait until such time that I can afford to do it properly. See? Respect.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI4d5AeAi7g
  12. It's impossible to deny that they are accurate, fairly reliable, and can be utilized in many different ways. I guess my main problem is the emergence of device dependence, and inverse to that, being the reduction in the skills of basic airmanship. The more responsibility you take away from the jumper (like being able to fly their canopy 'by eye'), the more that attitude will drift into other areas. Maybe it's just me, but my view of a 'skydiver', is an individual who is highly self-reliant, motivated by the need to perform at a high level and willing to do the work it takes to get to that level. I don't see these types of devices as contributing toward building that type of skydiver. We might just be in the classic chicken/egg scenario, where we now need these devices because we have already created a gneration of jumpers who can't get out of their own way, even though we know these devices are only going to further degrade the ability of the individual, leading us further down the wrong path. Given your exposure to working with jumpers in your canopy control courses, if you feel that beepers would be more of an asset than a liability, then I'm inclined to believe you. Maybe not whole-heartedly, but if that's the conclusion your observations have led you to, then I'm on board.
  13. My concern with these devices is that they might be making it 'too' easy. What I mean by that is that the degree of accuracy required below 1000ft with regards to visually checking your altitude is well within the grasp of human ability. Let's say you start your canopy ride, slider collapsed, chest strap loose, brakes unstowes, at 3000ft. For you to enter the pattern at or around 1000ft, that's 2/3 of the way down. It's not hard for human perception to grasp the concepts of halves or thrids, so a jumper should be able to figure that out just with their eyeyballs. Even if they're unsure, analog altimeters are 'reliable' to the degree that you can use it for telling when you're at 1000ft. Now you take that same concept, and compress it even further into the pattern. You start at 1000ft, and ride it down halfway to 500ft where you turn onto base. Now you ride your base leg down 250ft, and turn onto final. In both cases you're dealing with very managable altitudes with regards to visually accuity, and simply cutting that in half to get to your turn points. My feeling is that if this is planned ahead, to include holding areas and altitudes, a study of the wind and the spot, and pattern entry, along with the above scheme of altitude and turn points, any jumper can be taught to fly the pattern accurately without the need for any aid of any sort. The catch is that you have to find a way to corner EVERY new jumper, and put them through the training to learn to do this. If you can start off with A license graduates who can plan and execute such a canopy flight, they're going to turn into jumpers who will only become sharper with their skills. My concern is that the beepers just make it too easy. When something goes wrong, what do you do? What happens when the wind conditions change, and your beeper beeps and you're nowhere near where you thought you would be? Will the jumper recognize and adapt, or just yank a toggle when the beep goes off because they're 'supposed to'? None of this is mentioning the 'future' risk (even though it happens already) where people used to the beepers start to swoop. Plenty of new swoopers are using the beepers right from day one, and they are 'swooping by the beep'. Again, the problems you can run into when your situation doesn't agree with your device are numerous, and in a swoop scenario, you're out of time for anything but action. Thinking through the confusion is not a luxury a swooper on final has. Of course, you can't ignore the untility of such devices, and the consistancy that they could add to the patterns of untrained jumpers. In that sense, maybe in the communal sense, they're a good thing as the overall situation might improve. As a personal asset to the individual jumper, I think they offer a variety of device dependency pitfalls that the individual could easily fall prey to.
  14. Simple, you don't. Make a notation on the repack card 'I & R minus main risers, d-bag, bridle, drouge'.
  15. Think again pal. It's got nothing to do with me, I'm not the one jumping canopies I can't comfortably land with 'only' a 90 degree turn. I didn't create this, you did. You posted one of the hallmarks of a guy jumping the wrong parachute, they don't like landing it straight in. All I did was point it out, and if it wasn't me, someone else would have. Skygod? No. Happened to be online and reposnded to your post before someone esle did? Yeah, that's me.
  16. OK, I'll lie to you. Those canopies must be broken, you should stop jumping them right away!!!! What you need are some fancy new canopies, because that will solve all your problems. You should really look into a high performance swooping canopy because those things seem to fly the best, and you better raise your WL too because everyone who jumps them is at a higher WL than you. Make those changes, and you should be just as cool as anyone on the DZ!!!! Good luck and blue skies!!!!!
  17. Those canopies should land fine straight in, with no extra speed induced. If you can't do that, the last thing you need is a higher performance canopy.
  18. I'm not your pal. I'm also not the king of anything, I make choices in line with my skill and experience like an averge person. You, on the other hand, seem to think that your shit doesn't stink, and that you can do anything you damn well please. Just because your mentor has twice my jumsp means nothing. I have a different read on the situation than he does, I'm of the opinion that if everyone made better choices with regards to canopy control, and took it a little more seriously, then we would see a reduction in the incidents stemming from canopy control. You point to all your 'training', which with only 250 jumps can't really be all that much, but you point to it frequently. However, what you never point to, or maybe never realized yourself, you're also the poster child for Booth's law which states that for every advancement in safety within the sport of skydiving, jumpers will find an equal but opposite risk to undertake to cancel out that advancement. In your case, you take canopy control courses, recieve individual coaching and have a mentor. All good things, all things that will help you become a better, safer canopy pilot. Then you turn around and start swooping a Katana at 1.5 WL. The danger of the canopy and what you do with it cancels out all the good things you have done in your favor. You took steps to make yourself a better, safer pilot, an asset to the community if you will, then you started swooping a canopy you have no business jumping. The end result being a big fat goose egg, aka nothing. According to who?
  19. Now. You are clearly going far against the grain when it comes to canopy selection and learning progressions. There might not be rules in place in those areas, but you're nowhere near what would be considered 'prudent'. Written rules or not, you know damn well what you're doing, and you do it anyway. You expect me to believe that just because some other thing you don't think should apply to you is written in a book you'll refrain from doing that thing? The one thing that you are doing is proven to be the biggest problem we have in skydiving, and that's not enough to get you to make a reasonable and prudent choice in that area, but being written in a book is what will reel you in? I've just had enough. I wouldn't stand quitely by if this was happening on my DZ, and I'm not going to do it here any longer. If you were leaving your helmet unsecured on take-off, I would speak up loudly and put a stop to it. If you continued, I'd have you grounded, or toss your helmet out of the door as we taxi to the end of the runway. All of that, and flying helmets aren't even that big of a problem in skydiving. They're a potential problem in the event of a crash, but not a proven problem that has been killing dozens of jumpers per year. This canopy control business has been killing dozens every year, and you're giving it the big 'F you', so I'm going to turn around and give you the same. You have no business on that canopy, let alone swooping it. I don't care who you are, 250 jumps isn't enough. It's been proven time and time again. A kid just killed himself (and almost someone esle) in Australia with the same attitude, swooping a HP canopy with little experience. Despite all this, you still continue on down your path. In the word of Iceman to Maverick in Top Gun, "You're danergous". While Maverick may have come up the hero in the end of the movie, that was Hollywood, where they can manufacture anything. Even in Hollywood, Maverick had to kill Goose before he could come out the other side. Subtract the Hollywood ending, and add soem reality, you're left with you killing someone, and probably killing or injuring yourself in the process. There's no justifiaction for what you're doing, and the fact that you can't see that is the problem. Like I said, I don't know what else you're not going to be able to see when it's right in front of your face, that's what should worry those around you.
  20. I don't need to see you fly. Knowing full well the scope of the problem with canopy control, you in your infinite wisdom have disregarded anthing even close to common sense, and make the choice to fly and swoop a canopy WAY out of your league (swooping anything at your level is pushing it). Somewhere, somehow, you have decieded that common sense does not apply to you, and that some action on your part has made you immune to the pitfalls of others. Where exactly does that begin and end? You think it's OK for you to disregard the general consensus with regrads to canopy control, and I have no idea what other rules you will eventually unilaterally deciede don't apply to you. Your attitude toward the statisticaly most dangerous part of skydiving shows a disregard for common sense and a lack of self-control on your part. I think it's dangerous, a hazzard to others and the sport in general. If you want me off your back, start acting like a new jumper with little experience, have some respect for common sense, and the sport in general, and clean up your act. Barring that, you can expect me examine anyting you post with a magnifying galss, expose any faults in the most obvious and embarrasing way I can muster. My hope is that you'll get the message and 'check yo self', but I'm not going to hold my breath. At the very least, I can only hope you keep your trap shut, and don't infect other jumpers with whatever it is that's wrong with you.
  21. Big surprise. A jumper with significant experience and time in the sport understands quite celarly what I'm saying. The jumper who is a part of the problem does not. In any case of mis-communication, there is either a problem in the delivery or acceptance of the message. In this case, I'll rest assured that it wasn't the delivery.
  22. Don't tell him that. That's part of the problem. We know that statisticly you're most likely to die under an open parachute. We also know that those deaths are spread around pretty evenly between solos and collisions, and HP and non-HP, so there is no one 'magic bullet' we can look to in solving the problem. Anyone not 'toe-ing the line' in terms of canopy control is part of the problem, regardless of who they are or what they fly. The guy you responded to is flying a HP canopy at 1.5 WL with 250 jumps. Don't tell him to fly with care, because that implies consent. Tell him to stop being an asshole, stop adding to the problem, and get back in the middle of the bell curve and fly something even remotely appropriate to his experience. Don't suffer the fools lightly. That's how we got here, and continuing to do so is how were going to be stuck here. This is the land of the free, and we tried to be free and easy with this canopy business, but it didn't work out. We gave it a fair shot. Over the last 20 years, the first 10 could have been looked at as an 'adjustment period'. New canopies, new technologies, let's see if everyone can just figure it out on their own. The old guys need to figure how to transition from F-111, and 'the establishment' needs to figure how to teach the new guys coming into the sport how to deal with these new canopies. So that's the first 10 years. The last 10 years hasn't been any better, and now it's time to give up on the idea of 'natural selection', and stop being so 'free'. For years, virtually every other country on earth has had strict on-going educational requirements in place, and even stricter limitation on what sizes and types of canopies any one person can jump. Now it's time that we got on board and did the same. Of course this means that for the most part were in the hands of the 'powers the be' waiting for them to get their shit together and get some structure up in this bitch. God only knows how long that's going to take. Which brings me to my original point, what we can do on the grassroots level is not telling guys like DocPop to be safe and have a blast. Tell him he's an asshole, and he's most of what's wrong with skydiving. He knows what he's doing is far outside 'the norm', what's his next move outside 'the norm' that he will deciede is OK, and just do it anyway? I don't want to find out, so I'm not going to encourage that type of behavior. Neither should you.
  23. Canopy-wise, do jump everything you can get your hands on, figure out what size is right for you, then buy whatever you can find in that size for cheap. I'll tell you why in a minute. Container-wise, figure out what size main and reserve you need, then find a used container that fits those canopies and your body, and make sure it's cheap (modern and airworthy, but cheap). Here's why - making 5 or 8 jumps on anything won't teach you very much about it. When you yourself only have 15 or 20 jumps, that makes it even worse. If all you have are 4 or 5 jumps on any one canopy or rig, then you switch, then you have low jump numbers overall, what's your baseline for making comparisons to other gear you might jump? The answer is that there is no baseline. It's all just shooting in the dark in the early days of gear selection. So find something inexpensive, and use the money you save to pay for more jumps. Save $2000 to $3000 buying used, and make 100 jumps on the rig within a few months, and look at you now (then). Now you have become familair with one rig, and can make comparisons based off that. This canopy flies differently in this way, and that canopy flies differently in that way. Ditto for the containers. Your other plus is that during those few months, you have a rig to get demo canopies in any size or model you're interested in, and jump them for a few weeks (with all that cash you saved). You'll also make friends at the DZ, and be able to borrow containers to try those out as well. In the end, you'll be 100x more experienced than you are now, and have 1000x the knowledge about gear that you do now. You'll be able to make informed decisions about buying gear, and can choose a new rig, another used rig, or maybe just keep the first one even longer. If you do want to sell, cheap rigs are cheap rigs if they have 800 jumps on them or 900 jumps on them. So whatever you paid for a rig with 800 jumps, you can sell it for the same 6 months later when it has 900 jumps on it. Any ZP canopy, reserve, and freefly friendly container built in the last 8 or 10 years is going to do everything a jumper with 100 jumps needs it to do, and much more. You're not giving anything up by going that route, you're just being smart and realizing that the number one thing you need to be a good (safe) jumper is jumps (money). Fancy rigs get you nowhere if they tap out yoru bank account, and you have to pass up a sunny day because the funds are low. Get a 'basic' rig, and pound out some jumps. Really burn through some cash and get a solid foothold in the sport. Six months or a year later, you'll ready to make more informed, longer term choices, and probably also know how to get the best deal while doing so. Or just listen to everyone else who bought a new container and used main. I'm sure they know what they're doing. 22 weeks......
  24. He's the poster boy for the whole problem. It's like this - We know that flying a parachute has become the most dangerous part of skydiving, be it through a single jumper HP or non-HP incident, or a collision, again, HP or non-HP. DocPop is pushing every limit he can in the area of canopy flight, those being both WL and canopy type. His canopy selection is not even close to what the manufacturer or most jumpers would consider appropriate, he has been told this numerous times, he has acknowledged it numerous times, yet he continues to jump the canopy. Forget the manufacturer, forget the advice of knowledgable jumpers, forget the overwhelming statistics of the last 10 years, he's going to do what he wants to do. That's the problem. People do whatever the fuck they want, and this is what we get. These parachutes aren't aerodynamic decellerators, they're not toys, they're capable flying machines that require training, practice and skill to operate safely. Unlike virtually every other high performance craft out there, all parachtues pretty much cost the same. If you can afford any canopy, you can afford a high performance canopy. I don't care what manuvers a guy has done, what training he's gone through, if you're going to jump a Katana, you should have at least 500 jumps and making at least 20 or 30 jumps per month. That's what the canopy was made for, and anything less than that is just giving skydiving the middle finger, and just doing whatever you want. Forget the hazzards to yourself, like the risk of immenent bodily harm, forget the risks to others ranging from killing someone due to a collision, or damaging the livelyhood of local DZOs and DZ employees. Forget the harm that ANOTHER canopy related death would do to the sport (or what the FAA would do to the sport in that case). Forget all that, he's got it all figured out, and is going to do whatever he wants. Then he has the nerve to try and defend his actions.
  25. There's no justification for what you do, and I'm not going to entertain it any longer. If you wait until after you do something dangerous and are spoken to about it to change your behavior, you (or worse, someone else) might already be dead. Make good choices BEFORE you jump, not after. You are part of the problem, and you continue to perpetuate it. Your attitude is what we need less of in skydiving. I'm not talking about your attitude in terms of your tone or word choice, but your attitude toward the equipment and the choices you make. My bad attitude might hurt someones feelings, your bad attitude might hurt their ability to breathe, or walk upright. Take your pick.