Muffie

Also depends on what he might have been practicing under canopy. For example, if he was working on braked turns on his canopy that could slow his descent rate enough for you to end up on a similar level at landing time. Which is why it's always a good idea to look around, figure out who else is in the air with you, see what they're doing, and try to maintain separation long before it's time to land.

I'm not a doctor, of course, but that doesn't keep me from giving advice. I've found pain killers are only addictive if you're not taking them for pain. I and others I've known have taken them for extended periods for pain. When the pain lessened, so did the dosage. When the pain was gone, we quit taking them. No problem.

Sorry if what I said has been misconstrued. I completely agree with both you and Sparky that EPs are an essential part of training. And before the OP gets sent back up I would expect that he would have a thorough brief on EPs once more, be thrown in the harness and drilled on his EPs until he couldn't see straight, etc., etc. But he was complaining that they passed him on his jump and he wanted to be failed. If the criteria for passing that first jump was to be altitude aware, do practice touches, pull for himself, etc. then failing him on the level and making him do that again when that's not his issue wouldn't resolve the problem. My AFF training definitely covered EPs in detail and I was expected to see a malfunction, know it was a malfunction, and act accordingly. I assume the same is true for the OP's training as well. I didn't have a malfunction during AFF and haven't yet and I don't think most do on AFF (at least not where I jump), so there's no good way to test someone's ability to handle a malfunction until they have one. And failing this guy on his first level and making him do the same steps again isn't going to test that. I was reacting to his statement that he wanted to be failed retroactively which to me was a further questioning of his instructors' ability and judgment.

But handling a malfunction or any emergency situation is part of AFF training. Maybe the most important part. Sparky True. What I meant by that was that they don't expect you to have and handle a malfunction during AFF, so it's not part of the checklist of items that you have to complete to pass a specific level.

Incorrect. This year at least five jumpers have died that had under 25 jumps. One of those was a malfunction that cutaway too low to survive. To the OP: If you do some searches on here you'll find some good discussion about what should or shouldn't be said to a jumper who is on radio. There are some serious concerns about telling a jumper under radio to cutaway a malfunction. If there's more than one jumper on radio it can be heard by the wrong jumper. Or it can lead to a jumper hearing and reacting too low. That's why you get trained on EPs. It's ultimately your call. If you can't turn right, turn left, flare. Chop. Basically, that's on you. And the issue that happened with you was handling a malfunction not failing to complete the requirements of the AFF jump. I know people who didn't have a mal until a couple hundred jumps, so no point in failing you on something that is always possible but not an expected part of your AFF training. Good luck on your next jump!

Kinda the same here. My first 20 jumps or so I had bruises on the insides of my upper arms. My instructor said it was because I was reaching for the risers at deployment time (so basically bringing my arms in too much). After I knew this and consciously thought of keeping my arms wide during deployment and not reaching for the risers until I had a canopy above me I stopped getting the bruises.

From the comments on fb: "Matt went out as a coach on this jump and it appears to me that an AFF instructor would have been more correct." If this was someone freshly off AFF and not someone who was doing a recurrency jump it also raises the question of who cleared them to jump solo. I often see newer jumpers on dz.com voice frustration for having to repeat an AFF level and I think this video is a perfect example of why that can be justified. Better to repeat a level or two than be cleared to jump solo, go do a coach jump with someone, and throw them a curveball like this jump. Also, a good video for anyone who thinks that they want to start doing coach jumps because then they get "free jumps." As someone said in another thread, you work hard for those jumps.

What about a trip to a tunnel just to have someone work with you on the basics? Then you can go practice them in the sky and at least have a good foundation to work from? I think Germany has at least one really good tunnel and I'm pretty sure we covered side slides, forward and backward movement, and levels in my first 15 minutes of tunnel time when I went at around 30 jumps.

Interesting. How much freefall time do you get in the the first 14 jumps by the way? Say around 9 minutes. Agree with what was said above. Most student injuries are landing-related (my source being the BPA minutes for the last five years or so). Very few of the injuries are related to stability in freefall. However, I will also say that if you do some tunnel time and that gives you confidence and makes you more stable in freefall and more relaxed for the whole skydive that that's not a bad thing. Tunnel time is a plus in my book. And it may help you not have to repeat a level which will be worth it $wise. IF you're talking about a good tunnel and working with a coach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UouP8cRYZ8

One more thing I would add is to make sure you have a good phone connection and to try to control for background noises (barking dog, screaming kid, insane neighbor) as much as possible. Even though you don't have to create a good in person impression you want to still present as professional an "appearance" as possible to the interviewers. Good luck!!

Just to add to the other stories. One of the guys I respect most in this sport told me that when he first started he'd have to pull over and throw up on his way to the dz. Then he'd spend most of the weekend just hanging out trying to get up the nerve to jump, end up finally doing one or two jumps at the end of the weekend, and then do it all again the next weekend. Now he has something like 18,000 jumps and twenty years in the sport. So, as the others have mentioned, it is possible to get past it. I would just say don't force it. Maybe just go and hang out at the dropzone, watch some landings, sit in on some AFF or coaching debriefs, and when you feel relaxed and ready give it another go.

That's who I was trying to think of the other day. I knew there was a guy who'd gone in on a failed swoop and in the incidents forum someone had linked to some comments he had made a few years before where he talked about his mad skillz. Sad to see knowing the final outcome.Here's the incident thread: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2346556#2346556 And in the link to the thread Airtwardo poster earlier there's another guy who was pretty outspoken about his rights and everyone leaving him alone to do what he was so good at. Last I checked he was still not jumping after four plus months recovering from an injury. Not sure if he's changed his tune, but the ground definitely bit his ass. I guess there's always gotta be one advocate of the mad skillz camp...too bad they never seem to hold the position for more than a couple years.

I think it's absolutely worth it. I did a couple hours in the tunnel at about 30 jumps and when I went back to jumping it was an amazing improvement. The sky is very forgiving and you can be moving around a lot and not even know it, but in the tunnel it'll be obvious. It's not skydiving, but it will broaden the range of your abiities when you do jump again and really help you in jumping with others. Just keep in mind that it won't help with tracking or landings... Also, from what I've heard Bottrop is one of the better tunnels and worth the money. Not all tunnels are created equal.

Valid point. I was trying to bucket things by experience levels more than absolute jump numbers - 2- 25 being a proxy for pre-A license, 25-100 being how long it takes before the 100 jump wonder phenom kicks in, etc. I could argue that the difference between someone's 10th and 100th jump is very different than the difference between their 1010th and 1100th. If we ever do go down the path of really digging into all the data we have then you'd get a group of subject matter experts together and debate what's the best way to dice and slice the info. And then you'd actually slice and dice it the different ways to see what brings you the most value. Here are the raw jump numbers: 14, 15, 20, 20, 125, 400, 445, 545, 1000, 1398, 1500, 1604, 1960, 3500, 4200, 5600, 8200, and 17,000 with one "couple thousand". If you were to bucket this into 250 jumps each you'd still see a clear issue with newer jumpers (5 fatalities under 250 jumps, 2 more between 251 and 500) and then a bit of a gap untl 1250+ (just one in the 751-1000 range and two with zero) where you then get a bit of a cluster (2 in the 1251-1500 range, 1 in the 1501-1750 range, 1 in the 1751-2000 range, and 1 "couple thousand") before you again see big gaps between each fatality (next one is in the 3,251 to 3500 range). I think the benefit to reviews like this is that they may not be definitive but they can point you in a direction. So, to me, this says for the new jumpers (a) more focus on canopy control and/or (b) give newer jumpers a wider berth (separate landing areas, separate passes...) and for more experienced jumpers if you're going to implement a canopy control test requirement or training requirement that it should be around the 1,250 jump mark. I'd argue that that's a lot later than most people would have set the mark for the experienced jumpers.

Sparky, Stand alone numbers for canopy collisions: 2-25 - - - - - - - 4 26-100 - - - - - - 0 101-250 - - - - - 1 251-500 - - - - - 2 501-1,000 - - - - 2 1,001-2,500 - - - 5 2,501-5,000 - - - 2 5,001-10,000 - - - 2 10,000+ - - - - - - 1 UNK - - - - - - - - - 2 Low - - - - - - - - - 1 I bolded the two experience levels that seem to stand out even with just a small sample size. For the 2-25 jumps this is a bit of color: 3 incidents - 1 two students with abt 20 jumps ea. unknown canopies; 1 on a Nav 280 hit by Katana 120; 1 on a Nav 260 collided with Paratech GmbH 340 that was camo colors (2 double fatalities, 1 single fatality) For the 1,001 to 2,500 jumps: 4 incidents - 1 two swoopers (one female) collided on Velocity 79 and Velocity 90; 1 swooper on JVX 87 coming out of turn hit by Sabre2 170 on straight approach; 1 on Spectre 190 hit by other turning to final on Pilot 190; 1 unknown canopy collided one on base and one 90 to final (3 double fatalities, 1 single fatality)

Sparky - I'll break down the canopy collision data and post it for you. My sub-categories under that high-level one are high collision, low collision, freefall collision, and CRW. In the meantime: The two AADs on but failed to fire were: 10/16/2004 James B (an Astra) http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1301903#1301903 3/5/2005 Susan S (set at wrong altitude) http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1515845#1515845 The custom rig: 7/4/2008 Keith C (custom removable deployment system) http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3258666#3258666 Muffie

Yeah, not sure I would've wanted to know too much about skydiving fatalities before I did my first jump. I fortunately didn't really start paying attention to the incidents until I had about 30 jumps and was already hooked on skydiving so it became a matter of "I'm going to do this, what can I learn from other's mistakes or misfortunes that will give me a better chance of surviving it." For you, as someone who is just about to do AFF, I would think of it this way: Now you know that things can go wrong from jump one and you know to pay real attention to the emergency procedures and off landing briefings you're going to get (and learn that PLF position). Now, if something does go wrong, knowing that it could will hopefully help you handle it better because you'll think "right, I knew this could happen so.." as opposed to "WTF??? Wait, what did they say - what am I supposed to do?" Enjoy AFF! Skydiving is an amazing experience, just respect it.

Awesome, thanks!

The attached is my analysis of fatal incidents for the U.S. from 2004-2011. Unfortunately I don't have good canopy size/WL data yet, so it's light on that data, but baby steps. So, (a) this isn't perfect, (b) it's just my attempt to identify some trends/issues/lessons that can be pulled from the fatalities data, (c) you may not agree with my conclusions, and (d) some of you may think the conclusions are obvious. But, I think in continuation of other discussions, we need to use the data we have and start gathering better data to identify issues and their causes that we can then potentially address. This is just a first go at doing that. Here are the conclusions from the attached: • The causes of fatalities do differ by experience level and also by gender • In terms of malfunctions, jumpers with under 100 jumps are most likely to die due to a failure to execute their EPs and jumpers with 101-500 jumps are most likely to die due to a failure to complete their EPs. After that point it seems that most jumpers can handle a standard malfunction, but that a spinning malfunction may still cause a jumper to lose altitude awareness and fail to cutaway and deploy a reserve timely. • Fatalities from HP landings both on an individual basis and involving canopy collisions appear to be most prevalent for jumpers with between 1,001 and 2,500 jumps. • At the 2,500 jump mark health issues such as heart attacks and strokes start to appear for male jumpers, particularly those over 40 years old. Sorry it's a Word doc, but the PDF was too large to upload.

Completely agree Chuck. Ideally the data also needs to be collected in such a way that it can be analyzed which means standardizing it. For example, jump numbers are great to have, but it's better to have it bucketed by categories (e.g., 1, 2-25, 26-100, etc.) Same with canopy colors if you collect that (better to limit the choices and standardize the list to something like "neon", "bright", "camo", etc.). Narrative descriptions are nice for one incident, but they make it really hard to see a pattern or analyze results. This means that someone like the USPA needs to lead the charge to define the data that needs to be collected. And someone needs to be on top of collecting that data as well since from what I can tell reporting is very inconsistent.

Where I did AFF the pull signal is a clenched fist. My AFFI and I discussed how the point signal can sometimes be misinterpreted.

I'm also a newer jumper who tends to fall faster than my fellow new jumpers. One thing I was told is when you get low turn your head sideways to look up to the formation rather than craning your neck. If you crane your neck that's going to make you arch more and that means fall faster, but turning it to the side shouldn't. I'm assuming you've done some coaching jumps to work on slow and fast fall? If not, do it so you can at least learn the different body position for slow fall. I second the advice above about smaller formations. If you do some linked 2-way exits you'll likely be better able to stay with that one person because you're already in a bit of a slow fall body position and then you can let go and work on maintaining the level. Not as fun and some people really don't accept "no, we're just doing a 2-way" for an answer, but in the end it'll help you develop a wider range of fall speeds.

Trying not to derail the thread, but this is what I did when I started and I figured out that it was because when I did practice flares up high this was how I moved my body to get full flare. So, I slid in a number of my first landings on my butt as a result. No pain until about jump 30 when I wasn't current and did this too high and came down hard. After that when I was doing my practice flares I really focused on keeping my legs down. I've also (unintentionally) done the one foot tucked under landing. Problem I had with it is that I ended up with a lot of dirt in my shoe and some scratches along the top of my ankle between my sock and jumpsuit that took about a week to heal.

I saw something like this with respect to securities exchanges in Germany where there was an internal position that actually reported into a governmental body. I'd have to go research it to find the details, but really I don't think a structure like that does much more than a strong and robust self-regulatory program. And by strong and robust I mean one where there are routine examinations of member compliance and consequences such as monetary fines and suspensions for failure to comply.