GobbleGobble

Either stash a pullup cord somewhere or use a shoe lace to field pack. Alternative option would be to wear cargo shorts or pants under your suit. Cell phone in one pocket, stash bag in the other.

I just wanted an excuse to write, "suicide toasters." Why the suicide toasters and not the homicidal ones? Sheesh. Next your going to lecture me on protected classes... ;)

If the student rigs are really stretched out they might not offer the best bridle protection.

Latest reports indicate that Woods and Doherty had IR lasers on the targets when they were requesting assistance. The assumption is that Spectre was on station. Likely the IR lasers they had were rifle mounted PEQs. Commenting beyond that isn't prudent given that so much ISN'T known. Without knowing ranges, density of civilian/bad guys present on the ground the fact that an AC-130 *might* have been on station doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot.

Veterans aren't stupid, thank God. Fortunately, they usually figure out that they're being used - abused, actually - as cannon fodder. The Vietnam vets figured it out then: http://www.vvaw.org/ ...and the Iraq vets figured it out, too: http://www.ivaw.org/ ... as have the Afghanistan vets: http://www.ivaw.org/afghanistan-veterans-against-war-speaking-tour I don't see how these organizations excuse BHO for letting Americans die at Benghazi. He could have ordered Spectre Gunships; they were ready to go. He could have sent in a Marine Quick Reaction Force; they were standing by. Jane Fonda, Walter Cronkite, Barrack Obama same same. Let me get this straight you are saying that everyone onsite at the embassy and secondary location were armed terrorists? If so sure. If not there is no way in hell CAS would be authorized due to the huge civilian casulties that would result. I know what the hell I'm talking about. I'm not a huge fan of Obama, take it or leave it.

Fair enough. Tone and composition suggest to me retired officer. Likely O-6 but maybe O-5. Given that I’m quite sure he meant staffed and not studied as you’ve suggested. I take special exception to the position that this initiative is inferior or groundless because it wasn’t dreamt up by USPA HQ or requested by USPA HQ. All USPA members should take this point that is raised seriously. He’s very seriously saying that the membership has no business telling our elected representatives what is important to us. Can we get a Kallend emoticon? Sure, legitimate point. The consternation that this proposal is generating in the community over a very small slice of the overall the skydiving population makes it hard for me to believe that we are in danger of these boogiemen. Great so some board members didn’t feel like letting their personal position be known and abstained. What was the exact tally (for/against/abstained)? Who cares what might have been. I might have been an astronaut. Can you feel the boogieman placing his hands on your shoulders young child? A sampling of the membership wouldn’t lead to an instantaneous rollout. There has been an attempt at proper evaluation using “time-tested methods of developing USPA instructional programs”. And it has been stonewalled by opposition that has been overwhelmingly histrionic. Lastly can someone tell me what this program will cost USPA to roll out? I doubt it. This was an extremely weak point raised by the opposition at the original presentation. Perhaps someone on S&T has put a few scribbles together but I’m not optimistic.

What the heck happened to their aircraft that night? That I know of: Both fire bottles pulled. It's suspected that the same person(s) also wrecked a couple gliders. Basically by trying to tear the ailerons off.

A small request if I may? Swap out the sliders for text fields? Maybe it's my fat fingers but I find the sliders for setting altitudes to be a bit clumsy. Great work man!

Directly quoted from Kevin T's ( you know him as Gobble) reply to my post= "Spot showed me the document before the session started at the San Diego BOD meeting (and referenced it in that meeting). " So I can gather that this document was shown to 1 impressionable young Kevin and 2 the BOD at said meeting. Kevin/ Gobble is one of Spot's supporters so , I would believe, never as you say sling shit due to personal conflicts. I have no idea what materials or verbage was presented to any BOD meeting. it could have been the peanut butter jelly time song and dance for all I know. Of course if any of you produce a bonafide wingsuit manual that proves the claim of such an exit, as in open wing or delta, I will give you all an apology for overreaction due to my difference of opinoin. The fact that I support the proposal doesn't mean I'm willing to lie. So either I'm being played or just plain stupid? I don't know why you keep using my name or why you even feel it is important. I've not misrepresented my experience level, or anything else. I've expressed personal opinions same as you. On the fabrication note I don't believe he'd be that stupid.

Completely wrong Kevin. I'm holding the birdman classic manual from before the skyflyers came out and I took the course with jari and and Kim. The exit is exactly the same as what SPOT taught you. Although in his diagrams and pictures Douglas drops down 25 - 30 feet before opening. He has created nothing different just added to what was in place and removed the silly flat spin recovery foolishness and replaced it with instability procedures. If you have any manual from any suit maker that states exit open I would really love to see it. It might not have been Birdman. Spot showed me the document before the session started at the San Diego BOD meeting (and referenced it in that meeting). I'm sure of what I read, but I might have the document wrong. I'll ask him about it tomorrow when I get up there.

IIRC the original Birdman sylabus clearly instructed wingsuiters to exit the a/c fully open and delta'd out. How many of the highly experienced wingsuiters were originally taught through that program? I don't know. But it's worth mentioning.

+1 This is what's known in the business as the "DevilS in the dEtails." The premise is false, the processes and procedures are corrupt, and the polling methodology wouldn't pass muster in a fifth grade science class. And the other question not yet answered: Who are the people who currently meet the requirements of Section E Subsection 1 of the current proposal? 44 Since I wasn't in the sport then I'll ask: How is USPA appointing the initial few IE's different from the adoption of the AFF model? It isn't, and that is a huge part of the problem. If you go here you'll see a section in my post #12 (a variation of my post #7 above) that explains why, and which I summarize here for your convenience: The same thing lies before us with wingsuiting. The private sector adapted quickly to changes in wingsuit technology and performance that rendered obsolete many of the training techniques and foci of the original methods. As soon as you "standardize" that training within a bureaucracy, however, adapation ends because, given the essential, change-averse nature of bureaucracy, you also freeze that training at that stage of development it was at when the bureaucracy adopted it. That happened with AFF and we are still paying the price today in blood, death, and broken bones because its very name points to its fatal flaw: it is accelerated freefall training, not "learn-about-your-gear-and-how-to-fly-your-parachute-first" training. Heck, when USPA adopted AFF, it wasn't even fully developed in the judgment of its father, Ken Coleman. I know this because we talked about it in person, over beers, way back when he was creating it. But then he died, and USPA "saluted" him by adopting his program as it was at the time of his death, which even he said was not ready for prime time. And then we were stuck with that flawed program for 20+ years before the entrenched bureaucracy "changed" it by making it worse because, guess what? Now it's more complicated and more expensive for DZs and their customers, and we're still bouncing people under open, properly functioning canopies at an unacceptably high rate because they still learn freefall fun skills without first focusing on learning how to fly and land their parachutes. Or as George Santayana said in a slightly different way: "Now let's do it with wingsuits!" 44 I don't think AFF is perfect, and I don't know anyone personally that would say so. I do think that if you go from one dropzone to another and someone has completed up to AFF level X jump, that you can reasonably say that they've demonstrated a certain number of skills. The proposal on the table doesn't go that far, but it would ensure that folks have a very basic toolset from the start. Minus the "tail" that comes along with the rating program, do you believe that is a reasonable goal?

+1 This is what's known in the business as the "DevilS in the dEtails." The premise is false, the processes and procedures are corrupt, and the polling methodology wouldn't pass muster in a fifth grade science class. And the other question not yet answered: Who are the people who currently meet the requirements of Section E Subsection 1 of the current proposal? 44 Since I wasn't in the sport then I'll ask: How is USPA appointing the initial few IE's different from the adoption of the AFF model?

The last post was deleted but here is my reply: Here are some facts: Tailstrikes year over year are showing an upward trend. And have been for some time. Spot has a graph that I've seen. I don't have it handy. Each successive generation of suits is higher performance than the last. This is important to note for a few reasons. A more highly pressurized suit is more difficult to shut down at pull time. Weak exit discipline, and poorly thought out exits become even more dangerous. These are just a few examples. While rapid downsizing is a concern to the general community. Wingsuiters can suffer from upsizing suits too soon. Wingsuit training even with the materials in the SIM is inconsistent and widely varies from instructor to instructor. DZ to DZ. Currently there is no method to identify who is capable of being an instructor via the USPA (no demonstration of competence in the sky and knowledge). There are plenty more. While an impartial examination of the facts would be most excellent it is mostly possible to read between the lines. I'm not taking pot shots at you here. It's not immediate but but I believe a standardized training curriculum administered by an instructor that has been evaluated in their ability to do so will pay large long term dividends to the community writ large. In the short term Eli is compiling some best practices for pilots that should be followed and ideally would have been done in the first place. Signage, wavers and constant reminders might help but it sounds like it might not take many screwups to force this issue. People with bad habits or incomplete knowledge don't always hit the tail. They might even have an obscenely high success rate, but it doesn't take much to make a close call an incident.

My point is if you want to properly represent your niche of our sport then you have to be able to answer these questions. I feel that it is everyones entrenched positions that are leading them to ignore potentially valuable data or information from sources because it might hurt their current position. This does nobody any good. If more dzo's get this letter and start coming down hard on wingsuiting or on uspa's rules aren't you one of the people the uspa will probably ask for an opinion? Why don't any of the stakeholders have definitive statistical evidence to support the theory that the wingsuit bsr has increased safety in the way it was intended or it hasn't. Isn't this something the uspa should have ready to go about all facets of the sport in case they have to defend their position to the faa or insurance companies? If it hasn't been in place long enough yet say that but don't settle for half truths because it is convenient. Insurance companies can be negotiated with but they only deal with statistical evidence not opinion so if they ask you has the bsr increased safety relating to wingsuits I think you should have a better answer ready. What are you envisioning as a metric that can be quantitatively analyzed? I'm not seeing it. "Safer" is completely qualitative. I don't know how to measure it, but I would say that most jumpers know "more" at 200 jumps than they did at 100. What do you feel has been missing from the conversation (other than a variety of statistical measures that may or may not be meaningful)?

It's posted in the Caravan.

I think this is reasonable (from a DZO perspective) because people that definitely know better are still forgetting to do it the right way. As I said before, the current situation is that people that have been trained to not screw up still do screw up. So, how do we keep people from forgetting to do it the right way every single time? Until we figure out how to do that, I don't think any more formal/expensive/endorsed by whatever governing body training program is going to change things. The training/procedures/I don't know what needs to change, but we don't yet know how it should change. My thoughts on this mirrors a few other's I've spoken with. Standardizing the basic training associated with wingsuiting would IMO begin creating a culture within wingsuiting that would be a little more aware and safety conscious. This doesn't mean that all the fun is going to be sucked out of it. If I go up on a CRW jump with someone who has 20 or 30 jumps in discipline I more or less know what to expect. If I go up on a wingsuit jump with a guy that has 20-100 wingsuit jumps I have no clue what I'm going to bear witness to.

Insurance companies don't give a rats tail if a training program is put in place. They're bean counters! They only care about their investments not being put at risk. The only thing they will warm up to is ... No More Tail Stikes. Certainly but they charge premiums based on the associated composite risk score. An analogy would be Motorcycle Safety Foundation courses. IIRC there are still only two: Basic and Advanced. Having completed a course and providing proof to your insurer will result in a lower premium. Why? Completion of the course and receiving the course card signifies that you have demonstrated a certain level of text book knowledge as well as demonstrated the ability to handle the bike. Whether this model would hold true with wingsuiting and skydiving a/c premiums... I'd like to actually read one of these policy documents. I'm wondering what is in there currently.

There are plenty of flatter trimmed canopies out there. Additionally you don't always have to sit in full flight...

Yes it matters a lot because the strikes I am aware of included people that really knew they needed to keep their wings closed. What aircraft were these? I think a totally valid solution is to restrict wing suiting to the more forgiving aircraft. To be clear you are saying that it would be acceptable to you to ban wingsuiting from DZ's entirely that don't operate higher tail aircraft. And that you find this position to be more reasonable than taking a serious look at establishing a formal training doctrine and instructors to over see it? I'm sorry I just have a hard time agreeing with that. The insurance company(ies) might take that position in which case no one is gonna have much of a choice in the matter. But for us a community to cut the legs out from under potential wingsuiters because they can't regularly jump an Otter is just wrong. EDIT: IIRC in one of the many threads on the WSI topic I seem to recall you being against for several reasons. One of which was access to a WSI at smaller dropzones. What you've posted above is clearly in disagreement with what I recall you saying earlier. If that wasn't you I apologize. Would a WSI program fully prevent a tail strike from ever happening again? Of course not. Would it help? I think it couldn't hurt. Will insurance companies be happier if there was a formalized training program for wingsuiters? Yes, in their eyes and in reality it has a large potential to reduce risks associated with the discipline. Insurance whatever you want to say about it is largely about risk mitigation.

I can lighten your load as they say. This has less to do with a wingsuit record and more to do with the integrity of the process and (possibly) institution. If you can't understand why that *might* be important I don't know what to say.

DocPop posts in a thread about some other topic and mentions he flies a Katana. Film at 11. (Man, I wish I flew a Katana. That would be awesome.) I fly a newer SA2 150, loading at 1.33. I just had my lower steering lines measured and they are perfectly in spec. I also have end cell closure. Previous owner did as well. Almost everyone I've talked to that flies SA2's have told me it's normal. The only guy I know that it doesn't happen to has a pretty old one with around a 1000 jumps on it.

LOL... if you would actually read instead of just gobbling, you would notice that I said this: "As far as I know, none of the above questions are part of the debate at the moment. This information may already exist, but it's sure not showing up in the discussion (especially that last part) -- and until it does, the whole debate is an attempt to create a political reality, not deal with a physical reality." So maybe instead of posting, ahem, the way you did, why don't you post the details to that and the other questions I posed and thereby enter them into the discussion? 44 P.S. A word from the wise: I've been to almost as many funerals as you have jumps, and you remind me of a bunch of those decedents. Just sayin... And the window into your soul from your postings would tell me anything different? If it's in the presentation then wouldn't it mean that it is part of the discussion? Or at the very least has been offered up? I'd think it would. The breakdowns you asked for in your much longer follow up post are not included. My understanding is that most of the DZOs were willing to talk about the issues but didn't want it out there in the general community. There isn't a hell of a lot anyone can do about that. Short of violating their trust, that is. In any event it shows a pretty steady increase in tailstrikes over an 11.5 year period. Since you mention it, yet failed to notice it in the presentation I have a hard time believing you've actually read it. I didn't realize you and a few others here had the monopoly on being an asshole. Sorry to step on your toes. In the event that I do bounce I'll make sure you're invited to the funeral so you can say "From three posts on DZ.com I just knew this was coming" to my friends and family. I'm serious, PM me a mailing address.

That's funny, coming from someone with one year in the sport, calling another with 37 years of experience "ignorant". But hey, with these new-fangled teaching methods these days, maybe you really do already know it all. You're right. I forgot that critical thinking skills are related to the years I've been skydiving. I don't care if the proposal passes as stands or nothing happens. I think that a response in the middle could be in order. The information he was asking about is in the proposal he's slamming. It seems clear that he didn't read it. It's funny that someone who is likely half your age has to explain this to you. (see I can be an asshole too!) Thank you for setting me straight, young fellar. When I need advice on skydiving, now I know that you're the go-to guy to get the right answers. Happy to help. Though if you notice my post revolved around reading more than anything specifically skydiving related. Feel free to be all butt hurt though!

That's funny, coming from someone with one year in the sport, calling another with 37 years of experience "ignorant". But hey, with these new-fangled teaching methods these days, maybe you really do already know it all. You're right. I forgot that critical thinking skills are related to the years I've been skydiving. I don't care if the proposal passes as stands or nothing happens. I think that a response in the middle could be in order. The information he was asking about is in the proposal he's slamming. It seems clear that he didn't read it. It's funny that someone who is likely half your age has to explain this to you. (see I can be an asshole too!)