listo

I have talked with a lot of instructors about this, but I feel that you have done one of the best jobs explaining in detail that I have seen to date. Great Job! Live today as tomorrow may not come

Rear riser landings are a high performance manuever and if not done correctly can lead to broken bones or serious sprains. No instructor in his right mind, in my opinion, is going to tell a student to execute a rear riser landing just for the sake of doing it. I consider a student anyone with less than an "A" license. Live today as tomorrow may not come

You should NEVER use the term "save a reserve repack" as a good excuse for not following proper safety procedures. NEVER! If a canopy is not Square, Stable and Stearable, then you need to cut away immediately if altitude allows for it. Live today as tomorrow may not come

You couldn't be more wrong on that one! The rear risers are a lot more sensitive to control inputs than toggles. Two inches on a rear riser does a hell of a lot more than two inches on a toggle. A toggle deflects the trailing edge of the canopy, a rear riser deflects the whole rear of the canopy which results in a lot more action. Now, as far as flaring goes. Toggles are the best way to flare a canopy. However, rear risers can be used in an emergency such as a brake line breaking when you are too low to cut away. If a brake line breaks on deployment or any altitude above 1,500 feet, you need to cut away. It sounds like this person is a new jumper and needs to learn the basics before he is taught more advanced techniques. Live today as tomorrow may not come

from what I have heard, the requirements are going up as well, but I don't know for sure. I would hope that they would. Live today as tomorrow may not come

So wouldn't you say that by going to a skills camp that you learned some things and probably got a little safer? Live today as tomorrow may not come

lmao......I don't need an airplane to swoop, all I need is a 3,000 cliff bub. I can track and pull at 2,000 and I am golden baby! Water skiing directly needs a motor to achieve the sport. Swooping doesn't really have to have a plane and further more I really don't want to be holding onto a rope attached to a plane while I am trying to swoop. Now as far as the location goes, who says that the event of swooping has to be right in the middle of everything that is going on? Personally I think that it should be at a nearby location but not directly in the middle of the events. Live today as tomorrow may not come

This is my point exactly. There is no way an instructor could help an unstable student on a 5 or 10 second delay jump. I really believe that this is the most dangerous way for a student to learn. Leaving it up to the student in my opinion is just simply not a good way to do things. Not when we have other means of training available. I would say this to any static line progression student out there who may be reading this. Once you are off of the static line and on the 5 or 10 second delay, do yourself a justice and ask to go on a tandem "instructed" jump or an AFF before continueing on further. It would help you to become more comfortable and probably lessen the chances of going unstable. try doing toe taps while in free fall, this will get your feet to be even and probably stop your heading problems. (something you would learn in an AFF course) Good luck with it. Live today as tomorrow may not come

Ok, but you just proved my point. How likely is a student to go unstable in their first 15 seconds of free fall vs. 30 seconds of free fall. Is it fair to the student to say, "well, we are short of instructors so we are going to lower the standards and make it easier to become an instructor, but don't worry, if you deploy on your back we will just move you back a notch" This is a huge injustice and a load of bull in my opinion. Students are the life blood of the sport and they are the up and coming future of the sport. What kind of example are we setting for them when we make instructor ratings easier to attain just so dropzones can make more money. I am sorry, but this sounds as ludicrous as it is. I want some advocates of these new rules to come explain to Nick's parents that there son is a product of a student program where the instructors had an easier time in getting their ratings because we need more instructors in the sport. I want "you" to look his parents in the eyes and tell them that their son is just ignorant because he deployed on his back after he had done perfectly on his PRCPs. How many AFF or IAD students do you see deploying on their backs, not nearly as many static line progression students. I am sorry, but even if the static line JMs were the best in the world, a student doesn't need to be in free fall for the first time by themself, it just leads to problems. Every AFF level 1 or 2 dive I have videod have always had the student being slightly unstable for the first few seconds and then becoming relaxed and doing well. It is the first 5-10 seconds that a student "freaks" because they aren't used to the free fall portion of the dive. Every tandem I have done has always resulted in the passenger being "tense" until about 10 seconds into the dive. I know because I can feel their bodies against my own and I know exactly when they relax and start having fun. My ultimate point is that students don't need to be in free fall by themselves on their first or second free fall.(not jump, but free fall) The whole concept is insane, espcially when we have as many AFF and tandem instructor out there like we do. I don't know of any dropzone that doesn't have at least one tandem master. After all, tandem is a very safe and viable way to teach someone the proper free fall techniques and body positioning. At the same time, I say that we need to increase our instructor requirements and say the hell with trying to get a higher number of instructors. We are doing ourself a great injustice by lowering the standards. It is only going to lead to more accidents. I am a really strong advocate of first time free fallers not doing it solo. This is insanity and it is coming from someone that did it perfectly all the way through the static line program for my student training. I find it ironic, that someone that has done this type of training and did fine with it, is now a strong advocate against it. I am not ranting, just extremely concerned for those who don't know better. It is really easy for someone to appear highly knowledgable to a first jump student even if they really suck. Doesn't it make more sense to take a "rope graduate" on a tandem or AFF for security purposes for their first free fall instead of hoping they won't "brain lock" and deploy while on their back or spinning. I do and I also think that they will be much more comfortable on their first "solo" free fall wearing their own rig. common sense is great thing! Listo "A closed mind is a wonderful thing to waist"-me

I really don't think that competition regulations have ever regulated normal everyday skydiving operations in any way. To say that because someone might get hurt in a swoop meet and that being the reason for keeping our sport out of the Olympics or World Games is crazy. Not only that, it is the opinion of people who really don't know all that much about the competition end of things regarding swooping. If a person doesn't know the current requirements and regulations for something, how can they put it down. It makes me sick to hear all of this BS about keeping swooping out of the public spot light by people that don't even know what it is all about. The requirements to become a PST competitor are really high. Before a person is even allowed to jump in a PST qualifier they have to answer a lot of questions to officials. As far as injuries in competitions go, I don't think that there are that many serious injuries because all of the pilots are top notch and the best at what they do. The PST isn't open to just any Tom, Dick or Harry. The World Games as well as the PST and IPC, and I am sure the Olympic committee as well will have very high standards and the selection process for who will be allowed to compete is going to be very strict. How can anyone sit back and try to keep a discipline out of the public competition seen just because they are afraid of how it is going to be regulated. If and when serious competition swooping becomes viable for public viewing and regulations regarding it become everyday affairs in the competition scene, then I am going to back it up 100% because I am mature enough to know that competition regulations will never affect the everyday skydiving world. These rules and regs are there to keep competition safe, not affect everyday skydivers. All I see here are people being afraid of something that they really know nothing about. I would suggest to anyone who feels strongly about this to go read up on the PST competition regulations and then compare those regulations to everyday regulations if there are any that are comparable. Please quit bashing something that you know nothing about if you are one of the un-informed souls posting on this subject. I personally don't mind if someone has a viable point to make, but unsubstantiated insecurities make for ignorant and moot points. I would like for anyone to please feel free to make an actual ratio of jumps in competition vs. fatalities in competition and then compare all of this information to the number of registered competitors over a 5 year period and I think that you would find that competition skiing actually has more serious injuries and fatalities per capita. I don't know this for sure, but I am pretty well convinced based off of what I have read that you will find this to be true. Furthermore, I think that comparing comparing competition skiing to competition swooping is an excellent thing considering that both sports involve really high speeds that can kill instantly. As competition swoopers we all know that there is an inherent risk in what we do. We know that a bad spot of turbulence can ruin our day at any time and we take this into account. Lets look at freestyle skiing, what if a skier hits a spot of ice that isn't visible and causes him to slip on his launch for a double back flip and causes him to land on his head from 30 feet in the air. This person is going to either be paralized or killed yet he is still going to continue to do what he loves both for fun and competition. What happens to a downhill competiton skier if he hits a patch of ice and wipes out at 70 mph and hits a tree. Does this mean that skiiing to fast is going to become illegal.....give me a break. There is no way that competition swooping regulations will ever affect the skydiving community as a whole. The only thing that might change would be the competition regulations themselves. After all, Dale Earnhart's fatality hasn't caused state DMVs to say that we need to wear a different kind of seat belt or better yet say that we need to decrease speed limits. I don't know about where you are from, but the speed limits are constantly going up around where I am as well as the interstates. Think about it. Live today as tomorrow may not come

Well the first thing about video is this. It is impossible to get a good idea of how a swoop is done based video of it. Different canopies on different days have to be flown differently. The Pier Media vids are great stuff, but please don't try to use them as a training aid. If you really want to go learn about swooping, go to your nearest skills camp ASAP. Always ask questions and never assume anything. Take it from someone that has hit the ground.......it is hard as hell and hurts like nothing you can imagine! Don't go there! Listo "A closed mind is a wonderful thing to waist"-me Live today as tomorrow may not come

ok Bill...your point stands to have some relavance. However I am greatly and strongly in support of what the PST is doing along with the IPC to bring swooping to the world for everyone to see. Look at it from this angle. When people first started jumping from airplanes for sport all of the pilots of the world told them how crazy it was and how it was going to make flying have a bad name. Much the same you sound like right now and look at what skydiving has grown into today. It is a wonderful sport that families go out and enjoy as well as individuals who do it for personal rewards. Who is to say that 30 years from now that some genious that isn't even born yet isn't going to come up with an autopilot of some sort to bail a swooper out if they get behind the curve on a dive. I say why limit what we are doing. Lets go for the gusto and make it bigger and better. After all, the AAD wasn't even a thought until people started skydiving on a large scale. We can debate this until we are all blue in the face. It won't make things go away. Skydiving is a great and wonderful sport and I try to find new ways to take it to the public every chance I get. Everytime I go out to a club or bar I have 50 business cards and I make it a point to pass every one of them out before I go home. Are you telling me that I am bad for the sport because I am passing out info to as many people as possible. Think of how much revenue having canopy skills in the Olympics would bring to our sport. Oh yeah, let me see........more revenue somehow has always lead to more R&D. If the manufacturers as well as dropzones start getting more income from something, well that just means that we will be able to skydive that much longer. I am all for it! I say we need to go out and buy billboards advertising for sponsors right now to spread the word about the newest sport to join in the great games of the Olympics and the awesome thrill for those who are good enough to be invited there. I say lets get some support so America can have the best team in the world instead of downplaying it because somebody might get hurt. Hell, while we are at it, lets just go ahead and abolish downhill skiing, the long jump and oh yeah.....the biathalon (somebody might get shot) Oh yeah, archery is pretty dangerous. Let's just abolisht that too. Bobsledding is pretty dangerous, wanna get rid of that as well? I am sure I can come up with some more sports that could involve really high speeds in which people could get hurt or die. Give me some time, I will come up with a list of things that the Olympic committee should do away with because they are just dangerous. Long live the swoopers of the world and the accomplisments they have set out to achieve. Which we are doing. If you don't want to swoop competitively and accept that competition swooping may eventually have regulations then don't do it. After all, competition RW, Free Flying, and accuracy all have regulations and restrictions that don't affect the sport as a whole. What would be different for competition canopy swooping. BLUE SKIES, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG SWOOPS, Listo "A closed mind is a wonderful thing to waist"-me

Well the answer to that is very simple. A static line student's progression isn't complete when he/she graduates from the static line to free fall. Actually this is the most dangerous part of the static line progression. The 5 second delay and 10 second delay should be abolished in my opinion. This is the time when students have just enough time to "brain-lock" and get themselves into trouble. Honestly, I think that instead of a 5 or 10 second delay, the student should have to go up with an AFF JM for a level 4 AFF dive or a level 3 with one AFF JM. These are just my opinions from what I have seen. I have seen plenty of static line students have a great body form during the static line phase of their jumps only to fail blatently on a 5 second by pushing off of the strut or getting consumed by the freefall and forgetting about body positioning while struggleing for the ripcord. A person in free fall by themself for the first time is a scarey thing. You feel like you have to pull for your life and that is all that matters, when it really isn't. No JM in the world can completely get a student over his/her fear on that first 5 second delay and that is why I think that having a JM there in freefall with a longer freefall would lessen the amount of students deploying while spinning or on their backs. Just my opinions from what I have witnessed. Live today as tomorrow may not come

ok, ya'll got me. maybe it wasn't quite 45, but it was pretty darn steep. He was also carrying a full load of armament and full long range tanks. He had just taken off and had a flame out at about 2,000 feet and had nowhere to jettison his stores without killing civillians. Live today as tomorrow may not come

Honestly, I believe that accuracy is more than likely going to be a part of what is going to take place in the Olympics as well. It is just another discipline of canopy flight that the general public can watch and appreciate. I would love to see it be a part of it as well. After all, skiiing isn't just downhill going mach 5, it involves crosscountry and long jumps. Now that brings up an interesting subject too. Lets look at the long jump. Those dudes are flying and landing without a parachute at speeds just like swooping and sometimes even faster but you don't see a beginning skier going out and trying to long jump do you. Live today as tomorrow may not come

You have a really good point there. The general public doesn't know a VX-75 from a PD 150. The only thing the general public is going to see is who is consistantly better at what they are doing. Skydivers are the only ones that are going to be critiqueing what Luigi, Andy or Chuck are flying for competition. If the regulation comes from anywhere, it is going to be from the sport itself. The general public is just going to see a bunch of talented canopy pilots doing what they are good at. I use those names loosely because I am going to beat all of them anyway. They just don't know it yet. Live today as tomorrow may not come

Ok, sure there is going to be a huge debate on this subject. However, is a world class skier going to be ridiculed for wearing skis that were too small so he could go faster? He might. Is an Olympic hopeful swooper going to get ridiculed for flying a canopy that is too small so he could go faster? He might. The thing is this, there are skiers out there everyday getting hurt because they are trying to use smaller skis, go faster and get better. If they try it on their own then they increase the chances of getting hurt or killed. Well, swooping is the same way. If you are going to try to go faster and get better without seeking help then you are going to increase your chances of getting hurt or killed. No matter how hard we try to keep people from getting hurt, it is going to happen. Do I care if someone gets hurt or killed while skydiving......absolutely! I don't want to see that happen to anyone, anywhere. The thing is that it is going to happen no matter what we do to try to prevent it. The same way with skiing, people are going to get hurt and killed no matter how many safety regulations are implemented. The thought of keeping swooping out of the public spot light for these reasons is ludicrous in my opinion. We can't help it if some ignorant soul goes out and kills himself with a little rocket ship of a canopy much the same we can't help it if someone goes up on a hill with skis about three inches shorter than he has ever used before and tries them out on a black double diamond course. Personally, when I get on a plane full of skydivers, I know what everyone is jumping. If I go to a strange DZ, I ask what everyone is jumping and how many jump numbers they have for two reasons. First I want to know who and what I am flying with. Second, I want to know if I am jumping with some 300 jump wonder trying to learn how to swoop a VX-75 when his last jump was a PD 290. We have to use sound judgement and keep an eye on others as well as ourselves. It is going to be impossible to keep people from getting hurt or killed while skydiving. I really hate to say that but it is true. The technology has become so incredibly reliable that gear malfunctions aren't killing people anymore......it is bad judgement that is killing people. Chances are that if some crazy nutcase is out there that is going to kill himself with a tiny canopy who hasn't even made jump number 1 yet, then eventually he will find the sport regardless of if the Olympics or World Games host swooping. Honestly, I see this as a way to help people understand the safety needed to land a parachute which is something that really isn't stressed nearly as much as freefall techniques. My vote is that this is a great thing for our sport. Live today as tomorrow may not come

Well, here is a hot subject. I am going to start this in hopes of getting some positive feedback. In regards to static line instructors, I believe that they too should have to posses the exact same prerequisits that a tandem instructor should have to have. I believe that all a static line instructor has to have is a BIC and a "D". It used to be a "C". Well honestly I think that this is a great injustice to students out there to have someone with only 200 jumps teaching them how to skydive. Knowledge wise, sure they can probably do the job, but when it comes to flying skills......well I don't know very many 200 jump wonders out there that could keep up with an AFF evaluation. I believe that any freefall instructor/coach should have to be able to pass a flight test for stabilizing as well as chasing an out of control student. Just my two cents worth........ What does everyone else feel like on this subject? Live today as tomorrow may not come

Well, the subject of a static line student progressing to free fall with a BOC or RIPCORD has come to light. For obvious reasons I believe that the ripcord would be much better. First of all a ripcord deployment uses a spring loaded pilot chute. Lets talk about the differences between a spring loaded pilot chute vs. throw out. First of all a spring loaded pilot chute when activated is about roughly 2 feet long with a spring holding it open. A throw out could collapse around a leg, arm, body or so on. A spring loaded chute will always catch air and deploy. Lets say for whatever reason a pilot chute gets caught in a burble. The spring loaded chute is more likely to clear itself before a throw out because once again the spring is holding it open and therefore it has more surface area to catch the wind. Now, speaking of entanglement issues, I believe that the throw out is a lot more likely for a static line progression student to become entangled in. After all, you are getting the student to hold onto something directly attached to the bridle. A spring loaded chute never involves the student's hand touching anything that is attached to the bridle. For first free falls, I believe that a ripcord is much safer for use because of the pilot chute incorportated. As for the handle location, there really isn't a difference. From what I have seen the most difference would only be about 2 inches, which is still within a hand width. I can honestly say that I would never put a static line progression student out on a BOC unless I was able to jump with the student in an AFF type atmosphere and even then, I would fly "close" the whole time, at least until the student had been to full altitude for a total of at least 5 free falls and only if this student had demonstrated excellent body position while in free fall as well as during the reaching and deployment phases.The problem with this is that the student would have to have be executing manuevers by this time in his/her progression so it would be really hard for someone that hasn't been trained for AFF to get in and correct what is wrong. This leads me to my other topic of personal pet peaves with a static line progression. I think that once a static line progression student is in free fall, he/she needs to be accompanied by an AFF rated instructor. A coach rating or someone that has just got a SL rating with only 200 jumps is more than likely NOT going to be able to "get in" and fix a problem with stability. I have seen this too much and it really scares the poo out of me.

yeah, I used to work on them. I actually saw one come in with an engine out and the pilot had to dive the darn thing at about a 45 degree glide to keep his airspeed up for landing. Looking back on it, it kind of reminds me of a swoop. Gotta love high wing loadings! Live today as tomorrow may not come

ok, good point, but could the shuttle really be considered a plane though. ROTF now, shuttle swooping could be one incredibly interesting sport......imagine the diving hooks those things could do Dynamic stalls might be a factor though Live today as tomorrow may not come

This one is easy. First of all canopy manufacturers have set standards for jump numbers. Icarus says that you need 1,000 ram air jumps to buy a VX. PD, Precision, and Atair also have similar standards. Honestly, you aren't really likely to have someone go out, buy a HP canopy, not talk about it and then go up and try something radical. If you ever do see someone do something like this, then I believe that it is common sense and a general consensus that this individual was incredibly stupid. Can we prevent any or all accidents from happening......no! This goes back to what I said earlier. Responsible swoopers need to keep an eye out for those that are going to try things and do our part to inform these souls of the dangers and proper ways of doing things. If you don't want to help them out personally, then tell someone that does or tell the individual in question to go talk to someone that can help them. Turning your cheek and getting irritated with someone'e lack of knowledge is about as ignorant of a concept as I have ever heard of when it comes to swooping or skydiving. I am sure that there isn't one person out there swooping today that hasn't asked questions or recieved tips from more experienced people so why should they sit back and say that they are only in it for themselves and refuse to help others.

well the simple answer to this obvious concern for all of us is this. DZ's would have to institue madates that would say that if you aren't someone that needs to be swooping, then you would be grounded for the day, weekend, month or whatever if you do something unsafe. I honestly dont think that we need to hold ourselves back from something this great because of what some jerkwad might see and try to emmulate and then kill himself while trying it. If that were the case then the PST would have to shut down right now. I know a lot of beginning jumpers that have seen the 2001 PSN on discovery and came out to learn how to jump just so they can do that kind of thing. One jump on a skytruck and they quickly learned that the guys they saw on TV were actually bad asses and then they learned to respect those people just that much more. Don't get me wrong here. I know that people are going to object to swooping making it big in the public spot light, but what is more important. Personally I think that this is the best thing that has happened to skydiving in general since it began to become safe enough that any ole joe schmoe could come out and learn how to do it. If you don't want to take swooping to a world level, then you don't have to, but please don't knock those of us that do. One of the things that any swooper has to do is be a diplomat of the discipline. Actually this goes for skydving in general. If you are good at something then you need to be prepared to offer sound advice to anyone and everyone that needs or asks for it. One of the great things about the Jim Slaton's and Chuck Blue's of the world is that they are always willing to help out anyone that asks for or needs advice. They aren't sitting back saying that we don't need to go bid in the world spot light because people are going to get hurt, they are setting examples of maturity and discipline for others to learn from. If you were to go up to Tony Hawk and tell him that you have never skated before and you want to get on a 15' half pipe and try a 720 twist with a double back flip he would laugh in your face and tell you that you need to work your way up to it. The same goes for swooping, if you see a newbie getting interested in swooping, take them aside and explain how dangerous it is and how to take the proper steps to getting there. Don't be selfish when it comes to skydiving disciplines. Who knows, that person that you thought might kill themselves might end up teaching you something one day. Live today as tomorrow may not come

I think you are on the right path there. One thing I have found (240 lbs exit) is that putting your palms facing upward will allow you to really extend your arms a lot more helping to decrease your fall rate. By putting your palms facing the sky and extending your arms straight "above" your head, you will have to counter with your legs extending which leads to even slower fall rates. I found this out while filming tandems. It is really easy to fly on your back if you don't think about what you want to do and actually just adjust your fall rate by capturing the full range of your body's positioning while doing it. It is actually possible to fly slower on your back than it is on your belly. Live today as tomorrow may not come

wow, this one is going to be fun! First of all consider why you want a specific kind of suit. If you are a big boy then you would want to get a full body suit. If you are one of those little scrawny dudes....then you could go with a two piece or just pants. Tony Suits Rock! Merlin! Firefly! Michigan! Freakin Suits! ......they are all good. Just pic out who has the material and designs you want along with the price you are willing to pay for. It's all good! Hell, jump nekkid with a drogue on your feet......make a statement Live today as tomorrow may not come