Re: [popsjumper] USPA Poll on AFF Instructor Requirement
You can't have real freefall experince without gaining *some* experince with gear, aircraft operating, spotting, canopy flight, weather conditions.
Of course how much experince in those different areas really depends on who is making the jumps and where they are making the jumps.
I had a side conversation about this with someone and they pointed out that S/L and IAD ratings have much lower requirements when compared to AFF.
Putting aside the argument that maybe those requirements are too low, I think in general the individuals who want to get and IAD or S/L rating have been exposed to a lot more of the other elements that make up skydiving. IAD and S/L tends to be the domain of smaller aircraft dropzones where jumpers get more spotting, more canopy work, more hop and pops. The enviroment is smaller so they get more exposure when compared to a large multi turbine dropzone.
It may be that you could subsitute 100% of the freefall time for tunnel time and not diminish the quality of AFF instruction. I don't agree with that, but lets play devils advocate here.
If that was true I still want to know the motivation for the change. What is the problem that exists with the current standard that needs to be "fixed" with this change.
Is it money? Is the argument that we are making otherwise qualified candidate pay for more jumps before making it to paid instructing jumps?
That is the only real argument I can see for the change and I think it is a lousy one. In my opinion the individuals who should be holding an AFF rating should have no complaints about having to make enough fun jumps and coach jumps to get the 6 hours.
Skydiving is fun! Make your jumps. Are we wronging these individuals for making them skydive? They are going to be teaching skydiving, it shouldn't be an inconvience to actually have to skydive!
If they are dying to teach they can earn a S/L or IAD rating while they are waiting for the AFF requirments to be met.
(This post was edited by DougH on May 22, 2012, 9:47 AM)
