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chuckakers

Solving the Canopy Thing

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Once again the skydiving community is going nuts over a recent rash of canopy-related incidents, and the comments I hear sound just like the ones I heard last time we had a rash of canopy-related incidents. “We must do something”, “it’s the HP canopies”, “people just aren’t watching”, and “we need a rule…” are the comments de jour, and to one extent or another they are right. We (used loosely) do need to do something (also used loosely) about our embarrassingly high number of canopy incidents – fatal and otherwise – under properly functioning canopies. The question is what?

At first this problem seemed to be isolated primarily to the “experience vs. wing loading” issue. Hotrods – almost exclusively male for the sake of accuracy – were downsizing new high performance canopies as fast as they could swipe their Platinum Card at the local Parachutes-R-Us. Making matters worse, DZO’s and S&TA’s let them jump the damn things. The results were ugly and nothing short of spectacular from a television producer’s perspective, with incidents resulting in a resounding chorus of “it was only a matter of time” from other jumpers as the femur drilling bastard’s only fitting eulogy. If there was any good news about these guys it was that they were easy to see coming. I once turned a guy with 250 jumps away at the DZ because his rig looked more like a lunchbox than a “250-jump wonder” worthy parachute. He died two weekends later on someone else’s drop zone after botching a hook turn.

The Canopy Collision Conundrum

Things have changed in the time since flying fast canopies was the choice of a select few. After years of a growing acceptance of faster flying canopies at every level of our sport, our problem has evolved from one of mostly high performance canopy pilots, their errors, and anyone who got in their way, to a systemic problem across the skydiving universe that is touching all of us in a most crumpled heap kind of way. Canopy collisions are the big culprit, finding their way into every stage of the skydive and every stage of skydiving. From expert swoopers with thousands of jumps on screeching canopies to beginners just trying to land safely on the way to their first license, we are slamming into each other in otherwise clear air at an alarming rate. We’re tired of losing our friends, but doing the same thing about it that we did last time one of our brethren bounced isn’t working – and it won’t.

Asking the Right Questions

It’s been said that things that are not measured cannot be improved upon. By that same logic, information that is not collected cannot be analyzed, and our incident information collection quite honestly sucks.

Understand this – we will not make gains in reducing canopy collisions until we get serious about collecting all of the pertinent data from them. We simply aren’t asking the right questions.

As an industry, we keep coming back to the same fixes for the canopy collision issue that haven’t fixed a damn thing in the past. Separation of landing areas for varying landing styles, establishment of patterns, jump-run reminders to “keep your head on a swivel”, and USPA “calls to action” and pledge signing campaigns have all been tried, some repeatedly. All have failed.

The sampling of incidents is simply too small and the variables too many to determine what is causing our canopy collision problem. But we can ask questions that may paint a picture of an accident waiting to happen, and that’s where the truth is buried. There are an infinite number of data bits surrounding any accident, and certainly most of them would give no clues to the cause or cure. However, consider this…

What if – just what if – we discovered that 50% of canopies in skydiving today have some neon or bright colors on them, but only 20% of canopy collisions involved canopies sporting them. That would certainly make us believe that canopy colors could be a factor in canopy collisions. The problem is, we don’t know – because we don’t ask.

What if we found that collisions occurred in disproportionate numbers on loads where the jump run was flown to put part of the load out “before center”, causing jumpers to come from opposite directions during approach to the landing area? We certainly would consider curtailing that practice, would we not? Unfortunately we don’t know, because no one has asked the question.

The cure to our collision woes is deep in the details and we aren’t collecting them. In fact, the information we currently gather is barely enough for a police report. Maybe that’s by design since accident information that isn’t collected can’t be used against a drop zone in a lawsuit, but that’s a conversation for another day.

As a start, we should be reporting every detail that can be gleaned from each incident. We will never find a single common denominator, but that’s not the problem anyway. Each incident has a cause, but that cause is unique to that incident. To reduce the number of incidents, we need to start stacking the odds in our favor, and to do that we need facts. Lots of them.

Facts and the Unreported Factors

Fact: two canopies cannot collide if they never occupy the same airspace at the same time. Sounds simple enough, but several times each year, canopy pilots do just that, often with deadly results. But what are the factors that lead to up that moment? Consider these.

Overloaded skies, sort of. The sport has grown and that means bigger airplanes and more canopies in the air at once. This by itself is not an issue. If, for example, a Twin Otter load is made up of a 3-way and bunch of tandems, the jumpers on the 3-way will likely only have 2 other canopies to share air with during descent. Of course these jumpers should remain diligent and watch for other canopies anyway, but the chance of interacting with a tandem pair on the same pass when a jumper saddles at 2,500 feet is pretty slim.

Now let’s look at a different load make-up. What if the load is comprised of several small groups. If the load is filled with two 4-ways with camera, a 3-way, and three 2-way student groups, the under-canopy scenario will be quite different. Assuming everyone has an open canopy at the planned altitude, each 4-way jumper will have at least 10 other canopies within striking distance and even more if a video flyer has a long snivel or if one of the students deploys lower than planned.

If we found that canopy collisions happen in disproportionate numbers on loads with multiple groups deploying at the same or nearly the same altitude, we would begin to see the value in splitting the load and making a second pass. But we don’t know because we don’t collect that information. We don’t ask that question.

As mentioned above, what about canopy colors? We know that brighter colors are detectable at greater distances, which translates to more reaction time to avoid a collision. That’s why bicyclists wear the most obnoxious colors they can find. Not unlike when cars collide with cyclists, the answer from canopy collision survivors is much the same. “I didn’t see him” is the comment most often heard from the offending jumper. I myself have been in the unenviable position of apologizing for getting a bit too close to another jumper under canopy, and the reason was the same every time. I didn’t see the other jumper until I was in close proximity. You have probably had the same thing happen to you. It is clearly possible that brightly colored canopies are in disproportionately fewer collisions than canopies with dark or neutral colors, but we don’t know - because we don’t ask.

The Courage to Question

The above scenarios are just a couple examples, but they get the point across. A myriad of other factors are contributing to the canopy collision issue, but the only pattern we have established so far is our miserable collection of pertinent data that would at least reveal many clues. If we begin asking very detailed questions about each incident, we might be surprised just how much we do know about them.

Hell, the cause of some of these incidents would slap us in the face if we were only willing to be intellectually honest. Two recent incidents that killed 3 jumpers and put another one in the hospital occurred over a tiny patch of grass on a drop zone in a desert environment. Amazingly, that patch of grass was grown for the purpose of using it for a landing area. In hindsight, is it really so tough to see that growing that little patch of grass wasn’t such a good idea? One look at an overhead image of the DZ showing that needle-threading grass strip answers that question – except no one ever asked it.

We’ve separated discipline-specific landing areas, established landing patterns, increased canopy control education and training, signed pledges, and created one idiotic rule after another. It’s not working.

The answers are there, but we won’t find them until we start asking the right questions.
Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

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Great article Chuck! I like your perspective of asking more 'relevant' questions. What do you propose in offering what those questions should be? If there was a questionnaire of sorts that 'standardized' canopy collision incidents, who could tabulate the results (the drop zones involved seem like the logical choice to collect the info, and the USPA to consolidate it into offering further answers perhaps?).

Thanks for elevating this conversation to a new level.

Kudos!
sKY::
D18185

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I think you hit the nail on the head, Chuck.
You can't fix a problem until you know what is causing the problem in the first place.
The skydiving community is going to find out what the factors are that lead to canopy collisions before an effort can be mounted to stop them.

T.Riggs
D22425

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All good, except that most of us who have been in the sport awhile, have a pretty good feel for the problem.

I still don't think that it is as complicated as some would like to make it and I have a question that might help to address the cause and that is:

How many fatal canopy collisions occurred in the LZ when you were jumping round canopies?

My experience with a round is very limited, as I started in the mid 80's, but I'd venture to guess that the number is quite small.

I still feel that if landing were more controlled, by the DZO, like what I've heard at some DZ out west, we might all be safer in the LZ.

A solution to the problem does not have to be complicated to work.
Dano

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Once again the skydiving community is going nuts over a recent rash of canopy-related incidents, and the comments I hear sound just like the ones I heard last time we had a rash of canopy-related incidents. “We must do something”, “it’s the HP canopies”, “people just aren’t watching”, and “we need a rule…” are the comments de jour, and to one extent or another they are right. We (used loosely) do need to do something (also used loosely) about our embarrassingly high number of canopy incidents – fatal and otherwise – under properly functioning canopies. The question is what?

At first this problem seemed to be isolated primarily to the “experience vs. wing loading” issue. Hotrods – almost exclusively male for the sake of accuracy – were downsizing new high performance canopies as fast as they could swipe their Platinum Card at the local Parachutes-R-Us. Making matters worse, DZO’s and S&TA’s let them jump the damn things. The results were ugly and nothing short of spectacular from a television producer’s perspective, with incidents resulting in a resounding chorus of “it was only a matter of time” from other jumpers as the femur drilling bastard’s only fitting eulogy. If there was any good news about these guys it was that they were easy to see coming. I once turned a guy with 250 jumps away at the DZ because his rig looked more like a lunchbox than a “250-jump wonder” worthy parachute. He died two weekends later on someone else’s drop zone after botching a hook turn.

The Canopy Collision Conundrum

Things have changed in the time since flying fast canopies was the choice of a select few. After years of a growing acceptance of faster flying canopies at every level of our sport, our problem has evolved from one of mostly high performance canopy pilots, their errors, and anyone who got in their way, to a systemic problem across the skydiving universe that is touching all of us in a most crumpled heap kind of way. Canopy collisions are the big culprit, finding their way into every stage of the skydive and every stage of skydiving. From expert swoopers with thousands of jumps on screeching canopies to beginners just trying to land safely on the way to their first license, we are slamming into each other in otherwise clear air at an alarming rate. We’re tired of losing our friends, but doing the same thing about it that we did last time one of our brethren bounced isn’t working – and it won’t.

Asking the Right Questions

It’s been said that things that are not measured cannot be improved upon. By that same logic, information that is not collected cannot be analyzed, and our incident information collection quite honestly sucks.

Understand this – we will not make gains in reducing canopy collisions until we get serious about collecting all of the pertinent data from them. We simply aren’t asking the right questions.

As an industry, we keep coming back to the same fixes for the canopy collision issue that haven’t fixed a damn thing in the past. Separation of landing areas for varying landing styles, establishment of patterns, jump-run reminders to “keep your head on a swivel”, and USPA “calls to action” and pledge signing campaigns have all been tried, some repeatedly. All have failed.

The sampling of incidents is simply too small and the variables too many to determine what is causing our canopy collision problem. But we can ask questions that may paint a picture of an accident waiting to happen, and that’s where the truth is buried. There are an infinite number of data bits surrounding any accident, and certainly most of them would give no clues to the cause or cure. However, consider this…

What if – just what if – we discovered that 50% of canopies in skydiving today have some neon or bright colors on them, but only 20% of canopy collisions involved canopies sporting them. That would certainly make us believe that canopy colors could be a factor in canopy collisions. The problem is, we don’t know – because we don’t ask.

What if we found that collisions occurred in disproportionate numbers on loads where the jump run was flown to put part of the load out “before center”, causing jumpers to come from opposite directions during approach to the landing area? We certainly would consider curtailing that practice, would we not? Unfortunately we don’t know, because no one has asked the question.

The cure to our collision woes is deep in the details and we aren’t collecting them. In fact, the information we currently gather is barely enough for a police report. Maybe that’s by design since accident information that isn’t collected can’t be used against a drop zone in a lawsuit, but that’s a conversation for another day.

As a start, we should be reporting every detail that can be gleaned from each incident. We will never find a single common denominator, but that’s not the problem anyway. Each incident has a cause, but that cause is unique to that incident. To reduce the number of incidents, we need to start stacking the odds in our favor, and to do that we need facts. Lots of them.

Facts and the Unreported Factors

Fact: two canopies cannot collide if they never occupy the same airspace at the same time. Sounds simple enough, but several times each year, canopy pilots do just that, often with deadly results. But what are the factors that lead to up that moment? Consider these.

Overloaded skies, sort of. The sport has grown and that means bigger airplanes and more canopies in the air at once. This by itself is not an issue. If, for example, a Twin Otter load is made up of a 3-way and bunch of tandems, the jumpers on the 3-way will likely only have 2 other canopies to share air with during descent. Of course these jumpers should remain diligent and watch for other canopies anyway, but the chance of interacting with a tandem pair on the same pass when a jumper saddles at 2,500 feet is pretty slim.

Now let’s look at a different load make-up. What if the load is comprised of several small groups. If the load is filled with two 4-ways with camera, a 3-way, and three 2-way student groups, the under-canopy scenario will be quite different. Assuming everyone has an open canopy at the planned altitude, each 4-way jumper will have at least 10 other canopies within striking distance and even more if a video flyer has a long snivel or if one of the students deploys lower than planned.

If we found that canopy collisions happen in disproportionate numbers on loads with multiple groups deploying at the same or nearly the same altitude, we would begin to see the value in splitting the load and making a second pass. But we don’t know because we don’t collect that information. We don’t ask that question.

As mentioned above, what about canopy colors? We know that brighter colors are detectable at greater distances, which translates to more reaction time to avoid a collision. That’s why bicyclists wear the most obnoxious colors they can find. Not unlike when cars collide with cyclists, the answer from canopy collision survivors is much the same. “I didn’t see him” is the comment most often heard from the offending jumper. I myself have been in the unenviable position of apologizing for getting a bit too close to another jumper under canopy, and the reason was the same every time. I didn’t see the other jumper until I was in close proximity. You have probably had the same thing happen to you. It is clearly possible that brightly colored canopies are in disproportionately fewer collisions than canopies with dark or neutral colors, but we don’t know - because we don’t ask.

The Courage to Question

The above scenarios are just a couple examples, but they get the point across. A myriad of other factors are contributing to the canopy collision issue, but the only pattern we have established so far is our miserable collection of pertinent data that would at least reveal many clues. If we begin asking very detailed questions about each incident, we might be surprised just how much we do know about them.

Hell, the cause of some of these incidents would slap us in the face if we were only willing to be intellectually honest. Two recent incidents that killed 3 jumpers and put another one in the hospital occurred over a tiny patch of grass on a drop zone in a desert environment. Amazingly, that patch of grass was grown for the purpose of using it for a landing area. In hindsight, is it really so tough to see that growing that little patch of grass wasn’t such a good idea? One look at an overhead image of the DZ showing that needle-threading grass strip answers that question – except no one ever asked it.

We’ve separated discipline-specific landing areas, established landing patterns, increased canopy control education and training, signed pledges, and created one idiotic rule after another. It’s not working.

The answers are there, but we won’t find them until we start asking the right questions.



Well thought out Chcuk. I completely agree.
Life expands or contracts in proportion to one's courage. ~Anais Nin

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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.

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Agree. More data collection in the future (although I hope we don't put off trying to improve things waiting for that data to come in).

I'll note that the report by the guy at Eloy on their last ten years worth of incidents found (IIRC) that vistors/new people were disproportionately involved in accidents (although I think not necessarily HP/swoop/>90-degree-turn ones). Perhaps unfamiliarity with the LZ rather means you spend more time looking at where you are going, and so less time spent looking where others are going.

It would be valuable if some other large DZ's also did a survey of their own expriences.

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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.



USPA takes the reports they get and water them down so much there is very little useable data left. They go so far as to not list the date or where it happened. Makes it hard to see trends.

A quote from a USPA accident report


All accompanying documentation will be destroyed with this report.


Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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Well, now we see what happens when winds keep Chuck grounded for a couple of weekends in a row. Maybe it should happen more often ... ;)

Excellent piece, Chuck, and I agree that you ought to submit it. Thanks for taking the time and thought to do it!! Now, how do you propose to compile the list of appropriate questions needed to get data that is more pertinent? Your idea, so I think you'd be a good person to head up a panel!! There are plenty of other folks on here who I would bet are quite willing to help. I'll throw out a couple just off the top of my head for starters, including some of the stuff I remember from posts in the thread (in addition to "standard" incident info) ...

1) Canopy info: make/model/size/color/jumps on it (by that person, that is)/perhaps even canopy progression info?
2) Jump info: jump type/size/breakoff altitude/deployment altitude/jumps at that dz
3) Jump run/load info: Aircraft/load size/Where on load was group/single or multiple pass/jumprun orientation to lz (bracketed lz, or what)
4) landing area/pattern info: description of lz/pattern established, if any/method of determining landing direction at the dz (and if it is usually followed and/or enforced)
5) conditions (wind, cloud cover, any other pertinent weather or related info)

As long as you are happy with yourself ... who cares what the rest of the world thinks?

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Hate to rain on your parade Chuck. It's a great idea though.
The only problem I see is how many more people have to die (5 in the last month) before you have a statistically significant data set?
Near misses are very relevant. It's the difference between a fatality and " There but for the grace of god go I"

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>I think we also need to start looking into how we load the aircraft. We are
>so concerned with freefall collisions that we are inducing canopy traffic that
>is unecessary.

I agree that we do need to look at things like exit order, but I hesitate to make significant changes to how we are dealing with the threat of freefall collisions. I recall 5-6 years having a LOT of issues with close calls and freefall collisions, and that led to several changes/clarifications on how we load aircraft:

-RW out first as a rule
-time based separation based on upper wind speeds (i.e. no more 45 degree rule)
-wingsuit flight pattern planning

Since then we've drastically cut down on the number of close calls and freefall collisions. I'd hate to give that progress up.

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Only see a couple of holes in this plan....
1. The more detailed information you try to collect, the less that will be submitted. USPA "waters down" incident reports and destroys them after for a very good reason. They want the information and they don't want to be hauled into court afterwards. Want to get hit by someone under canopy and then get sued because YOU weren't flying a bright enough canopy?
Very few drop-zone submit more than the baics to USPA, and often don't submit non-fatal reports for this reason.
2. Even though the information you're seeking may well be benificial, does this mean we don't take action until the problem has been studied for 2 or 3 years?
3. The real solution, unfortunately, is to pretty much get rid of swooping. Maybe we adreneline junkies won't like that answer, but it is what it is. Just like base jumping is a "test of god's love for me today", so, it would appear, is swooping. A lot of very experienced jumper have died from the swoop or from a canopy collision during the swoop. If this was all low-timers and inexperienced jumpers, I could buy into the education solution. Reality seems to say otherwise.
If we don't/can't get rid of this, let's at least move the swoop areas out as far from the loading/packing area as we can and put it somewhere that is usually out of the flight path of other jumpers. Then make the set-up area a "no-fly zone for all others.
That, and maybe change the BSR's to not allow for any turns over 90 by anyone with an Instructional rating while doing student training jumps.
Don't misunderstand me. I don't really want this to happen, but in light of everything that's happened, I have come to realise that it must.
This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

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I disagree that the answer is to get rid of swooping. It might be to get rid of the casual swoop at the end of a skydive. But 30 years ago it was common to do a 2-stack (or bigger) at the end of a skydive. Now CRW is something that's worth a skydive all by itself, and we worry about other canopies in the air with it.

Might be time for the same approach to swooping. Except, of course, swoopers have much prettier gear :)
Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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>3. The real solution, unfortunately, is to pretty much get rid of swooping.

I disagree completely. There's nothing wrong with swooping, just as there's nothing wrong with CRW, wingsuiting or head-down speed records. The problem only arises when you try to mix those things.

Swooping the swoop pond during your own pass? No problem at all. Swooping in the main area after doing a tandem video because it's fun? Problem.

> let's at least move the swoop areas out as far from the loading/packing
>area as we can and put it somewhere that is usually out of the flight path
>of other jumpers. Then make the set-up area a "no-fly zone for all others.

Add a separate pass to that and you have a nearly 100% guarantee that swoopers will not take out people flying a standard pattern.

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Wendy

I know just what you mean about crw. When we all flew similar canopies at about the same low wing-loading, almost every jump could/would have a little crw at the end. Crw is now a dedicated jump mostly because you need to have highly-specialized canopies to do it, and crw has gotten more dangerous because those canopies are also highly load ZP.
Crw at the end of the jump didn't end for safety reasons.
This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

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Asking the Right Questions



One factor which you don't mention explicitly is differential speed (i.e. the closing speed) between canopies. If everyone is flying more or less the same pattern at more or less the same speed, then collisions are less likely to occur as there is time for avoidance. History shows that this works. As the closing speed increases, time reduces and the opportunities for seeing the other canopy and altering course reduce.

So what factors increase closing speed:

Wing loading: a canopy loaded at 2.0 flies roughly 40% faster than a canopy loaded at 1.0

Pattern: Flying in different directions - two canopies loaded at 1.0 flying towards each other will have 2.5 times the closing speed of a canopy loaded at 2.0 flying up behind a canopy loaded at 1.0.

Induced speed: The faster you are going, the faster the closing speed and hence you have less time available and you need more space to avoid a collision.

IMO, banning small canopies and/or swooping isn't the best way forward, it lies in better separation between faster and slower canopies and rules relative to the size of dropzone and aircraft.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." -- Albert Einstein

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Hey guys, I'm going to try and get an answer from tjhe HP SERIOUS pilots. I am not trying to be a smart ass...ban swooping....or cancel christmas here.

Why not just agree that HP pilots get there on load- all HP pilots on the load - they all get out low?

I realize that it would require a bit of work, and may cause the HP pilots to make a choice but it would seem to fix THIS part of the problem.

Is it nothing more than the HP group wants both at any expense?

To me the HP pilots need to be treated like the special group they are. (I mean that honestly) with special needs.
Kevin Keenan is my hero, a double FUP, he does so much with so little

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We have licenses on who we can jump with, the time of day we can jump, and where we can land. Outside of pro/instructor ratings, we stop counting and licensing after someone hits 500 jumps and their D license; we have no ratings for canopy piloting skill levels. Just 'guidelines' left open to the subjective evaluation of DZO/DZM/S&TA's. How many of these are swoopers themselves with potential bias towards regulation?

The missing element is 'required' training and licensing. How hard would it be to implement a CPI role with the following license categories?

a) Jumpers who wish to do high performance landings - limiting the turn radius depending on X number of successful jumps in the previous level (90, 180, etc). Breaking the rules during 'student' status (say 90 degree turns for X jumps) is an instant USAT and requires the jumper to pay for/re-take the course.

b) Jumpers who wish to down size to a specific wing loading

Training and experience are missing -- so let's require it for the 'privilege' that is costing us lives.

~GaVak
Life doesn't need reasons, just participants.

D.S.#21

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Near misses should be evaluated as well.



Another +1 for this. They should be treated the same way in terms of causal analysis. The causes of collisions are the same as the causes for near misses. The difference is only measured in feet. The saying, "any one you walk away from," is more often taken to heart as, "nobody got hurt so no problem." It is difficult to be self-critical, and so people often are not.

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We have licenses on who we can jump with, the time of day we can jump, and where we can land. Outside of pro/instructor ratings, we stop counting and licensing after someone hits 500 jumps and their D license; we have no ratings for canopy piloting skill levels. Just 'guidelines' left open to the subjective evaluation of DZO/DZM/S&TA's. How many of these are swoopers themselves with potential bias towards regulation?

The missing element is 'required' training and licensing. How hard would it be to implement a CPI role with the following license categories?

a) Jumpers who wish to do high performance landings - limiting the turn radius depending on X number of successful jumps in the previous level (90, 180, etc). Breaking the rules during 'student' status (say 90 degree turns for X jumps) is an instant USAT and requires the jumper to pay for/re-take the course.

b) Jumpers who wish to down size to a specific wing loading

Training and experience are missing -- so let's require it for the 'privilege' that is costing us lives.

~GaVak



How's that going to help people that refuse to keep their eyes open for other jumpers?

Make them score 100% on a 200 question aerodynamics test, fly their canopies through hoops, demonstrate 100 perfect downwind landings, blah blah blah. It's all worthless if they think the sky is theirs. The most skilled canopy pilot in the world is just as deadly as the least skilled when neither of them are looking out.

The culture needs to change. The prevalence of higher capacity aircraft have put more obstacles in the skies. Fast, square parachutes have made those obstacles less predictable and more difficult to avoid.

Has the culture changed to compensate for those changes? Has the guidance handed down from the veterans to the newbies evolved in proportion? I don't know, I wasn't there in those days, but there is absolutely no doubt that too many people dismiss the dangers of canopy flight. Rules and regulations won't fix that. Education and awareness will.

It's on the DZOs to MAKE collision avoidance a part of the culture at their drop zone (including enacting policies to mitigate some of the risk factors specific to their DZ). It's on the instructors and mentors to drill it into the heads of the less experienced jumpers. It's on EVERYONE to have zero tolerance for close calls and dangerous jumpers.

Vigilance under the canopy needs to be taught from jump one and reinforced to no end. "See and avoid" needs to be just as much a mantra for skydivers as it is for VFR pilots.

Sure, you can regulate the danger away and make it impossible for people to hurt themselves. Keep going down that road, though, and eventually we'll all be doing our "jumping" in wind tunnels.

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