Nitro 150- Too much or Good to go

[D27109 0]

Hey Roy
I agree with you 100% I did not jump for 4 years, made 3 jumps last month and thought to myself while under canopy, I got fat and need to up size from this 135 to a 150.

[ecnuob 0]

The experience of the older generation goes both ways. I think your going to see this even more, even if you start yelling at the tops of your lungs.

Today's jumpers have the years of experience in what did and did not work for those that came before us. Which includes the benefit of better, more experienced instructors then you had. I don't think it is unreasonable at all to think that we could progress safely, at a faster rate then our instructors did. Previous generation had to learn through trial and error, now we already know what works and can teach that much quicker then in the past.

I would go as far as to argue that the evolution we have seen in other sports higher, faster, farther and so on, carries over into the athletes of our generation doing the same in skydiving.

More jumpers are going to start wing-suiting, flying cameras and jumping smaller canopies earlier. Hopefully not all three at once, but all three seem to circle around that magical 200 jump number. Are a few gonna get hurt and or die? Possibly, but the same thing happens in skiing, mountain biking, motocross and all the other adrenalin sports... Even some of those that follow the BSRs to a t and check off every step along the way are. As pointed out in another thread, it's not just the new that get hurt and an equal if not greater number of those with the "magical experience numbers" will too, even if they aren't pushing the limits.

Before you jump on me and say I haven't been around long enough to see the damages, injuries and deaths that will change my mind. I have, and sadly I am fully aware that I will probably lose more friends to early along the way, possible even ones that do everything right. It's a dangerous game we all play, but we are going to have fun, and enjoy it to the maximum while we are here together and help one another to progress at a pace that fits our personal abilities.

[billvon 2,400]

> Which includes the benefit of better, more experienced instructors then
> you had. I don't think it is unreasonable at all to think that we could
> progress safely, at a faster rate then our instructors did.

The problem there is that people start to think that the only limitations to progress in this sport is the quality of instruction. And while that is true in a great many sports, it's less true in a sport where mistakes are often fatal.

Can people advance faster due to good instruction? Yes. Can they advance as fast as they have been? I think the injury and fatality stats indicate that they cannot.

> Possibly, but the same thing happens in skiing, mountain biking,
> motocross and all the other adrenalin sports...

Absolutely. The difference is that most people will survive even serious mistakes in those sports.

[ecnuob 0]

I could be wrong here, but it looks to me that most of the fatal and near fatal mistakes aren't the 100 and 200 jump wonders that are jumping cameras, wing-suiting and flying sabres at 1.3 and asking/talking about it here on Dorkzone. It's those in the, i call them "storm years" that are past that stage and beginning to try advance canopy flight and bigger wing-suits, probably without the benefit of instruction. Because they feel they don't need it anymore. I see it all the time in skiing, where as a ski patroller I've seen more then my fair share of broken bodies and fatal mistakes by people trying to take it to far to early without instruction.

It;s these jumpers that we really need to look out for and remind that just because they've hit that magic number doesn't mean they can do whatever they want.

I liken it to drinking in Europe vs. the USA. Europeans grow up with it, they learn to handle it as they progress and as a result have far fewer issues with it in their early 20's (the storm years) then American kids who sneak it, aren't taught how to handle it and then thrown the keys to the liquor cabinet at 21. Hard and fast numbers do not work.


[soapbox]
I for one am tired of being a lowest common denominator society, just because Bob couldn't handle it doesn't mean Jill cant. Let's trust our instructors and progress people at a pace commensurate with their own abilities. It's our job to tell them they should seek professional advice from someone who knows their skill level, not to berate them on the internet and tell them they are going to die, you might be right, but who are you to say?
[/soapbox]

[billvon 2,400]

>It's those in the, i call them "storm years" that are past that stage and
>beginning to try advance canopy flight and bigger wing-suits, probably
>without the benefit of instruction.

I agree 100%. But more and more often I see the "storm years" starting before the 200 jump stage. After all, the sport has changed, those Gopros sure are tiny and safe, instruction is so much better, they have beginner wingsuits for people with 50 jumps etc etc.

> Let's trust our instructors and progress people at a pace
>commensurate with their own abilities.

OK. Let's say an AFF instructor sees a jumper progressing to canopies that are much too small for them to fly safely. He tells them that, and they say "hey, thanks dude, but Joe the freeflyer told me I'd be fine, and he understands my skillz and you don't because you've only seen me land five times. Heck, I'm downsizing again next week!"

What happens next?

[ecnuob 0]

Quote

> Let's trust our instructors and progress people at a pace
>commensurate with their own abilities.

OK. Let's say an AFF instructor sees a jumper progressing to canopies that are much too small for them to fly safely. He tells them that, and they say "hey, thanks dude, but Joe the freeflyer told me I'd be fine, and he understands my skillz and you don't because you've only seen me land five times. Heck, I'm downsizing again next week!"

What happens next?

I would start by talking to Joe. Maybe Joe knows something I don't or I know something Joe don't. I certainly know people like Joe the freeflyer that I look up to and may value his opinion over someone I don't know. Just like I value the instructors at my DZ over your opinion (doesnt mean Im not listening to you though) If you fail to get either a satisfactory answer on why or to get Joe to talk to the jumper and the jumper truly is unsafe then by all means ground him and call the neighbors. If that fails, then buy a square, some people cant be helped.

[billvon 2,400]

>I would start by talking to Joe.

Joe says "he'll be fine. Haven't seen him jump much but he's an adult just like you; let him make his own decisions."

The problem here is that people have very selective hearing. We see this here all the time. Someone will really, really want to jump a Crossfire, and all the experienced people on his DZ say "that's a really, really bad idea." Finally they find a guy who hasn't seen him jump much but says "a Crossfire isn't too much different than your Safire. Both are Icarus. You're a big boy, decide on your own." And in the jumper's mind, he now has an 'expert recommendation' that he's good to go.

At some DZ's (like Perris) there's a pretty good gatekeeper in the gear store manager. Since most new jumpers rent from the gear store, they have to approve their canopy choices. And since Dave is nosy, and he can see the landing area from the store, he watches a LOT of landings. And since he has a vested interest in the jumper not hurting themselves and not destroying his gear, he is pretty conservative in what he rents out

That's a pretty good model; set a gate they have to clear before they can downsize. Unfortunately, in many cases, that gate is a lot lower (or nonexistent.) And any attempt to reconstruct that gate is met with calls of "canopy nazi! fossil!" and a very defensive jumper who feels like he must now justify his skills to people who (in his mind) doubt his skill.

Which is one reason an objective test is a better idea than any sort of limit. But it's hard to implement; if you are going to require someone to prove they can flat turn at 100 feet and flare turn 45 degrees, you're going to see a lot of injuries from people who want the smaller canopy and try to prove they're ready before they are.

[ecnuob 0]

Quote

>It's those in the, i call them "storm years" that are past that stage and
>beginning to try advance canopy flight and bigger wing-suits, probably
>without the benefit of instruction.

I agree 100%. But more and more often I see the "storm years" starting before the 200 jump stage. After all, the sport has changed, those Gopros sure are tiny and safe, instruction is so much better, they have beginner wingsuits for people with 50 jumps etc etc.

I'll assume you said this tongue in cheek. But to a small extent isn't some of it true? Gopros have lessened the snag and hard opening/neck injury hazards of early camera flying, and jumping one has become almost solely about handling the possible distractions.

Instruction certainly is better, equipment is safer and more reliable. 20 years ago, something similar to today's Sabre2 170 at 1:1 would have been considered radical and crazy for even a jumper with 200 jumps. Now it appears to be not that uncommon to see as a student setup (though still outside of germains recommendations)

Wing-suits, I have no experience with but i would venture to say they have gotten marginally easier to fly and here too, instruction has gotten better through experiance. But as we've seen the lack of regulation on instructing (and number of questionable instructors) really leaves many of the prospective wing-suitors in the lurch on who to trust. Causing a need to have that level of experience to be able to make there own decisions. I have no doubt there are a handful of people out there that given the right instruction can and do safely fly wing-suits well under 200 jumps.


The sport has advanced considerably, and while some will continue to make the mistakes of old and you'll hear about every on of them. Many more will advance quicker then commonly thought possible, but you'll never hear about most of them. This is such a small sport, every thing that goes wrong get amplified, while 100's of thousands of jumps happen without incident. Every day novice cyclist's great creamed by cars, intermediate skiers smash their heads on trees and motorcyclists crash. Let us not forget that for a sport with such an obvious potential for death and injury we've done a remarkably good job of dodging it. BSR's have there place and have done well, but should stand for Basic Safety recommendation, not requirement.

[billvon 2,400]

> But to a small extent isn't some of it true? Gopros have lessened the
>snag and hard opening/neck injury hazards of early camera flying . . .

No, Gopros definitely have not lessened the snag hazards; they are pretty snag prone things when used with the factory mount, as several recent incidents have pointed out. Indeed, since jumpers "turn them on and forget about them" and go do regular RW since they are so light and small, they are arguably worse snag hazards than a dedicated camera that someone is using to video 4-way.

Indeed, one of the reasons they are dangerous in that people THINK they are snag resistant.

However, they are lighter and smaller. And while this has undoubtedly led to fewer neck injuries, that also leads to people taking them on all sorts of dives where they otherwise would not.

>20 years ago, something similar to today's Sabre2 170 at 1:1 would have
>been considered radical and crazy for even a jumper with 200 jumps. Now it
>appears to be not that uncommon to see as a student setup (though still
>outside of germains recommendations)

Agreed. And the problem is that while instruction has changed, physics has not. There's an odd notion floating around that a Sabre2 170 was deadly back in 1990 (actually back then it would have been a Monarch 170) but today it's much safer. It's not; the same mistake will kill you just as dead, and people have demonstrated that they make the same mistakes under them.

Can people handle them better with less experience? If canopy size progression sped up and the under-canopy fatality rate stayed about the same, you would have a good argument that that was true. However, it is now the #1 way people kill themselves in the sport - so I don't think it's quite keeping up with the increase in downsizing speed.

>Wing-suits, I have no experience with but i would venture to say they
>have gotten marginally easier to fly and here too, instruction has gotten
>better through experiance.

Again, agreed. But also again, the problem is that forgetting your legstraps will guarantee your death in some of the newer, easier to use, easier to fly suits. So the risk has arguably gone up there. And at the same time the number of jumps people have before they start using wingsuits has gone down.

> Many more will advance quicker then commonly thought possible,
>but you'll never hear about most of them.

Ay, there's the rub. As you push the limits harder and harder, you'll have a larger percentage of people injured, crippled and killed - but there will always people who get away with taking any given risk. I could take someone from off the street, strap a modern student rig to him, tell him "pull this handle in about a minute, and pull these two if something bad happens, pull the yellow things to steer" and throw him out of the plane - and 99% of them would survive, 90% without serious injury.

Now, no one here would take those 9 out of 10 people who survived without serious injury as proof that we don't need rules on student training.

To get closer to your examples. I don't think anyone here would argue that a 25 jump recent grad could safely fly a wingsuit or jump a Xaos27 loaded at 2 to 1 - even if 90% of them survived the attempt. And while you could argue that "they're off student status, they can do whatever they want" most people understand that that's not quite true; there are risks that even recent grads just plain don't understand yet.

So there has to be a middle ground where people can do what they want, but not expose them to unreasonable levels of risk. What's unreasonable? All too often, it is defined in practice by what kills a lot of people - and that's where BSR's come from.

>Let us not forget that for a sport with such an obvious potential for death
>and injury we've done a remarkably good job of dodging it. BSR's have
>there place and have done well, but should stand for Basic Safety
>recommendation, not requirement.

I agree that we've done a pretty good job, but I'd argue that part of the reason we have is the BSR's and the enforcement of them. It would be nice to think that people listen hard to USPA recommendations, but as we've seen here, they don't. Heck, they often don't even listen to BSR's, although BSR's are occasionally enforced - and their irregular and infrequent enforcement is often enough to at least reduce the risk of that activity (like low pulls or demos.)

> Every day novice cyclist's great creamed by cars, intermediate
>skiers smash their heads on trees and motorcyclists crash.

Agreed. But let's look at the comparative risks:

About 40 people a year die skiing or snowboarding. In the US people ski about 60 million times a year. About 20 people a year die skydiving out of 3 million jumps. That's a fatality rate that's ten times higher, even assuming that one jump is equivalent to a day of skiing of, say, 20 runs. Assuming that a jump is akin to a ski run, it's 200 times higher.

That's just the nature of the sport. If things go to shit skiing, you can just fall and (usually) come to a stop shortly thereafter - perhaps resulting in a yard sale, or a broken thumb, or even a serious injury. But in general, just giving up will not kill you. In skydiving, it will. That's a very basic difference between the sports, one that makes any comparison in skill requirements between them difficult to justify.

[Profman 0]

I'm new to the sport and just earned my "A" stamp. Like most folks at my level, I have about 20 +/- minutes of free-fall time. That's it. In 20 minutes I learned how to fall stable, turn, get stable, doc, track, and swoop. To put this in perspective, it took me longer to learn how to tie my shoes and to ride my bike, both activities that are a heck of a lot safer than skydiving. Simply put, there is no way in Hades to be proficient in any complex activity with 20 minutes to a few hours of practice. The same thing goes for canopy flight.

Low jump numbers are an indicator limited actual time performing in the skydiving environment. Downsizing rapidly against the advice/experience of people with many, many hours under various canopies (under varying conditions) seems like an obviously bad idea. I don't know (yet) what I don't know... so I have to listen and be willing to take the advice of people who know more than I. Self-deception in this sport can be a killer.

The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.

[feuergnom 22]

Quote

they are pretty snag prone things when used with the factory mount, as several recent incidents have pointed out.

would you have any links/stories etc?

The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle

dudeist skydiver # 666

[beowulf 1]

For someone who has so few jumps you have a very naive view of the sport. If you make it to 1000 jumps you will think differently. That is not to imply you will get hurt or die before 1000 jumps. It's just that not very many people last in this sport, besides getting hurt or killed they either can't afford it or lose interest.

[timmyfitz 0]

Excellent posts ecnuob. You seem to have a good grasp of the situation.

Also, remember that until you have about 1903 jumps, you are naive, no matter how correct your advice is.

[DocPop 1]

Quote

OK. Let's say an AFF instructor sees a jumper progressing to canopies that are much too small for them to fly safely. He tells them that, and they say "hey, thanks dude, but Joe the freeflyer told me I'd be fine, and he understands my skillz and you don't because you've only seen me land five times. Heck, I'm downsizing again next week!"

What happens next?

My understanding of what should happen next is that they all go to the S&TA who assesses the situation and makes a final decision. If the jumper doesn't like it he doesn't get to jump. Simple.

What I don't fully understand is why is this system not working.

"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

[beowulf 1]

LOL, nice one!


I think there is a good reason why more experienced jumpers are less likely to advocate downsizing quickly. The results are often very harsh.


His post advocate fewer rules and more of a free for all, because we have better instructors as opposed to years past and people apparently progress faster now and shouldn't be held back. I find that to be very naive.

[billvon 2,400]

>would you have any links/stories etc?

One is a personal one. I've used Gopros both as backup cameras on my regular helmet and to video students for feedback. It's pretty grabby. Even though my primary camera is an unboxed CX100, if I snag a line after landing, 75% of the time it's going to be on the Gopro. There's something about that friction-lock knob that sticks out that's a line magnet.

Another is from a video that was in Photography a while back. A jumper with a Gopro actually managed to get it snagged on another jumper's sleeve on exit, and it wouldn't clear for a bit. This led him to flying with his head held down by the other jumper's sleeve. Obviously a very dangerous situation (what if one had had a premature deployment, or could not clear the snag by deployment altitude?) but fortunately was clearable.

A third is in Spot's collection of stories; a jumper with a chest mount Gopro managed to snag a suspension line on the camera during deployment. He was able to clear it by yanking on it.