USPA Safety Day advertisement

[riggerpaul 1]

So, anybody actually know the jumper in the photo that started this?

Is he reading the threads?

What does he think about all this?

Or, was it actually a stunt for the ad in the first place?

[kallend 1,683]

Pity for your thesis that the current generation of wimpy jumpers is killing itself off at a significantly lower rate than the supermen of yesteryear that you admire so.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[riggerpaul 1]

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Pity for your thesis that the current generation of wimpy jumpers is killing itself off at a significantly lower rate than the supermen of yesteryear that you admire so.

You don't really want to go here, do you?

We'll like as not discover that the recent impressive number for US fatalities is an aberration, as opposed to a trend.

That would be sad, but not wholly unexpected.

Did you read the thread where the fellow with 80 jumps couldn't do a stable hop'n'pop from 3500' for a canopy course?

Perhaps USPA should mandate no exits below 5000'. Then everybody could get stable for the pull.

If it would save one life, it would be well worth it, right?

[topdocker 0]

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Pity for your thesis that the current generation of wimpy jumpers is killing itself off at a significantly lower rate than the supermen of yesteryear that you admire so.

Probably so, but with the aid of GPS, AAD's, square reserves, three rings, better fitting gear, coaching, tandem training, and the wisdom we gleamed from the death of those "supermen," etc. Today's skydiving environment is way safer than it was twenty or twenty-five years ago. Or even ten.

Except for landing!!!

I don't think today's jumper is wimpier, but certainly they don't get near as much trial by fire as those of us who learned a while ago. And I don't want to go back to the "old way" either!

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Jump more, post less!

[kallend 1,683]

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Pity for your thesis that the current generation of wimpy jumpers is killing itself off at a significantly lower rate than the supermen of yesteryear that you admire so.

Probably so, but with the aid of GPS, AAD's, square reserves, three rings, better fitting gear, coaching, tandem training, and the wisdom we gleamed from the death of those "supermen," etc. Today's skydiving environment is way safer than it was twenty or twenty-five years ago. Or even ten.

Except for landing!!!

I don't think today's jumper is wimpier, but certainly they don't get near as much trial by fire as those of us who learned a while ago. And I don't want to go back to the "old way" either!

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The outcome IS the outcome. More jumpers, more jumps, fewer fatalities.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[robinheid 0]

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Pity for your thesis that the current generation of wimpy jumpers is killing itself off at a significantly lower rate than the supermen of yesteryear that you admire so.

There you go again, making stuff up...

To repeat the thesis you misrepresent: in addition to the continuing mostly above-average-in-courage-capability-alertness-and-awareness people who start jumping (i.e., "supermen"), our system actively encourages instead of discourages the continued participation of that fraction of people who want to jump but shouldn't be jumping -- so imagine how much lower the fatality rate could go if we started saying "no" a little more often at the outset?

But thanks for the reminder, Professor Kallend; it supports my principal thesis throughout this thread, which is:

Tail strikes due to climbing passes aren't a big deal so we don't need to make more rules to deal with them; informal reminders such as the jingle I proposed are more than sufficient.

LOOK before you leave the door,
SEE the tail, don't ignore.
LOOK before you leave the door,
DON'T hit the tail!

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[kallend 1,683]

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Pity for your thesis that the current generation of wimpy jumpers is killing itself off at a significantly lower rate than the supermen of yesteryear that you admire so.

You don't really want to go here, do you?

We'll like as not discover that the recent impressive number for US fatalities is an aberration, as opposed to a trend.

I have been following the trend very carefully for many years now. I posted this a few years ago. It is down, and down by quite a lot, even without 2009's low numbers. In fact the long term trend (taking a moving average) is a 5% decline in fatality rate per year since 1986 (the earliest for which I had data).

Here are the raw US fatality numbers from "the Good Ole Days", a period when USPA membership was around half of what it is now:

Year - Fatalities
1969- 39
1970- 30
1971- 39
1972- 34
1973- 44
1975- 41
1976- 55
1977- 50
1978- 48
1979- 55
1980- 47
1981- 56
1982- 29
1983- 29
1984- 35
1985- 27
1986- 31
1987- 28
1988- 23
1989- 36

1990 was the first year USPA membership went over 20,000

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 1,683]

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Pity for your thesis that the current generation of wimpy jumpers is killing itself off at a significantly lower rate than the supermen of yesteryear that you admire so.

There you go again, making stuff up...

Ahem - I've posted the numbers, which clearly support my claim and refute yours.

I hope you do your research more carefully when you are a "court certified expert"

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[davelepka 4]

I wanted so badly to be done with you on this subject, but your words drew me back in. Your crazy, crazy, words....but I digress (not really, just wanted to say it before you did).

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trust(ing) every single one of them to do the right thing" on exit is a bogus premise: We don't need to "trust" them; we need to remind them.

We who?

This is not the military, and we don't have a 'jumpmaster' standing by the door telling us what to do. There is no guarantee that there will be an experienced and reliable jumper on board every load with a lwo pass to remind the jumpers to mind the tail.

The only real guarantee is to remove the risk of the tailstrike but raising the tail.

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Seriously, everyone on this thread arguing for a climbing pass ban is basically accepting - and trying to put bandaids on - a system that "passes" people through AFF training who can't think at a 3-year-old level.

So it seems to me that we need to think less about power settings and pitch angles and more about who we're letting on the airplanes

So let's think about it. Let's be more realistic with the training. Let's treat people like adults, and tell them they failed when they fail, and that their life will end if they don't 'man up' and start paying attention to the details of their situation. Let's turn the tide, and mold the training to produce the jumpers we want to find in between us and the door in an emergency.

We're still left with a contingent of jumpers who had their hands held, their tears wiped from their crying eyes and were told that everything would be OK, and now we have to make sure that everything will indeed be Ok by raising the tail.

SIDENOTE?

Forget all the personal responsibility, legal liability, and USPA positioning. If a tailstrike is possible on a climbing pass and raising the tail would eliminate that risk, isn't the prudent move just to raise the tail?

As you correctly pointed out, a DZ is a business, and any costs related to raising the tail can simply be passed on to the consumer, and let the law of supply and demand do it's thing. It's not like we're rationing food or water in limited supply, it's just the price of jumps.

Costs go up, prices go up. It's the perfect crime (solution, the perfect solution).

[robinheid 0]

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Pity for your thesis that the current generation of wimpy jumpers is killing itself off at a significantly lower rate than the supermen of yesteryear that you admire so.

There you go again, making stuff up...

Ahem - I've posted the numbers, which clearly support my claim and refute yours.

I hope you do your research more carefully when you are a "court certified expert"

Sigh...

What you made up was not the fatality numbers but your comparison between what you called today's wimpy jumpers and the supermen of yesteryear.

I made no such reference or distinction, nor did I use either term - you did.

So I will say again:

The fatality numbers you reference support my principal thread thesis (not the thesis you created for me out of thin air):

Tail strikes due to climbing passes aren't a big deal so we don't need to make more rules to deal with them; informal reminders such as the jingle I proposed are more than sufficient.

LOOK before you leave the door,
SEE the tail, don't ignore.
LOOK before you leave the door,
DON'T hit the tail!

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[kallend 1,683]

The fatality rate is way down compared with 25 years ago.

Spin it anyhow you like, but that is the way it is.

The source of the data was Jack Gregory, former director of safety and training for USPA.

One of the reasons (among many) is better equipment. Another is better procedures.

Flying straight and level on jump run is a better procedure. It should be standard operating procedure.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[NovaTTT 2]

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Perhaps USPA should mandate no exits below 5000'. Then everybody could get stable for the pull.

If it would save one life, it would be well worth it, right?

Touché

"Even in a world where perfection is unattainable, there's still a difference between excellence and mediocrity." Gary73

[riggerpaul 1]

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Pity for your thesis that the current generation of wimpy jumpers is killing itself off at a significantly lower rate than the supermen of yesteryear that you admire so.

You don't really want to go here, do you?

We'll like as not discover that the recent impressive number for US fatalities is an aberration, as opposed to a trend.

I have been following the trend very carefully for many years now. I posted this a few years ago. It is down, and down by quite a lot, even without 2009's low numbers. In fact the long term trend (taking a moving average) is a 5% decline in fatality rate per year since 1986 (the earliest for which I had data).

Here are the raw US fatality numbers from "the Good Ole Days", a period when USPA membership was around half of what it is now:

Year - Fatalities
1969- 39
1970- 30
1971- 39
1972- 34
1973- 44
1975- 41
1976- 55
1977- 50
1978- 48
1979- 55
1980- 47
1981- 56
1982- 29
1983- 29
1984- 35
1985- 27
1986- 31
1987- 28
1988- 23
1989- 36

I didn't say anything about the good old days.

Look at the more recent numbers

1996 39
1997 32
1998 47
1999 27
2000 32
2001 35
2002 33
2003 25
2004 21
2005 27
2006 21
2007 18
2008 30
2009 16

These are all in the "modern" era, with membership numbers of over 32,000.

The numbers go up and down. Look at 2007. that was a pretty good year, and was followed by 2008 with 30.

The change from year to year goes up or down with about equal probability. I don't believe we are seeing any clear trend.

Being too particularly proud of ourselves for 2009 is a bit premature.

The February Parachutist has the list back to 1961.

The raw numbers don't really change all that much, especially considering the range of memberships involved. I don't know what that really means. The worst was 56 in 1981, when we had only half the members we have today.

So, maybe things are getting a bit better. I know for sure that the gear is better. It could be that the modern square parachute is when things really changed, but that's not entirely clear. Maybe AADs helped. But that wasn't really clear based on the numbers from the early 90s when the modern AAD emerged.

Sure, there appears to be hope. The numbers could be far worse, especially when you think about the membership numbers.

(Edit to remove the paragraph about plane crashes. They don't count in these numbers. Sorry.)

Thinking that we have some clear downward trend that we can expect to continue?

I don't think that is a sure thing at all.

But we digress.

I did not intend that post to be so much about the numbers but about the question about how far we should go procedurally to save another life.

Regarding the number, I only meant to say we should be cautious about being so proud of ourselves just yet.

But I really do want to explore the matter of how far we should go procedurally to save lives.

Should we say that all exits are 5000' or higher if it saves a life? If not, why not?

Based on my position regarding the climbing exit, I have been accused of not caring about the people who get hurt or killed. I was asked if banning the climbing exit would save one life, wouldn't it be worth it?

Okay, maybe it would.

Right now I am interested in finding out how far we should take that logic.

[PhreeZone 15]

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It could very well be that the thing that makes 2009 special is that there were no plane crashes. That's mentioned in February's "Gearing Up" column. I think this may be more significant that the single sentence in the column might make it seem. One plane crash could have made the 2009 numbers much more similar to the other recent years than different

USPA does not add plane crash fatality number in with the annual total - that is a different number.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[robinheid 0]

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I wanted so badly to be done with you on this subject, but your words drew me back in.

And I wasn't going to draw you back in but you mentioned me by name so I had to...

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...There is no guarantee that there will be an experienced and reliable jumper on board every load with a low pass to remind the jumpers to mind the tail.

How experienced do you have to be to remind someone to not hit the tail when they go out on a climbing pass? This is part of my main objection with the "rulemaking" proposed in this thread:

* It's not that big a deal (as Professor Kallend's reminder emphasizes)

* It can be handled informally.

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SIDENOTE?

Forget all the personal responsibility, legal liability, and USPA positioning. If a tailstrike is possible on a climbing pass and raising the tail would eliminate that risk, isn't the prudent move just to raise the tail?

Your question is flawed because the "possibility" of a tail strike exists with "raised tail" exits too so let me rephrase your question:

If a tailstrike is more likely on a climbing pass and raising the tail would reduce that risk, isn't the prudent move just to raise the tail?

The answer is "yes" when this small element of a drop zone operation is viewed from climbing-pass altitude, but "not necessarily" when looked at from 50,000 feet. Scroll through this thread and you'll multiple posts from people other than myself which detail why in big-picture terms "not necessarily" is the correct answer.

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As you correctly pointed out, a DZ is a business, and any costs related to raising the tail can simply be passed on to the consumer, and let the law of supply and demand do its thing.

As you correctly point out, let supply and demand work instead of using centralized diktats to force all businesses to do what may or may not be in their best interests.

So I will say again:

Tail strikes due to climbing passes aren't a big deal so we don't need to make more rules to deal with them; informal reminders are more than sufficient.

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[kallend 1,683]

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The change from year to year goes up or down with about equal probability. I don't believe we are seeing any clear trend.

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You are wrong. On average the downswings exceed the upswings.

The beauty of statistical analysis is that it allows you to separate out the random fluctuations and see the long term trend. I HAVE done this. The long term trend is a reduction in fatality rate of approximately 5% per year.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 1,683]

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So I will say again:

Tail strikes due to climbing passes aren't a big deal so we don't need to make more rules to deal with them; informal reminders are more than sufficient.

Hook turns in the pattern aren't that big of a deal, most people get away with them without injury.

Low pull contests aren't that big of a deal, most people got away with them without any problem.

Blast handles and Novas didn't kill that many people - what's the big deal?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[robinheid 0]

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On average the downswings exceed the upswings.

The beauty of statistical analysis is that it allows you to separate out the random fluctuations and see the long term trend. I HAVE done this. The long term trend is a reduction in fatality rate of approximately 5% per year.

Spot on, Professor, so now please apply this same statistical analysis to climbing-pass fatalities during the turbine era and I betcha a case of beer your statistical analysis will concur with my intuitive analysis:

Tail strikes due to climbing passes aren't a big deal so we don't need to make more rules to deal with them; informal reminders are more than sufficient.

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[riggerpaul 1]

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It could very well be that the thing that makes 2009 special is that there were no plane crashes. That's mentioned in February's "Gearing Up" column. I think this may be more significant that the single sentence in the column might make it seem. One plane crash could have made the 2009 numbers much more similar to the other recent years than different

USPA does not add plane crash fatality number in with the annual total - that is a different number.

Okay, yes, of course. Thanks for pointing that out. My mistake.

I'll edit that out of the post if I can.

-paul

[topdocker 0]

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The fatality rate is way down compared with 25 years ago.


Flying straight and level on jump run is a better procedure. It should be standard operating procedure.

So is the fatality rate for driving, doesn't mean the roads are any safer, just better cars and roads!

So, if I don't get a straight and level flight on any jumprun, I can turn the pilot into USPA? The FAA? If there is a rule, there must be enforcement. Who does that, the FAA? How straight and how level? Is 100ft/min climb too much? In turbulence, the tail may unexpectedly go up and down to maintain level flight, do you bust the PIC for that? What if the PIC is in a slight descent, there are dangers in that, too?

You don't trust skydivers enough to have judgement for exit, but you want them to have enough judgement to determine the pilot's flying skills and report them?

Can you imagine Joe Justahundredjumps in the door of the King Air wanting a go-round because it wasn't level enough???!! Then he wants a refund because the pilot totally screwed him by being in a slight turn!!!

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Jump more, post less!

[kallend 1,683]

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The fatality rate is way down compared with 25 years ago.


Flying straight and level on jump run is a better procedure. It should be standard operating procedure.

So is the fatality rate for driving, doesn't mean the roads are any safer, just better cars and roads!

So, if I don't get a straight and level flight on any jumprun, I can turn the pilot into USPA? The FAA? If there is a rule, there must be enforcement. Who does that, the FAA? How straight and how level? Is 100ft/min climb too much? In turbulence, the tail may unexpectedly go up and down to maintain level flight, do you bust the PIC for that? What if the PIC is in a slight descent, there are dangers in that, too?

You don't trust skydivers enough to have judgement for exit, but you want them to have enough judgement to determine the pilot's flying skills and report them?

Can you imagine Joe Justahundredjumps in the door of the King Air wanting a go-round because it wasn't level enough???!! Then he wants a refund because the pilot totally screwed him by being in a slight turn!!!

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You should know better than to post a straw-man argument. It doesn't help your case.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[robinheid 0]

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So I will say again:

Tail strikes due to climbing passes aren't a big deal so we don't need to make more rules to deal with them; informal reminders are more than sufficient.

Hook turns in the pattern aren't that big of a deal, most people get away with them without injury.

Low pull contests aren't that big of a deal, most people got away with them without any problem.

Blast handles and Novas didn't kill that many people - what's the big deal?

"Hook turns" aren't regulated by central diktat but on a DZ-by-DZ basis, so your comparison is invalid.

Minimum pack opening altitudes were created in response not to low pull "contests" per se but because too many people were routinely opening too low to use their emergency procedures - and as I recall, this took place after 1976, when we had a then-record 55 fatalities in one year. So there was from a statistical analysis standpoint a valid reason to impose these rules. There is not a statistically analogous justification for imposing rules on climbing-pass exits.

Novas were not banned by centralized diktat. The law of supply and demand solved the "Nova problem."

Funny you should mention blast handles because USPA's ban of blast handles is a perfect example of that against which I'm arguing in this thread: Imposing a "solution" on a "problem" that doesn't exist. As I recall, there were a couple of fatalities and a few near-misses over a multi-year period that were not due to the blast handle per se but to improper rigging thereof. But rather than doing a statistical analysis, USPA just imposed a diktat that no one could jump with blast handles any more.

So I will say again:

Tail strikes due to climbing passes aren't a big deal so we don't need to make more rules to deal with them; informal reminders are more than sufficient.

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[riggerpaul 1]

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The change from year to year goes up or down with about equal probability. I don't believe we are seeing any clear trend.

.

You are wrong. On average the downswings exceed the upswings.

The beauty of statistical analysis is that it allows you to separate out the random fluctuations and see the long term trend. I HAVE done this. The long term trend is a reduction in fatality rate of approximately 5% per year.

Okay. You're surely better at statistics than I am.

Should we rule that all exits are from 5000 AGL or higher if it would get the number down to 15?

[topdocker 0]

[chriswelker 0]

I have been following the trend very carefully for many years now. I posted this a few years ago. It is down, and down by quite a lot, even without 2009's low numbers. In fact the long term trend (taking a moving average) is a 5% decline in fatality rate per year since 1986 (the earliest for which I had data).

Here are the raw US fatality numbers from "the Good Ole Days", a period when USPA membership was around half of what it is now:

Year - Fatalities
1969- 39
1970- 30
1971- 39
1972- 34
1973- 44
1975- 41
1976- 55
1977- 50
1978- 48
1979- 55
1980- 47
1981- 56
1982- 29
1983- 29
1984- 35
1985- 27
1986- 31
1987- 28
1988- 23
1989- 36

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I didn't say anything about the good old days.

Look at the more recent numbers

1996 39
1997 32
1998 47
1999 27
2000 32
2001 35
2002 33
2003 25
2004 21
2005 27
2006 21
2007 18
2008 30
2009 16

These are all in the "modern" era, with membership numbers of over 32,000.

The numbers go up and down. Look at 2007. that was a pretty good year, and was followed by 2008 with 30.

The change from year to year goes up or down with about equal probability. I don't believe we are seeing any clear trend.

Being too particularly proud of ourselves for 2009 is a bit premature.

The February Parachutist has the list back to 1961.

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Everyone is talking numbers but one of the stats that I have not been made aware of is how many total jumps were made in any given year of skydiving.

Once a person knows this number then we can see fatalities as a %%%% percentage of jumps made.

My opinion is USPA is running around like they saved the skydiving world from ourselves but did they really? If I had 2 customers and I add 2 customers for a total of 4, hell that is a 100% increase: however not very impressive when you look at what numbers made up the 100% increase.

The fatalities are down because jumps numbers on the whole are down and I am very interested in any available FACTUAL DATA that would prove me wrong in this matter.

The marketing guys at USPA should hook up with a clue. Why in the heck would you place a print that states there is a fine line between fun and disaster then show a potential disaster. If I am trying to sell the sport do you want this ad, that is intended for current skydivers not potential skydivers, to be your first point of contact for a potential skydiver? If some one is sitting on the fence about skydiving this ad probably won't help.Not a very well thought out plan from the people that are suppose to be looking out for us.

Robin your right, a lot of fatalities can be avoided at the pay window and in the class room. You just can't fix stupid.

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