Same old story

[shah269 0]

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Yeap, well, that's my take.

And in both disciplines, you'll always frind folks who want to 'push the envelope' early in their career ..... often for Cool Points or because they think that have Mad Skilz.

yeah but you have to admit moto crashes are way cooler
http://motovation.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/jorge_lorenzo_highside.jpg
And can be put to music!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYqtlCyS73U
And if your wearing the right gear you can walk away from a mistake.

I don't think this sport offers the same. You make a mistake and there may be no walking.

Thanks for the info, I know what I'm not going to do and I hope you convince the guy in question to also reconsider.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[fallfast69 2]

The key word about canopy choice is "forgiving". There are mistakes that can be made under ANY canopy that have fatal or serious results. But what may have been a not so serious or serious result, would most likely be a fatal result under a higher wingloading. That's why you need to stay under a suitable canopy until you can handle ALL situations that arise so WHEN, NOT IF you make a mistake , you get to walk, limp or be airlifted away insteaded of being loaded into the coroners car.

What is so damn hard to understand about this. A forgiving canopy CAN save your life, a highly loaded canopy trys to kill you until you have the skill to tame it. If you think you can poke that sleeping tiger until you have the skill to tame it, you're naive and it's going to MERCILESSLY EAT YOUR ASS ALIVE...it will happen so fast you won't know what hit you.


Jon

edit for spelling, etc

[shropshire 0]

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yeah but you have to admit moto crashes are way cooler

Not the 2 (road ones) that I've had - bruisey.... bruisey ... ouch (nothing broken, except the bikes)

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And if your wearing the right gear you can walk away from a mistake.

I don't think this sport offers the same. You make a mistake and there may be no walking.

I've always walked away from mine .... well limped

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[billvon 2,394]

>What is so damn hard to understand about this.

Because most people don't believe that a small canopy is like a "sleeping tiger." They figure it's exactly like their current canopy, just smaller, faster and cooler. It's like a Ferrari instead of their Ford Taurus. I mean, they can both be driven slowly, right? The Ferrari just goes faster and is cooler. Heck, the Ferrari is probably SAFER, since it has better brakes.

You see this attitude all over. A common comment is "well, it's a higher performance canopy, and I can use that higher performance to keep me safe" - indicating they're thinking of something along the Ferrari lines.

Why do they have this idea? A few reasons:

1) All they have experience on are large canopies that forgive their mistakes - so they assume all canopies will forgive their mistakes.

2) 99% of the landings they see look great, even when people are jumping tiny canopies. Interpretation - small canopies land great, and will help them with their landings.

3) The few accidents they do see are chalked up to "well, he was an idiot. And since I'm not an idiot, I don't have to worry about that."

4) They notice that some people land small canopies straight in, and some do high performance landings. Their interpretation - "I can decide to land it conservatively; that's how I will stay safe until I am ready to move on to high performance landings."

For many people, time and experience can overcome these misconceptions. For some, it takes seeing a close friend injured or killed. That's a scary and sad time for them, because for the first time they have to confront the idea that "woah, I knew him and he wasn't an idiot - that could have been ME!"

For a few, it takes a serious injury, like a broken femur. And while painful and potentially life-threatening, such an injury can often _save_ their lives in the long run. Because for the first time they realize what a small canopy can do to them, even when they did their level best to land it safely.

[fallfast69 2]

I've never really cared for the Ferrari vs Taurus anaology because of what you said about them both being able to be driven slowly - and that is how people think.

The problem is, human nature dictates that they will only drive the Farrari slow for a week or two. There is no question that the Ferrari will be squealing tires in very short order, long before the driver realises what it takes to handle the car properly...wringing it out so to speak.

Once the driver "gets away with it" for a while, he will try something that results in the Ferrari and a tree, trying to share the same space at the same time. The Ferrari will crush and bend absorbing most of the impact and the driver, for the most part will walk away.

I believe that most people will be extremely careful under their new small canopy for many jumps, just to keep us from talking about them in the incident forum, but sooner or later, they're going to start wringing it out, make a mistake or do an avoidance turn improperly and, faster than they can "shi", they're on the ground with bones sticking out. Unlike being in a car, there is nothing between the pilot and the ground.

Swooping and high performance canopy flight can't be done sucessfully for 100s or 1000s of jumps by just anyone - not only does it require an extreme amount of dedication, practice, and experiance...it also requires exceptional vision, depth perseption, quick reflex muscle reflex and a "feel" of canopy flight that only a few people have.

When folks can put their ego aside and finally understand that simple fact, our fatalities will start to decline.

Jon

[phoenixlpr 0]

What is your lession, smart guy?

[yoink 321]

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What is your lession, smart guy?

whoa. Bad attitude, dude!

Jon's lesson is the same as it's been for the last 20 years. If people get to jump small canopies, they'll invariably fly themselves into trouble because they lacj the understanding and experience to realise what they're getting into, therefore we need to stop them being able to do that.

Unfortunately, skydiving is so resistant to any form of rules, cross dz agreement or legislation, that I don't believe this will ever be solved.

There will always be places where people can go to push the envelope, and those places will have more than their fair share of canopy injuries.

[fallfast69 2]

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What is your lession, smart guy?

Are you asking what "is" my lesson, or what "was" my lesson? I'll answer both



What "was" the lesson:

I bought a brand new, state of the art, Jonathan 136 when they first came out and I front risered myself, pretty much, right into the dirt...nothing broken. I'd made 50 jumps, or so, on the canopy at the time. A dozen of those were using the exact same approach. At that point, I decided I just may not have everything it takes to continue attempting these kind of landings - my ego was crushed, NOT. It all happened in the blink of a eye I had over 500 jumps, was a static line J/M I, and jumped and taught class every weekend at the time.

What "is" the lesson:

Prior to everyone having internet access, news of incidents moved rather slowly across the country. We now have up to the minute reports of incidents on this site, and some of the best people in skydiving posting here. And people still don't get it.

A wealth of knowlege, experiance, and history are at your fingertips...all you have to do is listen.

When almost half of the fatalities are a result of improper canopy flight, and a huge percent are high-performance canopy related, it indicates that not all pilots should be under the canopy the're flying. People aren't listening to what the're are hearing because they don't want to know that something bad can happen to them.

Same old story.

Again I'll ask:
What is so hard to understand about this?

Jon

[darrenspooner 0]

Holy snappers. Don't think this would happen in the UK. How do rookies get the opportunity to do this? My last canopy change was an upsize. But hey, I'm mid-40s with a young family. Funny how kids focus you

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

Two words... "Bounce Book"

Show him a bunch of pictures of busted up and/or dead people after their skydive went bad. Most DZs have one, if not, they should for such occasions.

[davelepka 4]

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Same old story.

Again I'll ask:
What is so hard to understand about this?

It's all about the training, or actaully the lack of it.

To the non-jumper, skydiving in general is dangerous, and they see news reports about every little thing that goes wrong at a DZ. Despite this, we skydivers continue to jump, and the whuffos would probably ask, "What is so hard to understand about this? Skydiving is dangerous, I heard it on the news".

What we as skydivers understand is that there are way to mitigate the danger. There is training in place, and procedures to follow that can make skydiving less dangerous, and accidents purely 'accidental'

We continue to jump because we all believe that we know and understand all of the factors needed to keep us alive.

Take that same theory to the level of experienced skydivers looking at newbies who insist on flying fast canopies, and trying to swoop them too soon. To us, it is plain to see that it's dangerous to do these things, and many times it inevitably leads to an incident. Surely the only reason that newbies would continue with that course of action is that they believe they know and understand all of the factors needed to keep themselves alive.

Of course you and I know that this is not true, but in the absence of any real canopy education, and some strictly enforced guidelines as to what canopies you can jump at what loading, how can we expect the inexperinced newbie to understand what we do?

Sure, as an experienced jumper you can try to school the newbies as much as you want. The problem is that if you get to them after they have a license, and are showing signs that they may be the next square in 'bounce bingo' it's already too late. By that time they have been through their initial training, and jumped enough to have made up their minds about canopies, and how it all works.

What needs to happen is that canopy training, and a program of gradual downsizing and careful canopy slelection needs to be taught up front, early on in the program. When a guy with 15 jumps sits through the official USPA sanctioned class about canopy control and canopy loading/selection, and is given a copy of the official USPA guide to canopy model and sizes, that makes an impression. If we take it one step further, and everyone on the DZ, or at every gear store fully supports the USPA guidelines, and frowns upon attempts to 'fast track' through the regulations, that make san impression.

If it's important, it should be treated as such, and taught in an official capacity and as a requirement to become a licensed skydiver. It should be regarded by experienced jumpers as VERY bad form for any jumper trying to go 'off program'. Those things will make an impression, and those things will change the mindset of the new jumpers.

I've made this comparision before, but it's like pull altitudes. A while back, it was 'anything goes', but this, of course, turned out to be a mistake. So the USPA kicked in some min. pack opening altitudes, and made it a BSR.

At first, there was resistance, and some refused to follow the new BSRs, instead prefering to do whatever they wanted. Those jumpers either went in, quit jumping, or got sick of landing off, and gave up the low pulls.

At the same time, every new jumper who came after the new BSRs freely accepted them as part of the skydiving landscape. These were rules that were in place the day they started jumping, and they probably heard about them either that same day, or soon after. They also caught on that if they, or anyone, ignored those BSRs, they got the evil eye from more than one jumper after they landed, and also got 'the talk' from the DZO or S&TA.

It's very rare to see low pulls these days. People realize that it's an important rule to follow, and they see that breaking it doesn't make them any friends on the DZ. Do the same for canopy control and selection, and soon enough new jumpers will respect that too.

[longpete 1]

We also hear the "Same old story" too often in SA. Sometimes when other methods don't seem to work, I resort to humour to try and educate DGITs.
It doesn't appear to work any better, or worse, than conventional methods, as these type of incidents continue.



To the tune of Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" (AKA Everybody must get stoned")
In SA we call the planet earth "The Stone"

Well the stone wins when you're trying to be so cool,
The stone will win because you are a fool.
The stone will warn you first it is quite fair
A roasted knee- some dust gets in your hair.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody loses to the stone

Well the stone wins when you think that you are good,
The stone will win just like they said it would.
Your friends will have to drive you to your home,
The stone will warn you with a broken bone.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody loses to the stone

Well the stone wins when you thought you hooked it sweet,
When you're broken from your hips down to your feet
The stone wins when you're lying on your bed
The pain is still a-throbbing in your head.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody loses to the stone

Well the stone wins as the months they slowly pass,
You're still pulling grass and thorns out of your ass
You're only mobile with a set of crutches
Arth--ritis has you in it's evil clutches.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody loses to the stone

Well the stone wins when you think you can return
The stone wins when you make that last low turn
At the church they'll say that you were really brave
The stone has won and you are in your grave.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody loses to the stone

LP

[LloydDobbler 2]

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Two words... "Bounce Book"

Show him a bunch of pictures of busted up and/or dead people after their skydive went bad. Most DZs have one, if not, they should for such occasions.

Was wondering if someone was going to bring this up. The Bounce Book always did have a special ability to take the wind out of someone's sails.

On another note, the sad/scary thing is how many DZs wouldn't even know what the guy was jumping, until he started mouthing off about it (or hooked himself in, or spun himself up at 800 feet, or...).

Signatures are the new black.