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DrewEckhardt

Fibula, femur, or fatality (105 elliptical 1.3 PSF 127 jumps)

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I could upsize to a PERFECTLY safe Sabre2 150 and still femur or kill myself, and all you guys would say...."See, we told you so".



Of course you can die under any size canopy, it's just takes a lot more effort under a bigger canopy. If you can't land a bigger canopy very well then you need to continue jumping it till you can. Getting a smaller canopy only narrows your margin of error. If you have good canopy piloting skills then a bigger canopy should be easier to land then a smaller one.

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I could burn in on jump 3562 and have never changed off of this 105, and good ol' DZ.com would still say it was due to my rapid downsizing and I didn't gain the skills early on to save my ass.



And maybe they would be right.

You're going about your training all wrong. You're jumping a canopy that is not the right tool for learning the basics. Jump numbers aren't everything... there are plenty of old-timey jumpers with tons of jumps that haven't learned correctly and are a hazard to themselves and other people around them.

You won't get crap for upsizing and jumping an appropriately sized canopy. You won't get crap when you have the knowledge to understand that a smaller canopy doesn't get a better flare than a bigger one.

Dave

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I'm not talking specifically about any jumper.

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Our DZO does. More than one fun jumper has gone to a competing DZ because they haven't been allowed to jump a canopy or wear a wingsuit...


So does my DZ.

I read the entire thread, and I was talking exactly about the kind of DZ that wants sellers to bear responsibility for the accident, but not the DZ for selling jump tickets to the hotshot.

So yeah, the jumper gets PO'd and goes away when/if he gets grounded.
I say, good riddance. The loss of income for the DZ should be less than the repercussions of an accident, right?
Furthermore, you'd protect your other jumpers from having to watch someone burn in.

But that's not the issue.
A lot of people say that regulations are not the key to protecting hotshots from themselves.
The thread DSE provided indicates that better training might be.
While I agree that training is a better indicator to determine someones suitability for a canopy than absolute jump numbers are, it is also a lot more difficult to measure / enforce.
"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

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DZ.com would still say it was due to my rapid downsizing



They've got the causality twisted...but on DZ.com downsizing is the sine qua non of risk tolerance and a byword for the same. What they're saying is they don't like you because you are risk tolerant, and they fear that your appetite for risk reflects on them (and it does, imo).

There's several factors at play...more than anything I think it's a case of projection / diversion. "I'm not so much at risk, he's at greater risk!" Even though the posts are littered with trifles like "you could do anything right and still die", it's still comforting to gawk at other people making decisions they wouldn't.
My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

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Everyone knows that Cobalts "fly big", especially when you are a natural.

:S



although yes I load the 105 at about 2.0 I noticed that it dove like a crackwhore in a sheetrock factory

Dave
http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

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I'm not talking specifically about any jumper.

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Our DZO does. More than one fun jumper has gone to a competing DZ because they haven't been allowed to jump a canopy or wear a wingsuit...


So does my DZ.

I read the entire thread, and I was talking exactly about the kind of DZ that wants sellers to bear responsibility for the accident, but not the DZ for selling jump tickets to the hotshot.

So yeah, the jumper gets PO'd and goes away when/if he gets grounded.
I say, good riddance. The loss of income for the DZ should be less than the repercussions of an accident, right?
Furthermore, you'd protect your other jumpers from having to watch someone burn in.

But that's not the issue.
A lot of people say that regulations are not the key to protecting hotshots from themselves.
The thread DSE provided indicates that better training might be.
While I agree that training is a better indicator to determine someones suitability for a canopy than absolute jump numbers are, it is also a lot more difficult to measure / enforce.



Somewhere in there, the additional point is that our DZO/manifest won't sell jump tix to the person jumping a canopy believed to be beyond their ability. One case in point, a guy who had done AFF at our DZ disappeared for a while, showed up at 100 jumps with a 135, I can't recall which make, and DZO wouldn't let him jump. He jumped one day on a rental rig, went elsewhere, and broke his leg at another DZ.
No matter how few DZ's won't sell a jump ticket to that guy, there is always a DZ that will.

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Yes, i had understood that.

I was talking about hte "DZ that will", that i just cannot understand their attitude.

(I'm also not talking about a goodwilling DZ who lets one slip throught he cracks.)
"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

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The problem with this thread is that no-one keeps any stats on the number of people who downsize early and do not injure themselves. All the press goes to those who kill or injure themselves.

Similarly, we have no ACTUAL DATA on the comparitive rate at which early downsizers crash compared to the skydiving population as a whole.

My guess is that most early downsizers are successful and do not appear in the accident reports.
...

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

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furthermore, there are many people who downsize "early" that don't make an issue of it and who get proper training and don't pop up on any radar screens because for the most part they do it "right". Yes accidents happen. If everyone always flew a 220 challenger whether you have 20,000 jumps or 20 jumps there would be far fewer landing accidents. If your looking to DZ.com for advice on downsizing you probably aren't ready.

We could all stop jumping out of planes too. If you ask people for advice and you don't like what you hear...stop asking or take the advice. Its pretty simple.
Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen
God is Good
Beer is Great
Swoopers are crazy.

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Similarly there are no good stats on how many people drink and drive but arrive home safely. All the press goes to those who kill or injure themselves and others.
My guess is that the overwhelming majority of drunk drivers do not crash. I am pretty sure that they crash at a higher rate than the sober, given their overall numbers.
Likewise for those who aggressively downsize.

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My guess is that most early downsizers are successful and do not appear in the accident reports.

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Do ya KNOW any...many?



A couple years back I looked at 5 years of fatal accidents and didn't find that many DGITs. Quite a few were experienced guys on very small parachutes, but there's no doubt there's far more Chris's out there than reflected in the deaths. And on this forums, there are more posters who say "I did this stupid shit when I was less experienced but was lucky" than posters who eventually died.

Broken bones - that's a different matter and much harder to capture. Which is a shame - being someone still going through the recovery of dealing with similar injuries, that's not a fun experience. I wouldn't say something so trite as it's worse than death, but obviously it is suffering for much longer. 17 months after I'm still not 100%. I think the hassle of this may actually be more compelling than the threat of death which is more easily disregarded.

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The problem with this thread is that no-one keeps any stats on the number of people who downsize early and do not injure themselves. All the press goes to those who kill or injure themselves.

Similarly, we have no ACTUAL DATA on the comparitive rate at which early downsizers crash compared to the skydiving population as a whole.

My guess is that most early downsizers are successful and do not appear in the accident reports.



And the problem with your opinion is that you're not an instructor, nor have I seen any evidence you've worked with any low time jumpers on the specific issues of canopy piloting and downsizing.
----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

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My guess is that most early downsizers are successful and do not appear in the accident reports.

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Do ya KNOW any...many?



A couple years back I looked at 5 years of fatal accidents and didn't find that many DGITs.



I've only known one person who killed themselves violating Brian Germain's Wingloading-Never-Exceed chart which makes sense when you think about it - most landing accidents aren't fatal, lots of people are taught judgement by Intense Physical Agony (also from Germain) inflicted by their non-fatal accidents, and the rest learn enough from our near misses to be back on the chart by 500-1000 jumps.

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Broken bones - that's a different matter and much harder to capture. Which is a shame - being someone still going through the recovery of dealing with similar injuries, that's not a fun experience. I wouldn't say something so trite as it's worse than death, but obviously it is suffering for much longer. 17 months after I'm still not 100%. I think the hassle of this may actually be more compelling than the threat of death which is more easily disregarded.



Having averaged nearly one day a week at a drop zone for a decade, subjectively it seems that most of "Those Guys" make exactly one trip to the emergency room. I can only think of a couple that didn't (one friend managed to survive a Stiletto 120 at 1.6 pounds/square footh with 200 jumps and a 5000' MSL DZ elevation). Repeated trips are also rare. It hurts to break things.

You can break things at a low wing loading (I got my titanium at .75 pounds/square foot) but it's a lot harder (I had to pick weeds hiding a woody bush to land in, while small parachutes "turn on their own" or "fall out of the sky" due to incorrect pilot input when landing and avoiding obstacles) and your bones are more likely to stay inside your skin.

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What they're saying is they don't like you because you are risk tolerant,



Wrong. He's not being risk tolerant. He started out being risk-ignorant, and now he's moved on to being risk-arrogant. The difference is real, and not just semantics. (But thanks for casting aspersions on our motives.)

Risk tolerance is understanding the risk you're taking - and acknowledging that risk (at least to yourself) - and making a conscious decision to accept that risk. Even the most careful skydiver, or BASE jumper, or motorcycle rider, does this.

Risk-ignorance is a failure to recognize the existence, or particular level of, the risk presented by a certain activity under certain circumstances. In other words, your initial risk assessment is flawed - no more, no less. Risk ignorance, without more, can be remedied if the person is willing to listen, learn and adjust his thinking as needed.

Risk arrogance is stubborn refusal to accept that your initial risk assessment has some flaws and needs to be adjusted, despite (and often with dismissive resentment toward) the considerable weight of evidence, or informed opinions and guidance of others with greater experience or expertise.

Chris is not being risk tolerant. He's not saying that he recognizes, as many experts are telling him, that when he jumps his canopy at 130 jumps he's taking on not a slightly higher, but a much higher, risk of serious injury or death; but that he's made the conscious decision as an adult to accept that high risk. Rather, he's simply refusing to acknowledge that that much higher risk applies to him or is a lot more likely to break him - because of his piloting talent, or because he thinks he's being careful; and all the experts who counsel him otherwise are just jealous, stuck in the past and full of shit.

So what we're reacting to in Chris is not his risk tolerance, but his risk arrogance, and his open resentment that we're not being his enablers. Look, if he makes his choice, then he makes his choice. But we're going to call it as we see it.

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Risk-ignorance is a failure to recognize the existence, or particular level of, the risk presented by a certain activity under certain circumstances. In other words, your initial risk assessment is flawed - no more, no less.



How can you be so certain of a quantity, yet be unable to quantify it?

It cuts at the very classification of "expert". Surely they are able to swoop enormous distances and execute precise maneuvers in the sky, but that does not grant a person infinite wisdom over the laws of probability and their manifestations on the DZ -- experts from all human endeavors are prone to misunderstand probability. Sometimes frighteningly so.

Any professed expert should see the futility of pissing contests.
My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

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yeah becasue the higher the wingloading you have makes you more wreckless, right? Look I not defending this guy,but what yous said is pretty subjective. This guy does not look to be wreckless to others while under that canopy. Once again a lot of you sound like babies, he is still going to jump the canopy so move the hell on. A lot of people on here sound stupid because they give the same answer over and over and over and don't take in any added info for their final conclusion. An example, oh you have 130 jumps and jump 1.3 Wl, yeah you are probably going to die. I would be rich if I had a dime for every time someone has said that on here.
don't try your bullshit with me!!!

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Having averaged nearly one day a week at a drop zone for a decade, subjectively it seems that most of "Those Guys" make exactly one trip to the emergency room. I can only think of a couple that didn't (one friend managed to survive a Stiletto 120 at 1.6 pounds/square footh with 200 jumps and a 5000' MSL DZ elevation). Repeated trips are also rare. It hurts to break things.

You can break things at a low wing loading at .75 pounds/square foot) but it's a lot harder (I had to pick weeds hiding a woody bush to land in, while small parachutes "turn on their own" or "fall out of the sky" due to incorrect pilot input when landing and avoiding obstacles) and your bones are more likely to stay inside your skin.



Having averaged 5 days a week at a DZ for 9 years I'm inclined to agree with you.
----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

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he is still going to jump the canopy so move the hell on.



so when you see someone engaging in potentially unsafe behavior that not only affects them, but potentially affects others, you should STFU? "Because it's gonna happen anyway...?"
Is that what you're advocating?

IMO, the world falls to shit when you become silent about that which matters. Chris seems to be gathering input, still making decisions, still considering. If he didn't have questions, he wouldn't have posted, unless he's got a seriously damaged ego.

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How can you be so certain of a quantity, yet be unable to quantify it?

It cuts at the very classification of "expert". Surely they are able to swoop enormous distances and execute precise maneuvers in the sky, but that does not grant a person infinite wisdom over the laws of probability and their manifestations on the DZ -- experts from all human endeavors are prone to misunderstand probability. Sometimes frighteningly so.



Isn't this thread a "What do you predict will happen" scenario? Of course nobody knows the exact probability... but theres enough experience rolling around to say that rapid-downsizing increases the risk greatly.... so what is the benefit that outweighs that risk? A better flare is the only answer I can find that was given, and most people have shot that one full of holes.

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he is still going to jump the canopy so move the hell on. A lot of people on here sound stupid because they give the same answer over and over and over and don't take in any added info for their final conclusion



As far as downsizing goes, I have no idea really, I just take the advice of the majority of the experienced guys and THEY are all saying its too fast in Chris' case.

As far as the advice he's getting, many people here recognize certain behavior for what it really is, and realistically amounts to... similar to someone who decides he hasn't had too much to drink to get behind the wheel, or someone who is too macho to have a spot on the freeweights...
And the same answer over and over again and not moving on comes from those people who have had to feed their friend baby food because he can't chew or use his own arms anymore, or who have seen the look on a mother's face when she learns her son won't be coming home anymore.
Some people don't want to spend the rest of their lives wishing that they had said or done more to prevent a rash decision from killing somebody... especially in an activity where you can kill somebody ELSE with you're mistakes.

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