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64rky

I am moving to the UK, need some advice

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gowlerk

***Last year over 270,000 descents were carried out in the UK. You could add to those numbers and draw your own conclusions...or you can believe everything you read on the internet.



It does seem BPA is disliked by British jumpers.

It's disliked by some British jumpers, but you just carry on and extrapolate that to all of them if you like. Isn't every organisation? Is the CSPA universally loved by its members?

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Except for you, and you are a senior bureaucrat within BPA, no one seems to be defending the organization here.



This is a predominantly North American site. Also as a major protagonist you'll be aware that internet discussion forums tends to attract people who wish to denigrate rather than praise...

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Perhaps it is a little clubby in the boardroom?



What are you insinuating? I am a volunteer who gives up half of his annual holiday allowance to try to better the sport and much like moderating the curmudgeons on here, it's a pretty thankless task and I often ask myself why I bother...
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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cpoxon

******Last year over 270,000 descents were carried out in the UK. You could add to those numbers and draw your own conclusions...or you can believe everything you read on the internet.



That doesn't mean everything is all sweetness and light in the UK jumping scene. Far from it. The very fact that a number of different people have displayed reservations indicate that.

You don't see these kind of comments about any other country. Why might that be?

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You aren't looking hard enough then or your glasses are too rose tinted. There is plenty of bitching about the USPA on here. And what's all that NZPIA/NZPF grief?



I've been involved with skydiving for over 40 years now...the BPA stands out long term for its "unique" style. And people do bitch a bit about other organisations, but that doesn't make BPA "right".

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The BPA itself is the problem. Case in point this FS1 rule.
No other place has such a rule, hence the perception that the BPA make skydiving as difficult as possible.



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Other places have similar rules. For example, so of the requirements for FS1 are requirements for USPA A licence.



So why then add another obstacle to someone who already has a USPA A licence?

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Nitpicky nonsense that has no reason to be if the instructors do their jobs properly in the first place.



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Would that be all the BPA instructors or just some of them?



Just the incompetent ones who act like tin gods and treat lower experienced jumpers as some sort of irritant.

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I personally know of 30 or 40 people who have trained and jump outside of the UK because they have been made to feel unwelcome at DZs in the UK.



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Good for you. There are many reasons to travel overseas to train...better weather, different prices, different levels of services.

Not the main reasons people give me.

Try "Being treated like dirt". "Ripped off". "Treated like children". "Verbally abused in public".

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One of the BPA's long-standing strategies is retention. In order to further this the BPA is making efforts to improve customer service with such initiatives as bringing James Le Barrie over to consult with dropzones.



Its a long standing problem, if it wasn't, why would a specific strategy be necessary. People WANT to jump and want to stay. They are driven away. Bringing in a "consultant" sounds like typical corporate spin, spouted loudly before zero change.

If BPA were doing their job properly, retention would be automatic.

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Maybe the annual jump numbers would be 370,000 or 470,000 if it was easier to jump there.

Think about that.



Err, gee, why didn't I think of that!

Get BPA to think about it. They need to be shaken out of their comfortable incompetence. The whole organisation needs a proper ISO 9000 type audit, as do the DZs. Otherwise nothing will change.
My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

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obelixtim

I've been involved with skydiving for over 40 years now...the BPA stands out long term for its "unique" style. And people do bitch a bit about other organisations, but that doesn't make BPA "right".



It also doesn't make it completely wrong.

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So why then add another obstacle to someone who already has a USPA A licence?



So, we'll just let them jump a Peregrine whilst they are at it? Yes, that's hyperbole, but the point being it's shades.

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Just the incompetent ones who act like tin gods and treat lower experienced jumpers as some sort of irritant.



And tar the rest of them and the association as a whole is the vitriol you are spreading.

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Not the main reasons people give me.

Try "Being treated like dirt". "Ripped off". "Treated like children". "Verbally abused in public".



I don't doubt there are some bad eggs out there but also there are often two sides to every story I find...

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Its a long standing problem, if it wasn't, why would a specific strategy be necessary. People WANT to jump and want to stay. They are driven away.



This guys earns his living all over the world. This isn't a uniquely British problem.

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Bringing in a "consultant" sounds like typical corporate spin, spouted loudly before zero change.



Can't win with you...get accused of having bad culture...try to address culture issues...get accused of spin and no change.

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If BPA were doing their job properly, retention would be automatic.



In your 40 years in the sport I would have thought you would have learned that a lot of things affect retention...money, job, marriage, kids, divorce, injury/illness. Retention isn't automatic.

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Get BPA to think about it. They need to be shaken out of their comfortable incompetence. The whole organisation needs a proper ISO 9000 type audit, as do the DZs. Otherwise nothing will change.



We are thinking about it. We are always thinking about it.
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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obelixtim


The BPA itself is the problem. Case in point this FS1 rule.
No other place has such a rule, hence the perception that the BPA make skydiving as difficult as possible.



There does seem to be something unique about the dislike for BPA's FS1 rule. At a distance, from Canada, I'm not sure why that is.

After all, Canada has a vaguely similar requirement that after the A licence one can only do 2 ways, and only with approved people (roughly, jumpers with a B licence and 100 jumps and coach approval, or coaches themselves). So Canadian newbies are always stoked after going to the US in winter and being allowed to jump with as big a formation as they dare, with just an A licence. But nobody bitches too much in Canada -- it is accepted that one still has to do at least 3 RW coaching jumps to get signed off for group RW (more than 1:1), for full RW privileges once one has the B licence (min 50 jumps)

There seems to be more dislike of the UK rule though, and I'm not sure why? It isn't a new rule that seems like a sudden imposition? Are Brits comparing themselves to Americans, where 'anything goes' after the A license? Or is it something about the unavailability of coaches and bad weather that make the whole process drag on far too long, hindering newbies from progressing??

(It isn't like coaches are always easy to find in Canada either, depending on the dz. It's the usual issue of the experienced jumpers who have the necessary rating, Coach 2, may well also be busy TI's or videots with little time.)

So to recap:
Some places (eg, Canada) do have RW restrictions after the basic licence, but for some reason I'm not familiar with, the process to remove the restrictions seems particularly disliked in the UK...

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We are thinking about it. We are always thinking about it.



And there is your problem. Try taking some positive and permanent action.

Look, there are plenty of good quality British skydivers out there. I've met and jumped with lots of them. A few rotten apples stink up the whole system though. And they wield the power.

Over many years, a recurring and common theme is the closed shop mentality that permeates and affects the British scene. That comes from so many different individuals of differing experience levels that its definitely a long term problem for the UK.

I have personally witnessed disgraceful behaviour from senior jumpers towards others on several different British DZs. Students walking off the DZ in tears.

However BPA has an endemic problem, that goes back many many years, rooted, I believe, back when the people who set up BPA were all ex military and brought that mindset to the table, and it has never gone changed. "Our way or the highway" Very typical old boys club attitude. They have no interest in change.

My "vitriolic" attitude comes from what I've witnessed and the many people I've spoken to who are totally disillusioned with the way things are done. Too many for too long to be one off bitching.

If I have an agenda against BPA its because I believe skydiving deserves much better than what BPA dishes up.

I've spent my skydiving life making skydiving, easy, accessible, affordable, and fun. That's not what I see when I look at the way jumping is run in the UK.

Don't shoot the messenger.
My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

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It's disliked by some British jumpers, but you just carry on and extrapolate that to all of them if you like. Isn't every organisation? Is the CSPA universally loved by its members?



Of course it is, well mostly anyway. I know what you mean about being a volunteer. I've served my time on both national and local boards. BPA seems to be uniquely disliked by British jumpers. The tale of your rigging committee throwing up as many roadblocks as possible to the guy sewing canopies is a good, and comical example of why.

I'm kind of waiting to see if any of your members do "jump" to the defense. Anyone?
Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

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I don't have an issue with the requirement for FS1 before being permitted to do larger FS groups - it's a fairly sensible rule which in one form or another is seen across much of the world. Nor do I have a general issue with the BPA.

I think the problem is in what market forces has led FS1 to become in practice. It's been thoroughly monetised.

There's a cottage industry of FS instructors who, by accident or design, end up wringing every penny out of newbies for training.

The logic behind the rules is that it is there to make sure new skydivers have the basic abilities to be able to jump with one another without being a danger to one another. There does seem to be a general impression however in the FS 'industry' that the bar should actually be far, far higher - to be good enough to be a good FS flyer.

These days it seems from watching newbies come through the ranks that it's significantly harder and takes an awful lot longer on average to get FS1 than it does to actually get an A-licence! That seems odd to me. (I've no idea how it compares cost-wise).

What was intended to be a basic safety rating has in fact become something much more. Do newbies really need to be able to do a 10-point 4-way from 15k in order to demonstrate they're safe enough to get out of a zoomi newbie's way? (The OPs manual calls for a 4-point 4 way. The training manual that has grown out of it though suggests far higher standards). That would get you mid-table in the rookie's at nationals for goodness sake. Why do they need to know all 4 4-way exit positions if they're just fun jumping - surely that stuff can to come later rather than as basic safety training?

Why not reduce introduce FS2 to take people to the standard of a decent 4-way flyer - what we currently call FS1 - and retain a stripped down FS1 as the basic safety standard it theoretically is?

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I think the problem is in what market forces has led FS1 to become in practice. It's been thoroughly monetised.

There's a cottage industry of FS instructors who, by accident or design, end up wringing every penny out of newbies for training.



Once upon a time getting an A licence meant you were competent enough to look after yourself, and were ready to learn new skills. Newer jumpers were guided through their careers by the more experienced.

At no extra cost, because the experienced jumpers had already benefitted themselves from a similar system, and new jumpers would add to the pool of jumpers available for their own jumping. A positive cycle that everyone benefitted from.

There weren't more incidents or accidents back then. I don't see why it is now necessary to have a whole new raft of requirements "in the interests of safety" that have to be paid for before people can begin to have fun. A cancer on the sport.

If people who get their A licence aren't basically competent, that tells me that their instructors have failed to do their job properly, after charging a lot of money for it.

And that's not good enough.
My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

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cpoxon



Have you ever asked them why they do that?



Yes, I immediately asked them why. They said it was because an A License jumper couldn't act as jumpmaster on a lift. Which I regard as some pretty half-assed reasoning.

I was a B License at the time; so didn't affect me, but I still regarded it as being dicks.
"Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

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RMK

***

Have you ever asked them why they do that?



Yes, I immediately asked them why. They said it was because an A License jumper couldn't act as jumpmaster on a lift. Which I regard as some pretty half-assed reasoning.

I was a B License at the time; so didn't affect me, but I still regarded it as being dicks.


Maybe so. But only in BPA land is a "jumpmaster" required on a lift. In other parts of the world, an FAI A license is honoured as a credential. You could send up an entire load of only A's here or in the US. I don't know about continental Europe. A's should not be considered students, except in the sense that we all should consider ourselves to be students.
Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

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obelixtim



Once upon a time getting an A licence meant you were competent enough to look after yourself, and were ready to learn new skills.



Yes, I like the concept that a skydiving license is a "license to skydive". If not trusted to do a simple two-way with a friend, maybe the AFF training should be done better.

Common sense alone should lend one (and CCI) to understand that a newly minted A License holder is not prepared for a 5-plane 100 way and to stay within your limits. However, we live in a country where it is illegal to have an electrical outlet in our bathrooms, yet for decades appliances were sold without plugs (you had to install them yourself). Odd system, whereby we weren't trusted with electricity, yet it was OK for everyone to do their own DIY wiring.
"Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

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RMK

Yes, I immediately asked them why. They said it was because an A License jumper couldn't act as jumpmaster on a lift. Which I regard as some pretty half-assed reasoning.

I was a B License at the time; so didn't affect me, but I still regarded it as being dicks.



Well done on that whole not besmirching their name thing.
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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RMK


Yes, I like the concept that a skydiving license is a "license to skydive". If not trusted to do a simple two-way with a friend, maybe the AFF training should be done better.



I must have missed the definition of skydiving that requires more than one participant. Please can you direct me to it?

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Common sense alone should lend one (and CCI) to understand that a newly minted A License holder is not prepared for a 5-plane 100 way and to stay within your limits.



Common sense isn't always common.

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However, we live in a country where it is illegal to have an electrical outlet in our bathrooms,



Not illegal, just needs to be 3 metres from the bath/show or be a shaver plug but never let the facts get in the way of some internet hysteria.

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yet for decades appliances were sold without plugs (you had to install them yourself). Odd system, whereby we weren't trusted with electricity, yet it was OK for everyone to do their own DIY wiring.



Interesting leap to appliances without plugs (in the past)... :-o
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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obelixtim

Once upon a time getting an A licence meant you were competent enough to look after yourself, and were ready to learn new skills.



Like jumping with other people?


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At no extra cost, because the experienced jumpers had already benefitted themselves from a similar system, and new jumpers would add to the pool of jumpers available for their own jumping. A positive cycle that everyone benefitted from.

There weren't more incidents or accidents back then. I don't see why it is now necessary to have a whole new raft of requirements "in the interests of safety" that have to be paid for before people can begin to have fun. A cancer on the sport.



Who says it has to be paid for? I've never charged for coaching in my life, however, not everyone is as fortunate as me and I don't judge those that do need to charge (I just would expect that people get value for money)

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If people who get their A licence aren't basically competent, that tells me that their instructors have failed to do their job properly, after charging a lot of money for it.



They are basically competent...to exit a plane, perform basic individual manoeuvres, deploy their parachute and fly it to a safe landing.
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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64rky

Very thorough response, thank you.

It looks like I need to travel around trying different drop zones hoping for decent jumping weather.

Thank you again.



And welcome to the politics of skydiving 64rky....another major reason why people leave the sport.
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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cpoxon

***Very thorough response, thank you.

It looks like I need to travel around trying different drop zones hoping for decent jumping weather.

Thank you again.



And welcome to the politics of skydiving 64rky as practised by the BPA....another major reason why people leave the sport.

Fixxxed it for ya......
My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

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obelixtim

******Very thorough response, thank you.

It looks like I need to travel around trying different drop zones hoping for decent jumping weather.

Thank you again.



And welcome to the politics of skydiving 64rky as practised by the BPA....another major reason why people leave the sport.

Fixxxed it for ya......

+1

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obelixtim

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I think the problem is in what market forces has led FS1 to become in practice. It's been thoroughly monetised.

There's a cottage industry of FS instructors who, by accident or design, end up wringing every penny out of newbies for training.



Once upon a time getting an A licence meant you were competent enough to look after yourself, and were ready to learn new skills. Newer jumpers were guided through their careers by the more experienced.

At no extra cost, because the experienced jumpers had already benefitted themselves from a similar system, and new jumpers would add to the pool of jumpers available for their own jumping. A positive cycle that everyone benefitted from.

There weren't more incidents or accidents back then. I don't see why it is now necessary to have a whole new raft of requirements "in the interests of safety" that have to be paid for before people can begin to have fun. A cancer on the sport.

If people who get their A licence aren't basically competent, that tells me that their instructors have failed to do their job properly, after charging a lot of money for it.

And that's not good enough.



I was lucky enough to grow up that way too as I started via a university club. I have never paid for fs coaching (and I'm sure many will say it shows) but older jumpers put in the time to get me up to speed.

I feel I have more than paid back that investment and that I am happy to continue to do so.

Times are different however and I accept that FS coaches need to be able to charge for what they do. I just feel that things are now more stringent than they were ever intended to be.

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I'm no BPA fanboy & I dislike the nature of sticker-collecting for qualifications, but something had to be done about 50 & 60 jump wonders wanting to 'run some mad angles' because all the big deals are at it. It will be monetised or not, depending on DZ & coach - slot coaching is still alive & well in some places.

It's a devil & the deep-blue sea situation: the BPA will be hounded for incidents & damned for regulations. I don't like regulations, but there are too many idiots in this sport to avoid them entirely.
For the 'it should be up to the DZO/CCI' crowd:
Yeah, in principal, I agree. It would work in a small club environment, but a busy DZ with a high number of visiting jumpers? Not going to work.

In response to the OP:
The weather sucks a lot of the time, but you can learn a significant amount from experienced jumpers/instructors who are more than willing to chat or run seminars on weather weekends. The governing body is far from perfect, but any jumper who's been around for a while & traveled will be able to tell you - none of them are.

You will find a number of the most committed sport jumpers in the world, plenty of wind tunnels (if that's your thing) & Some very inclusive dropzones. Have fun & sorry about the government.

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chemist

on here cause I just found out UK has a 55 age limit ban on skydiving. What a joke. I thought they left the EU cause they didn't like stupid rules?

#BPAsux




No, I don't believe it. Someone tell me this is not true. Not even BPA would do that. It's probably mostly run by men much older than that!
Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

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No, I don't believe it. Someone tell me this is not true. Not even BPA would do that. It's probably mostly run by men much older than that!



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Maximum age Analysis of statistics compiled over many years indicates that incident rates tend to increase as student jumpers get older. This may be due to slowing reaction times and sometimes less acute senses as the years go by. Risk assessment suggests the tipping point to be when a person reaches their mid-fifties. On this basis, to avoid increased risk, the maximum age at which even a hale, hearty and healthy person can be admitted to start training under BPA rules for solo parachute jumping is before they reach their 55th birthday, although some BPA Affiliated Parachute Training Organisations may set a lower age limit than this based on their own risk assessments. This restriction does not apply to tandem students, where the descent is in harness with a qualified instructor - although health requirements continue to apply.

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