0
kawisixer01

USPA BOD meeting changes

Recommended Posts

Quote

When everyone is bought and paid for....

top



Broad stroke statement without any support by facts. Perhaps you can actually take the time to state specifically who was bought and what they were paid?

I can only speak for myself:
Not a single person asked me to do what I did. That is to bring 3 requests to S&T committee that passed S&T and then passed the full board voting process. I did what I did because:
1) I'm tired of investigating tandem turns over 90 degrees gone wrong that lead to grave injuries and fatalities under perfectly functioning parachutes.
2) I'm tired of investigating tandem AAD fires that start with the explanation "I couldn't find the handles".
3) I'm tired of being told when pointing out reckless/dangerous behavior that "unless its a BSR we do not have to follow any regulations".
4) If every end user of tandem systems used the gear in the manner and procedures it was intended, these BSRs wouldnt be necessary.

BTW, (everything I did, I could have done without being on the board)

The irony here is that it is I that asked the manufacturers (all of them) for their support as I brought it to the board, not the other way around. I even asked 2 manufacturers and some industry experts (not on the board) to weigh in during the meetings to support my statements, and in the end, the board made the right decisions and voted these two BSRs into place.

Since then, every tandem examiner I have been in direct contact with (over 50) have said it was the right thing to do and "they should have happened 20 years ago." Of a population of 179 tandem examiners (subject matter experts) that have now been informed, not a single one raised an objection, and to the contrary, the BSRs have been embraced by practically everyone that has been informed. "Now we have a means to improve safety on our DZs" i s the repeated statement.

When I was finished advocating for the safety of our tandem students in BOD meetings, I then volunteered my time to address the DZO conference, over 200 industry professionals in attendance on how to improve the operational safety of their tandem programs. When I finished that presentation, I went on to give a PIA record 10 seminars (5 seminars, twice) at PIA that reached over 1000 people:
- Sigma Standard and Emergency Operating Procedures
- Tandem Canopy Flight
- Tandem Exit Techniques
- AADs in Modern Skydiving Scenarios
- Safety Day Seminar Selections
All of which I wrote and presented on my own time. No fee, no cost.
When all of that was over, I gave up 2 days off to present 16 hours of tandem examiner educational seminars with Jay Stokes and Jim Crouch to a room of over 50 tandem examiners. Again, on my own time, not my company's time.

Through all of that, I also managed to find time to write two safety articles for Blue Skies Mag on AADs and Making Good Canopy Choices.

Suffice to say, if I'm "bought and paid for", then whoever bought me got a serious bargain because I do all I do in this area on my own time, and everything I do, I do because I only want to see a safer landscape on our DZs. No ulterior motives.

I may be a mouthpiece, but I'm a mouthpiece for safety, nothing more. In the last ten years that I have been trying to contribute the betterment of our sport, I have come to realize that no amount of effort or work will ever stop "top dockers" from making false broad stroke statements about people and situations they know nothing about. That rolls off like water.

What I would genuinely be interested in though is what Craig has done in the last year for the membership to improve safety and what specific information Craig has about who has been bought and what they have been paid. I don't expect we will see that though, because from my perspective, that info doesnt exist.

Have at me, I may or may not respond as I am replying to all of the emails thanking me for the seminars and BSRs and sending out my power points to one and all that ask for them so they can share the info at their own DZs.
Namaste,
Tom Noonan

www.everest-skydive.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
TomNoonan

Quote

When everyone is bought and paid for....

top



Broad stroke statement without any support by facts. Perhaps you can actually take the time to state specifically who was bought and what they were paid?

I can only speak for myself:
Not a single person asked me to do what I did. That is to bring 3 requests to S&T committee that passed S&T and then passed the full board voting process. I did what I did because:
1) I'm tired of investigating tandem turns over 90 degrees gone wrong that lead to grave injuries and fatalities under perfectly functioning parachutes.
2) I'm tired of investigating tandem AAD fires that start with the explanation "I couldn't find the handles".
3) I'm tired of being told when pointing out reckless/dangerous behavior that "unless its a BSR we do not have to follow any regulations".
4) If every end user of tandem systems used the gear in the manner and procedures it was intended, these BSRs wouldnt be necessary.

BTW, (everything I did, I could have done without being on the board)

The irony here is that it is I that asked the manufacturers (all of them) for their support as I brought it to the board, not the other way around. I even asked 2 manufacturers and some industry experts (not on the board) to weigh in during the meetings to support my statements, and in the end, the board made the right decisions and voted these two BSRs into place.

Since then, every tandem examiner I have been in direct contact with (over 50) have said it was the right thing to do and "they should have happened 20 years ago." Of a population of 179 tandem examiners (subject matter experts) that have now been informed, not a single one raised an objection, and to the contrary, the BSRs have been embraced by practically everyone that has been informed. "Now we have a means to improve safety on our DZs" i s the repeated statement.

When I was finished advocating for the safety of our tandem students in BOD meetings, I then volunteered my time to address the DZO conference, over 200 industry professionals in attendance on how to improve the operational safety of their tandem programs. When I finished that presentation, I went on to give a PIA record 10 seminars (5 seminars, twice) at PIA that reached over 1000 people:
- Sigma Standard and Emergency Operating Procedures
- Tandem Canopy Flight
- Tandem Exit Techniques
- AADs in Modern Skydiving Scenarios
- Safety Day Seminar Selections
All of which I wrote and presented on my own time. No fee, no cost.
When all of that was over, I gave up 2 days off to present 16 hours of tandem examiner educational seminars with Jay Stokes and Jim Crouch to a room of over 50 tandem examiners. Again, on my own time, not my company's time.

Through all of that, I also managed to find time to write two safety articles for Blue Skies Mag on AADs and Making Good Canopy Choices.

Suffice to say, if I'm "bought and paid for", then whoever bought me got a serious bargain because I do all I do in this area on my own time, and everything I do, I do because I only want to see a safer landscape on our DZs. No ulterior motives.

I may be a mouthpiece, but I'm a mouthpiece for safety, nothing more. In the last ten years that I have been trying to contribute the betterment of our sport, I have come to realize that no amount of effort or work will ever stop "top dockers" from making false broad stroke statements about people and situations they know nothing about. That rolls off like water.

What I would genuinely be interested in though is what Craig has done in the last year for the membership to improve safety and what specific information Craig has about who has been bought and what they have been paid. I don't expect we will see that though, because from my perspective, that info doesnt exist.

Have at me, I may or may not respond as I am replying to all of the emails thanking me for the seminars and BSRs and sending out my power points to one and all that ask for them so they can share the info at their own DZs.



Thanks Tom

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I am not saying it was the right or wrong thing to do. I am saying it puts our organization in the forefront of lawsuits if this is not strictly enforced, makes a national organization micromanaging TI's decisions, and (as my attorney bluntly put it) makes any non-enforcement by an SnTA a valid pretext for including him or her in a lawsuit in the event of an injury. Essentially, the SnTA is negligent if he or she does not strictly enforce this rule.... It's a BSR!

It's like the underage skydiver rule. Not one member came in and ask for that. That was strictly to keep the manufacturers happy. You and I were both on the BOD when a certain owner came in and yelled at us for not having passed it already! And amazingly, he was not asked to stop, speak politely, or asked to sit down even. He was given pretty free reign to speak his mind. And eventually, that BSR passed with NO DISCUSSION ALLOWED. A major policy change, a major rule, and that change passed with no discussion.

You cannot deny that there is a certain lack of disclosure as to the relationships that the BOD members have with financial interests in our sport. The fact that the BOD does not reveal these relationships is disingenuous, violates every code of ethics, and most likely violates our non-profit status.

I have no doubt that members of the BOD think the are working to protect our sport, they are not mean-spirited people. They work hard, go to long meetings, listen to lots of gripes, and get very little reward for it. But, that does not absolve them from their duty to protect our organization from undue influence and to be honest with the members.

top
Jump more, post less!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Craig,

You still haven't answered the question: "Who's bought and what did they get paid for it?". Your statement, not mine.

What I saw on the board this time around, was that half of the 22 members of the BOD are now current examiners, across all areas of sport, not just tandem. When you I were on the board, it was "all the DZOs making DZO decisions, etc, like removing tandem students from all other students so they could go up without altimeters, et all to lower the costs of doing tandems...."

Today the simple fact is that half of the board are active trainers (subject matter experts) these days and they didn't need any encouragement from PIA or the manufacturers to do the right thing, they saw it for what it was from the start, the right thing to do for the membership and the organization.

As for
Quote

I am saying it puts our organization in the forefront of lawsuits if this is not strictly enforced,



So strictly enforce it. Tighten up the ships at sea and we won't continue to lose tandem students overboard.

Or do you want to be the person to tell the family of the next dead tandem student from a tandem turn over 90 degrees that the statistics showed that the mother, daughter, wife would still be alive if the turn was under 90 degrees?

As for USPA having any obligation to help keep the people that manufacture cutting edge gear in business by requiring everyone that skydives to be able to sign a valid waiver, then put it in this perspective:

If you like breaking away from a CReW jump with 3 rings and not Capewells, be happy. If you like flying cutting edge ram air wings instead of Stratostars, be happy. Or if your happy paying $2,000.00 for a canopy and not $20,000.00 for that canopy, be happy. The age change you referenced affected less than 5% of the DZs in the country and in returned, protected the gear available for all 100% if I recall.

I get the fact you disagree with it all, so just say that. You disagree. But to go throwing unfounded (untrue) accusations that the BOD is "bought and paid for" is insulting to everyone on that board that donates their time to help guide the direction of USPA.
Namaste,
Tom Noonan

www.everest-skydive.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
topdocker

I am saying it puts our organization in the forefront of lawsuits if this is not strictly enforced, makes a national organization micromanaging TI's decisions, and (as my attorney bluntly put it) makes any non-enforcement by an SnTA a valid pretext for including him or her in a lawsuit in the event of an injury.




I've always thought that the attitude of fear of lawsuits preventing the progress of things we KNOW to be in the interests of safety is one of the shittier things about our sport.

'We know x is safer, but we're not going to say it specifically in case there's an accident...' Shame on us.


Regarding the handle check on tandems - isn't that part of the diveflow that's taught in a TI course? I may be misremembering, but thought some of my instructor friends said it was.
Again, if that's true, and it's taken a BSR for us to get a grip of people actually doing it, well that's just an embarrassing reflection on us.


The mantra of 'we don't need rules - we're self policing' has been BS for years, but people still say it regularly. Maybe we need a few rules forced on us to start taking the responsibilities of self-policing seriously...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
TomNoonan



Or do you want to be the person to tell the family of the next dead tandem student from a tandem turn over 90 degrees that the statistics showed that the mother, daughter, wife would still be alive if the turn was under 90 degrees?
.



Tom,

Appreciate your work so the following question is just that, a question. How many tandem students have died due to a turn in excess of 90 below 500 feet? Yes I will agree that 1 is 1 too many.

Thanks again.

"You start off your skydiving career with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience up before your bag of luck runs out."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
How many instructors have the manufacturers suspended or revoked rating for in the past 5 years ?

I just like all of us see videos/photos of stuff which is clearly in violation of the manufacturer standard operating procedures on a regular basis and am curious how often the manufacturer enforce there own rules.

Having a duplicate procedure/rule now in the BSR's is great but are we going to see a big change and enforcement actually occurring or are they now expecting USPA S&TA's to be the enforcers.

You mentioned that it was your idea and you then got the manufacturers on-board. Did they not consider this important enough to bring it to the board themselves or if they did why did it take for you to do it ?

I'm not doubting the intent of both of these changes - just curious on why this happened now and appears to be only 2 of the 10 commandments which are all pretty good things to ensure increased safety.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
skytribe



Having a duplicate procedure/rule now in the BSR's is great but are we going to see a big change and enforcement actually occurring or are they now expecting USPA S&TA's to be the enforcers.



This is my concern...I don't see USPA having the will to enforce this.
"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I can see why there's sometimes skepticism about new rules -- because some of us just don't hear about problems happening, and don't have much communication with those who have an overview of the situation. So we don't see that there's much of an issue.

A couple recent posts in this thread were by people asking 'how often does such and such actually happen?'.

Or there's the issue, also touched on recently, of how one sees videos from apparently big dropzones with lots of experience, with behaviour that isn't sanctioned by the manufacturers. Without other feedback, one may feel pressure to emulate the cool kids.

TomNoonan


2) I'm tired of investigating tandem AAD fires that start with the explanation "I couldn't find the handles".



My first gut reaction was to think, "Really? Idiots! I've never ever, ever heard of that happening in 10+ years of doing tandems, not locally, not anywhere." So you can see why someone like me, without the same overview of the industry, might laugh at what seems like a stupid new rule -- even if I agree that regular handles checks are a good idea (and not only in freefall).

So, Tom, your feedback on dz.com about the tandem industry is useful, even if I'm not always in agreement about what rules to make.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
My feelings on this are pretty simple, unlike the USPA's BSRs. I don't in anyway disagree with Tom about the procedures. Tom is someone I always read and give a lot of weight to when he posts about tandems. BSR stands for Basic Safety Rule, and they used to be just that, simple and basic. They no longer are, these new rules get down into the details of conducting operations and as others have pointed out, are unlikely to be enforced by USPA. That's simply because USPA is not, and has never been an enforcement agency.

It would probably be better to have a set of recommendations that would by default become industry standards, rather than rules no one will be able to stand behind.

But I'm not even a USPA member, and this is just my 2 cents.
Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Thanks for the questions and feedback from everyone. I'll try to answer it all in one post here before I hop on a flight home this afternoon.

- The manufacturers have been trying to educate the end users about turns over 90 degrees through tandem manufacturer efforts in many ways since mid 2011, like the 16 Commandment presentations, disseminating the information to federations, and I believe USPA even published the info in the Professional Newsletter. Concern about these turns isn't new. The manufacturers tried the "educate the users approach", but it still fell on deaf ears in certain places.

- As for incident numbers, suffice to say, more than 1 fatality from a turn over 90 degrees. THANKFULLY this is not a common occurrence, (otherwise the FAA would probably be taking over tandems), but there continue to be a growing number of grave/serious injuries from big turns gone wrong. Broken femurs, shattered hips, shattered coccyx, spinal injuries and so on. (We cover a lot of these incidents in our tandem examiner meetings in a training environment.).

At the end of the day, as I tell everyone, being a tandem instructor is one of the best jobs in the world that requires very little compliance: We list a small number of "must follow" criteria that are not hard to follow, and in return, tandem instructors have the opportunity to make a living doing something rewarding and exciting. And while most people do the right things, there is always that person or group that says "if its not a BSR, we don't have to follow the regulations." To me that is not just a safety concern, its a complete lack of professionalism. Do the simple tasks we ask of you and have a safe, long career in an awesome sport. That small list still seems to be too much for some "professionals" out there....now its a BSR. Now we (USPA) have the power to correct this unsafe behavior.

- Recommendations: Great idea in theory, the manufacturers have been making safety based recommendations for a few years now. As recommendations though, they simply get ignored when they become inconvenient.......
Namaste,
Tom Noonan

www.everest-skydive.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
TomNoonan



We list a small number of "must follow" criteria that are not hard to follow, and in return, tandem instructors have the opportunity to make a living doing something rewarding and exciting. And while most people do the right things, there is always that person or group that says "if its not a BSR, we don't have to follow the regulations." To me that is not just a safety concern, its a complete lack of professionalism. Do the simple tasks we ask of you and have a safe, long career in an awesome sport. That small list still seems to be too much for some "professionals" out there....now its a BSR. Now we (USPA) have the power to correct this unsafe behavior.



So playing devils advocate here and saying that we are talking about a very small number of individuals/groups who appear to have not had it impressed upon them by the examiners who gave them there ratings what the appropriate procedures that are required for a manufacturer rating.

and you are expecting them to suddenly change there behavior because its now a BSR. They didn't care beforehand and I doubt that those small group will change behaviors because its a BSR. Perhaps because DZO's define what is acceptable which they could do beforehand and either you comply or your unemployed.

and we still have a process which ultimately has little actual historical enforcement.

Safety is good and I truly believe these are steps in the right direction but am still skeptical of real change actually happening.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Safety is good and I truly believe these are steps in the right direction but am still skeptical of real change actually happening.



Only time will tell I guess. No matter what the outcome, my conscience is clear, I advocated for something I believe in and people saw it as a step in the right direction. I am grateful for that.
Namaste,
Tom Noonan

www.everest-skydive.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Tom - how are you seeing these BSRs being enforced?

If nothing alters culturally within the USPA then you can introduce as many of them as you want - nothing will change. If the USPA introduces regulations, then they have to be enforced somehow.

The only way I can see this happening is at a DZO level - they have to be held accountable by the USPA for the actions of their employees with some form of meaningful sanctions available. That responsibility will be passed on to the individual TIs from the owners.

I don't think the USPA has the time or resources to try to monitor and enforce the rules on an individual basis.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

0