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BMAC615

Minimum Opening Altitudes

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3 hours ago, gowlerk said:

What would be the point of that? Leaving D license holders out of the rules would make them meaningless. It's not like D licences are hard to get.

Many USPA DZs have a culture of an expectation of quickly downsizing beyond a WL of 1.2 before 500 jumps that is resulting in injury and death.

Why is this the culture? Because too many skydivers are telling new jumpers that they should expect to downsize multiple times during their first 500 jumps. It’s not the pro canopy coaches pushing this narrative. It’s often the people who have no business giving canopy size advice. S&TAs and pro canopy coaches don’t have an incentive or the energy to argue with customers who have made up their minds that they want to quickly downsize, so they don’t.

USPA giving AFFIs, S&TAs and Pro Canopy Coaches a BSR to point to - the same way they do for minimum opening altitudes and WS FFCs - sets a safety culture of when it’s appropriate to downsize.

I recognize this is a hot button issue as the first time I had this discussion as an AFFI was more than 25 years ago. I’m also familiar with the Work Brian Germain has done in this area. I think the canopy downsizing chart is great but it’s still confusing and has too many steps.

I think we’ve all agreed that people with fewer than 200 jumps don’t know what they don’t know and even 500 is still barely understanding the basics of canopy flight. 

We also know USPA is Very aware and even has a canopy risk quotient quiz that shows the incident and fatality risk is much higher for jumpers with fewer than 200 jumps flying a WL >1 and jumpers with 201-500 flying a WL >1.2.

We also know there is general consensus around this 200 jump number being a minimum for just getting the hang of things. We also know it usually takes most skydivers several years to reach 500 jumps.

Putting hard and fast numbers down in the same way USPA does for minimum opening altitudes and minimum jumps for wingsuit FFC takes the “YoUr’Re gOnNa bE CoNsTaNtLy dOwN SiZiNg” culture off the table.

New skydivers often make poor safety decisions based on financial considerations and bad judgement. They often choose to buy a container with main tray that is one or two sizes smaller than what they should be buying because they are afraid of the cost of selling and buying new gear. So they fly wings that are too small, too soon.

Further, because of this trend, the 2nd hand market consists mostly of rigs that have reserves and mains that are one or two sizes too small for new jumpers in relation to the harness size - perpetuating the problem.

Getting some consistency with a WL of 1 for several hundred jumps and then bumping it up a little to a WL of 1.2 for another 300 jumps gives new jumpers the ability to really learn to fly a canopy while also giving them time to attend canopy courses and make their way through @billvon’s downsizing checklist before downsizing.

After 500 jumps, you have been around long enough to sort of know what you’re getting yourself into when downsizing beyond 1.2. Further, these jumpers will be better prepared to fly higher performance platforms at higher WLs, resulting in fewer overall injuries and deaths.

 

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8 hours ago, gowlerk said:

By "nanny state" I mean where the local association has been given the power of the law. In nanny states you must belong to and abide by the association's rules or the government will not allow you to operate a DZ. Both Canada and the USA do not give that kind of power to either CSPA or USPA. If either of those organizations had that sort of power that the BPA for instance has, they would certainly have tighter rules and paid bureaucrats to enforce then. Meaning Big Brother would "nanny" you. 

I see. Well as I have been told, in a nutshell, back in the good old days a lot of Dutch skydivers were getting hurt under then-modern canopies. IIRC that was around the time the original Sabre came out. The Dutch authorities took note and told our national association to regulate ourselves - or they would. So, since we don't sue as easily as the US, we got 'rules' instead of 'recommendations'. The association, however, does not have the power of the law.

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17 hours ago, gowlerk said:

Those kind of rules would lead to people leaving USPA. Therefore enforcement is not possible.

let 'em leave.  then it is enforced as they can't jump at a uspa dz without being a member.  if they choose to stay a member, they abide the rules.  easy as hell.  it also automatically enforces itself that way. 

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14 hours ago, BMAC615 said:

Many USPA DZs have a culture of an expectation of quickly downsizing beyond a WL of 1.2 before 500 jumps that is resulting in injury and death.

Why is this the culture? Because too many skydivers are telling new jumpers that they should expect to downsize multiple times during their first 500 jumps. ...

This reminds me of an equipment selection exercise that I assigned during a rigging course a few years back. I said "Your customer is a junior jumper who did his first jump in May and now has 40 jumps. .... His objective for the end of next season is to jump a wing-suit from a famous tall cliff."

Only one rigger candidate clued in that BASE jumpers usually stick with large canopies only loaded at 0.7 pounds per square foot.

Hah!

Hah!

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8 hours ago, riggerrob said:

This reminds me of an equipment selection exercise that I assigned during a rigging course a few years back. I said "Your customer is a junior jumper who did his first jump in May and now has 40 jumps. .... His objective for the end of next season is to jump a wing-suit from a famous tall cliff."

Only one rigger candidate clued in that BASE jumpers usually stick with large canopies only loaded at 0.7 pounds per square foot.

Hah!

Hah!

This is a really important note. I steer new jumpers who have a goal of BASE or WS toward <1 WL 7-cell canopies like a Storm, Triathlon or WinX as their first canopy. 

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On 10/19/2022 at 12:11 AM, BMAC615 said:

Many USPA DZs have a culture of an expectation of quickly downsizing beyond a WL of 1.2 before 500 jumps that is resulting in injury and death.

 

Sitting back and looking at the total flow of information, I wonder on this...

We do (and need to) provide much discussion, information, and some imposed restrictions on how/when one can downsize.  But I don't know that we are seeing the situation from the young jumper's point of view...

Absolutely, there are young hot blood jumpers that wanna do "THAT!" (as they point to the latest swooper/wingsuiter/prox-flyer/3D/Skyboarder/CReW/etc...  And those are the ones we try to educate and put the brakes on as to how fast they can/should "progress" into the higher adrenalin activities.

BUT... I wonder if in trying to keep the DGITs alive, if in balance we are sending the wrong message to the rest of the newbies...?

To the rest, there seems (at least to me) to be a message that, as you progress to these levels, it is expected that you will... x,y,z...  We don't seem to, expect as an after thought of preaching to the DGITs, mention that... you can have a long, fun, rich, enjoyable skydiving life focusing on belly flying in groups of fewer than 10, and a canopy at 1.1  You can freefly, without being in a massive big-way, or wing suiting.   In trying to tell people that they NEED a certain level of experience to fly a camera, are we telling them that AT 200 jumps, they are expected to?

Of course, most of would say "absolutely not"...  At the level of experience for many in this group, we know you don't NEED to do anything (expect have a good 'chute, pull on time, don't run into anyone in the air, land safely).

BUT, is that what the younger (not-hot-heads) are hearing, when so much of our discussion is on when one can down-size, wear a camera, with the wingsuit, so they can fly next to a cliff and then swoop the pond in the valley.

Maybe we need to rephrase the way we discus it...

Just my $.03
JW - Who _has_ downsized in his career...  From a 1.0 PD-260, to a high performance Spectre 230 at 1.15 (I _even_ have a Spectre 210 for when I'm feeling reckless ;-P )
 

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14 hours ago, BMAC615 said:

This is a really important note. I steer new jumpers who have a goal of BASE or WS toward <1 WL 7-cell canopies like a Storm, Triathlon or WinX as their first canopy. 

During another rigger course, I assigned a similar equipment selection exercise and the lone, British candidate was ^%$#@! furious!!!!!!!!

I told him to calm down, then said that I could keep the junior jumper busy learning the finer points of precision landings for the next 200 jumps.

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On 10/20/2022 at 8:14 AM, fcajump said:

Sitting back and looking at the total flow of information, I wonder on this...

We do (and need to) provide much discussion, information, and some imposed restrictions on how/when one can downsize.  But I don't know that we are seeing the situation from the young jumper's point of view...

Absolutely, there are young hot blood jumpers that wanna do "THAT!" (as they point to the latest swooper/wingsuiter/prox-flyer/3D/Skyboarder/CReW/etc...  And those are the ones we try to educate and put the brakes on as to how fast they can/should "progress" into the higher adrenalin activities.

BUT... I wonder if in trying to keep the DGITs alive, if in balance we are sending the wrong message to the rest of the newbies...?

To the rest, there seems (at least to me) to be a message that, as you progress to these levels, it is expected that you will... x,y,z...  We don't seem to, expect as an after thought of preaching to the DGITs, mention that... you can have a long, fun, rich, enjoyable skydiving life focusing on belly flying in groups of fewer than 10, and a canopy at 1.1  You can freefly, without being in a massive big-way, or wing suiting.   In trying to tell people that they NEED a certain level of experience to fly a camera, are we telling them that AT 200 jumps, they are expected to?

Of course, most of would say "absolutely not"...  At the level of experience for many in this group, we know you don't NEED to do anything (expect have a good 'chute, pull on time, don't run into anyone in the air, land safely).

BUT, is that what the younger (not-hot-heads) are hearing, when so much of our discussion is on when one can down-size, wear a camera, with the wingsuit, so they can fly next to a cliff and then swoop the pond in the valley.

Maybe we need to rephrase the way we discus it...

Just my $.03
JW - Who _has_ downsized in his career...  From a 1.0 PD-260, to a high performance Spectre 230 at 1.15 (I _even_ have a Spectre 210 for when I'm feeling reckless ;-P )
 

I think just putting a pin in it temporarily takes the thought of it off the table. After six months or even a couple years, new skydivers are better prepared to make decisions about their journey. 

For example, when I was 18, during my skydiving FJC at a little FL DZ in ‘93, my instructor mentioned he jumps off an antenna not that far from the drop zone. I was floored and instantly wanted to do whatever it was he was doing. I asked, “When can I do that?” He responded, “I’ll take you when you have 1,000 skydives.”

I got focused on other skydiving goals because it seemed like it would take FOREVER to get to 1,000. I got to 1,000 and beyond before he went in at a different antenna in ‘98 (BFL 43).

Who knows what different path I would have taken had he not been looking out for me.

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About a year or so (just guessing) before USPA changed the opening altitude minimums Bill Booth did an interview during the PIA Symposium where he said he was raising his own hard deck 500 feet. I don't recall all the details but some of it can be explained by this: we have higher skydives than ever, the parachutes take longer to open (trust me, I jumped rounds) -- the built-in snivel is for comfort and safety. When Bill Booth talks, I listen, and so it wasn't surprising when USPA acted. There are still fatalities for failure to employ EPs in time to get a reserve out. Some of this is due to an aging cohort in the sport. 

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