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MakeItHappen

Comments concerning a Canopy Licensing System

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Hopefully even though I'm a low jump count newb my input might be helpful.

I'm doing my B canopy course with Axis out at Eloy on the weekend and I'm looking forward to it greatly. If there was subsequent canopy courses for C and D licenses I'd be eager to do them too.

While I'm a low jump count newb, I have been around skydiving for the better part of 20 years. From the time of my 1st tandem at 14 to now at the age of 34, canopies have changed greatly. Frankly the tiny, beach towel sized high performance chutes I see swooping in for landings scare the utter shit out of me.

I worry for younger people who are coming into the sport with out seeing the progression in canopy performance which I've seen. Kids will come out and do their AFF jumps and swooping will be the norm to them. For this reason I think that some kind of licensed progression is for the best.

The talk of whether this is worth doing because idiots will just continue being idiots and find a way around any rules which are implemented misses a big point (imho). There are newbs like me who WANT to learn. If / when I want to get under a high performance chute I know that I could go and find a canopy course to complete. However I think that an officially sanctioned USPA progression would be the best thing.

The upside for me would be that I could quickly explain to instructors / gear sellers / riggers / etc what my level of skill is. "I've just completed the C license canopy course and have been comfortable jumping with a 1.2 wing load" paints a pretty simple picture.

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I'm doing my B canopy course with Axis out at Eloy on the weekend and I'm looking forward to it greatly. If there was subsequent canopy courses for C and D licenses I'd be eager to do them too.



There aren't, but there are more advanced canopy courses available through a number of sources that you can voluntarily take. Don't let the lack of a requirement stop you. It's also good to get back to a basic class every so often - a refresher and a day focused on you and your canopy skills is never a waste of time.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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NWFlyer

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I'm doing my B canopy course with Axis out at Eloy on the weekend and I'm looking forward to it greatly. If there was subsequent canopy courses for C and D licenses I'd be eager to do them too.



There aren't, but there are more advanced canopy courses available through a number of sources that you can voluntarily take. Don't let the lack of a requirement stop you. It's also good to get back to a basic class every so often - a refresher and a day focused on you and your canopy skills is never a waste of time.



I probably wasn't clear in my post. I realize there currently aren't further canopy licenses for C and D. I was responding to the proposal of adding these. I also realize there are canopy courses run by different groups. I did mention that I would look at doing those as I progress.

I just wanted to point out that having something standardized by the USPA at C and D level makes sense to me.

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I agree that there's a big cultural component to it, but it seems like we haven't made a huge amount of headway on it over the years that I've been in the sport (admittedly not as long as many others). You see it in the way we talk to new jumpers about buying gear. We say things like "You're going to want to downsize" and "You'll get bored with your first canopy in 100 jumps." We set up that expectation from the beginning,


Finally! Somebody else gets it. It's nice to see somebody else take up the mantle, too.

I can't tell you how many times I've put that to people on DZ.com and in person...sometimes nicely, other times more forcefully. Even the big boys do it with terms like "boat", "big floaty", etc (are you listening Ian, BillVon?).
Funny how the 'big boys' aren't listening and continue to do it.


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I do, however, find the low pull analogy interesting, whereby old-timers tell me that USPA drove a cultural shift; by making pull altitudes part of the BSR, they changed the culture. By the time I started in 2004, dirty low pulling was seen as passe, not cool, etc. I feel like USPA might have a role to play (certainly not the only role) in driving cultural change here, too, if they do it right.


Absolutely! Make the changes. Now. The culture will follow. Many people currently in the sport are going to grumble. You are not going to get around that no matter what is done to change things. The new ones will be more accepting. If for no other reason than attrition, things will improve and become the norm...just as no low-pull has become. It's as simple matter of learning from history.

If you waste time spinning your wheels trying to keep the hot rods from throwing temper tantrums, you are, well, wasting your time.

If you waste time trying to get a 'perfect' solution, you are, again, wasting your time.

Change is dynamic...it evolves. All one has to do is get it started. The tweaks for improvement will come as a matter of course.

IMO, there's hardly anything you could do to make it worse than it is right now.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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I think a canopy licensing system would be great and I would certainly have embraced the structured approach and knowing what the next step is, but I do have a few comments:

1. Jump numbers should not be part of it because (a) they are not that useful an indicator of level of proficiency and (b) they can just be padded (pencil-whipped) just like people do now to get a tandem rating at 300 jumps.

2. Canopy courses and proficiency assessments must be carried out by qualified people - not just your average beer-line swooper or someone who holds an S&TA appointment or AFFI rating. That is not good enough. To that end, maybe Flight-1 and the like should start a "Train the Trainer" course. If the USPA won't step up and qualify people to teach canopy flight, maybe private companies should take the initiative.

3. To those who say local enforcement is enough look at the results of the education vs restriction poll I started a couple of weeks ago - approximately 1/4 of respondents say their approach to someone moving too fast in their canopy piloting progression is to ignore it and let them die. With that attitude it's highly unlikely that anything will change without some regulation.

There are thousands of jumpers around, particularly the ones who have been in the sport for 10+ years, who think they know all there is to know about flying a canopy. These people need to be reached too, as well as the young up-and-comers. They are spreading misinformation and out-dated concepts. Many of them with an instructor rating.

We all need ongoing canopy coaching. Only a small percentage of us recognize the fact and are actively seeking education. That needs to change too.
"The ground does not care who you are. It will always be tougher than the human behind the controls."

~ CanuckInUSA

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+1

Let me add....

Time in sport.

Some things can't be taught in a class.
There is too much to make known that would takes days and days to cover in a class.

"Experience' somewhat implies an adequate time in sport but not necessarily so.

IMO, we'll need to address time in sport, too. That means a reasonable limit...drawing a line. 1 year? No, not enough. 2? 3?
Whaddaya think?

Remember, we are not simply dealing with mechanical skills here.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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I would first like to say a few things:
1) I have obviously not been in the sport long at all (180ish jumps, 1.5 years), and as such may very well not know what I am talking about. In addition, I can imagine that seeing a few of my friends/acquaintances die in the future could change my opinion. I'm also young and generally inexperienced with the game of life.
2) I just recently downsized to a 170 canopy, and without gear weigh 135 or so. Feel free to do your own math, but the way I figure it I'm just under 1.0 wing loading. I plan to jump this canopy for a couple hundred jumps anyway. My Dad likes to remind me that I should keep myself alive long enough to be doing this in 30+ years, and I'll have plenty of time to try high(er) performance canopies.

So,

HOW do you change the culture? I really think this is key. Jumping at a small DZ where swooping is non-existent and small canopies are rare, I'm sometimes surprised by the culture that promotes rapid downsizing. When recently off student status and jumping a 240, I was once told I should buy a 150 by a much more experienced jumper (not at my home DZ). I laughed. I'm not sure if it's just me, or the people I started jumping around, but I have no desire to jump a high performance wing for many years. I think they are really cool, don't get me wrong. I might be able to handle it under good conditions. But looking at the major causes of death in the sport, watching a few videos of what can go wrong when the shit hits the fan, and listening to those with a few more jumps than myself, I'm not even vaguely interested. If the overwhelming perception of HP canopies in the sport was the same as mine, I think we'd have less deaths.

Adding regulations/licenses may help the situation, but as many others have pointed out there are ways to cheat past them if you really want to. Plus, those add 'transaction costs' if you will, in the form of time, money, and (depending on the implementation) hindering those who may not be part of the problem in the first place. The implementation is always the hardest part of a good idea, and I'm not entirely convinced that licenses/ratings can be implemented to control canopy downsizing in an effective manner.

To me if the community can figure out HOW to change the culture WITHOUT having to implement a licensing system for canopies, that would be by far the best outcome. However, this may not be possible. In that case I can only hope the USPA implements a well thought out system that works at large and small DZs alike.

I really view the licensing scenario as the last resort. That said, it may be deemed necessary to protect people from themselves. Cringe. [:/]

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It wouldn't be right to punish the 500-jumper who has spent all their time honing their canopy skills and may well be perfectly ready for an x-brace just because other jumpers with similar or greater jump numbers (but much lower skills) have pounded in on them. If you're going to implement a new draconian canopy licensing system, at least make it about SKILLS, and skills alone, not jump numbers.



The bottom end of a pattern / canopy landing takes about 15 seconds. During that time a swooper, or any other canopy pilot, is sharing airspace with other canopy pilots. You really think it's too much to ask that someone who wants to share a pattern has more than 2 fucking hours in flight practicing high speed aerobatics in shared airspace?

You sound like a selfish, privileged, and clueless wannabe.

Do the math on how much experience in a pattern 500 jumps gives you.
Owned by Remi #?

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labrys


The bottom end of a pattern / canopy landing takes about 15 seconds.


When you define the "bottom end" to be the last 15 seconds, then you do realize that saying it's 15 seconds is a tautology, right? All you've just said is "the last 15 seconds of a pattern lasts for 15 seconds."

A canopy pilot can practice their landing skills at any altitude. Some jumpers (such as myself) spend their whole 3000+ feet of canopy altitude practicing riser turns and getting a feel for how they plane out coming out of a turn and taking note of altitude loss, etc. If someone does this for 500 jumps in a row, then guess what, they have a lot more "experience" than a 1,000-jumper who hasn't. Experience isn't synonymous with jump numbers.

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During that time a swooper, or any other canopy pilot, is sharing airspace with other canopy pilots. You really think it's too much to ask that someone who wants to share a pattern has more than 2 fucking hours in flight practicing high speed aerobatics in shared airspace?

You sound like a selfish, privileged, and clueless wannabe.

Do the math on how much experience in a pattern 500 jumps gives you.


Who pissed in your frosted flakes this morning? Keep it civil; otherwise you sound like a bossy know-it-all who can't stand to have anyone disagree with you and think you have some kind of divine right to impose your will on others.
Skydiving is serious business

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Honest question. When you practice your plane out at altitude, how accurate are you? To within how many feet? Because the difference between a killer swoop and a double femur is only a few feet. The only way to learn your sight picture is being close to mother earth. And that just takes jumps and those last 15 seconds.
50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

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As far as actually getting the sight picture down, yeah I don't see how that could be done in the air. But I'm talking more about getting the general feel for a certain type of approach committed to muscle memory.

But if you want to talk number of landings, riddle me this:
Do you consider a 2100-jumper who has spent 100 jumps practicing front riser approaches more 'ready' to fly an HP wing than a 550-jumper who has spent 500 jumps practicing the same techniques?
Skydiving is serious business

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But if you want to talk number of landings, riddle me this:
Do you consider a 2100-jumper who has spent 100 jumps practicing front riser approaches more 'ready' to fly an HP wing than a 550-jumper who has spent 500 jumps practicing the same techniques?



Probably the 2100 jump pilot. They've been under a wing longer. They understand things better and have a more well rounded view on flight characteristics, approaches, watching for traffic, etc, etc. Just because a jumper has been spending every single jump of their first 500 jumps working on a maneuver, doesn't mean they'll have the experience and skills to fly perfectly. Hell, just my very square canopy that I've got a couple hundred jumps on is no where near being fully understood by me, and I don't expect to be fabulous with it in another couple hundred jumps. So why should the 500 jump pilot be any different with an HP wing? Just need to let experience and time do it's thing. Doesn't mean that practice and skill honing doesn't help, but you can't look past the experience/time element under a wing.
Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

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I'd expect the 500-jump person to have been working with an experienced teaching canopy pilot, who would be the one to make that judgment.

I'd expect a 2100-jump person to be more likely to be scared enough of what he's doing. In skydiving, familiarity isn't what breeds contempt.

Wendy P.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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LyraM45

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But if you want to talk number of landings, riddle me this:
Do you consider a 2100-jumper who has spent 100 jumps practicing front riser approaches more 'ready' to fly an HP wing than a 550-jumper who has spent 500 jumps practicing the same techniques?



Probably the 2100 jump pilot. They've been under a wing longer. They understand things better and have a more well rounded view on flight characteristics, approaches, watching for traffic, etc, etc. Just because a jumper has been spending every single jump of their first 500 jumps working on a maneuver, doesn't mean they'll have the experience and skills to fly perfectly.


Oh please, you have got to be kidding meB|

This is where I draw the line; enough of this non-sense. I will quote what was said earlier, "Some people have 1000 jumps, other people have the same jump 1000 times."

Stop being ridiculous; generally, if you invest more time into a specific skill you're going to be better at it than someone who has spent less time practicing that specific skill (excluding natural talent). Give those people the credit they deserve.
"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way." -Alan Watts

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Stop being ridiculous; generally, if you invest more time into a specific skill you're going to be better at it than someone who has spent less time practicing that specific skill



It's not ridiculous at all. Being good at high speed landings does not make anyone a "better" canopy pilot. It just makes them better at high speed landings.

The specific skill in the big picture is managing the flight from opening to the pattern to the landing in the safest way for yourself and the people you're sharing airspace with.

The guy with 2100 jumps has more practice with that.
Owned by Remi #?

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The guy with 2100 jumps has more practice with that.



While technically accurate, if the person with 2100 jumps has just raced to the ground (as most people do) then you could argue they haven't really learned anything more about flying their parachute correctly than the person who's done it 500 times but really been focusing on learning.

edit: That said, the person with 2100 jumps has a much higher likelihood of having been exposed to more situations that can develop than the 500 jump person.

Ian
Performance Designs Factory Team

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DcloudZ

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But if you want to talk number of landings, riddle me this:
Do you consider a 2100-jumper who has spent 100 jumps practicing front riser approaches more 'ready' to fly an HP wing than a 550-jumper who has spent 500 jumps practicing the same techniques?



Probably the 2100 jump pilot. They've been under a wing longer. They understand things better and have a more well rounded view on flight characteristics, approaches, watching for traffic, etc, etc. Just because a jumper has been spending every single jump of their first 500 jumps working on a maneuver, doesn't mean they'll have the experience and skills to fly perfectly.


Oh please, you have got to be kidding meB|

This is where I draw the line; enough of this non-sense. I will quote what was said earlier, "Some people have 1000 jumps, other people have the same jump 1000 times."

Stop being ridiculous; generally, if you invest more time into a specific skill you're going to be better at it than someone who has spent less time practicing that specific skill (excluding natural talent). Give those people the credit they deserve.

I'm not surprised at this reply, coming from a guy who is a 100 jump wonder loaded 1.2 on a stiletto. And let me guess.... you've probably got the next elliptical canopy size down in hand and ready to rig up soon? So, I beg your pardon, but YOU'VE got to me kidding ME, right?

As for giving the people who dedicated all of their 500 jumps to HP canopy stuff the credit they deserve-- no where in my post did I poo poo on them and take away credit. I'm sure there is something to be said for somebody (especially somebody who has worked closely with a mentor and a coach and has gone through a proper progression as best they can) who takes the time and dedicates their practice to one certain area. Doesn't mean they are overall more experienced, better skilled, or more ready than somebody who has thousands of jumps and a lot of time under a wing, even if it's only semi elliptical. When it comes down to it, I guess it differs on a case by case basis and not something we can throw a blanket yes or no over with regards to the who is more ready question.
Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

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if the person with 2100 jumps has just raced to the ground (as most people do) then you could argue they haven't really learned anything more about flying their parachute correctly than the person who's done it 500 times but really been focusing on learning.



I assumed most people don't just race to the ground. I'm open to the fact that maybe I assumed wrong, but a lot of 1000-2000 jump folks I know have definitely taken the time to understand their canopy and how to pilot it well and do it safely. They tend to have a more well rounded understanding of it all-- not just zeroed in on one aspect like high performance with not much thought given to everything else.
Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

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LyraM45

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if the person with 2100 jumps has just raced to the ground (as most people do) then you could argue they haven't really learned anything more about flying their parachute correctly than the person who's done it 500 times but really been focusing on learning.



I assumed most people don't just race to the ground. I'm open to the fact that maybe I assumed wrong, but a lot of 1000-2000 jump folks I know have definitely taken the time to understand their canopy and how to pilot it well and do it safely. They tend to have a more well rounded understanding of it all-- not just zeroed in on one aspect like high performance with not much thought given to everything else.



+1
Some people are simply focused on mechanical "skill" and will argue from that foundation like there's no tomorrow. There's a lot, and I mean a LOT more, to it than that. You got it right.

Ian did touch on the experience and time in sport factors.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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popsjumper

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if the person with 2100 jumps has just raced to the ground (as most people do) then you could argue they haven't really learned anything more about flying their parachute correctly than the person who's done it 500 times but really been focusing on learning.



I assumed most people don't just race to the ground. I'm open to the fact that maybe I assumed wrong, but a lot of 1000-2000 jump folks I know have definitely taken the time to understand their canopy and how to pilot it well and do it safely. They tend to have a more well rounded understanding of it all-- not just zeroed in on one aspect like high performance with not much thought given to everything else.


+1
Some people are simply focused on mechanical "skill" and will argue from that foundation like there's no tomorrow. There's a lot, and I mean a LOT more, to it than that. You got it right.


Phew. Good :)
Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

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It is a good suggestion and as a USPA member I will support it, if it is put to the general membership.

I currently jump under a much more regulated system (Australia) and although rules don't stop idiots, it does give the powers that be tools to enforce actions.

In the last week, I overheard a jumper who has aggressively downsized (to the point that he is not allowed to jump his rig at our dz), comment that he sometimes wonders if he has downsized to fast as he sometimes scares himself!

The USPA BOD has a mammoth task, as the general culture of jumping in the US is such that people demand 'freedom', but refuse to take personal responsibility and to be held accountable for their actions.

Lastly, if I'm not mistaken some of the Scandinavian and European countries already have systems similar to what you are proposing, so at least there is a model to build on.
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

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ianmdrennan

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The guy with 2100 jumps has more practice with that.



While technically accurate, if the person with 2100 jumps has just raced to the ground (as most people do) then you could argue they haven't really learned anything more about flying their parachute correctly than the person who's done it 500 times but really been focusing on learning.

edit: That said, the person with 2100 jumps has a much higher likelihood of having been exposed to more situations that can develop than the 500 jump person.

Ian



Having recently done a canopy course, with one of the top CRW people, there is SO much you can do under canopy to learn about flying your wing on every jump. While the days of doing CRW after a 4 way are gone, there is nothing stopping you flying close proximity and doing drills all the way to landing. I can honestly say I've learn't more about flight in the past 15 jumps than the couple of hundred prior.
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

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