Acceptable Fatalities

[Marisan 0]

Substitute Swooping for driving and, maybe, that is where we are now.
(Page 6 of this article http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/17724/#.T67PfCJOXzc.facebook)

Smeed interpreted his law as a law of human nature. The number of deaths is determined mainly by psychological factors that are independent of material circumstances. People will drive recklessly until the number of deaths reaches the maximum they can tolerate. When the number exceeds that limit, they drive more carefully. Smeed's Law merely defines the number of deaths that we find psychologically tolerable.

[wmw999 2,116]

I don't swoop; I'm not at all in favor of young idiots learning how to swoop by first buying a small canopy. But I do find fatalities among experienced swoopers pushing the limits to be regrettable, but acceptable. Just as I find fatalities among soldiers to be (sometimes more) regrettable, race car drivers, etc.

Some people deliberately put their life on the line. If they do it willingly and with knowledge, then I'm not sure why we should not let them risk their own lives. Their families and friends will hurt if they die or hurt themselves. But that's really not my business.

I'm against children being soldiers, amateurs street racing (pros don't do it anyway), and newbies learning how to swoop by buying a small canopy. But not against experience skydivers taking risks. And sometimes paying for them with their health or, possibly, lives.

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)

[Squeak 17]

What she said.




Every "high risk" sport has fatalities. If it were not for people pushing the envelope and going over our sport would have never progressed past, Military rounds and Static line exits.

The development of the sport comes with more risk, however i agree those risks should only be assumed by "qualified" persons.

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[Marisan 0]

Hi Wendy and Squeak.

With the greatest of respect you have missed the point of the article.

The point is not about the fatalities happening, it is more about how we react to them.

When they cause enough psychological pain the community will react by limiting that which causes the pain.

For some that limit is higher, for others it is lower.

For the operators of Elsinore and Perris (Please excuse me if I have named the wrong DZ's) they have reached their limits. Whether that is because of commercial considerations or the fact that they are sick of scraping up bodies is irrelevant.

It's been nearly 2 months since the last fatality which tells me that SOMETHING is happening within the communty.

[Southern_Man 0]

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The point is not about the fatalities happening, it is more about how we react to them.

When they cause enough psychological pain the community will react by limiting that which causes the pain.

Also known as risk homeostasis and the converse is also true. When things get safer people are willing to take more risks. Also known in skydiving as Booth's law:

"The safer skydiving gear becomes, the more chances skydivers will take, in order to keep the fatality rate constant."

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[wmw999 2,116]

We've gone more than two months between fatalities before. And you very clearly have a large agenda of doing away with swooping as a discipline.

Personally, I'd like to see swooping as a truly dedicated discipline, where a swoop is not combined with a freefly, video, AFFI, or belly jump. It deserves its own concentration to excel. Not to do away with it, just give it the focus that something that requires extreme skill should have.

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)

[DSE 3]

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For the operators of Elsinore and Perris (Please excuse me if I have named the wrong DZ's) they have reached their limits. Whether that is because of commercial considerations or the fact that they are sick of scraping up bodies is irrelevant.
.

Please don't confuse "not encouraging by having a swoop pond" with "banning."

Swooping is not banned at all, not at either dropzone you've mentioned.
We've certainly gone a lot more than a couple of months without a swooping fatality.
Banning swooping isn't the answer. Neither is "education." Some other undiscovered path will eventually out itself.

[wmw999 2,116]

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Some other undiscovered path will eventually out itself

I think CRW may have outlined the path with dedicated jumps for the overwhelming majority of practitioners.

People who are really interested can seriously perfect the skill. People who are marginally interested have to actually dedicate jumps to it, rather htan throwing it in at the end.

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)

[Marisan 0]

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We've gone more than two months between fatalities before. And you very clearly have a large agenda of doing away with swooping as a discipline.

Personally, I'd like to see swooping as a truly dedicated discipline, where a swoop is not combined with a freefly, video, AFFI, or belly jump. It deserves its own concentration to excel. Not to do away with it, just give it the focus that something that requires extreme skill should have.

Wendy P.

Hi Wendy, no I DON"T have a large agenda of doing away with swooping. I, however DO have a large agenda of doing away with the carnage that seems to be associated with swooping (or tiny canopies). Again my point is that the community seems to be starting to no longer accept the carnage.

How many times to people want to sprint over to the IMPACT point to find their friend lying on the ground, blood, piss and shit coming out of every orifice making grunting sounds as they drown in their own blood?
How often do YOU want to do it?

My statement is that it will continue to happen until the community says NO MORE!

We've gone more than 2 months before without a fatality.

Well that's an interesting statement isn't it!

How about we go more than 12 months without a totally avoidable fatality? Is that achievable? That is what I'd like to see.

The community is starting to say that this is what they want.

The authorities are starting to say that is what they expect

Cheers

[Marisan 0]

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The point is not about the fatalities happening, it is more about how we react to them.

When they cause enough psychological pain the community will react by limiting that which causes the pain.

Also known as risk homeostasis and the converse is also true. When things get safer people are willing to take more risks. Also known in skydiving as Booth's law:

"The safer skydiving gear becomes, the more chances skydivers will take, in order to keep the fatality rate constant."

And that is the whole point of the article

[BobMoore 0]

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The community is starting to say that this is what they want.

The authorities are starting to say that is what they expect

No, they're not. But it sounded good to add to your post, didn't it? Kinda like made up statistics.

"For you see, an airplane is an airplane. A landing area is a landing area. But a dropzone... a dropzone is the people."

[tmccann 1]

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It's been nearly 2 months since the last fatality which tells me that SOMETHING is happening within the communty.

Mari,

That statement tells me something -- you are very bad at statistics.

Also, the article you linked to is six year old. What, without a recent incident to use as an excuse to bump your regular thread, did you have to go digging for tenuous links to tell people something they already know? While your concern is admirable, your methods are tiresome. Why don't you spend that time working on a viable solution?

Tim

[RiggerLee 61]

How much is two much? Well it's actually quite a bit. You are showing signs of being a sensetive and caring human being. However most skydivers are rather thick skined.

Bear with me here this is some thing I've thought a lot about. Have you ever noticed the diffrences in how we react to deaths as opposed to the adverage wofo? A car crash, plane crash, accedent any thing. There are some people that run towards the accedent and others that stop and gape. There are people that jam there thumb in the hole that's pumping blood out and others that put there hands on there head and scream oh my god. I'm not talking about hero stuff I'm talking about the diffrence between passive and active personalities. But it's more then that. Have you ever watched how people deal with fear? Not just in the imedeant sence but in uncertinty? The ability to intilectualize and manage the risk? To some degree this seems to be about where the ballace falls between reason and emotion. Skydivers draw heavily from group A rather then from Group B. I don't know, maybe daddy droped us on one side of our head when we were babies. It's a generallization but it seems to be true.

Now think about death. Think about how we handle death. I'm not saying it doesn't hurt but think about how people behave in both the short and the long term. In perticular how skydivers relate to it over time in the long term. I've seem wofo's still morning a death years even decades later. Absolutely torn apart by it as if they were defined by this loss. I don't see that among skydivers. The morning cycles are shorter. I'm not saying we froget but we don't seem to be rulled by it in the same way.

I'm not sure why this is. A more rational personality? A certin level of selfishness? Or maybe it's a greater familiarity. As an example, I went through a really bad streak that lasted for about four years. It just seemed like every one I knew was dieing. It wasn't all one thing some was BASE, some was CRW, some skysurfing, weird test jumps, climbing, lots of skydiving. People I knew from all over the country that were into the exact same things I was doing seemd to be dropping like flys. The short story is that in my first five years I knew two people that died but in those four years I filled up the rest of my fingers and toes. Quit counting after that. That's a pretty high rate to lose friends. In fact I think you'd be hard pressed to find that death rate in any thing out side an army in combat. The point is that death is no stranger to any of us. How many deathes do most people exspereance in there lives? Say by the age of there middle thirties. One? Two? Maybe lost a parrent, maybe a friend. Prier to skydiving I'd lost Two. Some times I wonder if some of our ideosencricies are a copeing mecanisem for an ongoing PTSD or some shit like that.

In any case if you roll all of these things togather you wind up with a skydiver. Is it any wonder that we are not exactly risk adverse. Our hides are thick. Fatalities are not going to slow us down. They never have before. We're still skydiving. We may have improved our gear, tecneaques may have improved. The way we do things may have changed but have deaths ever stopped us from doing what we want to do? The whole Risk Homeostasis thing is true. There has been a spike when ever new tecnology has come along as the sport has evolved. Then we catch up with it. But beyond those flucuations the death rate has held remarkable stedy. No advancement in safety has reduiced the fatality rate. It's just shifted from one catigory to another.

I see no end to the dieing. And I'm forced to conclude that it's because of us. We like it this way. This is by deffinition the level of risk that we chose. All that would have to happen to decrease the fatalite rate by...what do you think, 70%? would be for us to decide colectively to stop takeing risk. Before the death rate can change we our selves would have to change and I don't see that.

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[sundevil777 93]

I do realize that my opinion will not be shared by many.

I do not see swooping as a "development of the sport".

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[Squeak 17]

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The point is not about the fatalities happening, it is more about how we react to them.

When they cause enough psychological pain the community will react by limiting that which causes the pain.

Also known as risk homeostasis and the converse is also true. When things get safer people are willing to take more risks. Also known in skydiving as Booth's law:

"The safer skydiving gear becomes, the more chances skydivers will take, in order to keep the fatality rate constant."

And that is the whole point of the article

If we take that as a given then it matters little what you do in relation to canopy size and swooping, because according to the homoeostasis hypothesis we'll only find another way to maintain the quota.

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[Ron 7]

The fact we have not had an accident in two months means absolutely nothing statistically speaking.

Wendy is correct, swooping needs to go the way of CRW.

As for how we see death.... When a guy with 3-4k jumps hooks it in under a 2.0-1 loaded canopy. I see that as a sad situation, but he knew the risks and had the experience to make the call to do what he did. When a guy with 300 jumps dies on a 2.0-1 loaded canopy, I see that as a failure of the sport, a failure of the USPA, a failure of his friends.

But until you can get the USPA, and his friends to care more about his health than his ego BEFORE the accident.... You are not going to change anything.

USPA has dropped the ball on this for over 10 years.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Squeak 17]

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The fact we have not had an accident in two months means absolutely nothing statistically speaking.

Wendy is correct, swooping needs to go the way of CRW.

As for how we see death.... When a guy with 3-4k jumps hooks it in under a 2.0-1 loaded canopy. I see that as a sad situation, but he knew the risks and had the experience to make the call to do what he did. When a guy with 300 jumps dies on a 2.0-1 loaded canopy, I see that as a failure of the sport, a failure of the USPA, a failure of his friends.

But until you can get the USPA, and his friends to care more about his health than his ego BEFORE the accident.... You are not going to change anything.

USPA has dropped the ball on this for over 10 years.

Well said. and not just the USPA, quite a few of the governing bodies around the world

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[mirage62 0]

You know this sounds cold hearted but hell I just want to stay away from them and them away from me.

If I owed a dz I wouldn't have HP landing simply from the stand point that the risk isn't worth the reward. I do not believe I would lose one tandem by not allowing HP landings and the % of up jumpers that wouldn't come would be small IF I ran the dz correctly. Meaning that the HP jumpers wouldn't come but I could attract the rest.

A earlier post said something to the effect that the community of jumpers and DZ's were speaking. I actually agree with that.

BTW, just because if I had a DZ I wouldn't have HP landings doesn't mean I want to end HP landings but it does need to go the way of CRW. Special stuff.....

Kevin Keenan is my hero, a double FUP, he does so much with so little

[mirage62 0]

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Swooping is not banned at all, not at either dropzone you've mentioned.

Was one of the two Perris? I thought Parris had bann swooping?

Kevin Keenan is my hero, a double FUP, he does so much with so little

[grimmie 173]

90 degree turns only at Perris.

[airdvr 197]

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You know this sounds cold hearted but hell I just want to stay away from them and them away from me.

If I owed a dz I wouldn't have HP landing simply from the stand point that the risk isn't worth the reward. I do not believe I would lose one tandem by not allowing HP landings and the % of up jumpers that wouldn't come would be small IF I ran the dz correctly. Meaning that the HP jumpers wouldn't come but I could attract the rest.

A earlier post said something to the effect that the community of jumpers and DZ's were speaking. I actually agree with that.

BTW, just because if I had a DZ I wouldn't have HP landings doesn't mean I want to end HP landings but it does need to go the way of CRW. Special stuff.....

You should open your own DZ then come back here in a couple of years...

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[DSE 3]

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Swooping is not banned at all, not at either dropzone you've mentioned.

Was one of the two Perris? I thought Parris had bann swooping?

Both DZ's are now 90 turns only. This isn't a ban on swooping, it's just a ban on big turns. Sure...it keeps the swoops smaller, but that's the whole point.
And even with 90's, people will still be severely injured or worse.

[DaVinciflies 0]

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And even with 90's, people will still be severely injured or worse.

So therefore it is a pointless bandaid? Nothing more than a PR exercise?

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

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And even with 90's, people will still be severely injured or worse.

So therefore it is a pointless bandaid? Nothing more than a PR exercise?

No. Bigger turns require better judgement, more accurate setup, and give greater speed. There's less margin for error on them.

That doesn't make 90s safe, but they are somewhat safer (or perhaps less dangerous would be more accurate).

They also are a lot less dangerous for other traffic in the vicinity. Not turning into a blind area lowers the risk for a collision.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[DaVinciflies 0]

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And even with 90's, people will still be severely injured or worse.

So therefore it is a pointless bandaid? Nothing more than a PR exercise?

No. Bigger turns require better judgement, more accurate setup, and give greater speed. There's less margin for error on them.

That doesn't make 90s safe, but they are somewhat safer (or perhaps less dangerous would be more accurate).

They also are a lot less dangerous for other traffic in the vicinity. Not turning into a blind area lowers the risk for a collision.

I disagree with most of this (apart form the greater speed part). You have more time to bail on a bigger rotation.

Nobody should be turning into a blind area. Every turn should involve a check to clear your airspace regardless of the turn performed.