intermediate to advanced canopy experience

[btvr 0]

On canopy manufacturers web sites they give a wingloading recommendation for a specific canopies. 0.9 novice, 1.1 intermediate, 1.3 advanced. Now I know a lot has to do with each individual jumper's ability but there must be an average. This would be for a 7/9 cell like a sabre, pilot, storm..ect... Not high performance. Whats everyones opinion?

[Joellercoaster 6]

I'd say that jump numbers aren't enough. You can say that nobody with less than X will qualify as 'advanced', for example, but there will still be a hell of a lot of people with that number who still don't qualify.

Wherever you set that number though, it doesn't include me.

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[champu 1]

A good explanation from the horse's mouth.

One thing that's not stated in those descriptions is when they say things like, "haven't had a whole lot of experience with certain situations" or "Experience and practice will have taught him or her how to deal effectively with unexpected situations" there's an implied, "...on a canopy no more than about 10-15% larger than the one in question." By which I mean that every time you downsize you take a step back down the "novice -> intermediate -> advanced -> expert" ladder.

I could toss out what I consider reasonable ballpark numbers of jumps it takes to climb a rung but I'm not sure there's much point in doing so. How exactly do you calculate the average number of jumps it takes someone to reach a subjective level of skill that any given jumper may or may not be actively trying to achieve? What would those numbers even mean?

[ShayneH 0]

IMO, the time frame in which you completed said number of jumps is just as big of a variable as jump numbers themselves when deciding which bracket of canopy pilot experience you fall into. Someone with 500 jumps over 10 years probably wont be as great of a canopy pilot as someone with 300 jumps in one year.