A disturbing PM I recieved...bad advice???

[discovery4 0]

A few months ago I started a thread about recently receiving my A license, getting into a wingsuit as one of my main goals, and the best advice to get to that point. About a week ago I received a PM from a member, who’s handle I will leave out, that disturbed me a little. It follows:

I was reading your thread, and thought I would give you some advice on wingsuiting. A PM seemed more reasonable being that the advice I am going to give you is frowned upon by everyone here. Take it with a grain of salt.

First off, everyone has their own pace for things. Some people are absolutely retarded on student status, and others breeze through it. Be honest with yourself and your skill level before listening to anything I am going to tell you.

Secondly. F**k recommendations. I started wingsuiting with 70 some jumps. Bought the wingsuit, came out to my home dropzone excited as can be, only to be turned down. They said I wasn't ready, and wingsuits are a death trap. Possibly true.

Anyway, I took that wingsuit and went to a different dropzone. Told them I had a few hundred jumps, and a good number of wingsuit jumps. My first wingsuit jump was with no instruction, solo. Scary shit, until you realize wingsuiting is easy stuff. (goes back to the whole "were you a retard on student status?" or not.)

Either way, there are ways around recommendations. I have a good bit of wingsuiting knowledge now, just from self teaching and learning from others. I would be happy to give you any help you need.

Remember, it all comes down to being honest with yourself. I knew I was ready, and if you know you are too, I say go for it. Don't let the uspa get you down.

Blue skies.


A second PM that came a few minutes later read:

Just saw that you live in ____. I am in ______. Read my other message, and let me know what you think, and we can go from there.


I checked this members profile, which was created less than 6 months ago, and nothing was filled out.

While some of his advice could seem reasonable coming from someone who has the right credentials, who has coached or mentored you in some capacity, and intimately knows your skills; it seems very disturbing for someone to offer advice to someone, who for all he knows just received the bowling speech, to go to a dz where you aren’t known and to lie about your experience.

He prefaces his advice with, “be honest with yourself”, which a lot of people aren’t. Some people believe they are already better than everyone they know. Some people believe everyone they know is jealous of their skills and they are trying to hold them back so, they come to this board looking for someone to say exactly what this guy said to me. When they read, “be honest with yourself”, they answer with, “I’m a natural at skydiving and I’m ready for the next step.”

While I don’t think many people will agree with lying about your experience or donning a wingsuit with a low jump number without coaching, some people will agree with, “everyone has their own pace for things.” I’m not going to argue against it and I have done a few things faster than would be recommended as a rule. However, I did them under the guidance and advice of someone who I trust and who knows what my abilities are. Not, a random person who I know nothing about and who knows nothing about me.

I’m not sure exactly what the point of this post is but, I believe I just want to hear what everyone else thinks about it.

[shropshire 0]

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Remember, it all comes down to being honest with yourself.

And yet He/she wasn't .... Lied about their experience and jump numbers to make1st WS jump and proably jepodise the DZO.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[AndyBoyd 0]

Whoever sent you this pm is an idiot. Ignore his "advice".

[skydiverkeith 1]

I'm all for pushing it and would have done the same thing he did to a point.

But the lying to the dz and trying to advise someone else to follow the same path is negligent IMO.

Blue skies,
Keith Medlock

[Jbag 0]

Last person I heard doing that forgot his leg straps and got an extra 30sec of freefall, respect the sky, you are dead til you deploy

IHYD

[pinkfairy 0]

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3442236

Man coming out of rig at because his legstraps weren't on under the WS. He had 100 jumps. The recommendations are there for a reason, Ws is an extra element that might make you forget other things.

My first WS flight, done at 400 and something jumps wasn't scary at all. I was very current and had instruction, so I had a flight plan and knew the different routines for exiting and deploying. I had no stability issues, and could quickly take the pull altitude down from extremely high to what is normal for WS. This wasn't because I have talent, but because practice helps everyone.

Don't worry, you'll get stupid and bad advice ALL THE TIME in this sport. Part of learning skydiving is finding out who gives good advice and who you shouldn't listen to.

Jump and keep current, and you'll get there!

Relax, you can die if you mess up, but it will probably not be by bullet.

I'm a BIG, TOUGH BIGWAY FORMATION SKYDIVER! What are you?

[Amazon 7]

Yup.................


The mAd SkIlLs faction is alive and well....



remember what people DON"T know in this sport has and WILL continue to kill

[jtnesbitt 0]

OK...i gotta ask...


Did Sangi send you that PM?

"If this post needs to be moderated I would prefer it to be completly removed and not edited and butchered into a disney movie" - DorkZone Hero

[skydiverkeith 1]

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Last person I heard doing that forgot his leg straps and got an extra 30sec of freefall, respect the sky, you are dead til you deploy

I still don't get how you can end up not putting your legstraps on.

Loosened to the stops maybe, but not even on?

Blue skies,
Keith Medlock

[dgskydive 0]

Please post the name of the person that told you that. Please, please, please.

Dom

[Ron 7]

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I still don't get how you can end up not putting your legstraps on.

And anyone with a few hundred jumps all thinks the same way. Yet he didn't at 100 jumps and that kinda is the whole point.

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

[grimmie 173]

Here's my perspective as a once a year DZO. If he came to my boogie and lied, and then went in or got hurt and I found out he lied...I would kill him.

I remember a guy lying about his AFF experience once. He took a friend on a recurrency jump. The friend hadn't jumped in 10 years. You oldtimers all know the "punchline". The friend went in no pull.

Jumpers can be a bunch of self centered goat fuck stupid (Thanks Amazon) dumb asses.

The BSR's were written with blood.

[mjosparky 3]

The fatality reports are full of jumper with mad skills that knew what they were doing. Just because this turd got away with does not mean it was smart. It is to no ones advantage to try and hold you back and no one is trying to keep you from having fun. As Grimmie said there are good reasons for the limitation put on newer jumper, it so they can live long enough to become older jumpers

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[format 0]

1. Nobody wants to get old like you did (I guess)

2. Who's to say this is a true event?

What goes around, comes later.

[Amazon 7]

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1. Nobody wants to get old like you did (I guess)

2. Who's to say this is a true event?

Live for today.... dirtnaps are forever

[drdive 0]

What concerns me is your subject line "bad advice?????"

Oh duh, why the ? marks. You have to ask opinions on this forum whether that is bad advice???

"We saved your gear. Now you can sell it when you get out of the hospital and upsize!!" "K-Dub"

"

[format 0]

I knew I've forgot something to put in the post...

AHA this is it:

What goes around, comes later.

[grimmie 173]

don't let the uspa get you down

[discovery4 0]

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What concerns me is your subject line "bad advice?????"

Oh duh, why the ? marks. You have to ask opinions on this forum whether that is bad advice???

That was the hook to get people to read the post...I hope it was obvious from what I said that I know it is bad advice.

I also said "disturbing PM".

[BIGUN 1,050]

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Secondly. F**k recommendations.

And there you have it.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[andyvaughn 0]

<------ I'm new....
The advice giving seems to be something that is freely dished out to us starry eyed newcomers. I've had a few absolutely retarded suggestions aimed at me, always by relatively low jump number persons. And then if I suggest that I shouldn't be doing ... insert suicidal suggestion made to me here.... they then spend more time trying to convince me why I should.
I've learned a trick with advice that isn't directly coming from one the instructors, I smile, and say thank you, I'll keep that in consideration. However, it amazes me to watch what appears to be a relatively common practice go down, where newer jumpers want to get from point A to point Z...without undergoing all of the journey in between...so far I've found that when I actually listen to the instructors/more experienced skydivers, take their advice, everything turns out well. I have no reason to doubt that it's gonna be different my next jump, or the one after that...and so on....my prayer is that my ego never outgrows my current skillset...
Andrea

[ecnuob 0]

I love how everyone preaches about the one idiot that forgot his leg straps as an example every time this comes up. Frankly this is a hell of a lot more understandable (but obviously just as unacceptable) then the countless morons that have got into and out of the plane with undone or miss-routed chest straps, EXPERIENCED dead jumpers no less. Distraction can happen at anytime regardless of your level of experience or adding new things to the sport. just be vigilant and never get complacent, check and double check the basic things that your life depends on.

There are so many other things under-experienced jumpers should worry about wing-suiting, the biggest being a lack of heading/flight-plan control and taking out tandems/other jumpers or something similar. Flat spins, exit issues, reaching pilot chute/handles with extra fabric. BUT all of these things can be taught, just as we were all taught to deal with all the concerns of "basic" skydiving from ground zero and unleashed upon the world with as little as seven supervised jumps. Just as some AFF students take 30 jumps to graduate others could self supervise in less then seven. Some are wingsuit ready at 50, some may never be.

Is the advice the OP got bad? Of course it is, lying and going without instruction is a horrible idea at ANY number of jumps. But once a jumper has shown awareness and skills in a skydiving enviroment needed for safe wingsuiting that jumper should be able to get evaluated and obtain the proper instruction to be taken on a first jump by wingsuit instructor or equivelent regardless of any arbitrary number.

Until the community realizes and accepts this as fact, jumpers (of all jumps numbers/skill levels) who think they have mad skills but are told no will continue to work around the system that they feel is holding them back and be hazards to us all. Prohibition does not work, providing a way for those with "mad skillz" to work within a non-arbitrary system would.

100 jump wonder to instructor: "hey i want to go wingsuiting, I have mad skillz and can already do this and this..."

Experianced wingsuiter: Cool, we'd love to have more people to fly with, lets go for a jump and evaluate some of your skills and we will see what you need to work on before wingsuiting...

100 j wonder: thanks man, when can we go for a jump so i can show off my mad skillz

much better then...

wingsuiter: I dont care how skilled you are or think you are, you MUST have 200 jumps before I'll talk to you about it!

100 J wonder: !@#$ that guy he doesn't know me and my skillz I'm just gonna get a suit and go for it...



What's the criteria for taking a first flight course? For releasing a new wingsuiter to jump without supervision? How the hell would i know? I'm just another 100 jump wonder. Why don't all you old timers who seem to know it all get together and formulate an actual system of instruction and evaluation rather than continue to beat your heads against the same old wall?


In the end it's just another jumpsuit specifically designed for skydiving. I encourage those who want to to seek out someone qualified to teach them and get after as soon as they are ready, not when some board of people who know nothing about them have decided they are.

[DSE 3]

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What's the criteria for taking a first flight course? For releasing a new wingsuiter to jump without supervision? How the hell would i know? I'm just another 100 jump wonder. Why don't all you old timers who seem to know it all get together and formulate an actual system of instruction and evaluation rather than continue to beat your heads against the same old wall?

reply]

If you were truly seeking the answer to this question, you'd rapdly find that there is a "standard" to a great degree. You'd learn that there is USPA BSR (not a recommendation, but a requirement)
Both Birdman and Phoenix-fly have had 'actual systems' for a decade-plus.
PF has recently changed theirs up to be more current with the times, bigger suits, and better instructional methods.
But hey, you're just a 100 jump wonder! You'll be ready to go in another 100! Looking forward to seeing you streak ACROSS the sky instead of down through it.

[pinkfairy 0]

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I love how everyone preaches ... countless morons that have got into and out of the plane with undone or miss-routed chest straps, EXPERIENCED dead jumpers no less. Distraction can happen at anytime regardless of your level of experience or adding new things to the sport. just be vigilant and never get complacent, check and double check the basic things that your life depends on.

BUT all of these things can be taught, just as we were all taught to deal with all the concerns of "basic" skydiving from ground zero and unleashed upon the world with as little as seven supervised jumps.

Prohibition does not work, providing a way for those with "mad skillz" to work within a non-arbitrary system would.


I'm just another 100 jump wonder. Why don't all you old timers who seem to know it all get together and formulate an actual system of instruction and evaluation rather than continue to beat your heads against the same old wall?

In the end it's just another jumpsuit specifically designed for skydiving. I encourage those who want to to seek out someone qualified to teach them and get after as soon as they are ready, not when some board of people who know nothing about them have decided they are.

Yes, you are a 100 jump wonder, but the good news is that you can do something about that.

It's completely wrong to assume that:

1. regulations KILL skydivers because underqualified jumpers choose to ignore them.
2. 100-jump wonders forget to put on their legstraps under the WS. But that's not a big problem compared to the fact that experienced jumpers forget their cheststraps all the time.

I can understand that you're impatient to do everything you want, and that regulations can seem boring, but trust me, the regulations and recommendations are there for a reason. I'm not exceptionally talented, but did get better with experience. Everyone does. I jump with 100-jump wonders, and know what they are generally like. But they will get better in another 100 jumps if they keep current. ALL of them.

So,

Jump more. Complain less. Have fun. Pack for yourself and buy your beer.

Relax, you can die if you mess up, but it will probably not be by bullet.

I'm a BIG, TOUGH BIGWAY FORMATION SKYDIVER! What are you?

[airtwardo 6]

You are wise beyond your jump numbers!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~