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Why The SKY GOD mentality?

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I have 207 jumps and still jump a 220 pilot.

I have to ask why is it that when i go to a drop zone i dont know anyone at or back to my home Dropzone where they dont know my exact number of jumps do they treat me like crap.

Constantly i get the you take too long to get down you dont land 3 feet from the hanger comments.

(i like to land as far from the 30 other jumpers as possible but still in the landing aera)

Other wonderful comments i here are to students, Now me i am going for my aff rating and this gets to me. Jumpers with i will say more than 200 jumps at my home dropzone i have personally heard making comments to a licens jumpers. I have even heard it from instructors,

Example : Expierenced jumper says
you landed to close to the flag and your pattern was bad, so the student asks what did you see me do wrong? and the reply he gets dont ask me get a coach to jump with you.

what the hell guys help out people maby he dosent want to spend 80$ on a coach jump to be told to turn in a little earlier.


now when i had 51 jumps i was working with another 50 ish jumper, i had just gotten my pilot and well my landings were anything but gracefull , so one day i show up at the dropzone and ask if anyone wants to free fall with me one of the hotsho sky gods walks up to me and says you need to stop jumping with others and concentrate on your canopy piloting, so i ask what are you talking about what am i doing wrong, what responce do i get but "i dont know i cant help you go pay a coach for a jump"

not on the one side i see the point if i was a hazard you should tell me why! but other than that free falling with someone and piloting in alone well lets see how the hell does free falling with someone prevent me from practicing my canopy skills when i still pull at 4500

i constantly see in parachutest that membership is declining, and i can see why, i almost left because the dz where i kept seeing these attitudes was the only one in my aera, lets face it this is bad conduct and it just drives students away, Stop trying to make this a money machine and help people otherwise noone will be jumping anymore becuase it will just be too damn expensive


oh and i should also mention my old home dz its sister dz which has the people with the worst attitudes i have ever seen has on average 1 to 3 deaths a year so i think these people should re evaluate their attitude

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DING DING WE have a winner!! You see a problem! Excellent - now you know what kind of jumper you need to be!!
I had some of those struggles too - it bugs me when I see the 200-500 jump wonders not jumping with low-timers or those they don't think are as good as them in the air - it a shame isn't it.
Chris N. wrote a really interesting "capital commentary" in this month's edition of The parachutist - he gave a list of some things we need to do to keep this sport growing -

Just don't become on of those guys yourself, and you'll be one hell of a jumper:)
=========Shaun ==========


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I have to agree that attitude sucks... I suppose I've been fortunate that I haven't had to deal with it that much.

I love to jump with newer jumpers... (as do a lot of experienced jumpers at my home dz.) If students want to cover my slot for a coach jump awesome... if they're doing solos and need someone to jump with (and I haven't already commited to doing other jumps that day) I'll gladly jump with them and help them out with whatever then need/want to work on...

sometimes those are the best days because when somebody finally figures something out, or they dock on someone else for the first time the look/thrill is infectious... :)
alas... I suppose I was jaded from the start (thanks to some of the coaches that gave me tons of free help...)
Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

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I'm working on my canopy skills too and not being too confident with my landings and just wanting to concentrate on them I land pretty far away in my own clear space too. I don't see the point in fighting for airspace so I can land near the peas. We got a big arrow in the field for advising students of landing pattern so I aim for landing on that to improve my accuracy.

Funnily enough we got one of the UKs best swoopers at our DZ and he doesn't swoop into the gang of fun jumpers to get near the peas, he finds a nice clear space away from everyone even if thats on the far edge of the landing area. He is also the first to give free canopy advice and is an all round good egg.

Pretend skygods are obnoxious, real experienced people who compete at high levels generally don't have an attitude and are willing to help, certainly thats what I've found. If someone thinks they are great, they probably aren't so I don't want their advice anyway. I think it just takes a while to figure out who the wankers are at your DZ so you know who to ignore, unfortunately there is often alot of them :(

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I had some of those struggles too - it bugs me when I see the 200-500 jump wonders not jumping with low-timers or those they don't think are as good as them in the air - it a shame isn't it.



I see what you mean, but I also have another point of view here.

Keep in mind that skydiving is VERY expensive. And it only lasts for about 1 min. / jump.

As long as you are not a millionaire and still want to make some decent challenging and fun skydiving you have to try to optimize your jumping..

Most people simply are not rich enough to go and chase someone in FF while the other one is trying to learn headup or headdown or whatever..

Giving attitude is ofcourse very different issue...

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I don't know where you jump (and no I didn't check your profile), but I can't honestly say I've ever encountered that attitude. In Hazelton PA, just about anyone will jump with you at any given time, and advice/coach (once off student), and at times video is just a "shared"thing that occurs. My advice is, go find a new DZ. Perhaps this is why I have no desire to jump anywhere else.
ignorance is not bliss

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You'll find this attitude prevalent somewhere, with middle-experienced people in any sport.
It's certainly not exclusive to skydiving.
We shoot various extreme and high-risk events for broadcast, and we've found that the extremely competent, very experienced guys generally don't have this attitude, but in many cases, they once did.
Kenny "The Cowboy" Bartram is an example. Smart ass, "I'm the best" attitude. Until he came to the DZ to learn to jump. Humble as pie then... it seems to have tempered his attitude around motorcycles now too. He's very cool, helpful to others, etc.
Perhaps it's that some of the middle experienced jumpers are afraid you're gonna quickly get as good as they are due to them helping you with shortcuts to how they fly. Or maybe they're just resentful of having to share themselves with others.
Either way, all but the most confidence-challenged folks seem to grow out of it.
Me, I'm still a sub 500 jump newbie, but I love jumping with others that are just off student status. Not only is it fun to see the looks on their faces when they beat a challenge, but I usually learn something new on every skydive.

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Most people simply are not rich enough to go and chase someone in FF while the other one is trying to learn headup or headdown or whatever..



No, they're not. And yet I have still seen many people happy to jump with newbies just because they like to give back to the sport (& a few of them have said to me they find it a lot of fun!). And I've seen a bunch of jumpers out of budget for the weekend still get enough together to make up a load for someone (me) who needed to do first freefall within 24 hours of last DRCP. And those are the kind of people who have kept me around the sport. Thankfully I have encountered no real 'skygods'. I would say the OP probably needs to find a new DZ...
Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

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Most people simply are not rich enough to go and chase someone in FF while the other one is trying to learn headup or headdown or whatever..



You know i here your point but i am not saying take along the low-time jumper as a student necessairlly if you want to teach them thats just a + for the low jumper, However why dont i see this much:

like if I am jumping solo on my 3rd flight and i see a person in rented gear or obviously new gear i ask whats goin on what jump is this and i ask if they want to join me in free fall, we come up with a basic lets go out docked and break off take it from there and determin 6k we break off and he pulls at 5000

even if i am in a group some times i try to bring in a never jumped with 4 people person remember there is a first time for everyone there is alot they can learn from ovserving and participating,, and in these cases i always go out aff level 1 style if they have less than 50 jumps or i havent jumped with them before just to make sure they are stable enough and if not i give them the signals and abandon my part of the group,

I love to see the look on there face and i like helping people out but thats my personality

now if i am practicing sumthing i havent done before or am still working on well then i take either someone exierenced more than me or i go solo but this is for safety of others,

and by all means i am not rich i go one day or 2 days a week and put in 4 - 5 jumps per week, i am the casual jumper untill i teach aff then well maby alot more often,

now before anyone jumps on the aff as long as i have another job if i ever see a student that needs an aff jump but is shy on the money if a dz would allow it i would gladly do an aff for a jump ticket, assuming i dont allready have one for the load and i am jumping solo, and you know why because someone did this for me once to help me out,
great man my instructor , hope to link up with him when i finally move to florida ,

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I had some of those struggles too - it bugs me when I see the 200-500 jump wonders not jumping with low-timers or those they don't think are as good as them in the air - it a shame isn't it.



I see what you mean, but I also have another point of view here.

Keep in mind that skydiving is VERY expensive. And it only lasts for about 1 min. / jump.

As long as you are not a millionaire and still want to make some decent challenging and fun skydiving you have to try to optimize your jumping..

Most people simply are not rich enough to go and chase someone in FF while the other one is trying to learn headup or headdown or whatever..

Giving attitude is ofcourse very different issue...



First...why would it not be fun to help another jumper learn...

Second...chasing a person in freefall can be VERY challenging and if you think you are wasting your time and money by chasing someone, you are wrong. As long as you keep trying to stay in proximaty, you gain some super valuable skills!


Cheers,
Travis

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No kidding... it is a huge test of ability.

I was feeling pretty good about my flying skills and my jumps were going well. Then I did some jumps with some fresh A license people. It was a real eye opener, and it was a lot of fun being *forced* to fly my slot instead of having a more experienced jumper do that same for me.
"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

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yOur souuuu riwright.

wHat a Pane. its hert me my brain 2

Tht bloke shold Fcuk offf. andd not ski divvve ful stopped. till edumacated

GoLd luk Overide

Live your dream my friend.

Steve
it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.

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I've been watching this thread for a while and for some reason it's been eating me - I'll post my general rule for this....

If you think you are too good to be jumping with someone else, then you have lost contact with what this sport is about.. IMHO.
=========Shaun ==========


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Finding a new DZ close to you probably isn't an option since that would have been a logical first step.

You say you are a safe, competent skydiver...so this is what I'd do if I were you (if its possible): This summer get in your car and get around for a few weekend trips to other DZs. Where you are there are lots of DZs in a 4 hour radius. Tenting is free, and you'll meet some folks who would enjoy jumping with you. And maybe those new friends will come to your home DZ and jump with you.

Check out the reviews section on this website to help you pick the DZ. Try to go to a boogie, or go to a DZ when they've got a specialty aircraft (helicopter or Casa, etc), or find a DZ that is hosting a fun 4-way scrambles meet. Often these are randomly created teams consisting of one beginner, two intermediate, and 1 expert jumper...these are meant to be fun, turning points are option.

Oh, and buy your beer for first jump at a new DZ...few things say "Hey, I'm probably an all-right guy!" better than buying a round for people!

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I've had similar problems at DZ's. I feel pretty left out and disgusted recently at some places. One person even approached my boyfriend (who has about 700 jumps) and I and states, "Oh, I see-- hanging out and jumping with your low jumper number girlfriend!" And this is coming from a person who is part of the "sky god" clique at the DZ. I really didn't appreciate it.... in fact, instead of looking down on lower jump numbered people or making comments, why don't you invite me on one of your jumps with your clique?? No.... of course not.

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like if I am jumping solo on my 3rd flight and i see a person in rented gear or obviously new gear i ask whats goin on what jump is this and i ask if they want to join me in free fall, we come up with a basic lets go out docked and break off take it from there and determin 6k we break off and he pulls at 5000



I think this is really awesome. I used to jump at a DZ where people do this all the time and it made low numbered jumpers feel very included and I had more fun learning that way. Even when there is organizing, it seems like it's always organizing for the big boys and girls. I would love to see organizing specific for some people inbetween. I understand this could become a zoo, which is why it's nice when a few people who know what they are doing are up on a jump and invite you along on a regular day at the dropzone. I was even just at a collegiate boogie this past weekend which would have been a perfect place to see some organizing with low jump number college students, but there was nothing.....

I understand this is a gross stereotype, and not every DZ or high jump number person carries this mentality, but quite a few do; especially in my more recent experiences. I think it's a problem worth looking at, espcially if you look at retention rates for students at certain DZ's. Just from my personal experience-- the DZ I mentioned earlier that made low numbered jumpers feel included, made me so excited to be out there every weekend. I never felt embarassed or dumb like people were looking down on me. In more recent times, I don't even want to go out to the DZ anymore because I feel isolated and looked down upon.

I dunno... just my personal experiences and my two cents.
Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

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I've never had any issues with jumping with more experienced jumpers. Since I've had my A License I've never had trouble finding someone (or multiple people) to jump with. It seems to be the case with all of the new jumpers.

I know for sure that I have no problem jumping with newly licensed skydivers. Besides helping them feel included, it will give me some experience as well.

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I've never had any issues with jumping with more experienced jumpers. Since I've had my A License I've never had trouble finding someone (or multiple people) to jump with. It seems to be the case with all of the new jumpers.

I know for sure that I have no problem jumping with newly licensed skydivers. Besides helping them feel included, it will give me some experience as well.



But thats because you put out:ph34r:
-Fish


Blue skies, Soft landings

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