Frickin Tandem Factories....

[DougH 270]

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skip the carnival ride and go right to the difficult stuff.

I object to this description of tandem skydiving.

A lot of jumpers object to tandems being conducted in this manner. So where do you define where it cross the line of being a method of instruction, or a thrill ride.

If the student gets minimal instruction before the jump, no altimeter, no ripcord to pull, doesn't get to fly the canopy or just gets to yank on the toggles a bit with little to no instruction about why, then I would say it is nothing more than a thrill ride.

I think most tandems are just fine with this, but they often don't have any choice.

I don't see the point in offering "student jumps", if you don't want to provide a service to what students grow into... skydivers; it is a farce.

If you offer tandems, but not experinced jumps, then you are 100% offering a thrill ride and nothing more. Fair is fair I guess, Six Flags won't normally teach you how to run the roller coaster either.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[danielcroft 2]

I'm not trying to convince anyone here, my opinion is that irrespective of intention, a tandem skydive is still a skydive.

"Normal" people are getting the opportunity to experience something they'd never be willing/able to otherwise (because they don't want to do AFF or IAD/SL). It gives them an awesome experience to pass on to others that describes skydiving in a positive light. That's good.

I'm clearly no DZO but those tandem skydives are certainly assisting the bottom line of my DZ and I'm glad they're there. The OP was messed around by a particular "Factory" but that doesn't have anything to do with tandem skydiving, it's a example of shoddy behavior of people.

I'm a noob, I don't know what I'm talking about in terms of the financial aspects of running a DZ. I've certainly seen people saying it's more a love thing than a money thing regarding running a DZ. If tandem skydiving lets the DZO have both then I'm all for it.

[billvon 2,400]

>I object to this description of tandem skydiving. It may be some
>people's choice to treat it as such but I really feel this belittles the risk
>to the TI and the effort they've put in.

I agree that it's a lot of work for the TI. But it's work to provide people with carnival rides. It's akin to the guys who rig roller coasters and ferris wheels at local carnivals. Is their work dangerous? You bet. Does that make riding a roller coaster just as dangerous? Nope.

>I really wish people would stop speaking about tandems in such dismissive terms.

As an experiment I spent some time jumping with, and landing with, 80lb containers on tandem harnesses. (Part of a massive flag deployment system.) It was indeed a challenge to deal with all the rigging and the moving around in the plane with a completely inert load. But in the final analysis it was also just delivering a load.

[danielcroft 2]

I guess I'm in the minority on this one. I'll take my opinion home with some chocolate & some tissues...

[gjhdiver 0]

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Okay, Butters, I'll probably be sorry for this, but I'll take the bait . . .

Your post is well reasoned, but it starts off from a fallacy and builds in the wrong direction from there.

I too started as an instructor before the days of tandems, but I see it somewhat differently. I'm not going to go off on a whole thesis about it but here's the jist of it.

Last weekend, our DZ put up 146 tandems. By your reasoning, if tandems weren't available, we would have had 146 first jump students instead that would have either jumped AFF or static line, and possibly stayed with the sport. Obviously, that's not the case. Tandem is drawing a huge amount of customers from the pool of people that would never otherwise have considered making a skydive. We're essentially in two business simultaneously, the skydiving business, and the carnival ride business.

Also, volume tandem jumping has done two major good things for upjumpers. It's allowed DZOs to increase aircraft capacity and to (for the most part,) artificially suppress jump prices for experienced jumpers. As the former DZM of Skydive City, I know just how many upjumpers you need to run a fleet of Otters, and it's beyond the scope of most drop zones. If your drop zone used to be a Cessna operation and now owns a King Air, PAC or Otter, it's tandems that you have to thank for it. Whilst the retention rate of tandems may be small, they allow the students that do stay to experience lift capacity that was unheard of 25 years ago.

Basically, what I'm saying here is don't blame tandems for the bad business practices of some drop zones in respect to upjumpers. Those drop zones eventually have problems with staffing because they never built up a local staff of home grown instructors.

[crashtested 0]

Do wind tunnels hurt skydiving by giving people a pseudo-skydiving less scary experience?

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Yes it does hurt the sport, becasue rather then getting loads up in the air, teams and solo's are in the tunnels getting a blow job.....

tunnels a great tool, but lets use them when the weather is shite rather then on a perfect jumping day

On another note had i gone to a tandem factory and met one of the skygod tm assholes, of which there are a lot, i would never had jumped again.

The best DZ's out there offer a mix of tandems and funjumpers, with a jump priority on those who make an effot to jump in all weather and be part and make the community at that dz.

[Beer 0]

Most tandems are never even given the opportunity to learn to skydive, it is never offered.
They never thought of it, mostly because it is thought of as a one time thing. "Something I always had to try once before I died" kind of thing.
It is presented and offered as a one time thing.

Show up, watch a video, hang out and watch some people land, get put into a harness, quick briefing, go do the jump, land, high fives, here's your certificate, and they go home.

Yeah they might see some fun jumpers packing from within their cage, but they are never exposed to jumpers other than their tandem master and in the plane.
The only people I've ever had ask about the sport or the equipment are the older folks that came to watch family jump. They usually have some story about some silk rounds.
Everyone else is there for the thrill ride.
Yeah sure, you might ask if they'd come back and do it again, but they are most likely seeing it as coming back for a $200 roller coaster ride. Not to learn how to do it on their own.

We aren't saying tandems aren't good for the sport. They do pay the bills (a few tandems in a turbine can pay for the load), they do introduce some people to the sport that never would have started otherwise. But look at how many tandems your DZ does on any given weekend. Now look at how many student your DZ has a year.

It could be approached better to have a better retention rate.

Now when you went for your first tandem, had it even crossed your mind that you could actually learn to jump and jump on your own? Or was it something crazy you had to do once before you died?

I didn't do my first until after 140 something jumps and 7 years in the sport. I was scared as hell not being in control, well until the actual jump. I just kind of hung out there and it was windy. I never would have come back if I hadn't specifically seeked out training and was only allowed to do a tandem.

I still get jittery today telling people about my first static line jump. 9 years later. There are tons of things I can't recall from today that I can recall about that first jump, and with such clarity.


EDITED to add; none of which has anything to do about the original post of being told one thing by the DZO, then getting booted out by manifest.
See what you started MamaJumps?

Learn to be happy. You can't be there for anybody else in life if you can't learn to be there for yourself.

[bozo 0]

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I'm not trying to convince anyone here, my opinion is that irrespective of intention, a tandem skydive is still a skydive.

Yes....it is a skydive...for the tandemmaster. For the passenger its pure carnival.

bozo
Pain is fleeting. Glory lasts forever. Chicks dig scars.

[doogie 0]

It has been my experience that DZs like this do not survive in the long run. Sometimes inexperienced/bullheaded DZOs can only understand the direct $s from students instead of the indirect benefits of a fun jumper base to the DZ as a whole.

Since this DZ is in the midwest, it is obviously not sitting next to a ready and willing pile of tourists to profit from. Unless the DZO can learn something from other long-time DZOs, he'll probably be gone soon enough....

[billvon 2,400]

>Yes it does hurt the sport, becasue rather then getting loads up in
>the air, teams and solo's are in the tunnels getting a blow job.....

Perhaps, but in my experience, blow jobs aren't all that bad either!

>tunnels a great tool, but lets use them when the weather is shite
>rather then on a perfect jumping day.

They're a great option for bad weather, but since they help teams win competitions, they're going to get used a lot more than that. And again, it's not skydiving, but I don't see it as a bad thing, any more than giving people airplane rides at a DZ is a bad thing.

[DougH 270]

They aren't bad... unless you are the aircraft owner.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[Andy9o8 0]

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I'm not trying to convince anyone here, my opinion is that irrespective of intention, a tandem skydive is still a skydive.

Yes....it is a skydive...for the tandemmaster. For the passenger its pure carnival.

With one exception: the passenger still has to conquer his fear, the same as any other first jump student.

[yarak 0]

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> Sure, tandem has brought big money into the sport, but at what price?

That's the question. And while I don't see tandem as helping skydiving much, I also don't see it hurting it. Do wind tunnels hurt skydiving by giving people a pseudo-skydiving less scary experience? Does hauling cargo with the Skyvan hurt skydiving by using the airplanes for non-skydiving purposes? Even ones that (gasp!) make the DZO some extra money?

After reading your story, I wouldn't call the place you stopped a DZ. It's a tandem factory. And had it not been there, you wouldn't have stopped and met an old friend. But is that so bad? If we keep opening new dedicated tandem centers that handle only tandems - who loses? Skydivers have as many options as they always did.

>They'd eat with us, drink with us, and listen to the stories.

The students who are destined to be skydivers still do, and from my experience, there aren't less of them. There are a whole lot more students total, so the percentage of real skydivers is down, but the total number hasn't changed much.

The way I look at it, Uli, Adi and Lew could be fixing cars in a Perris garage or they could be hauling (and videoing) tandems. Sure, it's not "real" skydiving. But it's a job, and they seem to like it. The students? They don't stick around any more than their customers at the Perris garage would; they're just paying for a service and they don't want the beer and the campfire.

Which is fine, for them. I just don't see much wrong with that.

apparently bilvon is the only one that gets it.
Peopel who want to skydive still learn to skydive. Are you telling me that the grandma's, grandpa's, the prissy girls, and the broke ass college students that I took on tandems this weekend would have otherwise done AFF and become "regulars"?
Tandems do not hurt retention. To think so is idiotic. Tandems do not stop people from wanting to skydive. I think its a great intro into the sport. It made me want to come back and do AFF. If a tandem wants a thril ride they get it. If they want to learn they do. Thats that

tandem instructors work hard to bond with thier passengers/students and give people a good experience. I hear all the time "You have the best job in the world" I tell them they are right and they could too. I tell them that I started just like they did...A TANDEM! I tell them some of the things I love about the sport including the social aspects(beer drinking and childish behavior). I tell them here put your hands in these loops and I'll tell you how to steer. If the passenger is a 70 yr old woman, then I'm probably not offering to let her deploy or steer unless she ask. I'm pretty sure she isnt coming back to learn. When shes crying with joy under canopy because she never thought she could experience that. I'm not exactly left thinking tandems are the devil.
My job is to give people a good experience. whether that is a learning experience or just a one time thrill experience. That is thier choice and a good TM will learn how to read people or ask before hand what the passenger/student wants out of it.

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll burn your fucking packing tent down.

[JohnMitchell 14]

What he said.

I try to treat all tandem passengers as potential students, but in the end, they decide. That's cool with me. No one has to be a skydiver.

[danielcroft 2]

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Now when you went for your first tandem, had it even crossed your mind that you could actually learn to jump and jump on your own? Or was it something crazy you had to do once before you died?

Skydiving had never crossed my mind at all until my wife wanted to jump for her 30th birthday because she'd always wanted to (news to me at the time!). Since then she's been jumping regularly, has a B license & is a coach. She loves the sport more than anything. That was clear when, after braking her hand on an awkward off field landing (4th metacarpal + pins) she went for a tandem skydive with a friend who is a TI. The pictures showed the pure joy she experiences when jumping. None of this would have happened without tandem skydiving. We discovered skydiving through tandems. She did want a thrill ride & wasn't interested in pulling or turning or any of that. I was, asked my TI to show me how to turn & all the rest of it, didn't get to pull due to thick gloves - it was November. I didn't start skydiving until 2 years later when I decided I'd like to get my license because I wanted to overcome my fear. I'm firmly in the belief that tandem skydiving increases the population, the people on a thrill ride are just like tourists. Yeah, they can be annoying and they probably don't "get it" but they're only there for a taste, I hope that they like the flavor and come back for more but they never get to try it without tandems. My wife has since done another tandem skydive with our friend. I was on the same load, it was great.
As for wind tunnels, that's like a track day for motorcycles/cars. You get part of the experience but it's no the same thing. I'm going again on Saturday. It's going to be great!

[returnofdamac 0]

I think that Tandem Instructors have a lot of the say on whether its going to be a "carnival ride" or whether the attached person is actually going to put some work in. My first dive just happened to be done by my high school physics teacher. So he gave me the opportunity to become a student because he truly wanted to see additions to the sport. That and now he might be able to brag to all the other teachers at school. But, it was all his decision; here I am now on my way to my A license.

Me: I want to ride a bull out of a skyvan.
vegasjoe: How the hell are you going to land that thing?
Me: Who said anything about landed with it? I think after we'll have some Bar-B-Que.

[billvon 2,400]

>the passenger still has to conquer his fear, the same as any other first jump student.

I'd heartily disagree with that!

When I made my first jump, I had to stick my feet out of the airplane, climb out onto the strut myself, hang there, and let go. If you froze up, you didn't jump, and you got yelled at for jamming up the door. That's about as deliberate a process as you can get.

In AFF, you have to walk to the door yourself, indicate your readiness and give a count. If you balk halfway through the count, you're going. So you don't absolutely have to step out yourself, but you do have to make the decision to go.

In tandem you just have to not say "stop" and you're going out that door. If you don't want to do much of anything, you don't have to.

Again, it's a lot more like a roller coaster ride. Sure, you have to conquer your fear of roller coasters when you buy the ticket, and you have to step into the ride. But once you get on that ride, you're going.

[Andy9o8 0]

Then we'll just have to disagree. Fear of - calling it what it is - the risk of death presented by being about to exit the open door of an aircraft in flight for the first time in your life, is what it is. I think you'll be hard-pressed to persuade me that a first-time tandem jumper conquers that any less than you or I did on our first jumps.

[skittles_of_SDC 0]

I don't completely disagree that its like a glorified carnival ride, but it does seem like it can serve a purpose as part of a training course. The tandem instructors can get an idea of whether you are good at maintaining altitude awareness and responding to hand signals while they have complete control before they throw you into the fire that is aff/sl/iad.
...said the 100 jump wonder.

[ghost47 18]

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I think you'll be hard-pressed to persuade me that a first-time tandem jumper conquers that any less than you or I did on our first jumps.

I can only speak from my personal experience, but one reason I began AFF was because I thought my tandem jump was a little boring. The way I've put it to people is that on my tandem jump, I didn't have to do anything except for not stop the guy from jumping out. There was one second when we went out of the plane where I was like, huh, I'm pretty high up here, but other than that, I really had no fear. We were immediately stable, and there was no falling sensation. I knew that the guy I was strapped to was very experienced and that he had a huge incentive to save his own life, and therefore, as a byproduct, he'd probably save mine too.

After this experience, I talked with a friend of mine about how underwhelming it was, and he suggested that maybe it was because I didn't have to do anything but not stop the guy. On a solo jump, he said, you have to go against your own instincts and throw yourself out of a plane. That's gotta be harder.

This idea bounced around in my head and five years later, I put myself into an FJC. And let me tell you, it was MUCH harder to step out of the plane knowing that *I* was ultimately responsible for my own life. Also factor in that I'd just had a six-hour class in which I was repeatedly informed of the many ways I could die or seriously injure myself (things I knew nothing of when I did my tandem). The freefall was terrifying, and I remember very little of it except for being very, very scared until the parachute opened.

I think there are good arguments on both sides about whether tandems ultimately help or hurt the sport (as a newbie, my tentative sense is that it helps, but who knows if I'll change my mind as I progress). But I think there's little doubt that at least for some tandem jumpers, the fear that needs to be conquered is much less than for the AFF student. The anxiety I feel now as an 11-jump wonder is much less than I felt before my first AFF jump, but it's still way more than I felt before my tandem.

[kelpdiver 2]

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>the passenger still has to conquer his fear, the same as any other first jump student.

I'd heartily disagree with that!

When I made my first jump, I had to stick my feet out of the airplane, climb out onto the strut myself, hang there, and let go. If you froze up, you didn't jump, and you got yelled at for jamming up the door. That's about as deliberate a process as you can get.

That sounds like my tandem in 1995 - out of what I believe was a C206 (regular door) at the original tandem mill, Las Vegas. I had to stick my foot out onto the strut and hang myself out, in the prop blast, with a TM strapped to my back. For a taller person afraid of fucking things up, nevermind the actual jump, I found it plenty mind blowing. Just as the AFF jump from an otter 8 years later.

In between I did have another tandem that was far less exhilarating than the other two, and it was the wish to do something more that had me do AFF1 on the third tandem trip I planned for people.

I'm not convinced that you're losing any skydivers. Those who want to will do so, regardless of their first jump method. But there's only so many of those people out there, and they've got more choices than they used to. Tandems may still be gaining the sport those who didn't know they had it in them.

[flipper 0]

One peeve of mine is hearing someone say, in talking about their first tandem jump, "Gee, I could never have done that on my own."

After I land with a Tandem the most common thing I get asked is '' how many Tandems do i have to do before i can jump on my own ?''

[Andy9o8 0]

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One peeve of mine is hearing someone say, in talking about their first tandem jump, "Gee, I could never have done that on my own."

Well, some of that is simply ignorance of the sport - knowing little or nothing about the details of how S/L, IAD or an AFF-1 works, and how one trains for it, they simply don't understand how and why it really is possible for most average healthy people to make their first jumps under those methods. The fact that they lack this basis of information shouldn't peeve anyone off.

And, some of that is probably true: some people who, emotionally, simply never could bring themselves to make any other kind of first jump are willing to do so if strapped-on to an expert instructor. The fact that some of those people become tandem customers shouldn't peeve anyone off, either, IMO.

I'm no real fan of tandem. But having whuffos view me as a reckless oddball with dysfunctional personal judgment or a death wish because I skydive has lost its lustre for me. If more and more people out there having experienced their "one skydive" via tandem will help to squelch that popular misconception of us, that's fine with me.

[DougH 270]

Please pay attention Skittles. We are not talking about tandem jumps that are used as a teaching method, we are talking about tandems that are conduct purely for entertainment purposes.

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The tandem instructors can get an idea of whether you are good at maintaining altitude awareness and responding to hand signals while they have complete control before they throw you into the fire that is aff/sl/iad.

The TI can not judge altitude awareness if the student has no altimeter and no RC.

The TI can not judge response to signals if the students isn't taught any.

Face it, the closest many tandems get to actual instruction is "bannana bannana".

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[kkeenan 13]

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...One peeve of mine is hearing someone say, in talking about their first tandem jump, "Gee, I could never have done that on my own." ...

I think Nick's post was a good cultural insight from someone who's been around long enough to see the changes in the sport.

Sure, a lot of good skydivers have started with Tandem jumps. However, here is a thought about what has changed.

Before Tandem, when people were required to jump solo, those who "could never do that", simply didn't. There was no alternative. There was something different about those who actually made that first solo jump. Not all of those went on to become skydivers, but some did. None of the others ever made the first jump, so none became skydivers. Whatever trait existed in people that allowed that first jump was in all skydivers. That has changed.

Now, people who, "could never do that", make a Tandem. Some of them go on to become skydivers. They do not have the "First Jump Solo" trait. In the past, all jumpers had this trait and now, due to the availability of Tandem, only some do.

I know that I don't have to invite critical analysis of this theory - it's a given. Any of us who have been around for a while can tell that the sport has changed - in both positive and negative ways. I think that the changes and their causes are complicated and probably defy simple analysis, but it's interesting to discuss.

Kevin K.

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Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?