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CSpenceFLY

Anyone have a count on fatalities for the year?

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since you dont accept PM's, what exactly is your problem with me?



Absolutely none. I disagree with your points, and I'm debating them. If I see someone whose attitude would result in a dangerous practice, I speak up about it, and sometimes I choose not to sugar-coat it. I know I'm usually far less ascerbic about it than many other posters typically are. Anyhow, I promise not to impugn your ancestry.

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lets leave my attitude aside for once, what dangerous practices am i advocating? you'd better be off giving shit to the guys at the dropzone that are reckless maybe!?

and is it again with my ancestors?
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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Attitude is relevant, if it could lead to a dangerous practice. What I'm reacting to is the attitude - which many jumpers have, but you're just exhibiting it here - that no further collective action other than "everyone must take personal responsibility" is needed to address the problem of canopy collisions and near-misses. It's not enough. I'm not going to be drawn into a debate over semantics with you, but it's not enough. Skydiving is an ever-evolving sport. This must be part of the evolution. I'm done arguing with you about it. Let someone else weigh in if they wish.

(PS - the "ancestors" wasn't to be taken literally - Saying "question a person's ancestry" is native-English-speaker slang for "personally insult someone in an outrageos fashion". It was said toungue in cheek.)

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the attitude part i agree with you, but, if every jumper would take the responsibility part serious, why would you say its not enough? maybe skydiving has become way to fool-proof, AAD's, RSL's, the equipment itself. so even people like me will do it!? :P

and i'm not arguing with you really, you said things a non-native speaker could missunderstand (which i did).

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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We need more conopy flying education. I have seen over and over big slow canopys doing s turns in the pattern because they cant fly there canopy and hit the landing area. I think that more conopy coaching should be required before a person is given a license. And if you dont have 100 jumps you should have an alternate landing area other than the main one.

People need to spend more time learning to fly there canopys and less time crying about regulation.

Swooping can be done safely. You have to know when to hook it and when not to. Its very easy to do it safely I have done it safely for 10 years and over 3500 swoops.

I am all for 2 separate landing areas. I am a swooper and if you tell me I cant swoop then I leave the sport and do only bandit jumps on the beach. lol

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maybe skydiving has become way to fool-proof, AAD's, RSL's, the equipment itself



Now if we could just fool proof the fools
Replying to: Re: Stall On Jump Run Emergency Procedure? by billvon

If the plane is unrecoverable then exiting is a very very good idea.

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We need more conopy flying education. I have seen over and over big slow canopys doing s turns in the pattern because they cant fly there canopy and hit the landing area. I think that more conopy coaching should be required before a person is given a license. And if you dont have 100 jumps you should have an alternate landing area other than the main one.

at the dropzone i've learned at, 200 jumps or proven "ok"-skills.

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People need to spend more time learning to fly there canopys and less time crying about regulation.



here, in order to get a license, you have to have 10 documented and announced accuracy landings. canopy drills are mandatory too.

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Swooping can be done safely. You have to know when to hook it and when not to. Its very easy to do it safely I have done it safely for 10 years and over 3500 swoops.



not that i could talk much about experience, but there's a couple guys around here just like you, same amount of jumps, same years.. always spectacular to watch (and listen too)!

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I am all for 2 separate landing areas. I am a swooper and if you tell me I cant swoop then I leave the sport and do only bandit jumps on the beach. lol



that would probably be a shame..

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maybe skydiving has become way to fool-proof, AAD's, RSL's, the equipment itself



Now if we could just fool proof the fools


i call for airbag-jumpsuits! :D
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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here, in order to get a license, you have to have 10 documented and announced accuracy landings. canopy drills are mandatory too.

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They should do that here is the states. Hell half the jumpers here get off student status and can barely fly a canopy.

If you have a set direction we can all land together safely. Unlike alot of small dz's where the landing is a free frall. I see the same crap all the time. Everybody wants to land at the same time. I personally hang is brakes and wait for a clean slot.

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goddammit, this is not really directed at you, but isnt that fucking sound common sense?

i think i'll cancel my plans of jumping over there, for fucks sake, i dont want to get killed by a fucking moron. well, none other than myself that is.. :D

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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I think we make a mistake by using a year by year count of skydiving fatalities. We sort of fool ourselves, our students, and certainly the casual wuffos that ask, "How many people die skydiving?" It allows us to say, "Well, not that many really. This year it's only 15 or so out of three to five million jumps made." And even that is fuzzy math as who knows how many jumps are really made.

And then we get to start fresh from scratch every year. Suppose we kept track from the very beginning of the sport, say from 1955 until now. After all, isn't that the question people are really asking even if they don't realize it. If you very conservatively figure we averaged 25 fatalities per year for 53 years the number is in the thousands of fatalities. In reality, and worldwide, that average is low, and the final tally is likely higher still.

I know when someone asks about B.A.S.E. fatalities I can say with some confidence that since the sport began in 1978 the number of deaths is currently at one hundred and twenty three although I can't know how many B.A.S.E. jumps are really being made. If we did it the skydiving way I could say there have been just three deaths in 2008. But which way gives a clearer picture?

Which way you spin the numbers depends on if you are buying or selling. If you are USPA, and you're selling, it makes sense to use year by year. If you are a line Instructor and dealing with students who are buying, maybe the other way would be more truthful.

After over thirty years I know for a fact people die all the time, almost like clockwork, so who are we trying to kid?

NickD :)

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it seems like we are going to end up with quite a large number this year if it doesn't slow down. Anyone have a total for the year so far?



You know I was just at my desk counting when a friend walked up and asked me if I was getting ready to respond to this thread.

Actually I didn't know about this thread until he walked up and told me. I was counting because we have 4 pages of posts under the Incidents Forum for 2008, and it's only July.

Here's what I've counted just from the posts, I'm sure some posts are duplicates.

Fatalities US - 20
Fatalities Intl - 14

Injuries US - 33
Injuries Intl - 16

Skydiving Aircraft Fatalities US - 18
Skydiving Aircraft Fatalities Intl - 4


What the HELL is going on in our sport..........My personal belief is that the Experience Level has dropped off significantly, there is less education than there should be, and there is less mentorship and discipline than there used to be.

I agree most of these accidents and fatalities were preventable, very few of them were legitimate fatalities, where nothing different could have been done to prevent them.

What really alarms me is the number of injuries......alot of the injuries could have very well been fatalities.

Also there are alot of fatal plane crashes in 2008.

What a Dreadful year so far for skydiving. I really hope people start paying attention. I really hope the Education steps up and Mentorship starts again, and those that don't want to listen are grounded. Because we need to start doing something differently.

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After over thirty years I know for a fact people die all the time, almost like clockwork, so who are we trying to kid?


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Often wondered what the negative fall-out would be if someone would do as you in the B.A.S.E. community do, factually document the fatalities in that long chronological 'put a face & facts to the event' string.











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

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Either way has its issues solely depending on how the user interprets the data. In skydiving because of the way it's presented we understate it. In BASE, because of the way it's presented we overstate it . . .

From a purely un-scientific standpoint sometimes it seems to me you have excellent chance of getting injured in BASE. but not killed outright. In skydiving it seems you have an excellent chance of being killed outright but not injured.

I think it's that way because we are getting better at doing BASE and worse at doing skydiving . . .

NickD :)

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Either way has its issues solely depending on how the user interprets the data. In skydiving because of the way it's presented we understate it. In BASE, because of the way it's presented we overstate it . . .

From a purely un-scientific standpoint sometimes it seems to me you have excellent chance of getting injured in BASE. but not killed outright. In skydiving it seems you have an excellent chance of being killed outright but not injured.

I think it's that way because we are getting better at doing BASE and worse at doing skydiving . . .

NickD :)




Interesting theory, never thought of it that way but surely there's credence.



Maybe over a long enough time line both with go full circle.










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

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it seems like we are going to end up with quite a large number this year if it doesn't slow down. Anyone have a total for the year so far?




The trend seems to be: less incidents and more fatalities (canopies collision being the main factor).... The tally seems to hover around 2.5/month, with the summer getting hotter. What a sad trend.
Y yo, pa' vivir con miedo, prefiero morir sonriendo, con el recuerdo vivo".
- Ruben Blades, "Adan Garcia"

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You know if general aviation pilots were clipping skydivers doing high performance landings because they were cool and looked awsome and they thought they had the skills to do it without hurting anybody or killing themselves we would have skydivers burning airplanes....
Replying to: Re: Stall On Jump Run Emergency Procedure? by billvon

If the plane is unrecoverable then exiting is a very very good idea.

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Hey I got an idea..........Let's take this thread down the Swoopers Vs Non-Swoopers path AGAIN.

We haven't had one of those threads before have we???

Lets me save you the trouble...........All accidents and fatalities this year were caused by Swoopers. Does that make you feel better?

You win..........I'm selling my JVX tomorrow, before the discipline is banned.

Oh and can you tell me the next skydiving discipline thats up and coming that will make me look cool. That's the only reason I swoop now, so if I'm giving it up I'll need something else to make me look cool.

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Not from what I've read..........Sounds more like someone opened 2nd under a large Main and somehow caught up (either opened low or sprialled down) , with someone opening first with a very loaded main.

It also sounds like the person with the larger wing landed against the traffic pattern set by the first group.

The fact that the first group was swooping has little to do with the real contributions to this collision. The Collision could / would have happened with two low speed landings as well.

To me this is clearly not caused by swooping, and I'm getting sick of it always leaning toward that direction.

Also as much as I agree with separate landing area's for High Speed and Low Speed landings, it appears that this DZ didn't have that rule in effect.

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I could also point out that the incident to which DBCOOPER refers is by no means definitely as he describes it.

I was one of only two witnesses to that incident. DBCOOPER wasn't even there. Yet he comes to this thread making accusations that one person (Paul) killed another (Mike) and, in fact, even accuses him of murder:

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I say killed, not died, because thats what happened. It would be no different if someone got up in the plane and cut his risers off with a hook knife and pushed him out. The end result is the same.



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Seems a little more premeditated then a careless act.



I PM'd DBCOOPER with the FACTS about this incident and he pretty much replied that he didn't care, what he posted was what he believed from reading the thread on DZ.COM and he had no intention of coming on this thread and admitting that what he posted as fact was pure speculation.

FACT: there was a canopy collision and 2 people died.

FACT: they were landing AWAY from the busy landing area (thus the lack of witnesses).

FACT: One jumper (Paul) had the profile of a hotdog who loved swooping.

FACT: Paul was also an expert canopy pilot who was at Lake Wales because he had been invited on the CRW World Record.

SPECULATION: (because I only heard it from other people there at the time): Mike was uncurrent and overloaded.

FACT: Paul might have been at fault and caused the collision.

FACT: Mike might have been at fault and caused the collision.

FACT: I landed right next to the convulsing, bloody bodies.

FACT: After all the investigations, the conclusion was, nobody knows and we will never know.

FACT: some people won't accept these facts because they don't fit into their neat little box of convenient-theory-of-the-month.

It makes me fuckin' sick that I am big enough to admit that someone I loved MAY WELL HAVE BEEN the cause of an accident that killed another, but someone else who wasn't there and drew conclusions from posts on the internet posts fucking drivel as though it was fact and then is not man enough to own up to it when called on it.

DBCOOPER, I gave you 24 hours to fix your shit. Man up and admit you don't KNOW what happened, the incident might not have gone the way that fits into the way you WANT the incident to have gone and you just wanted to make pompous, posturing posts on the internet.

A well-meaning friend brought this thread to my attention. I kind of wish they hadn't. :sick:

nothing to see here

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???

Did you just hit reply on the last post in the thread?

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Bottom line, it is not about placing blame.



This bit should be in reply to DBCOOPER. My post couldn't have been clearer that I was not assigning blame. His couldn't have been clearer that he was.

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It is about stopping this trend. It is only going to get worst as every new 100 jump wonder learns to fly their canopies with no real mentors.



This is a complete non-sequitur to my post. The incident in question involved two 'types' that typically cause accidents:

1. The hotdog who loves swooping

2. The uncurrent nuff-nuff who had no business being under the canopy he was flying

Neither comes even close to being a "new 100 jump wonder learns to fly their canopies with no real mentors. "

So what was the point of your post? :S

nothing to see here

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