The SCUBA Paradigm

[winsor 186]

What is happening to skydiving already happened to SCUBA, for better or for worse.

In the 1960s, there were precious few of us who SCUBA dived. It was viewed as a wild & crazy thing to do by mainstream types, and the people in the sport were somewhat hard core. Most of us could swim like fish, and spent many a summer day snorkling when we did not have tanks on.

Some time in the 1970s, dive shop owners came to the realization that they were not going to get on the Fortune 500 by catering to the likes of me. I'll stop in for a tank refill, a tube of Wet Suit Weld and the periodic hydrostatic test, but I have been set for equipment for quite a while.

By getting Muffy and Biff off the ski slopes and tennis courts and into the water, dive operations were able to tap into a much greater flow of cash. You have color-coordinated BCs and wet suits, dive computers and sundry instrumentation, and training programs which transfer directly from the Platinum Card to the Diver's Certification card.

Of course, with the change in clientele you had a change in attitude. No longer was the primary focus that of personal responsibility, where losing your knife when diving apart from from a buddy could well result in drowning ensnarled in monofilament. SCUBA was touted as safe, and people invested heavily in hardware designed to keep them out of trouble.

The parallels between SCUBA and skydiving are not exact, but they are instructive. In both cases, using military surplus gear and training is really not an option (special warfare being a special case for both). The bottom line is that we can't turn the clock back, and you can't get the genie back in the bottle.

We can bemoan the passing of the good old/bad old days as the case may be, or simply accept that we live in a different world and make the best of it.

I find it as amusing to get a rise out of youngsters when using 71.2 steel tanks and (recently overhauled) regulators made before they were born as I do jumping paracommanders and balloon suits among skydivers who can count their years in the sport on one hand.

I do have aluminum tanks and crossbraced class-5 canopies, but use whatever works.

All I can say is to enjoy yourself, since this too shall pass, and we will be saying "hell, I remember back before 2010 when we used to..." all too soon.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[kelpdiver 2]

I'm not sure I understand the point here.

Steel 72s got replaced by AL80s (75s) because they were cheap, not because they were better in any way. And then they started blowing up...and VIP+ encouraged people back to LP and HP steel.

Like with skydiving, scuba had some crappy equipment issues, like diving without an SPG or an octo. OTOH, fin and BC technology is getting dumber, not more advanced. Lots of people out there with jetfins (with springs for straps) and backplates, almost straight out of the 60s.

Use technology where it helps, ignore it where it only benefits the person making and selling the newest thing.

Resort divers may be getting increasingly helpless, but little has changed along the Pacific Coast.

[tdog 0]

what is a class 5 canopy?

[speedy 0]

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what is a class 5 canopy?

Icarus has class 1 - 6 listed here http://www.icaruscanopies.aero/choosing.htm

Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

[CDRINF 1]

All too true.

I scuba dived for a while in the late 80's/early 90's and noticed that the general level of training was not up to that I saw in skydiving. During my open water class I saw a mother and a son who had obviously bought every piece of matching, color coordinated gear before they even took their first lesson. Mom did not pay attention in class because she spent the time fussing over her son. I did not feel as safe around other scuba divers as I did around skydivers. I came close to dying on a dive at Cozumel with a dive partner who was a "Master Diver" but had essentially bought her certifications.

At my original home DZ I was 100% confident in the training of my fellow skydivers. Nowadays, more and more I run into skydivers who won't jump without a Cypres, are scared to pull any lower than 4500', can barely (or won't) pack for themselves, consider jumping a Cessna beneath them, think they need to downsize canopies just to keep with the Jonses, believe that it's safer than driving a car, and seem bent on killing themselves and me just to look cool.

CDR

[kallend 1,621]

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What is happening to skydiving already happened to SCUBA, for better or for worse.

In the 1960s, there were precious few of us who SCUBA dived. It was viewed as a wild & crazy thing to do by mainstream types, and the people in the sport were somewhat hard core. Most of us could swim like fish, and spent many a summer day snorkling when we did not have tanks on.

I got my SCUBA license in 1969 from the BSAC, and the training was NOT a cakewalk. It fact, it was pretty damned gruelling.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[riggerrob 558]

Resort divers may be getting increasingly helpless ...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Resort skydivers are alive and well and living in Vancouver.

They do the bulk of their jumps at large resorts (Eloy, Perris, etc), pay big bucks to attend boogies in Belize or the Galapagos Islands, but rarely jump at their local DZ.
This clique considers it beneath their dignity to jump from Cessnas and whine incessantly about how small our King Air B90 is!
Hee!
Hee!
May be some one should remind them that our King Air is the largest jump plane west of Toronto!
Hee!
Hee!
They also whine incessantly about how slow our King Air climbs!
Hee!
Hee!
But their most endearing trait is whining about how slowly the Pilatus Porter - at a neighboring DZ - climbs!
ROFLMAO!!!!

[weegegirl 2]

.... and when I was a kid, I had to walk to school barefoot.... in the snow.... uphill.... both ways.

life is full of change. most of the benefits we reap in this sport are due to its growth. in fact, i'm pretty sure most dzs would not exist without said change. rather than poke fun at the "muffy and biffs" in the sport, why don't you accept them and guide them in the right direction?

...and yes, you were probably jumping and scuba diving before i was born.

[kelpdiver 2]

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This clique considers it beneath their dignity to jump from Cessnas and whine incessantly about how small our King Air B90 is!

They also whine incessantly about how slow our King Air climbs!

Are there smaller and slower King Airs then the ones we have around San Francisco? FTR, I bitch about how slow and uncomfortable the otter is. I'd rathe be in a 206 or 182 than a full otter on a hot day at Elsinore, esp if it's the 206 at Monterey with the sliding door.

[kelpdiver 2]

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I got my SCUBA license in 1969 from the BSAC, and the training was NOT a cakewalk. It fact, it was pretty damned gruelling.

The training now is trivial compared to then, esp since the Seal types dominated the instructor ranks. The last class I assisted got the students 50 minutes of bottom time on 4 checkout dives. None of them were in good shape to dive in California afterwards; hopefully they had buddies ready to mentor.

Yet...fatalities are far less common now, even with a higher number of participants. The gear is a lot better, and more diving is done in 'easy' conditions. If heart disease wasn't so prevalent now, I think it would be even better looking.

There are still good classes, that spend more time out of and in the ocean. But the market doesn't favor them, so those are typically independent instructors loosely associated with the shops.

[martimarr 0]

Whats so bad about not wanting to go below 4500'

[winsor 186]

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Whats so bad about not wanting to go below 4500'

In some circumstances it is downright dangerous.

Opening at 4,500 will have you under canopy above breakoff altitude for other groups, and at multiple-aircraft venues this can be a real problem. In addition, if you have one jump ship and multiple disciplines, having someone open at an unusually high altitude without prior coordination can present an unacceptable hazard.

On big-ways you may be instructed to open between 2,000 and 2,200, another ring between 2,200 and 2,400 and so forth. Opening early can get you axed, since there is little room for creativity when choreographing the movements of hundreds of jumpers at save-your-life time.

Having two jumpers try to occupy the same place at the same time has had tragic results all too often. Unexpectedly operating at variance with established procedures is a good way for this to happen.

Part of safety in this sport involves playing well with others, and getting everyone on the same page goes a long way toward getting everyone back on the ground in one piece.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[CDRINF 1]

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Whats so bad about not wanting to go below 4500'?
-----------------------------------------------

For most serious RW, you are not even going to break off until 4000 or lower (depends on the formation size), then have to track like a banshee for a bit to get separation. This will put you at or near your minimum pack opening altitude, which is 2000 for a D license holder. Unless you are comfortable doing that, you won't get on the bigger loads.

The thing that has changed training-wise, is that if you leaned static-line, your first jump and first freefall were from 3000'. From there, you worked your way up in exit altitude, but were still comfortable with an opening altitude of between 2000' and 3000'. AFF turns that on it's head, with openings occurring relatively high, and the jumper then having to work his/her way down in "comfort level" to the minimum pack opening altitudes.

I remember my first hop and pop, and 5 second delays clearly. I was very worried about getting to my ripcord as fast as possible; so fast I would go unstable. Those that taught me told me to relax, and keep a good deliberate cadence. I learned from this that "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" as they say. There was time to get this done, and my confidence level improved tremendously. It also helped when dealing with malfunctions, low exit, and engine out situations, which can happen. As an S/L instructor, I also routinely bail out after the last student at around 2800' and am in the saddle by 2000'.

CDR

• Quote

[kelpdiver 2]

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Whats so bad about not wanting to go below 4500'

At an uncontrolled airport with one drop plane, very little. But you are better off in the back of the exit order should people push it too close on separation. And with that altitude you can recover from the longer spot.

You don't have to do bigways or "serious RW." Some of that justification is questionable, coming down to people willing to give up 500ft for 2 more working seconds. In the worst form that has A's opening below the recommended decision altitude.

But you should strive to be happy throwing the PC at 3500 (opening around 3) soon, as the bigger DZs will require you to preannounce above 4.

[CDRINF 1]

To get back on topic (rather than a discussion about opening altitudes or S/L vs. AFF):

I am intrigued, because I have thought a lot about this and I think we have seen it happen in other recreational activities. I think skiing and motorcycling have gone through similar evolutions.

I have always felt that the phenomenon Winsor describes had its roots with Baby Boomer Yuppies who made a lot of money in the '80's, and were now looking for new places to spend it. I recall seeing some scuba industry literature in the late 80's that identified this market which had a large amount of disposable income and suggested ways of going after it. A lot of the marketing revolved around giving these folks a "cool" experience with which to impress friends and co-workers. The quickie "Resort Course" training programs which put a partially trained diver in the water closely supervised by instructor were an example (sound familiar?).

This demographic brought a lot of cash into the sport. Instead of slowly working their way up the ladder via static line instruction and hanging out at the DZ to learn, these folks had the ability to buy their way into the sport quickly through Tandem, AFF, paid coaches, wind tunnels, and paying top dollar for custom made, color coordinated gear. They didn't need to learn to pack since they could afford packers. DZ's and gear manufacturers went out of their way to meet this new demand.

By the mid-90's I noticed a big shift in the type of person you saw skydiving. Instead of primarily military, former military, college students, and fringe element hippies looking for something unique to do, I was seeing a lot more doctors, lawyers, and other high end professions. Prices went up and the younger kids got squeezed out.

From a training standpoint, the high-end training has improved (wind tunnels, canopy coaching, RW coaching). This is good in a sense, since in the old days you were often left on your own after you were cleared to solo. You then had to try to buddy up to an experienced jumper who was willing to teach you. I think the entry level training and grounding in the fundamentals may not be as good, and in many cases the industry has modified it to go after the quick buck. Progression in the sport is often financially out of reach of many who were its former mainstays.

CDR

[AFFI 0]

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Whats so bad about not wanting to go below 4500'

Hopefully you understood the voice of wisdom I post #12.
There is another situation that may arise where a jumper no at all accustomed to “going below 4,500”. Say you are at 2,000 in a larger jump plane (Otter) and are accustomed to deploying no lower then 4500, you are sitting right by the door. Then all of a sudden, something catastrophic happens to the airplane, not so terrible that the plane goes down immediately, but bad enough where everyone must get out post haste – a hesitation in the door may cost someone their life. Sure, you may receive a little assistance from those behind you, but that hesitation may be all that it takes where an immediate exit will give more people a chance to get out. It is an unlikely scenario, but it can and has happened.
There is a reason for the Hop n Pop progression on the A License proficiency card, to get new jumpers accustomed to getting out lower to the ground then they are accustomed to in the even of an emergency. This is one check-off on the card that I am very stringent about, and I make certain to talk to recent A license holders to continue to practice low exits and get comfortable with them. Like becoming proficient with flat turns in order to take evasive action low to the ground, practicing low altitude exits may rarely or perhaps never have to be utilized, but if the time ever comes it is best to be prepared, for yourself and those behind you.

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[AFFI 0]

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From a training standpoint, the high-end training has improved (wind tunnels, canopy coaching, RW coaching). This is good in a sense, since in the old days you were often left on your own after you were cleared to solo. You then had to try to buddy up to an experienced jumper who was willing to teach you. I think the entry level training and grounding in the fundamentals may not be as good, and in many cases the industry has modified it to go after the quick buck.

I am not reading this statement correctly, it seems like it is saying that the “old” and current methods are both inferior.

I have not been skydiving very long and limited in my experience when compared to many others, so I don’t know what it was like by having firsthand jumping experience back in the day of military surplus gear, but I was raised by a skydiver who started in the 50’s and grew up around skydivers and pilots for the first 13 years of life.
I would much rather have today’s training methods and gear over that which my dad had available. It seems to me like today’s is much superior in every way - and there are a lot more females who skydive, which is fantastic!

I often times train individuals who cannot afford to prepay, and cannot afford to get new gear off the bat and go to tunnel camps and it takes them months to get through student training, it has to become one of the monthly bills and saved up for – that is what it was like for me too.
So it is not out of reach for anyone who wants it badly enough.

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[tdog 0]

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By the mid-90's I noticed a big shift in the type of person you saw skydiving. Instead of primarily military, former military, college students, and fringe element hippies looking for something unique to do, I was seeing a lot more doctors, lawyers, and other high end professions. Prices went up and the younger kids got squeezed out.

I disagree the younger kids getting squeezed out. At a definitely "for profit, no club" multiple turbine DZ I jump at...

Thanks to a military academy in our state, our number one student in skydiving are cadets (college students) who pay for 100% of their training out of their own pocket. Granted they get student discounts, and they have a lot of peer coaching for free, but they come seemingly 10 at a time.

[bragging start] My four way team I am flying video for this season is a group of students that are passionate enough to spend all their disposable income on the sport and made it to the front cover of Skydiving Magazine this month building a formation. [bragging end]

Outside of the military students - we have a large group of college students from the other schools. I can think of one in particular that shows up a lot and is jumping a lot.

Two of the most active instructors at the DZ started as packers before they could jump due to age limits. They financed their jumping and AFF ratings on packjobs. Now they retired from packing and are full time instructors. A bunch of the other active young skydivers pack one day a weekend to jump the other.

Then we have the 20-30 year old crowd that are showing up despite being super busy with graduate school and/or building their career by giving 120% to their office.

We also have the 30-40 year old crowd, mostly business professionals, who are very active too.

Yes - I see mostly moderately to highly educated people of all ages and points in their careers. We have some blue collar folks, but they really don't make it past a tandem.

But before you start saying: "See - you proved your own point, manual labors cannot afford the sport."

I completely disagree. If college students (who are are largest demographic in the FJC and AFF) and young professionals who are just entering the business marketplace can find the disposable income to skydive, those with moderate to larger blue-collar incomes could also afford the sport.

I was just on the lake wakeboarding last weekend. I saw plenty of blue collar folks on the lake, owning pickup trucks to pull their boats (also used during the week based upon the toolboxes and choice of brands of tools they advertise in bumper stickers), having nice boats, pulling wakeboarders and waterskiers. Gas + insurance + payments on trucks and boats = just as expensive as our sport. If they can find $600 a month to pay for a boat and all the beer consumed, they could have a very fruitful skydiving career as the college students I know are spending less than that, yet placing very high in national competitions and making it on the front cover of a magazine.

So, it is not a money thing. It is a desire thing. You need achievers (or those who wish to achieve) to enter skydiving. A lazy day on the lake, or a bar-b-que in the back yard are both acceptable ways to spend your day off. But it is the polar opposite of skydiving - where you have to be mentally and physically active to participate.

Think about it. Why do you skydive? (Sport jumpers, not TMs). I think most will say, "to personally challenge myself to be better at XYZ". Canopy pilots are constantly trying for the best swoop. FS teams are fine tuning the blocks. Freefly friends are trying to get more docks or fine-tune their transitions.

So - skydiving is NOT a sport of sitting around and relaxing with friends. It is a sport of personal challenges, from learning the perfect pull in AFF to the perfect head down 40 way state record.

So - who are the types that find passion and enjoyment in finding perfection? It will be the same people who put effort into their education and post education business endeavors. It is going to be the more highly educated, or highly successful because they did not need an education to be successful, individuals. The same people who will challenge themselves at work will do so at the DZ.

Almost every person who I taught, who then quit skydiving, quit because they never got passionate about the personal challenge. It was a ride, an experience - but did not get hooked.

As a coach/instructor/friend, I have almost given up on those who I can tell are not going to be hooked. It has nothing to do with their age, income, job, or mental capacity... It has to do with their attitude. Do they have the culture and passion to challenge themselves? If not - they are not going to stay in skydiving.

Back to the SCUBA paradigm. SCUBA, flying planes, skydiving, rock climbing, etc... They are all going to attract people who seek personal challenge for personal satisfaction. And, those people generally are more affluent and successful in their business career or poor college students with high grade point averages because the personality transfers from work/school to hobby. Not always - but often.

[kelpdiver 2]

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I have always felt that the phenomenon Winsor describes had its roots with Baby Boomer Yuppies who made a lot of money in the '80's, and were now looking for new places to spend it. I recall seeing some scuba industry literature in the late 80's that identified this market which had a large amount of disposable income and suggested ways of going after it. A lot of the marketing revolved around giving these folks a "cool" experience with which to impress friends and co-workers. The quickie "Resort Course" training programs which put a partially trained diver in the water closely supervised by instructor were an example (sound familiar?).

I believe a lot of this is driven by people's lack of time. Rather than do a 4-6 week course, you can get a full c card in two weekends, and one of those can be in the tropics. The resort course eliminates even the first weekend.

That said, the resort course gives people the opportunity to try it without committing a huge amount of time and money, just as the tandem jump does. I just don't recommend doing it in a wall diving locale like Cozumel. Safety practices?? Proper weighting??

My first diving experience was in a 4ft above ground pool at an outdoor/travel expo.

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By the mid-90's I noticed a big shift in the type of person you saw skydiving. Instead of primarily military, former military, college students, and fringe element hippies looking for something unique to do, I was seeing a lot more doctors, lawyers, and other high end professions. Prices went up and the younger kids got squeezed out.

That would imply DZs are more profitably run now, rather than the costs of business just went up. Doesn't seem to be the case. I think this may be more indicative of the declining wages for the young and non professionals.

[potvinj 0]

This is a very good discussion. I learned to scuba in the early 70's, attending 14 saturdays of pool and classroom training, followed by open-water testing in February in Quebec (after chainsawing our way to the water through thick ice). I quit scuba in the 1980s when I had to move to a place that had no lakes or oceans nearby (I took on mountaineering then).

I learned to skydive before the Piras fatality in the early 1990s.

Am I to understand that the bulk of scubadiving business today is being drawn from people going to fancy resorts near warm/clear ocans rather than going to their small local lakes and scuba clubs?
Has this led to the demise of local clubs and to the rise of the "occasional scubadiver"?

To me the evolution of scuba, skiiing, skydiving, etc. described in this thread have all to deal fundamentally with the competition with many other indoors/outdoors activities that have made their appearance since the 1980's; and also with the fact that some of them are cheaper and/or more convenient. Its like TV-watching: In the old days there were 3 channels only. Now we can choose from a few hundred channels! this mind-numbing choice can only lead to a decreasing (percentage)number of viewers per channel.

[kallend 1,621]

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This is a very good discussion. I learned to scuba in the early 70's, attending 14 saturdays of pool and classroom training, followed by open-water testing in February in Quebec (after chainsawing our way to the water through thick ice). I quit scuba in the 1980s when I had to move to a place that had no lakes or oceans nearby (I took on mountaineering then).

I learned to skydive before the Piras fatality in the early 1990s.

Am I to understand that the bulk of scubadiving business today is being drawn from people going to fancy resorts near warm/clear ocans rather than going to their small local lakes and scuba clubs?
Has this led to the demise of local clubs and to the rise of the "occasional scubadiver"?

To me the evolution of scuba, skiiing, skydiving, etc. described in this thread have all to deal fundamentally with the competition with many other indoors/outdoors activities that have made their appearance since the 1980's; and also with the fact that some of them are cheaper and/or more convenient. Its like TV-watching: In the old days there were 3 channels only. Now we can choose from a few hundred channels! this mind-numbing choice can only lead to a decreasing (percentage)number of viewers per channel.

I haven't done a scuba dive in decades. A lot of my training involved procedures having to do with equipment that is long obsolete (low pressure systems with big floppy tubes that filled with water and had to be cleared, sharing one mouthpiece with a buddy (no "extras" in those days), back mounted regulators that made breathing a chore, and a gruelling swim test wearing nothing but a swimsuit and 10 pounds of lead. I'm not sure how much of that is really relevant now.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[potvinj 0]

Good point.

Compared to what you went through my training had been "streamlined" already, along the lines described by winsor. My training did not include the stuff you described b/c my equipment was "more modern". But then we spent a lot of time on physiology, figuring out how to calculate from tables the time for decompression stops etc.
(They have a computer for this now).

So like in skydiving the equipment evolved, in a way to reduce the stuff to be covered in training - so the sport became more accessible. Not a bad thing really, but that makes the sport less interesting to those personality types previously described by tdog.

Ill be interested to see how the current generation of kids being brought up on computer/TV games will choose their entertainment in adulthood.

[kallend 1,621]

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But then we spent a lot of time on physiology, figuring out how to calculate from tables the time for decompression stops etc.
(They have a computer for this now).

.

We did that too, but being an engineering type, I thought that stuff was very easy.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[CDRINF 1]

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I am not reading this statement correctly, it seems like it is saying that the “old” and current methods are both inferior.

Probably did not come out right.

I believe that in the past at the entry level, the training was better. My first jump course (1988 and yes, it was on modern, ram-air, piggyback gear - oh okay, we had round reserves and FXC AADs) was very thorough, lasting 5 evenings, lots of PLFS, lots of harness time practicing malfunction procedures, and I learned to pack as well. I jumped my own pack job on my first jump. Yesterday I jumped with an A license holder who was very nervous about jumping his own pack job. Why does he not have that confidence? Confidence in your equipment and abilities was the first thing I was taught. What else is this guy unsure of? Is this the kind of person who will think, "It's okay, the computer gizmo will save me if I do something wrong"? (This would be equivalent to "I don't need to know how to use the dive tables, the dive computer will save me.") It seems to me this is partly the result of rushing people through training to get them into the air quickly.

On the high end, these days there is more formal training, but you have to pay for it: coaching, tunnels, canopy handling, packing instruction. So, better in a sense that it is not left to chance, but now you have to pay for what used to be given for free. A whole industry has grown up around this, to include an attitude of, "If you want to use my time, you'll need to pay for it." Not universal, but I do see it.

Right around the time I started jumping, I remember a series of letters in "Parachutist" labeled "Lurk Me Not" where the writer bitched about low timers bugging him to jump with them. He made the statement, "I have spent enough time and money in this sport to have earned the right to enjoy quality skydives." In those pre-internet days it took longer than it does here on DZ.com, but over the next couple of months the writer got absolutely lambasted by other letter writers who all said in effect, "Quit being selfish and give back to the sport! Help new jumpers like other experienced jumpers helped you. We will all benefit."

Recently, in contrast, both here and in the two major skydiving pubs there have been discussions about why the sport costs so much. Some newbies have basically said "I want to learn and get good, but it seems so expensive" and the general response has been, "If you want it bad enough, you will pay for coaching." What a change! Now instead of growth in the sport being from experienced jumpers sharing their knowledge, it rests on students laying down big bucks.

So, like scuba, skydiving has followed the evolution of newcomers throwing down a lot of money and buying their way into the sport quickly, rather than hanging out at the DZ all day every weekend and learning for free, building experience over time. The industry has responded by doing things to chase those with the money. This has changed the character of the sport, in some ways good, an in other ways bad.

CDR

[Zipp0 1]

In my navy days I took the course and passed everything expect the open water dive. My training was cut off when we had to leave in a hurry for Gulf War I. Given the opportunity to dive the Red Sea off Jeddah, Saudia Arabia, I just had to go ahead and say that I was licensed. Was it smart or the right thing - maybe not. But I got to do a once in a lifetime dive for my first dive, and everything went off without a hitch. I was sure to stay clear of the cone shells and nasty eels.

After the war I left the navy and came home to PA, never to dive again......

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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.