After reading the forum, what is safety,

[Bartje 0]

After reading the forum, what is safety,

Everybody has is own safety perspective. What can see unsafe for someone is for an other safe. Most instructors are safe at their field, what I did see at the forums is that experienced skydivers , and instructors, start talking about things what they do not know. That is not safe. You have to realize that you can hurt people with bad advice. Sounds like sense but I did see it happen.

When you trying to make things safer you have to start with your own and than you can look to others. Your perspective can be different than someone others perspective. Please, stay open for it before you judge others. I do not say that a newbie with 200 jumps is safe but his, or her, idea can be safe and just need some guidance. Can you put it into a rule? I do not think so because we all have different perspectives about things. You can search for a rule what is as average as possible but it will never help all of us.

The best example I can think of at the moment is canopy choice. This winter there was a newbie with 28 jumps, 75kg and 179cm tall asking his chief instructor what kind of canopy he should buy. The chief instructor (it was not me) said he should buy a Pilot 170 and he did buy one. This was in Belgium. The same newbie can not jumps his canopy in the Netherlands or France. In Germany he can. What do I see? In Belgium, with +/- 1000 skydivers, there was in 2004 not any canopy fatality. In France it was a disaster, the Netherlands did have some accidents.
Is it possible that when you make big rules that people are trying to avoid them and do stupid things? I do think so, I’m afraid when you try to put everything in rules that you have the opposite effect. Not only in canopy but skydiving in general.

How to make thing safer in our beautiful skydiving world?
Not with big rules, we need rules but they have to be easy to interpret.
We need:
-good instructor training for every discipline,
-good 1 jumps training with a big part aerodynamics as well (often forgotten and very important).
-a good understanding what you want to do as a newbie, you are playing with gravity and gravity can kill.
-psychological course / training for chief instructors and staff.
-common sense

A FreeFly Gypsy

[dragon2 0]

Hmmm actually he probably WOULD be allowed to jump that canopy here, the only problem may be that he's a tad above a 1:1.1 WL (about 1:1.126 if his rig is 12 kg).

He'd be a CatII jumper, having between 25 and 100 jumps, he'd need to stay below a 1:1.1 WL but a Pilot is a CatII canopy.

What's the deal in France? What kinda rules do they have, except don't swoop period

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[Bartje 0]

Saskia,

for the Netherlands he's on the limit, In France he can not jump it before 500 jumps. By the way, even swoopingcompetition in france is forbitten.

the thing I try to say is that in all contries I did jump there all have diffrrant perspective at safety.
An instructor in the states will have an other perspective than an instructor from Belgium or South Africa.
For me it is more than enough prove that safety is beween the ears and difficult to put in rules.
We do need more attention in instructerformation than what it is now. When you read the forum there are skydivers giving advice about things were no do not know nothing about. They claim more than 1000 jumps in a dissipline and give advice for something they are not doing. It s......ks, it's dangerous.

A FreeFly Gypsy

[mattjw916 2]

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What's the deal in France? What kinda rules do they have, except don't swoop period

That's incredibly ironic... have you ever seen the french 8-way team train at Eloy? They are the most frightening canopy pilots I have ever seen, bar none. A sentiment echoed by many others as well.


edit: huk3d 0n fon1ks

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

[bodypilot1 0]

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-psychological course / training for chief instructors and staff.
-common sense

And how much money do you think the students jump costs would go up with if a DZ had to pay for these?



Be safe
Ed

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[LouDiamond 1]

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They are the most frightening canopy pilots I have ever seen, bar none. A sentiment echoed by many others as well.

I guess you've never seen the Russian team then

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[jjiimmyyt 0]

There may be rules in France, doesn't mean every one follows them.

On another note (sorry to hijack) but did you know that on the the french equivalent of AFF1 its Ok to have only 1 JM?

"This isn't an iron lung, people. You can actually disconnect and not die." -Dave

[happythoughts 0]

What is safety? Managed risk.

Not all risk can be eliminated.

Identify as many risks as possible.
Develop rules or skills that keep those risks to a minimum.

[Bartje 0]

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On another note (sorry to hijack) but did you know that on the the french equivalent of AFF1 its Ok to have only 1 JM?

The PAC like they call it, the first jump is with 2 instructors, from the 2th to the 6 jump is with one instructor. Often I did see students doing the first solo after 6 jumps.

I did jump often at Maubeuge, north of France, the fact that swoop competitions are is forbitten they do not allow at the dz that you do practice jumps for this. This is a rule that makes it impossible to make skydiving safer.
There have to be basic safety rules, do they have to be so strict like in France? Too much rules have the opposite effect on safety I think.

A FreeFly Gypsy

[Bartje 0]

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What is safety? Managed risk.

Not all risk can be eliminated.

Identify as many risks as possible.
Develop rules or skills that keep those risks to a minimum.

How far can you go with rules?

A FreeFly Gypsy

[dragon2 0]

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In France he can not jump it before 500 jumps.

Why not? What's the rules there? Bet he can jump a merit though, and those things are pretty HP...

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By the way, even swoopingcompetition in france is forbitten

Yeah I know that, like I said in my previous post. I'm with the organisation of the Dutch Swooping Tour and we also have a European Swooping Tour, but no french competiton... Rumour was they were getting slightly more favorable, but so far, no swoopcomps. We do have one french guy competing every now and then with our Dutch comps though. He jumps a Ninja (Ninja2?).

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[Fab 0]

The French have a canopy chart like we do here in holland. They have a lineair correlation between jump jumbers and the size of the canopy. I was in France last week and I have 100 jumps..I (officially) couldn't jump anything less then a 200. Which I find way too conservative. I'm glad I don't live in France
Yes..he could jump a merrit....I rented a merrit last time over there and it was definatly the last I made on that chute...Opening wasn't very pleasant if you know what I mean....hurt like hell

I wonder though if these french canopy rules also apply on foreign jumpers with their own gear??..because I'm getting my rig in one week with a 168 pilot in it

_______________________________________

[Bartje 0]

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We do have one french guy competing every now and then with our Dutch comps though. He jumps a Ninja (Ninja2?).

Yeps, Dominique hasalway to travel for doing his thing.
I just did hear that France has changed the chart a little bit. Like Fab wrote in his post it is like that.

A FreeFly Gypsy

[Bartje 0]

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I wonder though if these french canopy rules also apply on foreign jumpers with their own gear??..because I'm getting my rig in one week with a 168 pilot in it

It all in the chief instructers hands. How many jumps you've got now? 100? It can be a problem to jump it.

A FreeFly Gypsy

[pilotdave 0]

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Identify as many risks as possible.
Develop rules or skills that keep those risks to a minimum.

In the system safety world, this is the LEAST desirable method of risk reduction. It's the least effective way of preventing a hazard (as we can clearly see).

Is training/procedures/rules the only option we have to prevent these injuries?

BTW, here's the definition of safety as it applies in my job: "Freedom from those conditions that can cause death, injury, occupational illness,
damage to or loss of equipment or property, or damage to the environment." (MIL-STD-882)

Dave

[Bartje 0]

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"Freedom from those conditions that can cause death, injury, occupational illness,
damage to or loss of equipment or property, or damage to the environment."

How can somebody translate it to the skydive world?
Any sugestions?

A FreeFly Gypsy

[Fab 0]

[replyI]t all in the chief instructers hands. How many jumps you've got now? 100? It can be a problem to jump it.

[Bartje 0]

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Doe maar een goed woordje voor me bij de instructeur dan...I have 110 jumps

show them you can handle your canopy and it will not be a problem I think.
They just cleaned the gear from last weekend

A FreeFly Gypsy

[happythoughts 0]

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BTW, here's the definition of safety as it applies in my job: "Freedom from those conditions that can cause death, injury, occupational illness,
damage to or loss of equipment or property, or damage to the environment." (MIL-STD-882)

Can you make skydiving free from those conditions that can cause death or injury? Absolutely not. My definition of safety is to get as close to that ideal as possible by managing the identifiable risks.

Ok, you are a pilot. The only way that you can be totally free from those conditions that may injure you is to stay away from the airplane and the airport. Agreed?

Instead, you have a pre-flight checklist? What is the purpose of this list?

In the past, people have tried to identify the most common flying problems of the past (FAA investigations). They have tried to identify the causes of those problems. Some of the problems could have been averted by more attention to detail (example - check the fuel gauge).

To check all these details and try to limit the possible occurences of these problems, you use a pre-flight checklist. You use a checklist to limit the risk that you will have a mental lapse and overlook one of these items, true?

In airplane flying, the gear is the airplane. By doing a checklist, you are doing a gear check essentially. In skydiving, we (should) do a gear check at least once each jump. We should also gear check our buddies.

As with flying, gear checks do not make the process flawless, but they are the best level of risk management that we can do.

[Fab 0]

show them you can handle your canopy and it will not be a problem I think.
They just cleaned the gear from last weekend

[dorbie 0]

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What is safety? Managed risk.

Not all risk can be eliminated.

Exactly.

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Identify as many risks as possible.
Develop rules or skills that keep those risks to a minimum.

To a minimum within reason. Safety regulations are a tradeoff. There are all sorts of regulations and restrictions we could impose today in the name of safety but don't because they'd impose too much of a burden for a marginal benefit.

As your first line said it's managed risk, you manage it by trading benefits against costs (in whatever form cost may be financial, enjoyment, time or other factors).

Risk is a statistics game, a personal choice and a strange psychological phenomenon.

[Bartje 0]

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Risk is a statistics game, a personal choice and a strange psychological phenomenon.

Well said, from who is this line?
A personal choice, that is so true and so dangerous at the same time.

A FreeFly Gypsy

[dorbie 0]

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Risk is a statistics game, a personal choice and a strange psychological phenomenon.

Well said, from who is this line?

I just wrote it, spontaneous like.

[Bartje 0]

Well said Dude.

A FreeFly Gypsy

[el_chester 4]

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They are the most frightening canopy pilots I have ever seen, bar none. A sentiment echoed by many others as well.

I guess you've never seen the Russian team then

Very true Lou...
(I haven`t seen the French yet)

BTW, those Russians are a great bunch to hang out with, I happened to end up living in the same house as them for a week a couple of months ago, and they're great.

--
Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.