AFF RATING is it easy to get!!!!!

[bob.dino 0]

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There are still course directors who will let you write a check for your ratings and same for renewals. It all in who you know.

This is not the first time I've read that accusation on these forums. I've yet to see anyone willing to back up their accusations with the name(s) of the CDs taking bribes.

If you're sure, name names. If you're not, then why are you posting about it?

[tdog 0]

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Maybe you could approach your DZO with a request for them to pay for tunnel time with the condition that the time be used to improve your AFF skills only. The DZO gets better AFFI's, you get free tunnel time.

Unfortunately, I don't believe the tunnel gives you the skills to handle a sudden 100 foot separation. I learned slot flying, roll overs, spin stops, etc, in the tunnel...

But what about the student who gets a bit nervous at the end of a turn and pulls their legs to their ass and arches, because that is what they were told to do to maintain stability (of course the legs on the ass were not what they were told, but they do it anyway). Suddenly they are backsliding as fast as someone can track. These are the difficult skills that are not able to be taught in the tunnel.

The spins that students can do, with the center point of the spin being 10 feet in front of or behind the student, especially when another AFFI is holding on and trying to roll the student over, requires the ability to predict where the student will be in a second, not where they are now. When a student corks in the tunnel, you as an instructor can burble them with your hands and the driver can see in your eyes you wish for slightly less wind speed and you bring them back down. Imagine your job if the tunnel was, say, 300 feet wide. You would be doing a lot more running.

I respect you a lot, and we discuss these things for hours when I am in the same room with you... Since you did not take my hint and run with it - I will:

Continuing education. Required... How? Well, on a slow day, where there are slots empty on the plane that is otherwise going to fly (above the minimum revenue level to make the plane turn, but still with two slots open), send up two AFFIs to "play with each other". The drills will be half made up by the person playing the role of the student, and half requested by the AFFI who wishes to practice a move. All based upon the biggest challenges they have faced recently.

[Hooknswoop 19]

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But what about the student who gets a bit nervous at the end of a turn and pulls their legs to their ass and arches, because that is what they were told to do to maintain stability (of course the legs on the ass were not what they were told, but they do it anyway). Suddenly they are backsliding as fast as someone can track. These are the difficult skills that are not able to be taught in the tunnel.

I have to deal with that all the time, when I am flying with the student. Every time I fly with a flyer, it is like doing AFF in a 12-foot tube.

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The spins that students can do

Can all be stopped, without them hitting a wall or me using a wall or the net to brace. The tunnel can teach an AFFI to hold a student within a 12-foot tube with a constant fall rate and no turns.

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Continuing education. Required... How? Well, on a slow day, where there are slots empty on the plane that is otherwise going to fly (above the minimum revenue level to make the plane turn, but still with two slots open), send up two AFFIs to "play with each other". The drills will be half made up by the person playing the role of the student, and half requested by the AFFI who wishes to practice a move. All based upon the biggest challenges they have faced recently.

A terrific idea. Absolutely. Do any DZ's already do this?

Derek

[popsjumper 2]

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...Continuing education. Required...

How about yearly testing for rating renewals? Required air skills re-test with a CD other than who you "bought" your rating from. With increasingly harder situational presentations by the in-air evaluators.

CDs and Evaluators would love this (think $$$$).

Maybe this would weed out some of the bozos?


I'm with Shrek...some of the videos I've seen are appalling with respect to AFFI air skills. I mean, leaving the student 10 ft out the door and never showing up again in-frame on video? Come ON now.

You see it all over the country.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[drae 0]

Thank you Lee and Andy for the honesty in your opinions.
We that have little experience do not always have the ability to judge for ourselves what is and is not safe. Speaking up may save a life.

[popsjumper 2]

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...I learned years ago to keep my comments to myself, and inspire other instructors to be the best they can be by leading by example, by doing my best.

I would re-think calling others out publicly, get your rating and lead by example because it seems that you may be one of the ones that care. Lead by example and more will follow the light that shines brightly and inspires by their outstanding quality, less will follow and be inspired by condemnation.

Mykel, I way-more-often-than-not agree with you but in this I do not.

FWIW, I think that more of us should speak up and let it be known when we see shabby work. Sweeping it under the rug is what's been going on for a ling time now and, IMHO, nothing will change unless we ALL speak up. You quality guys with the AFFI rating could do more along those lines because you have the rating and the power of experience behind you.

Leading by example is all well and good but it only affects those who get to see it. What about the rest of the country and the rest of the industry?

Can't those who DO strive for quality speak out against poor-quality instruction and work and possibly help weed them out?

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[stratostar 5]

Hey smartass, I have named names and signed my name on the dotted line with those who have the power to do something about it. I will not post those names here for good reason! If you want to not believe it that is your deal or "putting your head in the sand" I really don't give a flying fuck what you or anyone else thinks about me or my postings, those who know the truth know its true and know who I'm talking about. And some of the powers that be are still trying to rid the USPA of those players.

When you step up to the plate and sign your name on the line then you might start to have a clue as to why I won't go down that road again here!

I've done my duty! Why don't you put up or shut up.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[NickDG 23]

Until the Instructor Corps becomes a separate entity, outside the influence of USPA and DZOs, it will continue to deteriorate.

In the earliest days of AFF certification there were just two AFF course directors, Mike Johnston and Paul Sitter. I was in the first, or second, course held at Perris Valley and it was full of the hot skydivers of the day. Up until this time all prior USPA ratings courses, the Instructor Cert Course and the Jumpmaster Cert Course, could be classified as show up and pass. When this Perris course was over a lot of the AFF Instructor candidates were unsuccessful and walking around in a state of shock.

This high level was kept up and in fact as time went by the course actually became harder. They kept raising the bar with the (good) idea that being an AFF Instructor wasn't for everyone. By the time Billy Rhodes, Rick Horn, and Don Yarhling took over as Course Directors the standard was set and these three did a very good job of maintaining that level. It was a time that "standardization" in AFF was at it highest level. It was a time a student could hypothetically do each AFF level at a different DZ and not miss a beat.

Everything was humming along pretty well and except for an oddball once in a while AFF student fatalities were almost nil. Then the picture began to change as new DZs started popping up all over the place. It seemed like every schmuck with a Cessna was going into business. With all the new competition it didn't take long for DZOs to realize that one AFF Instructor, two AFF Jumpmasters plus a camera person for each student dive was killing them cash wise.

So we now have all these hybrid programs to eliminate the second AFF Jumpmaster and Handicams to eliminate the camera person. Believe me when I say some DZOs are laying awake nights trying to dream up a way to eliminate Instructors altogether. I once heard a well known So Cal DZO wish for the days of static line when a DC-3 could dump out a full load of first jump students on just a couple of passes. And this with a single Jumpmaster dispatching them for just two bucks a head.

We are getting closer and closer to getting rid of the air & ground AFF Instructors by using wind tunnels, video in first jump courses, and multiple tandem jumps. I really think we are heading to something like X number of tandems and then straight to solo freefall.

Of course, in my opinion, we need to be going the other way. But it isn't going to happen. Nobody represents Instructors while low pay and poor working conditions continue to gut the ranks of the most experienced. Anyone reading my stuff over the years knows I predicted all the horrors mentioned upboard and now here we are.

My wish list for AFF would be something along these lines:

- Go back to just a few AFF course directors. I'll hedge that one by saying I do have faith in many of the new course directors. For instance if you tried to bribe Jerry McCauley you better bring a big gun and couple of friends.

- The AFF Evaluator (the folks who play students in the courses) should become a stand alone rating with its own training course. It took me many courses as an evaluator to become proficient and I learned something new every time. Right now there is no format in which I can pass along that knowledge. So it just dies with me, and every other experienced evaluator.

- Revamp the entire AFF program itself. It may have been all right to turn people loose after seven jumps twenty years ago, but not anymore. The main problem with the current method is experienced AFF Instructors can only teach a small percentage of what they learned in a lifetime of skydiving because by the time a student gets to the point where that info can be digested they are off into the hands of a coach who’s still learning the ropes themselves. AFF should be more like twenty jumps minimum (or as many as it takes) before being signed off student status. Instructing should live up to its billing. We should be turning out people ready to skydive. Of course that would mean re-structuring the per-jump pricing system to the detriment of DZOs and that's not going to happen.

- Revamp the AFF certification course to become a Training & Cert course. It should be held in two or three fixed locations with two weeks of training and one week of certification. One of the banes of being an AFF evaluator is it's not a teaching course as it stands right now. So you bite your tongue while candidates self destruct right in front of you and cringe when you hear excuses like, "that's the way we do it at my home DZ." It's why I would take promising candidates aside at night and pass on useful info all the while praying Rick Horn wouldn't catch me at it.

Then pre-courses became popular and encouraged. The problem was if you took a pre-course with a current evaluator or course director that was part of your cert course there was a certain conflict of interest. I'll say I never saw any funny stuff outright but the smell of it is there. If you took a pre-course with an AFF Instructor at your home DZ you were also screwed as the cert course is fluid and ever-changing.

- Instructors have to get out from under the thumb of the DZOs. In a perfect world we'd all be contract workers under the umbrella of our own organization. Right now there are Instructors working in the field and the person they answer to doesn't hold AFF ratings themselves (a schmuck with a Cessna).

"Sorry, the wind's a bit too high for the FJC today."

"You're fired!"

Think it doesn't happen? Guess again . . .

- I realize we all have to survive financially. So we need to find some medium ground. But as it stands now Instructors have no ground to stand on. And every year a little more is taken away. We have gone from a time when we had just the normal amount of bad apples in the Instructor corps to the possibility the whole orchid is going to seed.

- We totally went the wrong way with the Coach program. What should have happened is those positions should be filled with those promoted out of teaching basic AFF. The people putting the finishing touches on young skydivers should be our most experienced and knowledgeable, not someone with just a few hundred jumps. Coaches, if we must have that designation, should be someone who assists, alongside an experienced instructor, in first jump courses and such. A person should know how to teach a first jump course before they are ever certified to do so.

Ever wonder what's going on in that closed up classroom? Over the years I've sat in on many FJCs. Sometimes I just spend a bit of time listening at a window or door and I've seen and heard both the good and bad. I've seen funny FJC's where the students are in stitches the whole time, I've seen somber FJCs where students are scared half to death. I've seen Instructors who don't seem to realize they must get a FJC student ready for every horrible thing that can happen on their very first jump. Think about that one for a moment. And think about how many Instructors really do that?

Being a good Instructor means being able to adapt to every student. Not the other way around. Some students just get it. With others you have to be more creative. Instructors who can do that are worth their weight in gold. But as it stands now their worth is a pillar of salt.

Instructors have a definite PR problem. The students we do our best work on mostly never become skydivers so they aren’t around to sing our praises. The ones who do go on to become skydivers tend to forget how goofy footed they were as students. They don’t recall almost puking the first time the door opened or how they clung to your jumpsuit in white knuckled fear. They forget the Instructor who leaned over to whisper just the right words at just the right time. And as the roll of the instructor is diminished you now have people on the DZ today who can't even recall the name of their Instructors.

To end without too much with dome and gloom I do believe most Instructors are good at their job, or at least they want to be. But they are hamstrung by the system . . .

NickD BASE 194

[AFFI 0]

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Can't those who DO strive for quality speak out against poor-quality instruction and work and possibly help weed them out?

Determining what "Quality" is can be subjective.
Defining the criteria potentially doubly so.
How exactly do you propose that those of "poor" quality be "weeded out"?
That promises to be quite a large undertaking. At least encouraging others to put forth their best effort is infectious to those who have the desire to improve themselves. I have found it to be much more effective than calling into question the abilities of instructors that I considered less than acceptable in the quality department as I define it. I have ventured down that avenue with less than deseriable results.

I am not saying that having knowledge that there may be some instructors out there that do not care about, or are not capable of giving “quality” in their instructional methods does not bother me, because it does. But leading by example is what I believe branches out further and helps to influence on a broader scale in my little corner of the world.

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

[AFFI 0]

Nick, as usual, another fantastic dissertation!

Well done!

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

[Fast 0]

The whole AFF rating thing has been on my mind a lot lately. I have been doing pre-course work with an evaluator (Mary G) in wisconsin and it has somewhat turned skydiving into a really stressfull event. I find it hard to belive that things have gotten much easier on would be instructors. At least they haven't in my neck of the woods. I suppose we will see when I do my course, I don't doubt that Billy will be hard on us.

The one thing that I don't really like is that it is a certification course. I was hopeing that there would be an emphasis on learning but I guess you just can't learn all that information fast enough.

I'm confident in my abilities, but it all sure is stressfull.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[Miami 0]

Excellent post...mirrors exactly how I feel about the AFFCC.

Miami

[NickDG 23]

Derrick,

If you'll allow me, here's some free advice.

Keep a good balance up between your air skills and your ground skills. Too many candidates focus on the air skills to their own peril. A good evaluator will present you with the "student" you created in the ground prep. For instance; if you missed reviewing something like the pull signal on the ground when you present that finger in freefall your "student" is going to look at you like they never saw it before and act accordingly.

Put another way. The ground prep is the soup you'll have to eat later.

Of course, you'll never get a perfect student. There will be misbehavior in the plane, mistimed or balked exists, and certainly a roll over at some point. You can also bank on the "student" pretty much never pulling their own dummy handle. And while there is going to be some differences in how evaluators do things, it's nothing like the myriad of things real students are capable of doing to you.

So be ready for anything. One time I watched in utter amazement as an evaluator completely removed his own rig on the way to altitude without the stressed out candidate even noticing it. And then there's the simpler stuff. I've made probably half a dozen AFF eval dives with my Protec helmet on backwards. (Very un-comfy!) When candidates complain that "real" students wouldn't do things like that they are missing the point.

In the air, and after the release, when things start going awry (and they will) the order of your actions are first throw signals, if that doesn't work block, if that doesn't work re-dock, then fix the problem, and re-release.

And keep in mind you are being discussed in the evaluator's room. So your attitude counts. (Read that as don’t show up with one.) They are also going to find your weak areas and focus in on them. The point is real AFF should be much easier than these eval dives. And I'll caveat that by saying real students are like time bombs. They are no problem until they blow up in your face

Also, and again if I may, I've been reading your posts here for years. I'm going to guess you'll do fine . . .

NickD BASE 194

[billvon 2,410]

I agree with most of your post, but this:

>It may have been all right to turn people loose after seven jumps twenty
>years ago, but not anymore.

I don't buy. The air hasn't changed. The ground hasn't gotten any harder (or softer) and gravity is just like it always was. Someone who graduated after seven jumps years ago is not much more or less skilled than someone who graduated after seven jumps now. Indeed, on the average they are probably BETTER trained - they are now jumping BOC's and many have wind tunnel time.

What I think you're saying is that there is a lot more to be learned nowadays because people progress quickly into HP canopies, freeflying, wingsuits etc and I agree. But AFF was never intended to prepare people for freeflying - it was merely intended to prepare someone to jump solo (or with a coach/experienced jumper) and save their own lives using student gear. That's it. Everything else gets added on on top of those basic skills.

Years ago I tried to address this by offering a "graduate course" that covered as much stuff as I could cram into 2 hours. Few people ever showed up when I offered it. So I started making it part of water training (which people _had_ to go to) and covering that stuff there.

That's just ground instruction, of course; you need a lot more than that to generate "experienced" new jumpers. So several of us were also pestering USPA to address this gap in training.

Eventually they came up with the ISP. I don't know if we had anything to do with it; it was an idea whose time had just come. It covers "advanced stuff" pretty well and provides a framework for teaching it both on the ground and in the air. Many DZ's have implemented it, although it remains somewhat optional.

Recently they've released some more material, most notably the HP canopy course outline and self study guide (6-10 and 6-11.) As of now it's all optional. Which I think is a good thing; the requirement should be that we teach the most basic lifesaving skills (i.e. how to survive and not kill/harm anyone else) and then let them choose how they progress after that. And if they want to do nothing more than 2-ways with coaches and land under Mantas in the student area? That's fine.

But if they want to freefly and jump that Xaos-87? Then they need that additional education. And it's available now; we just have to use the tools we already have.

[diablopilot 2]

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I don't buy. The air hasn't changed.

Skydiving has. Being pretty sure that student were going to be looked after by the skydiving community, and that they would heed the advice the community had to offer is no longer a real expectation.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[popsjumper 2]

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Determining what "Quality" is can be subjective.
Defining the criteria potentially doubly so.
How exactly do you propose that those of "poor" quality be "weeded out"?

As per one of my previous posts:
"How about yearly testing for rating renewals? Required air skills re-test with a CD other than who you "bought" your rating from. With increasingly harder situational presentations by the in-air evaluators.

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At least encouraging others to put forth their best effort is infectious to those who have the desire to improve themselves.

Yes, at least that...I'm hoping for more.

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But leading by example is what I believe branches out further and helps to influence on a broader scale in my little corner of the world.

You are an inspiration but...what about the rest of the country?

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[Fast 0]

Thanks, appreciate it.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[taz9420 0]

Sorta on the same subject:

I took the Army Jumpmaster (Static Line) Course. 30% of the class didn't make it to graduation day. When it comes to safety and attention to detail, the US Military doesn't mess around.

[popsjumper 2]

I watched a TV program a couple of months back showing military freefall training. I was amazed at the in-air skills of the instructors flying with the students. Made me drool.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[bwnco 0]

Crap, reading that really installs confidence in someone wanting to go threw AFF and get his license.... Quick!! Whats the best dz with the safest AFF instructors!! Steer me away from these bone heads... good grief! Oh please God find me a mentor!!

"Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile initially scared me to death."

[BillyVance 34]

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...I'm with Shrek...some of the videos I've seen are appalling with respect to AFFI air skills. I mean, leaving the student 10 ft out the door and never showing up again in-frame on video? Come ON now.

You see it all over the country.

On a completely different tangent - how about those tandem masters that think they can do a 90 degree turn at 100 feet to get through the gate?

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[stratostar 5]

Go visit derek AKA hooknswoop @ the tunnel and he'll train you in the tunnel and he would know the good ones in your hood.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[tdog 0]

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Crap, reading that really installs confidence in someone wanting to go threw AFF and get his license.... Quick!! Whats the best dz with the safest AFF instructors!! Steer me away from these bone heads... good grief! Oh please God find me a mentor!!

Hint - instructors like to bitch about DZOs. Video guys like to bitch about Instructors. Skydivers like to bitch about anything.

If you look at the incidents (on these forums, or in the USPA Parachutist Magazine) you will quickly learn that Bone Heads (your term) are not killing students these days. You can search on these forums a lot and find you have the least chance of getting hurt when you are a newbie... It is when you downsize to a smaller canopy and you decide to swoop your landing fast, or make an invasive maneuver that you are not trained to do on the smaller canopy, that you get hurt.

The system is not perfect, but it is far from broken. I look at incidents (death, injury, etc) to judge.

If you want to be safe, ask a lot of questions, do a lot of research, go to your favorite rigger friend (you will easily find one if you don't have one yet) and ask them to show you how to pack a reserve. With an open mind that acts like a sponge, you can increase the safety to a point it is manageable and justifiable. If you just go out and jump, but don't spend the time on the ground, you will have higher risk.

Your job now is to get the baseline education you need. Find an USPA dropzone (if in the US), and talk to experienced jumpers from the area.

If I felt that AFF instructors were killing people left and right (or even had a history of incidents), I would be the first to lobby change. But as much as I read about every incident for the last, say, 10 years... This is NOT where people are getting hurt. It is canopy control. And as an AFF student, your risk is NOT hurting yourself (statistically) under the big student canopy, but instead the lack of knowledge your AFF instructors will teach you for when you have 30 or 100 jumps. You can however fix this by immediately taking a canopy control course after you are done with AFF. Or, by finding an AFF instructor who will give you lots of knowledge about canopy control.

So, go jump. Calculate the risks by reading about incidents. Pick the low hanging fruit first, and you will lead a long life in skydiving.

P.S. I see you are in Colorado. I would be glad to help you out (in finding the best of the best). PM me. I am (your term) one of those Bone Head AFF instructors.

[Thanatos340 1]

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Hint - instructors like to bitch about DZOs. Video guys like to bitch about Instructors. Skydivers like to bitch about anything.

Ding!! Ding!! Ding!!
We have a Winner!!

Well Put.

[diablopilot 2]

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If you look at the incidents (on these forums, or in the USPA Parachutist Magazine) you will quickly learn that Bone Heads (your term) are not killing students these days. You can search on these forums a lot and find you have the least chance of getting hurt when you are a newbie... It is when you downsize to a smaller canopy and you decide to swoop your landing fast, or make an invasive maneuver that you are not trained to do on the smaller canopy, that you get hurt.

And it's because AFF instructors and programs have slipped to sloppy standards that we have so many skydivers injuring themselves through poor judgment. "Instructors" don't just train people to get past physical goals, but create skydivers that exercise sound judgement, are capable of making sound decisions, and know when to ask if they are in over their heads.

The lower we allow the training standards to drop, the more incidents we'll see 2 and 3 years down the road.

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You can however fix this by immediately taking a canopy control course after you are done with AFF. Or, by finding an AFF instructor who will give you lots of knowledge about canopy control.

I am sick and tired of seeing this thought process. If an AFF Instructor is incapable of teaching canopy control, they have no business teaching students. The TLO's and the training towards them IS NOT AN OPTIONAL portion of the ISP.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.