being an old timer (long)

[pccoder 0]

That was a good read. I am personally thankful for all the sacrifices that the older jumpers made in the past to make skydiving a more safe sport that I can enjoy today.

PcCoder.net

[BikerBabe 0]

OMG, Lisa, how are you? Don't see you around much anymore.

I, too, am starting to be an "old-timer". I started in 1994, on a T-10. Did demos at the AFA on a PD-235.

Bought a Sabre because that's all there really was at the time, besides a Stiletto which was way too advanced for me.

I still have (and jump) my Vector II.

When I sign logbooks now, people look at me in awe because I have a D number under 20,000. LOL! I love it.

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[MakeItHappen 15]

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Great post.

Quote

jump, and accept the responsibility

What about putting these words on T-Shirts?

been there - done that.

paraphrased it came out as:

Blue Skies - Black Death

COD - Impact
[pre-cypres days anyway]

Don't be a Dick [ there was more to this tshirt]
somethin' like "See Dick hook, See Dick crash, Don't be a Dick"

Somehow
'jump, and accept the responsibility' or
'real skydivers don't sue'
on a tshirt would not stir the emotional response
'COD - Impact'
does.

People problem and solution - but no one will believe me.

.

.
Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[jbrasher 0]

I believe you
It is always YOUR repsonsibility.
If you expect someone else to take care to you YOU will be disappointed, at least

Red, White and Blue Skies,

John T. Brasher D-5166

[mouth 0]

Hey baby girl....good to hear from you. Life is treating me good but busy. Can't wait to see you.

Hugs
Lisa

--
Hot Mama
At least you know where you stand even if it is in a pile of shit.

[SarahC07 0]

Wow, that was nice... I actually read the whole thing and it was WORTH IT!
I've only been jumping for 5 months....

Sarah

[mr2mk1g 10]

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'real skydivers don't sue'

I think I'll order that shirt custom from the mall tomorrow... its perfect for me!

[usedtajump 1]

Talk about old timer, let's see, I hung it up in 1996 and since then it seems the following, at that time, unheard of concepts are common every day practices now:

The concept of wing loading is all the rage. Never heard of it back then.

Students using ZP canopies.

Freeflying, birdman suits, hybred jumps, speed skydiving, swoop competitions. Back then, if it wasn't RW, CRW, accuracy (very little even then) or the cutting edge discipline of skysurfing, it wasn't done.

BASE is MUCH more common now vs then.

AAd's have become universally accepted. By far, the main useage for them was for studunt/tandem gear.

Probably many, many more that I'm not even aware of but the point is that it's been less than ten years and the sport barely resembles what it was when I stopped jumping, but hey, that's a good thing.

The older I get the less I care who I piss off.

[airtwardo 6]

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BRAVO!! Very well said. I think you should submit that post to the magazines as I think everyone in the world could get a little bit of perspective from it no matter what their time in the sport.

***
I 2nd Lou's motion!!
I was thinking exaclty the same as I was reading your
well thought and articulated editorial...

Bill you have given a lot to this sport,
and it's obvious you have a perspective
that should be given consideration by all.

Thanks for your effort and commitment
to the Skydiving community!

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

[Keith 0]

There you go again Bill, making sense.

Keith

Don't Fuck with me Keith - J. Mandeville

[jumpwally 0]

Bill and Geronimo are both right ! You guys made my day..amen...............................................
wally

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[imajacka55 0]

*Bump*

I was searching around the old threads and came across this one. I never saw it the first time around and would like to give it another chance for those that did not read.

I got a lot out of it and hope that others do to

[mjosparky 3]

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Each of us has to decide what level of risk we're willing to accept, then educate ourselves so we can reasonably decide if we are OK with a DZ's airplanes, gear, landing area, winds, S+TA's, overall attitude etc.

Educate yourself, learn everything you can about probably the most dangerous thing you will ever do. If you fail to do so, you are as dumb as a bag of rocks.

Quote

Each of us has to decide what level of risk we're willing to accept, then educate ourselves so we can reasonably decide if we are OK with a DZ's airplanes, gear, landing area, winds, S+TA's, overall attitude etc. If we're not OK with it, don't jump. It is a thousand times better to be alive, intact and jumping less than to be paralyzed from the neck down, even if you have a $5 million settlement and the satisfaction of destroying a DZ.

If you are not ready to take responsibility for you own safety, you own actions and realize that you can do everything right and still die, buy a bowling ball and quit taking up space on the plane.

Bill,
Very good! It covers many things that needed to be said.
Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[JoeyRamone 0]

You are not old, just a little wiser.

[Ron 7]

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I started in 2000 and I don't believe a coach rating existed then

The coach ratting didn't need to exist back then. Students came out even on bad weather days and LISTENED to the experienced guys. In turn the experienced guys tried to help.

With AFF becoming the rage, and the DZ's becomming more comerical...Students were given 7 jumps then ignored...

Before AFF become the rage...We didn't need the coach rating.

Before people came ou and wanted it all now and stopped being willing to work to get it...We didn't need the coach rating.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[falxori 0]

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Today there are the jumpers, the DZO's, the pilots, etc. Us and them. Back then there was just us.

you're right, most if not all DZs these days are a business.
i pay, they give me a service.
they also provide other things but basicly i pay for a ride up/gear/coach etc.
i won't sue anyone for my mistakes but yes, as far as sfae planes, mantained gear and qualified staff, i expect to get what i paid for.

Quote

if we had lots of regard for our lives we'd be fishing, not jumping out of airplanes

i have "lots of regard" for my life and i'm well aware of the risks i'm taking. but i don't see why i need to assume additional risks like faulty props or drunk pilot...

maybe its just me but i see a huge different between landing off and breaking a leg (even if someone else spotted) and faulty gear or staff on drugs.

O

"Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero."

[airtwardo 6]

Quote

The coach ratting didn't need to exist back then. Students came out even on bad weather days and LISTENED to the experienced guys. In turn the experienced guys tried to help.

***


As they say..."Those were the days!"

But the world is changing, and we'll probably never
see that type of 'tutoring' again.
At least not as commonly and on the scale
we once did.

I stopped at a DZ here in Texas last night
to make the sunset load.
There was an AFF certification course going on,
and the discussion among the candidates was rather 'interesting' when the beer light came on.

The reasons for getting the rating varied,
but without exception,
"To teach" was never mentioned!

I was extremely impressed with the expertise
and dedication shown by Glen Bangs (USPA President)
running the program and doing evaluations.

I gained some insight to 'the way things are' during a conversation with him last evening.

Less than 10% of the membership holds ratings
that qualify them as 'instructors' of one sort
or another.
A very small percentage of that group is
what we might term as 'old timers'.
And the 'dropout' rate among those qualified
is quite high in comparison to 10-15 years ago.

One of the reasons for that cited by Glen was
our "sue happy" society.

As jumpers get older and thus more experienced...
they tend to also settle down
and begin to gain financial security...'net worth'.

With all the frivolous law suits and outrageous awards
going on everyday,
anyone that reads the paper is hesitant about putting themselves at risk of losing everything.

Make no mistake,
if you are found culpable in an accident causing
injury or death, most likely YOU will be sued!
The DZ's insurance doesn't cover you, and although
the waiver "Might" prevent you from losing everything...
you will still be named in the suit and will have to defend
yourself and your actions.
The cost of being found 'not guilty'
averages 20,000 - 30,000 dollars!
And in most states
you cannot recover that money from the plaintiff.

Many 'Old Timers' are even becoming hesitant
about dispensing advice for fear of being included
in some future legal action...
" He TOLD me it was okay to do such & such..."

The good news is...
The senate bill (494..496??) that was reviewed
but not passed in the last session of the Virginia senate, would if confirmed, put "Adventure Sports"
like skydiving, in a different classification.

Thus placing more responsibility for a person's actions
and injuries on that individual, and not on everyone that
can make steam on a mirror,
as is currently the trend.

The bill will again come up in the next session,
and if passed.
Should set a precedent that other states will follow.

If the threat of major liability is removed...
perhaps some of the "Old Days" ways...
will return.

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

[airdvr 197]

Quote

The coach ratting didn't need to exist back then. Students came out even on bad weather days and LISTENED to the experienced guys. In turn the experienced guys tried to help.

The coach rating is a businesslike approach to a business problem...customer retention. A DZO has to pay particular attention to this problem because the turnover rate for jumpers is extremely high. If the DZO doesn't retain new jumpers and "grow them" into experienced skydivers his business will be in big trouble after the first turnover. The old approach was to have the "wannabe's" hang out at the DZ hoping to lurk a load with the more experienced guys. DZO's can't afford that approach anymore. Somewhere are stats that show its takes 3 times as much money to get a new customer as it does to retain a current one.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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I wouldn't be suprised if at some point skydiving doesn't become as popularized as snowboarding or skiiing. I personally wouldn't mind that at all, because prices would likely stay low and it'd mean more places to jump and more ways of jumping.

I can learn to snowboard for a couple hundred dollars, buy a complete snowboarding setup for a couple hundred dollars, and get unlimited lift-serviced snowboarding for another couple hundred a year.

AFF and a short post AFF coaching program run a couple thousand, entry level gear is a couple thousand, and the 100-200 annual jumps of a recreational skydiver can run $2000-$4000.

Unless you can achieve a ten-fold cost reduction, skydiving isn't going to be as popular as winter snow sports.

[bodypilot1 0]

Thanks for stirring the pot again.

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

Jan,

I almost see you and Bill saying the same thing.

In just the 5+ years I have been in the sport I am amazed in the changes...I'm still a tourist....I can only imagine where we are headed (shudders).

When I started there was no Velo, the FX was the hottest shit and if you were a lowtimer on a Sabre or a Safire you were going to die...the Stilletto had a worse reputation than the Sabre.....and putting students on BOC rigs was ridiculed. I've see too much in too short of time and lost friends and mentors, seen people between 50 jumps and 9000 jumps die. I've gotten lucky and done stupid things I am surprised I walked away from (1.9 WL at 200 jumps under a Safire anyone?). However it was all my doing, no one else.

IMHO, if you are a jumper and the word "lawsuit" is in your vocab, quit now. No excuses, no reasons, etc...you don't need to jump. NO, don't bother trying to reason with me - and I will tell you this in person - quit now if you feel you will ever sue the DZ or another jumper. On top of that, I don't want to jump with you either.

This sport is chaotic at best - and every skydive WILL try to kill you and just about any other part of the skydive as well (the plane ride, other jumpers, the pilot, other aircraft, the earth).

No, this is not a safe sport - we just have some safe people. You are mistaken if you think otherwise, and, if you do, you haven't seen the real dark side of this sport.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[riggermick 6]

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Sometimes when I read these threads I feel really old. Some things have really changed in this sport. And objectively it really hasn't been that long; I started skydiving only thirteen years ago. To take you back to those distant days:

The Racer and the Vector II were popular, with an occasional Northern Light or Swift filling things out. Cruislites, PD-230's and Falcons were the canopies of choice, once you had mastered the DC-5 or the Cloud XL. The Sabre and the Monarch had recently come out, but everyone knew that those canopies would kill you (and open hard to boot.) The opening hard part wasn't so bad, since pull altitudes were right around 2000 feet, to maximize the freefall time from 7500 feet. Cessnas were the standard, with bigger DZ's using D-18's and DC-3's. Otters were starting to come into usage at some of the bigger DZ's, but they were still worth a special trip. The Cypres was a brand new AAD. It looked promising; it wouldn't take much of an improvement to make it better than the Sentinels and FXC's of the time. They were so bad that students looked forward to the day they could disconnect the AAD (the sentinels had a physical connector you could disconnect.) The reputation of AAD's in general was so bad that a big selling point of the cypres was that you could hide the control unit under the reserve flap. That way no one would see you had an AAD and refuse to jump with you; premature AAD deployments had injured several people, and AAD's were frowned upon for RW.

I basically started at three DZ's, going through the static line program at one and making a few AFF at another. The gear was, well, bad. The mains were DC-5's, massive 5 cell 300 square foot things that had cells so big you could sleep in them. They had no glide ratio to speak of, which was good practice if we ever had to use our reserves (ancient Navy rounds.) The containers were in equally bad shape. I made my first repairs to a student rig I was using when I had about 20 jumps (velcro replacement) and knew to avoid the ones with duct tape on the reserve containers. I knew those rigs pretty well; I paid for my first 50 jumps or so by packing.

The aircraft we used were a bit ragged. I remember my first few jumps sitting in them looking at the sun stream in through the missing rivets, and they would refuse to start on occasion and need to be hand-propped. We had several pilots, pilots who ranged from competent time-builders to grizzled veterans with suspended pilot's licenses to new pilots with the ink barely dry on their tickets. We knew the sorts of risks we were taking. The waiver we signed, although much shorter than the ones we sign nowadays, said you could die doing this because of the carelessness or negligence of the staff or other skydivers, and it was clear to us that this was very true. It was never malicious - the hungover pilot certainly didn't mean to risk anyone's life - but we knew that the possibility was there that someone could screw up and we could die. And then Harry did screw up, and we watched him die when he plowed the plane into the runway trying to make it back after losing power over a sod farm. A JM was paralyzed for life as a result of that crash.

Lawsuits were not so much decided against as never considered. The people at the DZ were our family, and you wouldn't sue them any more than you'd sue your brother for getting drunk and crashing a car you were in. And skydiving wasn't just risky - it was deadly. We saw the deaths. Any sort of comparison to driving seemed absurd. We'd go out at night, drink heavily, drive home, and show up the next day to jump again, but a pilot would make one mistake and we'd have one dead and one who would never move again.

Nowadays I read about jumpers who think suing DZ's is a good idea. A poster here said she would sue if there was an accident and the reserve on the rig she had been renting was out of date. Another thought that a DZO who intentionally used a suspect prop should certainly be sued out of existence. Heck, when I started, we'd be the ones trying to talk him into letting us use the out of date rig or using the prop for one more weekend. Because we wanted to jump, and were willing to risk our lives with a gouged prop to get in the air. And we knew that if anything happened it would be our fault as much as his.

I learned a lot back then, mainly because I had to. I learned to spot because we had no GPS, and if I didn't spot, odds are the spot would be bad. When I started spotting the spots would be bad too, but at least I was in control, and I got better fast after some para-hiking. I learned to do demos by just doing them, first picking tighter areas to land in when I had to land out, then doing impropmptu demos into local bars. I learned to BASE jump because Harry Parker was at our DZ for a year, and I figured that was my one chance to learn. And every time I learned something new, whether it was how to land in a back yard, how to pack a main for BASE, or how to spot an Otter in high winds, I'd get a little safer, and I'd improve my odds a little bit. And that was critical, because I knew the odds weren't in my favor.

Over time, things changed. The otter in Perris crashed, and suddenly people everywhere were using seatbelts and being more careful about fuel. In a lot of ways things got better. The gear improved. We got these new high performance Mantas, and rigs like the Eos and the Infinity made their appearance. The Sabres and Monarchs started to become more accepted, and gradual evolutions produced higher performance canopies (the Stiletto) lower performance intermediate canopies (the Triathalon) and oddball canopies (the AR-11) that faded away with time. Turbines gradually replaced pistons at bigger DZ's,

Some things got worse. People started jumping not because they really wanted to jump but because they became entranced by the glossy ad in the magazine. The DZ saw a lot more transients, people who would be there for a day and leave, never to be seen again. There began to be an attitude of entitlement, a "I deserve good gear, safe airplanes and experienced pilots at a reasonable price, I got rights" sort of thing. There was a lot of friction at one place between the new brand of jumpers and the older crowd who just wanted to drink beer, smoke pot, jump crappy gear and have fun. I dealt with the problem by just avoiding them most of the time, which seemed better than trying to impose my view of the world on them. I mean, what did I know? I had 100 jumps.

Eventually I made my way to California where the planes were mostly turbine and the weather was always good. I started jumping at Brown Field, where we progressed from C206's to a King Air to a Porter to a Beech 99 to a Caravan to an Otter. I learned a lot there; got all my ratings, learned to spot down to 100 yards (important when you're half a mile from the mexican border and a mountain range) and learned to be the "bad guy" S+TA. And even though Buzz put a lot of effort into making Brown a safe DZ, we saw injuries and fatalities. I was going through the AFF JCC when we heard that a student had nearly ripped the tail off the King Air due to a premature reserve deployment, and that everyone had survived through basically a miracle. We saw a fatality when a jumper struggled with a stuck pullout for too long, and we saw another one when a local jumper tried to land downwind on a windy day. I lost a good friend of mine when he made one pretty minor mistake, one I had made in the past. In other words, skydiving was as dangerous as ever, even though we did a much better job at Brown of keeping the easily-avoidable risks to a minimum. We also had our share of risks we couldn't avoid, mainly jumpers who simply could not or would not listen. Many of them ended up out of the sport, too injured to jump again, or they became able to listen after serious injuries. It was clear that despite Buzz's best attempts (he required AAD's after the first fatality, instituted drug testing, supported groundings both from me and other local DZ's, changed student gear every few years etc) that it was not the DZ that determined whether people were safe or not; it was the people themselves. That's something that sometimes gets lost, I think. A DZ with 100 people at it is as safe as those 100 people, no matter what the DZO does. If those 100 people refuse to get into a rattly airplane, no one dies in a crash. If they do - well, they decided to get in a rattly plane.

And today I see people who honestly think driving is more dangerous than skydiving. They think that certain devices are so critical to their safety that they won't consider a jump without them, that these devices perhaps can _make_ skydiving as safe as driving. I see people jumping canopies I would never consider jumping at 200 jumps because everyone else is doing it, and insisting on a cypres again because everyone else is doing it - and thinking they are, on the balance, safer because of their gear choices. And maybe all that works for them. I know I thought I knew everything when I had 200 jumps.

The future of skydiving will depend, as it always has, on the direction skydivers take it. It will be as safe as we make it, not as safe as we sue it into being. Each of us has to decide what level of risk we're willing to accept, then educate ourselves so we can reasonably decide if we are OK with a DZ's airplanes, gear, landing area, winds, S+TA's, overall attitude etc. If we're not OK with it, don't jump. It is a thousand times better to be alive, intact and jumping less than to be paralyzed from the neck down, even if you have a $5 million settlement and the satisfaction of destroying a DZ.

And if you are OK with it? Then jump, and accept the responsibility that comes with participating in an inherently dangerous, unforgiving sport. The paybacks can be immense, but the risks are too.

I was chief AFF instructor during this time and was on the king air when the tail strike occured. It felt like we had just had a mid air collision. Wayne and myself followed the unconsious student in to a canyon with 110,000 volt power lines running over it. He compound fractured his femur on landing that was his most serious injury. His harness was completly demolished on one side and it was only the velcro wrap around the 3 ring confluence wrap that kept him from falling out. It was a "fun" time to be jumping, Bill's right a lot has changed in the intervening years.

Mick.

[nicknitro71 0]

Very good one bro!

Send it to parachutist, would ya!

My first leap was out a C130 over 11 years ago wearing a Irvin round, a 22' round reserve, a rifle, and a backpack on my knees. The moment I steped out of the door I knew I was in for the long haul.

Lots of things have changed mainly attitude. There are still some DZ that are run by truely fearless leaders with the same genuine "old time spirit".

In the end though as long as we are in the air, it's all good.

Memento Audere Semper

903

[airdvr 197]

I think its more of a problem with the relatives of the deceased. Seems they're the ones who will sue with the "make sure this never happens to anyone else" mentality. Their loved one is gone, and someone must be responsible. Look at what's happening in Calgary right now (although I still think there's something strange about 2 FJ mals on one lift).

As I see it the problem goes back to skydiving attempting to portray itself as a "mainstream" activity. We all know its not and never will be. Maybe we ought to make it seem as dangerous as possible then we could all make tons of money doing demos?

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[jdfreefly 1]

I love this thread!

Bill and I have dissagreed before, it happens, but I couldn't agree more with him on all of these points.

I have only been in the sport for 7 years, but even in those seven years I have seen changes. Some for the better, some for the worse.

I have talked at great length over many a beer with some of the people around our DZ who were around when cutting away meant dealing with the capwells! If you don't know what they are, find someone at your dz who you think is old and obsolete, he'll tell ya with a gleam in his eye! While your at it, ask him for all his stories, they are always worth the listen.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that there are now 2 types of skydivers. Those who are truly a student of the sport, and those who just want to be cool. The true student of skydiving is in it for all the right reasons. They want to learn and they want to teach. They never stop learning. They don't know how.

The others, are the type who get a new parachute, drop it off in the loft, pay their money and go to the snack bar. They don't want to be involved in any of that scary rigging stuff. That's what riggers are for. They are, for the most part, the people who get hurt. They are also the ones who sue.

Skydiving is dangerous! Get used to it. Shit goes wrong, and when your doing 120, it goes wrong real fast. If you can't get used to that idea, don't jump. And if you rent a rig and can't be bothered to look at the packing data card to see if it is in date, then you shouldn't be suing anyone.

Furthermore, people make mistakes. If you are going to trust your life to someone, you better be ready to deal with what happens when they make a mistake. The first year I worked as a packer, I pakced a mal for a woman who completely blamed me, wnated me to pay for her repack, stiffed me on the 5 bucks and generally bad mouthed my packing abilities to the rest of the fun jumpers. I got real down on myself and was thinking about quiting packing, which would have pretty much meant quitting jumping since that was where my jump money came from. One of my mentors took me aside and said, "Hey, you put your rig down, you pay your money and you take your chances. If she can't handle that, she should pack for herself." BTW - the mal was a spectre that sniveled too long.

The bad news is I have seen people in this sport who are in it only for themselves. They screw other jumpers over and they expect skydiving to be a nice cushy world with no risks. The good news is they rarely stick around.

Methane Freefly - got stink?