Isn't it time for a serious talk about low turns??

[VectorBoy 0]

The sport needs something to lower the number of deaths that will happen this year.

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You are IT! You are the sport. Conduct your stuff safely. Live to spread the word. Maturity means you won't swoop because others say you can't resist but instead because you can't resist.


Continued deaths without attempts to control the cause will eliminate the sport all together.

I don't think so. This is a daredevil sport. You are on the fringe. Fox sports EXPECTS you to die. Skydiving is not going away. We will pay the costs of accidents and lawyers and policing if it ever comes to that or we can be responsible and try our best to minimize all of the above costs.

Greedy city, state and federal politicians squeezing funds from general aviation activities on your DZ's airport. Have a better chance of closing skydiving down ( unless your DZ is a privately owned strip ).
We've had guys running for president that would just shut GA ,as we know it in the country, down.

Terrorism has a better chance of shutting us down. If again the spectre of an airborne threat raises its head again. GA will suffer.

And third any federal agency put into place to help the USPA police you, from you, could in a runnaway effect impact skydiving as you know it. Be careful what you wish for.

[skydiver51 0]

I am only wishing for this sport to survive not for controls from outside the sport. Controls from the FAA or Federal Government won't come from the agencies alone but from pressure from people outside the sport like families, airport owners, ect. and the more reports in the news informing the general public about skydivers dieing from preventable accidents the more likely controls will happen.
I don't swoop and never will. If some one wants to then that's up to them. I just feel we ALL better do something very soon to show we are doing something about the deaths. Having something in place is better than nothing. Some people will continue to disregard safty measures and kill them selves but we can lower the numbers significantly.

[tonyhathaway 0]

Since I started jumping, (1988) about 500 people have died skydiving. I read a thread earlier about how many jumps did you do this year. Right now, from 79 people who did less than 100 jumps last year, every 3 or 4 jumps you did, somone died. Accidents happen. Bad decisions happen. They will not go away. The attitude of "it won't happen to me" is BAD. The attitude should be "it could happen to me, but I'm going to do everything to not let it" and be ready for it always. Shit sneaks up you quick. Everyone makes bad decisions at some point. Everyone has some part of their dive they could improve on. I went for my approach yesterday, and had to bring it around on toggles instead of front risers because I was too low for front risers. That decision was made in about 2 seconds, and I figured- so I don't get to swoop on this one. Lucky for me, I'll maybe get to on the next. Think about that from 2 angles. 1) I made the right decision not to do a front riser turn and did it on my toggles and aborted my swoop. or 2) I screwed up originally by being too low in the first place. Always allow yourself the opportunity for the next jump. Sometimes that means you don't get to do the monster swoop you were hoping for. Just my opinion, but what do I know?-Tony

My O.C.D. has me chasing a dream my A.D.D. won't let me catch.

[faulknerwn 38]

I completely agree. I know a LOT more non-jumpers than jumpers, but the number of deaths isn't even close. I've had friends die from getting entangled in their own parachutes, canopy collisions on opening, collisions on landing, hook turns, freefall collisions, a collision between a video guy and the guy he was filming under canopy (leading to a low cutaway), a collision with an airplane he had just exited, entanglement with a smoke canister,a plane crash and too many more to count.

What I always thought was curious was that of 30+ people I know who were killed in this sport, 1 had a Cypres fire and it didn't help, and 2 might (but probably not) have been helped by one. The other 25+ it wouldn't have made a difference.

Most years in the sport I seem to lose about 3 friends. That's way too many. This sport is not safe. The number of people I have known _ever_ who have died from non-skydiving related stuff is < 10. The numbers aren't even close.

W

[Laurel 0]

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"Statistically, it's a very safe sport. But when you see accidents happen that could have been prevented, that's when it's time to talk about it."

This was taken from a news report about the Gold Coast accident New Years eve.

Before you have a knee-jerk response to swooping because of Scotty's death, look at the facts of the incident. When the final report is completed, I am sure you will see that his swooping was one small factor of a series of very dangerous large factors that led to his death. Remember that Scotty was a Bronze Medal winner at this year's nationals and was highly skilled at this sport, but just stacked too many odds against himself this time.

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PMS#28, Pelogrande Rodriguez#1074
My Pink M

[rendezvous 0]

With high performance parachutes, adrenalin, and enough air heads around in Skydiving low turn deaths are here to stay. When it comes to that one reporter who is looking to run us into the ground no matter what, the only thing regulations will help do is make us look crazy and rule violators from just plain simple crazy as it stand today. You can do what you like, as long as Skydiving exists reporters will find a way to put a spin on a story. What needs to be addressed is whether rules in this case will be effective at all and to what degree can they be enforced. It just takes I low turn to kill. It's not that a Skydiver needs to do 10 to die on one that you can find him and isolate him. Controlling canopy size is much easier and yet I don't think we have a consenses on how to do that. As for banning hook turns, well with canopy swooping becoming a well establisehd discpline I'd like to hear how that can be achieved and who the motivation for it is going to come from. The only solution that comes to my mind is emphasize knowledge and education in the sport and then let people make their choice. The statistics that we have right now aren't all that alarming considering the growth of the sport. We have to develop an appetite for some growth in statistics as the sport becomes larger and broader. There is only so much we'll be able to regulate but there's a lot we can educate on, so I'd say the stress should be on bringing in good training and knowlege rather than more laws that will only entice people to test them. Laws after all are only as meaningful as our ability to enforce them.

[webracer 0]

A serious talk indeed. First you have to decide what you want to talk about. The low turns that kill are very often unplanned.
Swooping doesn't necessarily involve low turns. I can start a 180 at 500' (is that low?), and 800' for a 270. If I am below 400', I will not initiate more than a 90 degree turn, and below 300, I'll just turn in and do a non-high-performance approach.
I also disagree with labeling my HP approaches as hook turns. They are not the turns that first were called hook turns.
If you want to eliminate low turn injuries/deaths, just "serious" talking won't due, you'll have to eliminate skydiving. All low turns are preventable by definition, but our decision making process doesn't always prevent them. How you gonna change that?

Troy

I am now free to exercise my downward mobility.

[webracer 0]

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We haven't had a death at our DZ. I pray that when we do it isn't due to something that could have been avoided.

Well, quite a statement. If you want to avoid it, ground the plane! Every skydiving accident can be avoided by staying on the ground (everyone).
You're new, you want to protect life. You don't understand the high-speed approaches, so you want to stop them. Not the answer.
Learn yourself first.

Troy

I am now free to exercise my downward mobility.

[skydiver51 0]

Well I can this thread on low turns has turned in to the same discussion as most others have. The only thing everyone can agree on is to disagree. I didn't say low turns should be stoped all together. No I don't to low or high performance turns. Understand them, well I know they will kill you if you don't know what your doing. I have watched the swooping contest at WFFC. Beyond that I don't care to know any more about it. But from the reaction I have seen just from this thread not much will be done to prevent more skydivers from being killed from low turns this year. As others have stated some forms of educating skydivers is out there already and it doesn't seem to be doing much. So I think I will back off the subject and pray for the ones we lose this year.

[kallend 1,853]

I'm 58

Until I started skydiving at age 52 I had lost one friend and no relatives to accidents of any sort.

In the six years I have been skydiving I have lost 3 good friends and 4 acquaintances to skydiving accidents.

I don't know what it takes to be unsafe by your definition - Russian Roulette, maybe?

...

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

[Mixoligist 0]

On a lighter note...

Have all those "safty meetings" kept me more safe?? NO!


3 short years in this sport have taught me...

1. Skydiving is the most fun I've ever had.
2. Skydiving is VERY dangerous.
3. I do not know SH*T !


Do not kid yourself, it is NOT safe.

Bob

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Better you than me
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[Liemberg 0]

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under the canopies and wingloadings people were jumping in the late 80's and early 90's low turns ended in tweaked knees or busted ankles...

It was as early as 1980 when I saw someone make a Stupid Low Altitude Maneuver on a Para Commander. He tried to make it to the landing pit that he was missing. It left him paraplegic.

It used to be that anyone who landed directly after a sharp 180 degrees turn had his ass chewed by the local S&TA / CI. The fact that you managed to walk away unhurt didn't make you less stupid. Of course this was enforced a bit stricter with students than with experienced people, but it was something one didn't do.

Nowadays there is Pro Swooping Tours (and Canopy Control Classes.) Every landing in a Pro Swooping event would have gotten you grounded by my old instructor.
At the dutch nationals this year swooping was an official event - but they didn't have a pond...
(By now we know that it doesn't save the day on all occasions, but at least swooping over water is something I can understand...)

Did the structure of the soil change, making it more elastic?

(Whenever somebody hurts himself the swoopers seem to doubt the forgiveness of 'terra firma' for at least the rest of a jumping day, so is my observation)

Somewhere I must have missed something...

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci
A thousand words...

[cloud9 0]

Well I guess you can get serious but the fact is the subject has been talked to death. No pun intended. Everyone knows that low turns can kill you, so that means it's worth the risk to some people. When you think about every aspect of skydiving can kill you. Big ways are more dangerous then solo jumping. Free flying impacts can be very dangerous if someone corks. Wing suits are a lot more dangerous in an emergency. Crew dogs all have many more reserve rides then the average bear.

So the question begs to be asked what would you do to stop the problem? Is it fair to suggest banning low turns to the people that love to do them. If someone succeeds banning low turns does the attention then go to FF or big ways or wing suits or etc.
The only answer I see is continued training and excepting the fact that people are going to die jumping. I'm not saying liking the idea only that it's going to happen.

[crzjp20 0]

In Reply To
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"Statistically, it's a very safe sport. But when you see accidents happen that could have been prevented, that's when it's time to talk about it."

This was taken from a news report about the Gold Coast accident New Years eve.

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dont mean to side track and all, but when did the accident happen? I havnt been out there in 3 weeks... so i am a little lost.

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Fear is not a confession of weakness, it is an oportunity for courage.

[billvon 2,772]

>Everyone knows that low turns can kill you . . .

I would argue that. There are people out there with moderately loaded canopies who might intellectually know that low turns can kill you, but will yank a toggle at 50 feet to avoid someone simply because they've never thought of anything else to do.

>Big ways are more dangerous then solo jumping.

Agreed, but since there is a "gatekeeper" for most bigways (i.e. the organizer) few people get in over their head as quickly as jumpers on small canopies do.

>Wing suits are a lot more dangerous in an emergency.

Why do you think that?

>So the question begs to be asked what would you do to stop the
>problem?

Education. Regulation only to the extent that it gets people educated. A jumper who can flat turn and flare turn is ten times safer under any canopy than a jumper who can't.

[Laurel 0]

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In Reply To
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"Statistically, it's a very safe sport. But when you see accidents happen that could have been prevented, that's when it's time to talk about it."

This was taken from a news report about the Gold Coast accident New Years eve.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

dont mean to side track and all, but when did the accident happen? I havnt been out there in 3 weeks... so i am a little lost.

It happened at approximately 9:30pm New Year's Eve. Scotty's funeral was today and it was heartbreaking. There are a few posts on this site about the accident; one is under Incidents, another is in Talk Back. Also, the new report has been republished on the homepage.

.....................................................................
PMS#28, Pelogrande Rodriguez#1074
My Pink M

[cloud9 0]

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would argue that. There are people out there with moderately loaded canopies who might intellectually know that low turns can kill you, but will yank a toggle at 50 feet to avoid someone simply because they've never thought of anything else to do.

Bill while I agree with you on the less experienced jumpers, this thread came about do to the loss of a very experienced jumper and an experienced swooper that just made a tragic mistake. All the talking in the world won't change the fact that humans will err on occation and swooping or making low turns is very unforgiving.

[billvon 2,772]

>All the talking in the world won't change the fact that humans will err
>on occation and swooping or making low turns is very unforgiving.

Agreed; heck, experienced jumpers have been seriously injured and killed when their canopies failed during a swoop. All the experience in the world won't prevent that (although good maintenance can help.) But experience, training, smart canopy selection, good canopy maintenance etc can make the odds of a fatality on landing a _lot_ lower. If everyone out there had that sort of experience and training, no one would be talking about banning hook turns, because the 1-2 deaths a year from low turns would barely be noticeable over the other causes of death.

[Nullified 0]

***BASE jumping...I consider unsafe. Swooping, CReW, skysurfing, etc...I don't consider those safe activities..)

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I'm not positive about this, but I'm pretty sure that there have been only two deaths directly related to CReW in the past 10 years, and those were two newbies (RIP) under nine-cells, one of whom spiralled into the other and remained wrapped at impact. I know at least one person was knocked unconcious when his head hit the plane on exit for a CReW jump, but I don't really consider that CReW related.
CReW gets a bad wrap, no pun intended. I'd rather be in a 5-way wrap at 5,000' than be screaming down with a pilot chute in-tow at 2000'.

Stay safe,
Mike

If you're gonna' be stupid, well, then you're most likely stupid.

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[Ron 10]

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I'm not positive about this, but I'm pretty sure that there have been only two deaths directly related to CReW in the past 10 years, and those were two newbies (RIP) under nine-cells

Wrong.

Steve Morell was killed at the Nationals I think in 1995.

Two folks wrapped up in Keystone in 96, one had a low cutaway.

There might be more, these are just the people I knew.

Ron

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

[kyros1 0]

Ok, I would like also to place my opinion on that topic.
For me you have to take into consideration two factors:

1. Education
How well trained are your canopy skills. Thats the reason that there are canopy schools. After attending one of them (about 100 jumps after) I understood how wrong was my landing technique. Why not be taught by people that made mistakes, survived and have identifyed them?

and

2. How current you are

Every time that I visit one of that big DZ's and looking some really fast swoopers I say WAOOW!!!
But this guy/girl might be jumping day after day and doing at least 5 jumps per day. In our sport how current you are plays a big role.

Finally, I dont believe that this sector must stay uregulated. Why not to give exams on your landing profficiency and show your card to the DZ?

[Remster 27]

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This is VERY bad press for our sport!!!

If this is your main worry, you're unfortunatly missing the point......

Remster

[Scrumpot 1]

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I don't swoop and I have around 650 jumps

Good for you, and that is YOUR CHOICE. Others obviously also make their own CHOICES too!

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If ONLY one person dies from a preventable accident something SHOULD be done to prevent them.

Skydiving itself is a dangerous and "PREVENTABLE" activity. Most people don't CHOOSE to skydive either, and they stay on the ground. Because they don't do something, along the same lines as your argument that you do not, that others clearly feel they either should have the right, or the ability to do (same as you as choosing to be a skydiver, right?), yet from time to time they fuck up and die as a result of that activity they (meaning all others) should be prevented, right?

Your argument then sir is the epitome of hypocrisy!

Blue Skies,
-Grant

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[skydiver51 0]

Did I say any where in the post it was my main worry?? My MAIN worry is more fellow skydivers getting killed this year from HP turns and swoops who shouldn't be doing them. You and everyone else who do HP turns and swoops or don't do them can make what I post look and sound how ever you want but it doesn't help the people who will kill themselves from lack of experience or training in HP turns and swoops. If you really want to stop more regulation on the sport then train your energy on more education and training for the people who will be doing HP truns and swoops without the knowledge, not my post which are nothing more than a call for support to push for the training.

[skydiver51 0]

I have reread my post and can't find where I said any everyone who do HP turns and swoops should be stopped from doing them. I did say that something should be done to lower the numbers of deaths from HP turns and swoops. Also read my last post to remster. Every time this subject comes up certain people jump and down crying "you can't stop us from do what we want." instaed of " we should push for more instruction, education, and training.".
Why is that??