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

[Remster 24]

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My MAIN worry is more fellow skydivers getting killed this year from HP turns and swoops who shouldn't be doing them

I hate to knit pick, but this year? This isnt a this year problem.

Besides, where do you get the data that its HP turns and swoops that are resulting in the deaths? Because someone dies doing a low trun does not mean they were trying to do a HP landing. Did you actually look at the incident reports? (god.. I'm sounding like Kalend...)

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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.

I sure hope you read through your own post where training and regulations threads have been linked to numerous times.

Remster

[Scrumpot 1]

I didn't paraphrase you Don, I actually cut-n-pasted directly out of your (okay, albeit initial) post. And this IS exactly what you said:

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

Okay, now in re-reading myself, and considering some of your since posted responses as well, perhaps I could also have been misreading your usage of "them" in the above sentence as well. I took it to mean them -as in the participants. If what you are saying is that you meant instead them -as in the accidents; then I can see your point.

I know you are feeling picked on here now as a result of your wordings (and others interperetations), but in here unfortunately that's really all we have. This is how I took (and I think reasonably so) what you said. Unfortunately we've heard many more (and as I pointed to) whuffo's before attempt to make some of pretty close to the same statements, at least as I had initially taken yours (ie: "we've got to prevent those people from hurting themselves and perhaps even also edangering others") as they can tend to be made by those who have chosen not to participate, and therefore clearly, also do not understand. I'm afraid you set yourself up for that perception out of me by starting off your post with the emphatic statement too that:

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I don't swoop and I have around 650 jumps

Maybe now you understand my response to you that resulted, just a little better too?

Is it worth having discussions on how to potentially avoid fatalities in either of our activities (skydiving by itself without "swooping" and/or skydiving with "swooping")? Absolutely. On that we do not disagree at all. Some of your other implications in here however, at least as I (and apparently several others too) have taken them, I think, are off the mark. Perhaps you can better clarify those positions and/or statements, as it does appear in here that you are attempting to do now? I do appreciate the dialogue!

Blue Skies,
-Grant

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[Scrumpot 1]

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Besides, where do you get the data that its HP turns and swoops that are resulting in the deaths?

Or being done by those (from SKydiver51's post):

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who shouldn't be doing them

Who further is also determining that??

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[Slickbrick 0]

What I'm getting from your post is a abandonment of personal responsibility. "Someone should *do* something to stop these senseless deaths" is a cry for regulation.

Skydiving is a dangerous activity. Period. The end.

That said, there are steps and actions you can take to help mitigate the risks, such as training and practice. Think how much more dangerous your first jumps would have been had you not had proper training. There are a number of canopy flight schools, and there are folks like Bill Von who share their knowledge and wisdom with anyone willing to ask for it.

The onus is on the participants to understand the risks, and to take what steps they feel are necessary to mitigate the risks to their own level of comfort.

I, personally, do not want "Someone doing something" to protect me from myself.

IMO:
What made America great is the freedom to make bad decisions. The destruction of this great nation is the absolution of responsibility from the outcome of those decisions.

[Hooknswoop 19]

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That said, there are steps and actions you can take to help mitigate the risks, such as training and practice. Think how much more dangerous your first jumps would have been had you not had proper training. There are a number of canopy flight schools, and there are folks like Bill Von who share their knowledge and wisdom with anyone willing to ask for it.

I agree that education would do more than regulation and is a better solution. The problem is the education isn't mandatory and the people that neeed it aren't getting it. I'm all for education, but, right now, it isn't working.

Derek

[Remster 24]

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, personally, do not want "Someone doing something" to protect me from myself.

Someone is already doing that. 2 canopies; open by 2200; etc...

This persoanl liberty argument is pretty weak.

I personally think the proposed limitation linked to licences with possible waivers make a lot of sense. Its not about allowing you to hook or not, its about providing a progression path.

Remster

[Slickbrick 0]

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I agree that education would do more than regulation and is a better solution. The problem is the education isn't mandatory and the people that neeed it aren't getting it. I'm all for education, but, right now, it isn't working.

Freefly education isn't mandatory either. Granted, we're not seeing as many deaths from it, but it's pretty widely accepted that you should get some instruction before trying it. By instruction, I don't mean necessarily paid instruction, either.

Why is it widely accepted that you should get some instruction? Because people realized that you could hurt or kill yourself or others, and they talked about it.

I guess my point is that we (skydivers) have gotten away from mentoring each other. A return to the mentality that we are all responsible for helping out the newbies could go a long way towards preventing the race to downsize and the inadvertant and ill-timed low turns that dominate that fatality category.

As for swoopers, they are responsible for their own training.

You can go out today and buy a 150 HP motorcycle and drive away from the dealer, with the only requirement from the DMV being that you can pilot it at low speeds. No further training is required. It is strongly advisable -- but it is on you to seek it out. It's analagous to skydiving. A gear store will sell you whatever you want to buy, it's *your* responsibility to learn how to fly it.

We are all responsible when a newbie makes a low turn on a canopy that's too small for them. We have failed by not impressing upon them the dangers of their actions.

When a rider with 20 years of experience bites it in a turn on a fast bike, you can say, "they knew the risks". When an experienced swooper pounds in, I say the same thing. They knew that what they were doing was increasing their risk, and they were ok with it.

We don't need to (and largely cannot) legislate common sense. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

[Slickbrick 0]

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, personally, do not want "Someone doing something" to protect me from myself.

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Someone is already doing that. 2 canopies; open by 2200; etc...

2 canopies is FAA.

the BSR's are recommendations. From the SIM:
"the recommendations contained herein, unless otherwise stated (such as in the case of compliance
with a Federal Aviation Regulation), are put forth as guidance and are not mandatory."

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This persoanl liberty argument is pretty weak.

I personally think the proposed limitation linked to licences with possible waivers make a lot of sense. Its not about allowing you to hook or not, its about providing a progression path.

Newbies should be already getting adequate canopy training... I know that I had it drilled into me all throughout my training. In order to get their A, they have been judged to have sufficient skills to not kill themselve by being uninformed. A formal progression? More requirements to meet, and probably more paid training. where does it stop? when do you say that a person is truly on their own? when are they free to make their own gear choices and not have them mandated?

But I think we're kind of drifting to a different area. the swooper in question had plenty of experience. he made a bad decision, or made a mistake, and paid for it with his life. I am saddened by the fact that he died. I fully support his ability to make a bad decision, and be accountable for it.

it's the cry of "*somethings got to be done about this*" that scares/disgusts me. it's the same as the "think of the children" cry, IMO

[apoil 0]

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No one here expects to do anything without risk. However, when comparing skydiving with other activities such as driving, running, basketball, football, skiing, etc... the numbers back skydiving as the riskiest sport. People die at far greater numbers while skydiving than they do in any of the activities mentioned above. Skydiving is, by definition I think, not safe. It may be that the risk is acceptable to you (it seems to be for all of us), but that doesn't make it safe. Not by a long shot.

Skiing? I think you need to check your numbers again.
Also you talk about "people dying in far greater numbers" - I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are talking percentages and not just raw numbers but still it's hard to compare.

Do you look at per person actively participating in the sport
Or per day of participation? or per hour of participation?
These can skew the numbers greatly.

I believe there is a far greater likelihood of being injured while skiing.
SCUBA diving is usually not considered radically dangerous, but people die doing it all the time and in a day of participation you are exposed to danger for a much greater time than in skydiving.

[Jimbo 0]

I'm talking exposure to the sport. It's short, and could be more complete, but I think it gets the point across.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=836125#836125

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[skydiver51 0]

OK, that's enough for me. I get the picture. I'm just a big fool who doesn't know anything so there's no more need for me to be concerned about this subject any longer since I don't do HP turns any.
I'm outa here!!!!

[billvon 2,396]

>More requirements to meet, and probably more paid training. where
> does it stop?

I would think when the number of canopy fatalities drops. Take pull altitudes. They were mandated, low pull fatalities went down, and it "stopped." I don't think the sport has suffered unduly because we have a recommendation that says you have to pull by 2000 feet.

>when do you say that a person is truly on their own?

As soon as they graduate AFF. Anything after that is outside anyone's direct control; they can do whatever they want after they leave the airplane door. Any BSR is a recommendation only. They don't carry the force of law.

Let's say you're a DZO. You want to cut down fatalities from heavily loaded canopies, and someone on your DZ dies under a 1.3 to 1 canopy. The answer? Ban loadings over 1.3 to 1 until you have more jumps than that guy. The DZO down the road has a 1.6 to 1 limit. The DZ in Arizona uses Brian Germain's guidelines. The one in Socal has none, but you have to take a canopy control course before you can jump an elliptical. And one S+TA thinks that a Safire is an elliptical and the other doesn't.

That's what we're looking at. It's happening now; read this month's letters to the editor in parachutist. Is that what we want? A different loading limit at every DZ, so you either have to have 3 canopies or have a Triathalon 190 (which meets all DZO requirements) if you want to jump at more than one DZ?

That's why I am in favor of a BSR that calls out canopy loading vs experience. DZO's can enforce it if they want to, like all the BSR's. If there is a standard, it's likely DZO's will conform to it. If there is no standard, many DZO's will have their own limit system.

>when are they free to make their own gear choices and not have
>them mandated?

As soon as they graduate AFF. As experienced jumpers, I believe we have an obligation to help them make choices that won't kill them. A BSR is one way to do that.

The choice is not "do we have rules or not?" Rules are coming, like it or not. The choice is "do we want common rules or different rules at every DZ?"

[Slickbrick 0]

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OK, that's enough for me. I get the picture. I'm just a big fool who doesn't know anything so there's no more need for me to be concerned about this subject any longer since I don't do HP turns any.
I'm outa here!!!!

I did not intend to imply that you were a fool, or that you knew nothing, or that you should not be concerned.

I took issue with your "someone's gotta do something about this" plea. To me, that plea is begging for a three or four letter entity entity to step in make "make things safe". They usually fail miserably.

[chuteless 1]

Back in 1977, I was training the Ecuador Special Forces and they were all jumping new round canopies made by Irvin Industries of Canada. The chutes were like a Para Commander, and handled much the same.

My interpreter was a Captain in the army, and he took a fancy to the Delta II that I was jumping, a triangular chute with fast turnms and good forward speed.

He asked to jump it, and I told him sure, but NO turns below 150 ft,,just set uop into the wind and land that way.

Sure enough he did that, but decided to make a turn at about 150 ft, and flew straight into the side of a hill.

He came limping out with his arms around the neck of two other soldiers...holding him up, and a 3rd carrying my rig.

Some people cannot be told, and although they say they understand their memory isnt long enough to last out one jump.

There will always be thsoe who go splat, and others will continue to pick up the pieces.

To bad, but you cannot prevent foolishness.

Bill Cole D-41

[saramorgan 0]

I think what they mean is that "Once you find out how much fun it is... You will see that you don't want to land any other way." They prob'ly aren't being patronizing, I know- I get that too, but I'm pretty sure that's what they mean!

[EDYDO 0]

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What would it take to convince you that skydiving isn't safe? Statistics? I think you'll find that true statistics back the claims that skydiving isn't safe. Really though, what will it take to convince you that skydiving isn't safe?

-
Jim

Yes...if statistics changed, then it might fit my definition of "unsafe".

right now there is something in the neighborhood of 3 million jumps a year.
And 30 deaths. On average.

For my definition, this still falls within the rhelm of "safe". If something changed to this figure, then of course it could fall under my definition of 'unsafe'.

Safe means "free of risk", so that is an incorrect use of the word safe.

I think it's great to encourage "risk reduction", but please don't suggest rules that protect me from myself. Everyone's tolerance for risk is different and what may not be relatively risk free for me, might be well within someone elses ability to perform without being injured. We each have to decide what's right for us. Unfortunately, sometimes people are wrong.

Ed

[pkasdorf 0]

It may sound as a contradiction but I say that

Skydiving is risky but safe

Risky because you risk death everytime you jump out of an airplane

Safe because human mistakes account for nearly 100% of accidents and human mistakes is what we can and should avoid

Deadly human mistakes can be done by any skydiver but those that push the limits have less margin. And the mistakes could affect others. I think it is very difficult to set general rules but I emphatically sustain the right of DZ's and event organizers to set rulings that they feel comfortable with so as to make their DZ's or events as safe as they can.

HISPA # 18 POPS # 8757

[LuvToFly 0]

Thank you, skybytch. It's nice to see the moderator chime in with some real sense about this. Hopefully that will ring true in the ears of those who might be influenced towards lower wing loading, risky manuevers, etc. The hanger pressure is there, and I can't be affected by it - But there are a lot of younger people getting into canopies that are too small for them, and trying to keep up with the "pros." Increasing the odds by testing the limits takes the fun out of the sport as far as I am concerned, and works to give it a bad name.

Thanks for your voice of moderation. We should all err on the side of safety in this sport, lest we be regulated right out of it -

TOM

"The helicopter approaches closer than any other to fulfillment
of mankind's ancient dreams of a magic carpet" - Igor Sikorsky

[kallend 1,623]

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It may sound as a contradiction but I say that

Skydiving is risky but safe

Risky because you risk death everytime you jump out of an airplane

Safe because human mistakes account for nearly 100% of accidents and human mistakes is what we can and should avoid

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Since all humans, without exception, make mistakes, I find your logic hard to follow.

Something is safe if it doesn't kill you even IF you make a mistake.

...

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

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[LuvToFly 0]

Bill,

Thanks for all of your insights into this topic.

I've lurked a couple of threads now we folks are arguing about safe vs. non safe, etc, and the pattern emerges:

- Folks that Love to swoop argue vehemently that this is not the cause of injuries/casualties
- Folks that do not want to swoop believe it is a great cause -

I think the problem here is that we are focusing on specific manuevers - low hook turns, etc. That's not the issue. The issue is unsafe practices, vs things that are not preventable.

Like you said Bill, the large part of injuries/deaths are not taking place under student or very lightly loaded canopies. There are reasons for this. The smart student is cautious - has paid attention to all the safety drilling, sets up early and does not push the limits. That, combined with a forgiving nature of light wing loading keep these instances down.

When one goes to heavy wing loading, and gets further away from that awe and respect that we get drilled on in initial training (at least those of us with sense) things start to happen. Bigger chances, higher speeds, more dangerous manuevers, and a higher belief in one abilities - whether justified or not - all play into injuries in particular I believe.

A person can get cocky at 12 jumps, 120 jumps, 1200 jumps or 12,000 jumps. But undue exposure (that which is NOT purely mechanical in nature - and not talking about bad pack jobs, someone not examining their frayed stitching, these are preventable) comes from factors that are controllable. As someone said here recently, had set up too late for the turn and made a judgement call - but still, the truth is set up too late for the turn.

In any activity we get further away from our fears from training. How many people remember every safety question they took during their drivers test? Better yet, how many people DRIVE by all the driving rules at this time?? We are taking chances and push things -

I think it is important to realize that more experience does not necessarily equal safer flying. If it did, not one with a lot of experience would die due to poor judgement. But I agree with folks - poor judgement can happen at any level of expertise, in a hook turn or not. But if you are flying a forgiving canopy - you stand a better chance of walking away. That is just as true as accidents at slower speeds have a better chance of survival. Canopy flys faster, less chances. The only diffence depends on the pilot. He has to know how to handle the less forgiving nature - and respect that.

We need to stop acting like folks are doing "everything right" when in fact that manuevers that people are doing today would have scared the crap out of people just a few years ago. Just because one can do a thing, does not mean they should do a thing - because you never really know how many times you can do it - and get away with it -
Skydiving is NOT safe. But it can get a lot worse - It is about our judgement and our common sense. We can turn up, or wratchet down so many of the risks involved. It's not a manuever problem - it's a people problem when it comes to erring on the side of conservative, respecting unknown factors and making allowances, always making allowances for one not being able to pull off what they did last time...

To repeat, it is NOT safe, but everyone with a canopy is not created equal in skill, or in judgement. And if we don't learn to respect our own limitations, then it will be regulated - like it or not.

We're all on the same side of this arguement. We all want to live, to enjoy the sport, experience the freedom - but let's do everything we can to keep it that way -

"The helicopter approaches closer than any other to fulfillment
of mankind's ancient dreams of a magic carpet" - Igor Sikorsky

[Remster 24]

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- Folks that Love to swoop argue vehemently that this is not the cause of injuries/casualties
- Folks that do not want to swoop believe it is a great cause -

Thats not correct.

Many swoopers will readily admit that HP landings attemps are a big cause of accidents.

It realy comes down more on a how people want to deal with it, which is at the extremes

- let Darwin take care of things
- ban swooping

(with the obvious shades of education and regulation in between). I dont think many swoopers would want to ban swooping, but you'll find several who want a mix or regs and education.

Remster

[LuvToFly 0]

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- Folks that Love to swoop argue vehemently that this is not the cause of injuries/casualties
- Folks that do not want to swoop believe it is a great cause -

Thats not correct.

Many swoopers will readily admit that HP landings attemps are a big cause of accidents.

It realy comes down more on a how people want to deal with it, which is at the extremes

- let Darwin take care of things
- ban swooping

(with the obvious shades of education and regulation in between). I dont think many swoopers would want to ban swooping, but you'll find several who want a mix or regs and education.

Agree with you Remi that it does not apply to everyone who swoops. Nothing applies to everyone.

But a great many people in the advanced manuever category get very defensive - insisting that there is no added danger being created by advanced manuevers and small HP/ZP chutes with heavy wing loading. And that is just not realistic -

Remember - the people out there with the greater experience - with the greater number of jumps, are setting the tone for the up and coming jumpers. Like it or not, many folks look up to them. Let's make sure we set a tone of reason, some prudence and safety - as least as safe as one can get in this sport. Otherwise, we have created a, "do as I say, not as I do" and that just doesn't work -
With skill and notariety, comes great responsbility also. Just saw an article on an instructor hooking too low, broken pelvis, pins sticking out. Let's be cautious folks. Students and up and comings are watching - Let's lead by example - Sometimes, a nice calm canopy ride is cool -

"The helicopter approaches closer than any other to fulfillment
of mankind's ancient dreams of a magic carpet" - Igor Sikorsky