Perris landing accident (from Incidents)

[Scrumpot 1]

Okay, I know, now I'm replying to my own post here but....

If you impose rules striclty based upon jump #'s (or just labelled a little differently, but really the same -license held) are you really being effective? Consider:

Have you ever seen anyone with "high" (I'll stick with the earlier +500 jumps, but that is debatable too) jump #'s that still can't fly worth sh**? -I have.

Have you ever seen anyone with a D License who can't fly worth sh**? Again, -I have.

Blanketly placing regulations based solely upon these criterion, I assert does NOT solve the (perceived) problem.

"Testing out" quite frankly is the very 1st one (regulation option) I have seen here that might. Difficult to impliment? Maybe so. But if it is so all gosh-darn fired up IMPORTANT to do, isn't it then worth the effort?

Slapping a regulation down just to say, "there now, we're done ---the regulation's in place" just doesn't (IMHO) completely cut it either.

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[PhillyKev 0]

Thank you, that's exactly my point.

[Scrumpot 1]

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>Some people will never be competent and safe under high
> winloadings regardless of how much training they have.

I agree, and if they can't pass the canopy control course, they don't get the exemption.

But based upon your proposal, just pass a certain # of jumps (ie: licensing) & you won't need it (the exemption) either. ...How does this make any sense?

Personally, I'm beginning to lean towards the testing. Yes, of EVERYBODY. Even Luis Canni (sp?) Set the standards, pass the test (you've then proven yourself), do anything you want. Arbitrary #'s for "simple standards" sake alone mis-adresses the issue (at least as we are debating it here). That is unless it is only the "newbies" you are looking to "protect" only in the 1st place. In that case then fine. But NOBODY then has ANYTHING to say about ANYBODY with (what was it earlier agreed upon) +500 jumps jumping whatever they want (or augering in under 3.x-1 if they choose to)!

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[winsor 189]

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because bad processes have worked in the past is no reason not to correct them. Just as landing a canopy a single time does not mean you are a good canopy pilot, making a good rule with bad process does not mean the process shouldn’t be fixed..

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We have better data than a "SINGLE POINT OBSERVATION!". There are many people that have been in the sport a long time, Instructors, S & TA's, etc that know the problem is real

all of those are single point observations. Put them together and you have a body of anecdotal evidence, which when combined with non-observational information can be used to draw conclusions. Drawing conclusions without the background data is alot like trying to guess someone’s height from a photograph lacking another reference point. Is the problem "real" or has the perception of the problem increased? (i'm not arguing either here, i'm trying to show you the questions that have yet to be answered)

if HP canopies are now more easily available then they are being flown more, has the incident rate for HP canopies increased OUT OF PROPORTION to their increased use? got any observations to show that it has or has not? Hard to say with only single point observations..

think about it... if 10 HP canopies are being flown 1 injury is a significant percentage...if 10000 are flying 100 injuries is not..

without good data it is impossible to determine the scope of the issue

I love it when people bandy statistics about like this.

Okay, for a little background for who would appear to have missed the lead-up to the situation in which we now find ourselves.

Zero-P and elliptical canopies became available around 1990, more or less. The Sabre became the gold standard, and for quite a while if someone botched a high-performance landing there were better than even odds that they did it under a Sabre.

Hook turn/avoidance turn injuries have been with us since well before the zero-P/elliptical era, and I know too many people who broke backs or died under Delta Clouds or big Falcons.

With the increase in wing loading possible with zero-P, hook turn injuries became more severe overall, and "femur" is now commonly used in the verb form.

Seeking answers in statistics is a waste of time when a clear picture is available by inspection of the physics involved.

With increased wing loading comes increased speed (in general). The net effect of this increase in speed is twofold - things happen faster and they do so with greater energy & momentum. The same error that will result in an ambulance ride under a Class 2 canopy will entail a trip to the morgue under a Class 5 canopy.

I have a decent amount of experience, and am still impressed by how fast things happen when loading a cross-braced elliptical at 2 psf.

You can talk statistics until you are blue in the face, but I have witnessed enough serious injuries that were a direct result of, or exacerbated by, high wingloading that I don't consider the point debatable. It's a stark reality.

In aviation the key is to survive the first couple of hundred hours of flying time. In skydiving I won't go by numbers so much as time in grade. Since people can go to turbine dropzones and bang out as many jumps as they can afford, it's hard to distinguish between a thousand jumps and a hundred jumps ten times.

If you lose a few friends, it is hard to tell the trends from the anomalies. If you stick around for a few decades, the patterns become pretty clear.

You have a right to your opinions, but if you survive and stay on the scene, I have a hunch that your opinions will not be the same in a few years as they are now.

In the meantime, I want to come up with tools to help more of us stay alive and in one piece.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[Zenister 0]

actually what we are discussing is the lack of statistics.

no one is arguing that wings (the majority of parachutes being flown now) dont fly faster now than they did 10 years ago

or that impacts at higher rates of speed dont produce more serious injuries than those at lower ones.

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In aviation the key is to survive the first couple of hundred hours of flying time. In skydiving I won't go by numbers so much as time in grade.

this is primarily what we are discussing. what defines 'time in grade'?

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Since people can go to turbine dropzones and bang out as many jumps as they can afford, it's hard to distinguish between a thousand jumps and a hundred jumps ten times.

well this i dont understand. what exactly is the difference between 1000 and 100x10? neither number tells us of currency, or of training or natural ability or weather and terrain conditions i fail to see the difference you are eluding to.

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If you lose a few friends, it is hard to tell the trends from the anomalies. If you stick around for a few decades, the patterns become pretty clear.

You have a right to your opinions, but if you survive and stay on the scene, I have a hunch that your opinions will not be the same in a few years as they are now.

In the meantime, I want to come up with tools to help more of us stay alive and in one piece.

everyone want those tools, reduction of injury is always a worthy goal. What we dont want is to be forced to use them unless you can show clear evidence that they should be required. there is no argument as to if they would be beneficial to nearly everyone, and should be developed, incorporated into student training programs and studied by those who wish to pursue them once licensed. We should also make it a point to greatly encourage any and everyone to seek training and education where ever possible, but that does not justify making them requirements without clear evidence that there is a definitive increase in the number of injuries/deaths under HP canopies out of proportion to the total number of canopies being flown and the number of jumps being made on them.



btw. i love how your assumption that my opinion will change once i have seen more people die skydiving, as if people dont die everywhere every day. Participation is sports such as skydiving merely increases your proximity to it. Increased participation can unfortunately also increase the frequency with which it is observed. That knowledge does not change my opinion, but we can certainly argue about it 10 years from now if you like.

is pissed because he left his rig at home instead of taking to to work so now i'm arguing over the internet instead of jumping on a fine afternoon...

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[crazy 0]

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If you lose a few friends, it is hard to tell the trends from the anomalies. If you stick around for a few decades, the patterns become pretty clear.

You have a right to your opinions, but if you survive and stay on the scene, I have a hunch that your opinions will not be the same in a few years as they are now.

The drawback of experience is the stronger confirmation bias. Opinions are stronger, patterns are clearer, but they are not necessarily closer to the reality.
The high number of newbies killing themselves at high wingloading might have no more reality than the high number of violence/birth/disasters during the full moon.

The SkepDic's final comment:

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Experimenters might avoid or reduce confirmation bias by collaborating in experimental design with colleagues who hold contrary hypotheses. Individuals have to constantly remind themselves of this tendency and actively seek out data contrary to their beliefs. Since this is unnatural, it appears that the ordinary person is doomed to bias.

--
Come
Skydive Asia

[kallend 1,679]

It's worse than that: In this discussion we have seen the following (from the Baloney Detection Kit):

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric (my comments in italics):

Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument. "You only have 300 jumps so...", "You just want to leave them to Darwin"

Argument from "authority". "I have all this experience and you don't"

Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavorable" decision). "More jumpers will die if we don't enact this BSR..."

Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). "The data don't exist and we can't get them"

Special pleading (typically referring to god's will). "It's for the good of the sport"

Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased). That's obvious, given that the answer is already decided: a new BSR

Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses). Already mentioned several times

Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes). Indeed!!!!

Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment
and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!) In this case, not taking in to account the size of the population from which the various fatalities came



Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" - confusion of cause
and effect. Yes


Confusion of correlation and causation. That's for sure

Caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack. "You just want to leave them to Darwin"

Suppressed evidence or half-truths. complete absence of data about those successfully jumping high performance canopies

...

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

[Scrumpot 1]

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btw. i love how your assumption that my opinion will change once i have seen more people die skydiving, as if people dont die everywhere every day. Participation is sports such as skydiving merely increases your proximity to it. Increased participation can unfortunately also increase the frequency with which it is observed. That knowledge does not change my opinion, but we can certainly argue about it 10 years from now if you like.

The statement was merely an observation in EXPERIENCE. Anecdotal observations & detached statistics aside, I do indeed hope that you ARE around here after 10 more years as well to tell us all different. If you are, I hope that the newbies at that time indeed give you the respect and attention that you deserve (and will have earned), and that some snot-nosed kids don't just automatically dismiss everything then that YOU may have to say, arguing non-pertinent tangential data elements & hypothetical non-applicable mathmatical theories (etc., etc.) instead.

We'll look each other up in July 2013 then!

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[Zenister 0]

if i am assuming a position of arrogant experience and making sweeping statements of cause and effect and solution with inadequate supporting data to justify my assertions of experience and using that position to argue for the adoption of mandatory regulation i hope that the "newbies" then will call me to task for it.

nothing hypothetical about it..read Kallend post above for the a great deal of the fallacies being throw around as argument and 'proof' of a position.

bad methods and and poor analysis remains an inefficient means of government and regulation no matter what generation it comes from.

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[winsor 189]

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actually what we are discussing is the lack of statistics.

I contend that the statistics, as discussed so far, are little more than a red herring.

FWIW, I find the idea of more regulations repellent. Once in place, regs take on a life of their own and tend to serve purposes that little resemble their original intent.

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In aviation the key is to survive the first couple of hundred hours of flying time. In skydiving I won't go by numbers so much as time in grade.

this is primarily what we are discussing. what defines 'time in grade'?

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It kind of depends on who you ask.

I'm hesitant to put a yardstick on it, since I've met too many people who appear to have the key credentials, but turn out to be clueless.

Then you have people with modest experience who turn out to be real correlators.

Attitude is the biggest indicator. I've had someone who was lying in the hospital with their body smashed explain that they did all the right things per BSR, and that my approach was wrong since it would only have resulted in a normal landing (no joke). I've also listened to a low-timer who'd salvaged a very bad situation accept responsibility for being there and work out a plan for avoiding it happening the next time.

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Since people can go to turbine dropzones and bang out as many jumps as they can afford, it's hard to distinguish between a thousand jumps and a hundred jumps ten times.

well this i dont understand. what exactly is the difference between 1000 and 100x10? neither number tells us of currency, or of training or natural ability or weather and terrain conditions i fail to see the difference you are eluding to.

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That's "alluding."

The difference is that some people confuse an eating contest with culinary experience.

Comparing someone with x number of jumps, all out of the same airplane with the same people at the same dropzone to someone with y number of jumps where there is no commonality in experience can well be apples and oranges.

I've heard more than one gold-wing type described as having the same hundred jumps ten times in a row. It's like a hamburger-eating contest - plenty of quantity with no variation in quality.

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If you lose a few friends, it is hard to tell the trends from the anomalies. If you stick around for a few decades, the patterns become pretty clear.

You have a right to your opinions, but if you survive and stay on the scene, I have a hunch that your opinions will not be the same in a few years as they are now.

In the meantime, I want to come up with tools to help more of us stay alive and in one piece.

everyone want those tools, reduction of injury is always a worthy goal. What we dont want is to be forced to use them unless you can show clear evidence that they should be required. there is no argument as to if they would be beneficial to nearly everyone, and should be developed, incorporated into student training programs and studied by those who wish to pursue them once licensed. We should also make it a point to greatly encourage any and everyone to seek training and education where ever possible, but that does not justify making them requirements without clear evidence that there is a definitive increase in the number of injuries/deaths under HP canopies out of proportion to the total number of canopies being flown and the number of jumps being made on them.



btw. i love how your assumption that my opinion will change once i have seen more people die skydiving, as if people dont die everywhere every day. Participation is sports such as skydiving merely increases your proximity to it. Increased participation can unfortunately also increase the frequency with which it is observed. That knowledge does not change my opinion, but we can certainly argue about it 10 years from now if you like.

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I am going by my observation of people's reaction to incidents over the years, and merely meant to indicate that I had a hunch that your standpoint would evolve.

I do not claim to have a global perspective on the dangers of the sport, but have found that my viewpoint has been affected by the dozens of incidents I've witnessed and/or cleaned up after. I've seen people pull off things that I would have said "no way!" until they did it, and I've seen people die from the unlikeliest combination of events, that ganged up on them to their detriment.

The net result is not that I am more sure of my preconceived model. Quite the opposite, I take a lot less for granted than I may have at one time.

The one factor that stands out to me as related to safety is attitude. It takes ego to exit, but it's humility that gets you down in one piece time and again.

You can't pass a BSR that will infuse our community with the kind of attitude that keeps incidents to a minimum. You can, however, commit to working toward a cooperative environment where the learning curve is steep and tuition is cheap.

I have been lucky to jump with people having a great attitude. The price for doing so is to try to pass it on.


Blue skies,

Winsor

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[Ron 7]

Why? ...Why would that be so hard, and further have "no chance in hell" of passing? Please elaborate.

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Well, just think of all the 300 jump wonders that are bitching about making them take a test to fly what they want....Now add in EVERY USPA member. Thats why it will not pass. The USPA by its very nature is a lazy orginization...It would take too much work..They wil not do it.

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

[Scrumpot 1]

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The USPA by its very nature is a lazy orginization...

Guess I'll find out about that via FIRST HAND observation at the membership meeting this Friday. I plan to be there.

coitus non circum - Moab Stone