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NickDG

The Great AFF Experiment has been an Abject Failure . . .

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not that i have any say in this, but what i much rather dislike is people getting a license issued at 25 jumps, pretty much regardless of their capabilities.. here, you rather have 50, some places rather 100 jumps before you're "deemed worthy"..



In the U.S., people do not get their license "regardless of their capabilities" at 25 jumps. There are qualifications they must meet and a proficiency card which must be completed before a license is issued. At that point it is understood that the new A license holder is not a skygod but someone that has met or exceeded the minimum requirements and has a lot of learning to do.

What do you mean by "deemed worthy"?


having repeatedly proven that you can be let in the sky with other people and not pose a threat to others and bring your ass back down in one piece in a safely manner. that includes a written exam thats almost like a pilot-exam, also accuracy landings and knowing how to pack.. i'm not kidding you, from what i know, except for jumpnumbers, its like a C-license..

not to be disrespectful, but if you tell a skydiver here you're going to the states to jump, first thing they say is "be careful, its nothing like here!" :|
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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not to be disrespectful, but if you tell a skydiver here you're going to the states to jump, first thing they say is "be careful, its nothing like here!"



No disrespect intended here either... but we don't have a culture of DZ police checking our papers before we board. At least not yet.
Owned by Remi #?

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what i'm trying to say is, maybe a prospective skydiver should prove himself more, needs to work harder, in order to reach that goal!

if you visit a dz for the first time, or the first time in the year, you dont have to show your license, your insurance, your packing card and maybe even your logbook!? "spoon-fed" comes to mind..
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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what i'm trying to say is, maybe a prospective skydiver should prove himself more, needs to work harder, in order to reach that goal!



So you basically think that A license requirements should be stricter. OK, that's an opinion, not an assertion of fact. Fine so far.

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if you visit a dz for the first time, or the first time in the year, you dont have to show your license, your insurance, your packing card and maybe even your logbook!? "spoon-fed" comes to mind..



And this is where I think you're off-base. There are so many DZs in the US that that may happen at a few. But at most DZs, if you're a first-time customer, you will be required to show your license and logbook; and sometimes they'll even phone your home DZO to verify your experience. Also, most (even if not all) DZs I know do check reserve packing cards for first-timers. And up north, where it's common for people to lay-off for the winter, some DZs definitely do check reserve re-pack cards at the beginning of the season.

Yes, regulation tends to be less strict in the US than in Europe. (And yes, there are a small handful of DZs in the US that openly let it be known that jumpers will have the freedom to regulate themselves; it's part of the "product" they offer.) But the reputation, in Europe, that the US is a wild, dangerous free-for-all is just a bad rap.

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No disrespect intended here either... but we don't have a culture of DZ police checking our papers before we board. At least not yet.



is what labrys said; you andy, have just proved my point. its normal to show your stuff if you go to a new place. well, most places that is..

about the license-part: in switzerland we dont have that A-, B-, C-, D-license thing. there is just THE license. and it takes much longer for us to get it. also, our dz's may not be as big as some of yours, so the single student has a bigger chance of "getting lost in the mass". hence, the education might not be as thorough as in other, smaller places.

have you jumped in europe/switzerland!? i can only speak for my country on that point. but from what i've heard first hand from friends, or what i have been shown in videos from your fellow country-men, it IS wild and dangerous there..

if you fancy, i'll scan my progression-card for you, and i'm not sure if i still have the written exams questions still electronically, and i dont know how much you'll understand from it since its being german.. the written exam is fucking TOUGH!
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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You're trying too hard to prove your point here. What I'm describing is mostly different from what Labrys said. What he's referring to is basically manifest checks of credentials every time you go to a DZ, even if you're well-known there, and flight-line gear and reserve card checks before boarding the plane on each load you're on. That's generally not done in the US.

What I'm talking about is that if a total stranger shows up at a DZ and wants to jump, they'll won't just say, "Sure, get on the plane", they'll check his license and logbook to make sure he's qualified, and check his reserve re-pack card to make sure it's in-date. After that, if he shows up again, say, two weeks later, and they remember him (or have a current record of him), they'll go ahead and let him jump without putting him through all those checks again. I really don't think Labrys was trying to imply otherwise.

You don't seem to be able to be convinced that the US isn't wild and dangerous on the DZ. Well, that's up to you. Come on over some time, jump at several different DZs of different sizes, and make up your own mind.

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I remember when my friend Rich Stein wanted to make his first skydive in about 1988. He'd already made a hundred B.A.S.E. jumps but never a skydive. We were at Elsinore and I taught him how to go up to manifest and get himself on the plane.

Walking back in after the jump he told us how different it was. It was the only jump he's ever done without a pilot chute in his hand. And he told us how weird it felt to be hanging under a parachute at 2000-feet as he'd never been that high under a canopy in his life.

There's other ways to skin the cat, is all I'm saying . . .

NickD :)

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I love your post. Don't really agree with it but I like the idea of challenging the status quo in teaching methods. I keep seeing people go in, so I assume there's room for improvement.

However...this:

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Now here we are almost thirty years later and where are we? The amount of active skydivers is about the same, the overall fatality rate is about the same, the student retention rate is about the same (or lessened). And if not for the ten-fold improvement in gear and technology over the years I know that today we'd also be dealing with a ten-fold increase in fatalities.



I gotta call bullshit. Are you saying that the number of active skydivers in the US in 1980 was the same as the number now? Are you also implying the student fatality rate is the same?

I find it hard to believe we don't have fewer (as a percentage) student fatalities and more active jumpers than we did in 1980.

Methane Freefly - got stink?

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IMHO, given that the end goals are the same, the training method is only as good as the instructors doing the training.

All you I's that focus on freefall skills are doing your students, and the entire sport, a major disservice by not teaching the book knowledge AND the canopy skills.

In my travels I have seen it far too many times. FJC, Levels 1-7, no more book, little to no more canopy....cleared for self-supervision.

One AFFI told me, "Oh, they'll get all that after AFF."
I could only shake my head and walk away.

Can we teach students everything during AFF? No, but we can damn sure teach them the basics and more.

Damn. Now I'm all pissed off wanting to drop-kick some AFFIs.
>:(

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

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There was a significant shift in fatality rate right around the 80-82 period. Since AFF didn't really come out (i.e. have training classes) until 1983, it might well be equipment was a bigger contributor.

Wendy P.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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Is that the student fatality rate or the overall fatality rate?

The impression I've gotten from people in the sport since the 80s is that AFF is generally a safer method than static line, that's an impression...I have no solid numbers to back it up.

Methane Freefly - got stink?

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Nick, if I understand you correctly, your issue is more about what knowledge and competencies our new skydivers have by the time they're on self-supervision, or even A-licensed. I don't disagree with your point, but don't think AFF itself is to blame. I went through AFF and dealt with the same "I'm off student status, now what?" period that a lot of new skydivers face today, but I see the same kind of period with new IAD students today. I think it has more to do with a long-term learning culture than a particular instruction method.

There are dropzones and instructors out there that don't just kick the newbies out of the nest as soon as they're cleared for solo jumps; is the issue then that AFF allows instructors to do so, or that people do it in the first place? If someone could change AFF (or more broadly, the ISP) to cover everything we could agree should be taught to new skydivers, there would still be DZs that wouldn't follow the program. Even at the DZs that did, there would be individual instructors that didn't teach things as well as they should, or even at all. And at DZs that both followed the new program and not, there would be instructors and other mentors that would go out of their way to teach our new skydivers the things that fall through the cracks.

I try to be a good coach and teach the younger skydivers things they don't know yet, and I try to be a good student by listening to those that have more experience when they share their wisdom. I try to encourage a culture of being in a continuous mode of learning. I'm not sure that changing AFF or going back to S/L or IAD would fix the way things are done...but trying to get other people to teach more couldn't hurt. ;)

Well, the door was open...

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One of the advantages of S/L progression was if a student was having questions or not sure on something, he/she could sit in on another first jump course, since they we're every weekend if not more often. They could learn not only the things they knew they didn't know, but things they didn't know they didn't know. The latter being harder to figure out until its too late.

At my old dz, it was recommended that recent grads from the S/L progression should sit in on the FJC to fill in any areas that were missed or forgotten. It was nice to have a student that was an example to the new students, monkey-see, monkey-do kinda thing.

Somewhat difficult to do with an AFF class, because it is focused so much on the Level A jump.

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I love reading these threads that indirectly call me a shitty skydiver because I got my A license via tandem progression. I love seeing the really experienced people disparaging new jumpers. I also love that so many people make so many assumptions about people around them in this sport.

Of course, my opinion doesn't matter because my number is less than 1000 and I haven't been in the sport long enough to "get it" apparently. I'll offer it anyway because I'm a self-serving, nihilistic bastard.

Tandem progression gives a student the opportunity to discuss with a very experienced skydiver what a pattern is, how to fly a canopy and how to land before they're thrown to the wolves on their own. Apparently a tandem skydive doesn't even count in most people's books. Does the fact that I wouldn't have jumped at all without a tandem introduction make me a crappy skydiver?

Apparently some people believe that AFF will never match S/L for the production of skydivers. I find this interesting because I have a good friend who went through S/L in the early 90s. She actually felt like she wouldn't have continued if she'd had to do AFF because of the extreme altitude & subsequent terminal. AFF & S/L are the flip side of the same coin. One gives people comfort with one "end" and the other method the other end. Does the fact that the idea hop & pop from 2.5k scares me make me a crappy skydiver?

I think the "state" of skydiving as described in the OP has less to do with the teaching method and a lot more to do with wider societal changes. I don't know a lot of people on this board so I can't comment about them but I do know that I'm very safety conscious, I've taken canopy courses, I've read books and I've done nearly 2 hours of tunnel time. I take the time to talk to my instructors. I ask what I did wrong on my infrequent bad landings. I heed and try to understand the advice given to me by experienced skydivers. What I've noticed having done my first solo as my first jump in '08 was that getting advice and help from other jumpers who aren't being paid for it is intimidating at best. Very few people take an interest in students unless their slot is paid for. There's so much knowledge that isn't shared with the people who need it. I don't know why it is that the experienced jumpers don't get more involved, perhaps they just don't care? I think we're can talk about changing the teaching method but I don't know anyone who wants to be in classes indefinitely. You can't teach everything there is to know about skydiving in a class, that's why skydiving is fun (for me at least), it's a continual learning process. It's physically and mentally challenging and not just any person can do it. The only difference that I can discern from reading people's comments who have been in the sport for a long time is that the barriers to entry are now lower that what they used to be. You know what would be great? The experienced people actually talking to new jumpers and helping them learn rather than just bitching that you only need 100 jumps to be a coach (forgetting that a D license could be had for the same a few years back) and what do they know. Standing back & watching the new jumpers saddle up when the winds suck and *not* talking to them about it. How about asking the new jumpers what they're practicing & why?

We can all point the finger wherever but the sport doesn't improve by pointing fingers. I'm getting my coach rating (yeah, wtf do I know at 200 jumps?) and I'm actively talking to new A license holders, even if it's just to make them feel welcome so they feel comfortable enough to ask questions. I may not have the answer but I can definitely point them in the right direction.

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Dont worry man your not the only one that sucks around here! There are plenty of us AFF turbin brats around here....... Maybe one day I can be a cool S/L student that gets it all:S. Sorry got to go see if I can find a local S/L course so i can really learn how to skydive:S>:(.

Nothing opens like a Deere!

You ignorant fool! Checks are for workers!

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I work at a DZ where the "pre-paid" cost of the AFF program takes the student all the way from Jump 1 to A license. Too many DZs market themselves to simply get the student to self-supervised status and after CAT E and self-supervision, the student is "on his own." Yup, the extra cost of taking a student all the way through the ISP to CAT H and the A license may result in less people signing up for the pre-payment option, unless you explain the difference in what the student is getting for his/her money, but the student also knows that the entire staff, AFFIs and Coaches will be there to answer questions, jump with them in CAT G & H and generally help them succeed in attaining their A license. The ISP doesn't end at CAT E and we should not leave it to the student to negotiate his own way to CAT H and the A license.
Charlie Gittins, 540-327-2208
AFF-I, Sigma TI, IAD-I
MEI, CFI-I, Senior Rigger
Former DZO, Blue Ridge Skydiving Adventures

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getting advice and help from other jumpers who aren't being paid for it is intimidating at best. Very few people take an interest in students unless their slot is paid for. There's so much knowledge that isn't shared with the people who need it. I don't know why it is that the experienced jumpers don't get more involved, perhaps they just don't care?



It's not necessarily snobbery. It could also be because they don't want to contradict something that your instructors taught you. Or maybe because their gear is different from yours, so they don't understand it well enough to offer advice.

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Yes he does and I'll not speak for him but I'll provide an example of why he's frustrated with the skydivers being produced today.

There is a recent thread where the poster found himself with a horseshoe malfunction. He said it was caused by a packer that had been known to lengthen the closing loop in order to make closing easier.

Having someone pack your parachute 20 or 25 years ago wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't the norm - except maybe at very large dropzones.

Now-a-days, there are people with a hundred jumps that cannot pack their own parachute. They know little to nothing about their own gear and depend on others because of it.

Tandem and AFF were developed to help people learn how to become better skydivers faster and safer. Well, faster has certainly happened, but I'm not convenced the safer part has...people that know next to nothing about gear, canopy flight, almost as many people dieing inder perfectly good parachutes as under malfunctions, etc.

We need to make sure students are more well-rounded in their training by not forgetting what it took to be a skydiver two decades ago.

With that said, I'm not knocking how anyone was trained or whether you use packers or not - it's none of my business. I'll only ask you to try to understand where he's coming from based on something he's been doing and surviving for many decades - since before many of you were even born.

Jon

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Hey Nick,

I read your post with a lot of interest. I have been thinking the about the same issue for a while. I learned to skydive in 2003 with S/L progression at a small Cessna DZ. I got to 3000m with about 30 jumps. But I had work through that all by myself. And I'm proud of it.

At that DZ roughly 1/10 people who do a FJC also continue onto student progression. After that another 1/10 will continue to do a full license.

So a lot of people decide sky diving is not for them even though they started and payed for instruction. Most of the quitters" quit after 2-5 freefall jumps. This seems to be the breaking point and I completly agree. My most terrifing jump ever was my first 3sec delay.

The next few jumps were not much better... I prayed for a weather hold, I longed for the plane to break yet I continued to go to the DZ and pulled through without any noticeable incidents.

I think this is the part where the weeding takes place. If you pull through, you have every right to be in the sky! You have lots of canopy time and most importantly, you have conquered your fear.... alone.

On average you need 50-60 jumps until you a hold solo license. And fuck, your not scared like a chicken when doing a hop'n'pop from 3000 feet. :ph34r:

I learned how to spot while still a student, how many skydivers today know how to spot ? I leanred basic RW skills with an instructor before recieving a license. I did not even have to pay for his ticket. It's part of progression. Seeing someone in freefall the first time is a big deal.:S

I jump mastered static line students with about 150 jumps. Of course no FJC's and after thurough instruction including throwing my mentor out of the plane on a static line. :o

I don't want to miss these skills.

Still there are a few other reasons besides the obvious weeding why so many would be jumpers quit jumping before attaing a license(There is only "the license" here in Germany):

Money: You only have put up front roughly a third of the cash that an AFF course would require. Quitting does not make the financial loss that big. If somebody puts up 1500EUR for an AFF course they most likely will pull through.

Time: Getting your license will take between one and two years depending on talent. It's unlikley though that at that particular DZ you will have license in under a year( with winter jumping). This makes some people impatient. Since it's weekend only DZ and the weather in Germany really sucks you have to be at the DZ every weekend when weather permits. Girlfriends and family do not often not comply.

Then there is multitude of other personal reasons to quit. lost a job, moved away, got a kid and on and on... A lot can happen in year.

Yet nearly all of the people that finished their license there are still jumping. Often now at bigger DZ's.

If skydiving was like this all over the world, we would have less than half as many jumpers... Only the really determined would pull through, but these have gone through a riggurous darwainien selection. :)
If this is good or bad, I have not made up my mind, more are jumpers are good, no ?

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This isn't a skills debate at all, this is a culture debate. The culture of skydiving (from what I've been told) has changed from being the "crazy" type A people who have the capacity & propensity to take their lives in their hands to being a somewhat more "cruise control" type A. We still all take our lives in our hands, a fact that many people are aware of, but the safety net is a lot wider these days. Does that mean the "wrong" people can get into or stay in the sport? What's the definition of the "right" person? There are definitely people jumping who shouldn't be but I highly doubt that that was never the case in the "old days".

I don't think it's a good thing when someone with 100 jumps doesn't know how to pack but who cares? The discussion seems to be centered around people "paying their dues". It's never that way in life, we all stand on the shoulders of those before us. That's exactly how the sport has progressed.

@ibx - Spotting: try actually spotting (or worse, learning to spot) on an otter full of jumpers that has 2 or 3 GPSs telling the pilot where the spot is. See how long it takes for the whole load to be screaming for you to GTFO of the plane! ;)

We have a lot of licenses in the US, some of which seem to be a total waste of time. What's the point of a "B" license? I just got my "C" a couple of weekends ago, what skills am I really demonstrating? A 2 point 8 way? On target landings? How "on target" can I be with 21 other parachutes in the air? Is it better to be on target or staying safe wrt other canopies? Seems to me that these licenses could be used to show something other than the number of jumps people have.

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I far prefer AFF over the Traditional Progression by far (which I went through myself)

I watched someone do a Clear and Pull for the first time in a long time just recently. She did a couple of front loops before getting her pilot chute out. I talked to her after about the advantages of AFF.

What is being missed in all this discussion is that the system is only as strong as the instructors and the "learning" culture of the dropzone. If there is no one mentoring or teaching the new people outside the "program" (whatever it is) than learning is slow, if at all.

People who are good self-learners or find a mentor or two can learn. Those who dont, won't.

To say that AFF is a failure and the way it was done in the old days is a superficial analysis and trying to condense a number of problems/issues into one solution.

If you want to improve training at your Dropzone, get involved with the program. If you dont like the program at your Dropzone, find a dropzone with a program you like and want to be involved it.

My $0.02 (Canadian).....

Major Dad
CSPA D-579

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This isn't a skills debate at all, this is a culture debate. The culture of skydiving (from what I've been told) has changed from being the "crazy" type A people who have the capacity & propensity to take their lives in their hands to being a somewhat more "cruise control" type A. We still all take our lives in our hands, a fact that many people are aware of, but the safety net is a lot wider these days. Does that mean the "wrong" people can get into or stay in the sport? What's the definition of the "right" person? There are definitely people jumping who shouldn't be but I highly doubt that that was never the case in the "old days".



I agree, yet culture forms attitude. As you said the saftey net is much wider, but instead of the fatality rate dropping as it should, it remains the same. The people that are killing themselves today do it on to small canopys. The culture today is shifting to: "I payed my dues, so I can jump a tiny canopy way to soon...Freefly before basic RW skills.... The safety net will catch me..." A slow progression, where you have learned to confront your fear, take things a step at a time, will give you a different attitude towards safety and progression than beeing hand-fed through student training in few days.

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@ibx - Spotting: try actually spotting (or worse, learning to spot) on an otter full of jumpers that has 2 or 3 GPSs telling the pilot where the spot is. See how long it takes for the whole load to be screaming for you to GTFO of the plane! Wink



I know, I know.... Been there, done that :P

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This isn't a skills debate at all, this is a culture debate.



Agreed

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The culture of skydiving (from what I've been told) has changed from being the "crazy" type A people who have the capacity & propensity to take their lives in their hands to being a somewhat more "cruise control" type A.



Not so much different than today. Look at the two out downplane incident as an example.

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We still all take our lives in our hands, a fact that many people are aware of, but the safety net is a lot wider these days. Does that mean the "wrong" people can get into or stay in the sport? What's the definition of the "right" person? There are definitely people jumping who shouldn't be but I highly doubt that that was never the case in the "old days".



There isn't a "right person" per se, but there is "wrong person"..if you see what I mean.

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I don't think it's a good thing when someone with 100 jumps doesn't know how to pack but who cares?



That's the cultral difference we're speaking of...I think is inexcusable

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The discussion seems to be centered around people "paying their dues". It's never that way in life, we all stand on the shoulders of those before us. That's exactly how the sport has progressed.



Yes, but when people have paid their dues for decades and see how the sport has progressed, it is a little disappointing to see jumpers that can't even pack. That's culture shock.

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@ibx - Spotting: try actually spotting (or worse, learning to spot) on an otter full of jumpers that has 2 or 3 GPSs telling the pilot where the spot is. See how long it takes for the whole load to be screaming for you to GTFO of the plane! ;)



Agreed, that's not the fault of the jumper, that's another training issue altogether and, fact is, there may never be a need for some jumpers to spot, but knowing how makes them a better well-rounded skydiver.

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We have a lot of licenses in the US, some of which seem to be a total waste of time. What's the point of a "B" license? I just got my "C" a couple of weekends ago, what skills am I really demonstrating? A 2 point 8 way? On target landings? How "on target" can I be with 21 other parachutes in the air? Is it better to be on target or staying safe wrt other canopies?



Knowing that you landed where you wanted to land is on target. Keeping yourself from running into someone else and visa versa is on target. Landing out when you feel that's the safest thing to do is on target.

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Seems to me that these licenses could be used to show something other than the number of jumps people have.



That's all we have right now. If your jumping with someone with a D instead of an A you should expect them be a very competent skydiver...i said "should";)

Daniel, I've read enough of your posts to know I'd jump with you any day...

edit to add...if I can ever get my ass out to the DZ and get current:)Jon

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