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shorehambeach

For TI's - When a tandem student wont jump.....

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I think its easy and understandable for TI's to sometimes forget the impact for the 'passenger'. For some people it is life changing.

I am 39 and did a tandem for my wife's 40th.

In the past 12 months since doing the tandem I am now on my way to my A (even though i live in the UK and have never jumped here).... but more importantly....

My 11 years old daughter has now spent 30 minutes in the tunnel belly flying and will do AFF when she's 16.

My boy is 3 and he wants to skydive...and he will when he's older. At the moment he jumps from the stairs with my benny helmet shouting "Skydive / Pull Parachute / Land"

All this came from a brilliant TI who I met for 20 minutes in Vegas !

Bless you TI's :)

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I might print that out, that is exactly why I became a tandem instructor, and exactly what I always want to keep in perspective.



What we must all understand is that skydiving is an infintesimallly small sport which almost nobody will experience in their life. We, as life-long instructors, must do everything in our power to alleviate these peoples' fears and get them to trust us. It's TREMENDOUSLY rewarding to me.

Chuck

D-12501, AFF/SL/TM-I, PRO, S&TA

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I'm just curious - with the evolution of tandems from a compressed FJC to a carnival jump - is there a correlation between the amount of time spent on the ground with the student versus the no time other than gearing up carnival rider and balking at the door?

"old timers" - who remember when there was at least a 30 minute training class - your viewpoints would be appreciated!
A male pilot is a confused soul who talks about women when he's flying, and about flying when he's with a woman.

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Never force an unwilling student to go.! If they say no, it means NO.
We give full refunds to the student. No plane ride fees, no TI fees, no video fees.
Except for the TI, all others can jump for free. And then we bring the plane down with the TI and the "no go" student.
Works for us no matter what aircraft we are flying.

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Personally if their feet are out they are going. I've got somewhere between 500 and 800 tandems and I would estimate that approximately 20 have said something along the lines of "I can't do this" or something that is a fearful response. Often they grab the door frame. However, if their feet are on the step, the last thing I'm going to do is make the pilot work harder while rubbing a 13000.00 tandem rig all over everything trying to haul a 175 to 220 person backwards into the aircraft. No thank you. As long as I can get their hands back onto their own harness they're going for a ride. I'll get the drogue out safely. 99 percent of them always thank me and do great once they are out. I've only had one person that truly didn't want to go and regretted going. I do however feel as though an Otter or larger turbine aircraft would change that for me with the additional space provided.

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I'm just curious - with the evolution of tandems from a compressed FJC to a carnival jump - is there a correlation between the amount of time spent on the ground with the student versus the no time other than gearing up carnival rider and balking at the door?

"old timers" - who remember when there was at least a 30 minute training class - your viewpoints would be appreciated!



Don't know what you're looking for but I'll chime in with my opinion.

I got my tandem rating in the mid '80's, as a TI we packed, trained & jumped...usually out of Cessnas.

It was a long hard day, you were beat after 5 jumps...the student retention rate was about 1 in 10.

With economics of the carnival ride, things have sped up considerably...I would even say it's a lot more efficient.

I took my son for a tandem a few weeks ago, I'm not currently a TI so I asked a friend to take him. He was trained with several other 'students' getting essentially the same information I taught years ago.

I don't know what the retention rate is like these days...but as far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter.

More people are being exposed to the sport in a relatively safe manner...the membership numbers are up so it must be working at least to some extent in regard to generating interest to possibly continue.










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

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So I am a new ti so this has only happened once to me and in all the years I have been in the sport I have only seen it happen a handfull of times.

My student was a small asian girl, cool as a cucumber throughout the entire thing until she saw the tandem ahead of us go and as soon as that happened she freaked out. I kept us moving to the door but the closer we got the more cat like she got.

we landed with the plane.

So this is the part that I am wondering what other people think about.

As I am a new instructor and because I felt like I 'gave in' too easily I told manifest that I was happy to go again if she wanted to. She said she wanted to try one more time but this time I asked her on the ground if she freaked out again did she want me to force her out. She said yes.

So we went up again and she was terrified all the way up. Everyone on the plane knew what was going on and tried to calm her down which only made it worse. She wouldnt let go of my sleeve the entire ride and would just stare at the corner.

We got geared up and this time she kept it together until we were right in the door and then she went cat like again so I turned around and made sure her arms and legs were not grabbing anything and I went out backwards.

When the parachute opened it sounded like she was crying for about 30seconds which got me real worried but then she sobbed ' that was the best thing I have ever done thanks'

It could easily have gone the other way I guess and she could have hated but what do you guys think? Student says yeah force me out, do you do it? Is it right to do it?

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Never force an unwilling student to go.! If they say no, it means NO.
We give full refunds to the student. No plane ride fees, no TI fees, no video fees.
Except for the TI, all others can jump for free. And then we bring the plane down with the TI and the "no go" student.
Works for us no matter what aircraft we are flying.



Do you pay the TI?

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My first jump was at a carnival ride tandem mill while on vacation. Little or no instruction except how to stand in the door. I will say that it was amazing enough to make me pursue skydiving but it did not give me the experience that my SL Instructor/Coaches/DZO gave me on my way to my license at my now home DZ. It's not just TI's that have a impact on someones jumping career/life but any coach or instructor that has calmed me down and reminded me that we do this for fun. The little things matter! My SL instructor use to pick my up by the hip rings to show me I wouldn't fall out. Was my biggest fear. My favorite thing is right before climbing out the pilot leans over and tells me to have a good one ;) always puts a smile on my face.

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The TI does not get paid. He takes "one for the team". However, he does get two fun jump tickets to full altitude. :)Lee

At my DZ I don't get or expect even that. An occasional refusal is just part of the job. So far I've only had one and I didn't mind the free plane ride. If you are getting so many refusals it's seriously hurting your income, you should examine your "bedside manner." :|

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