270 degree approaches

[ccowden 0]

Hey Alan-
I guess I am confused why you seem to want to play devil's advocate here. According to your profile you have over 2,000 jumps and fly a VX 89 and should be pretty clear on the answers to your own questions. Up until you posted on my thread, this was a nice little feedback and information thread directed towards people who are already swooping high performance canopies. It was simply a nice discussion between more experienced canopy pilots and a way to exchange info. If you were a person with 400 jumps and interested in learning to swoop, that would be one thing. But you aren't.

[davelepka 4]

In all fairness to Alan, he posed a reasonable question about the contradiction between this thread and another which indicated using an Alti for swoop altitudes was a bad idea.


Diablopilot chimed in with a brief, non-constructive, contrarian viewpoint. Of course, backing that up with a subsequent post quoting dictionary definitions (insulting the intelligence of the reader) didn't help to point things back towards consructive-ville either.

I'm not saying Alan didn't fan the flames in the aftermath, but I think he started off with good intentions.

His experience and canopy shouldn't be a factor, as you don't know how many jumps he has on that canopy. When I first jumped a Velocity, I had 2000 snapping 180's on a Stiletto, and needed an alti to help me adjust to a carving 270 from 800 ft.

You did have a good thread going. As far as using Alti's goes, hey, whatever works. Plenty of guys wrote in saying they use them (becasue they wrote, it must be working, they're still alive). I never considered using one when I was first learing to swoop (I don't think anyone was at the time), but times change, canopies change, and swooping has certainly changed. To each his own.

[diablopilot 2]

Quote

Diablopilot chimed in with a brief, non-constructive, contrarian viewpoint. Of course, backing that up with a subsequent post quoting dictionary definitions (insulting the intelligence of the reader) didn't help to point things back towards consructive-ville either.

That's your opinion. I' think it's crap.

Believe it or not many "young" jumpers walk away from a session of DZ.com with an huge amount of information (good, and bad) and then proceed to "parrot" it out at experienced and non-experienced jumpers at their local dropzone in an effort to appear more experienced than they really are. No one wants to sit around the bonfire and learn the way they used to, it's all about going fast and looking cool in the process, nevermind learning from someone who's been there done that.

The internet does wonders for communication, but it's doing horrible things to the learning, and attitudes of our newer jumpers.

You think my comment was non-constructive. It think your assessment of my comment is full of shit.

Alan was making a sweeping generalization about the accepted way to learn something that has the potential to maim or kill.

I did not want to be included in that generalization.

As has been pointed out, this topic has been beaten to death in other threads like the proverbial large 4-legged mammal it is akin to.

I do not have the time (work and other more entertaining threads) to respond in full to his opinion, but wanted to make it clear to any "impresionables" reading this, that it is not the accepted CONSENSUS.

Don't put words in my mouth please.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[alan 1]

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I guess I am confused why you seem to want to play devil's advocate here.

To add some balance and depth to the discussion. It would be nice if it was just between more experienced canopy pilots, exchanging information. But, as I am sure you know, you can't control who reads the thread. There are people with 400 jumps, some even less, who will read it because they are interested in learning to swoop.

The altitudes you were given in the responses ranged from educated guesses to digital readouts to unspecified sources. How is one, including yourself, to evaluate and judge their accuracy and therefore usefulness? The responses also seemed to contradict what has been posted in Incidents/Safety and Training regarding the usefulness of altimeters as tools.

I apologize if my posts eroded your nice little exchange of information, I thought I was contributing. From my perspective, the posts by Diablo Pilot led it into a debate on semantics and contributed nothing of substance. I feel my replies were appropriate.

I don't think any of us ever stop learning, regardless of jump numbers and experience and that is how I interpreted your post based on your profile. I hope this clears up the confusion you have about my motives. Chris, if you desire any further clarification, perhaps a PM would be the most appropriate vehicle.

alan

[murps2000 86]

Hey, what's a neptune? A cool new gadget that I missed? I use the old alti & eyeball combo, myself.

[ccowden 0]

I understand what you are saying and I agree with your message. I just didn't think it was necessary to make it sound like we were saying it was ok for people learning to swoop to just use altimeters and rely on instruments. I think you were probably quite clear that we were not saying that and I can't find in any of the posts where someone says that. People were just saying what THEY did and what THEY percieved the altitudes to be.

Your point would have been much more appropriate if you just said something like- "Don't forget, when you are lerning these methods, you need to first depend on visual referance and only use instruments as a tool or backup. Just as in any skydiving discipline." Then I think we would have all agreed and appreciated your contribution. But nstead you felt it necessary to make it sound as though we were giving bad advice and saying it was ok for people learning to swoop to rely on instrunments by saying it was our concensus, which when you read the thread, is quite clear no one ever said anything like that at all.

I think a couple people includidng myself were just offended that you purposely made us sound like we were giving information that could get someone hurt. I personally just lost my teammate to a canopy accident and always preach education and safety when learning high performance flight. That was the entire purpose of this thread.

I think we are all on the same page and I certainly have no hard feelings towards you. Your little bout with Diablo is between you two and something that I would just assume see dropped from this thread. Let's just get back to exchanging info and talking about safety. I do appreciate you wanting to add to the thread and it is a very ligitiment point to be broguht up.

[davelepka 4]

***Diablopilot chimed in with a brief, non-constructive, contrarian viewpoint. Of course, backing that up with a subsequent post quoting dictionary definitions (insulting the intelligence of the reader) didn't help to point things back towards consructive-ville either.

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Your post was in fact both brief and contrarian. It is my opinion that it was not constructive.

Your follow up post did in fact contain a dictionary definition and it did insult the intelligence of the reader. Again my opinion is that this was also not consructive.

Considering the subject of the thread, your contribution added nothing. It simply stated that you didn't agree with the poster, but gave no reasoning or explanation (which would have constructive).


In your current post, you stated your opinion, and backed it up with sound logic. It was constructive, and the younger jumpers you are concerned for could actually walk away with some good information.

This is the information you should have posted in the first place.