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I think instead we'd be bringing them home, and enforcing quarantine. Still going to be objections, but they're in the US, under medical supervision, and perfectly able to communicate during quarantine. It's a cost, and a responsibility. But it's probably better than what we actually did, which was to figure that Americans were OK, Brits (I guess because they speak English and BJ was blowing off COVID too) were probably OK, and everyone else was just not allowed. Wendy P.

Well, congratulations on winning all these imaginary debates with them in this hypothetical world where Trump was actually competent.

I think the numbers right now give us very good guidelines, but as with any pandemic the real numbers aren't going to get locked down (as much as they can be, anyway) until after we're through it. For every case that the "it's no big deal" crowd say is an over-report (the ones allegedly where a shooting death got listed as CV-19 because they had symptoms), there's probably going to be an early case that was listed as pneumonia that counts as an under-report. Not taking sides here, just saying the early data has a lot of uncertainty.

That is a baldfaced falsehood. Even you don't believe that. Stop posting FOX bulls*#t

I'm in that same neighborhood. 19 years, about 5700-ish jumps, no cutaways. Probably half were done on Stiletto 107s, with the remainder mostly on various Velos, and a few hundred on larger wings when I was a newbie. I'm not saying that every opening resulted in a 'good' canopy, just that I chose to land all of them, and managed to do so without injury. It wasn't always pretty, but I always walked away in one piece.

So twice in the last week we;'ve seen reports of two jumpers who severly busted their hard decks, and one of them ended in a fatality, with the other as close as it gets to a fataility. Both jumpers were experienced, high time jumpers, and they both rode malfunctioning main canopies down below 1000ft, and then pulled the red handle. In light of this, let's quickly review what the 'hard deck' is and what it means. More or less, this is the bottom line in terms of pulling the red handle. It's the lowest altitude you want to cutaway, and the way you determine your own hard deck is to start at the ground and calculate up from there. How high do you want to be under an open reserve? Let's say 500ft is the lowest you want to be under an open canopy. How long will take from pulling your reserve ripcord until you're under an open canopy? In a perfect world, it should be less than 300ft, but factor in a PC delay (spinrg loaded will do that) and let's call that 500ft. How long will it take you to go from cutting away to pulling the reserve handle? You would hope it wouldn't be very much, but you might be spinning/flipping, your chest strap might be loose, you don't really know your descent rate under your malfunctioning main, etc, so give yourself 500ft. So with that rough math, you come up with a 'safe' 1500ft. Note that you don't factor in anything like an RSL, AAD or Skyhook, as those are back-up devices, and if you use them in these calculations, you make them primary devices where their failure could cause you your life. If you plan for them to fail, when they work you end up with more altitude under your inflated reserve. So you come up with 1500ft (as an example), and the idea now is that you need to be under a flying, controllable, landable canopy by that altitude or you need to take action, which of course, is doing your EPs. Now what I mean by 'landable' is that you are fully configured for landing in that you are not going to make any other chnages to your rig/canopy before landing. Slider is collapsed/stowed, brakes are unstowed, chest strap has been loosened, wings/swoop cords have been released, and anything else you do after opening and before landing is complete. You are essentially ready to land above your hard deck, so if you run into a problem configuring yourself to land, you still have altitude to cutaway. Now what do you do if you have a problem under your hard deck? Well, one thing you don't do is cutaway. What you can do is pull your reserve handle and go for the 'more fabric out' plan. If you can get a clean reserve deployment, you might find that the 'problem' with your main becomes less of a problem. At the lower airspeed provided by an inflated resereve, the main might sort itself out or swing free of the rererve (downplane, or similar) at which point you can then pull the red handle. Another option might be to reel in the main, and stuff it between your legs to keep it clear of the open reserve. In any case, the hard deck needs to be (in your mind) hard like cement. You need to build your entire skydive up from there, much like you built up to your hard deck from the ground. So if you have a 1500ft hard deck, and your canopy takes 800ft to open, you can add in time to indentify a mal, so call it 1200ft, and you can see that tossing your main PC much below 2700ft is going to start to put the squeeze on your plans in the altitude dept. So with a 2700ft pull altitude, you can then add in the altitude you need to track away from your buddies. So 1200-1500ft for a smaller group, and closer to 2000ft for a larger group. What you end up with is a break off between 4000 and 5500 ft based on the group size. The moral of the story is to remember that what you do in freefall is a game. It's a time-waster until you get down to the real business of saving your life, you need to leave the plane with your 'end-game' being your top priority, and everything you plan needs to revolve around that. Have a hard deck, and respect the hell out of it. Leave yourself time to work and make mistakes like a human, and still have time to act above your hard deck. Remember that in a high speed mal, if you decide to cutaway at your hard deck, you're going to be well under by the time you actually clear your handles. I had a good friend hit the ground with a partailly infalted reserve a few years back. He did not survive that impact, and if he had even 100ft more altitude, I'm confident his reserve would have been fully open and he would still be here today. Don't paint yourself into that same corner where your very survival comes down to a matter of feet.

There seem to be a few posts about this, so I thought I'd toss another one in. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH FREEFLYING STRAIGHT OFF OF AFF. YOU NEVER HAVE TO BELLY FLY AGIN EXCEPT FOR TRACKING AND PULL TIME. There, I said it. Now to explain it. There are considerations to keep in mind if you want to go freeflying right from the start (which I'll list below). The trick is that following these considerations is essential to safety, but seem to be contrary to what the new freeflyers want to do. 1. You have to jump alone (or with a HIGHLY experienced freeflyer, as in 1000+ freefly jumps) unitl you have mastered some basic skills. If you cannot maintain a heading, you cannot maintain visual contact with other jumpers, and this is a safery risk. If you cannot effectively transition into a controlled track, you won't be able to break off. If you cannot hold a position, you won't be able to maintain a fallrate, again, thats bad. So unitl you can hold a heading, maintain a fallrate, and transition to an effective and controlled track, you need to do solos. THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL AND THERE CANNOT BE EXCEPTIONS. The problem with #1- Nobody wants to do solos all the time, and not everyone has access to a qualified coach/mentor to jump with. The idea 'Well, a no pressure two way for just the sunset load would be OK' is wrong, but the new freeflyer will do just that. This is where a hundered or so RW jumps would give some added awareness in freefall, and MAYBE make that sunset load OK. 2. You must learn to sit before HD, even on a solo. The horizontal speeds you can hit on your head if you are sliding back or forward is enough to make the exit separation meaningless. You can easily slide yourself over or under the previous or next group, and that sucks. Being able to sit (whcih means hold a heading) will allow you to ensure that you are facing perpendicular to the jump run, where you can transition to your head, hold it for 5 sec., return to the sit, 180, and do it again. Without the skills in the sit, it is impossible to regulate your movement around the sky while trying to fly on your head. Addtionally, once you have graduted to two ways in your sit, YOU NEED TO STAY OFF YOUR HEAD IN A TWO WAY UNTIL YOU CAN HOLD A HEADING, FALL RATE, AND TRACK OFF SAFELY. HD JUMPS ARE BACK TO SOLO STATUS. Problems with #2- Ego. Once graduating to the two way status, the progeression will feed the ego of the young freeflyer, encouraging them to make exceptions the rules. No matter how well a two way sit is going, if you haven't met the requirements on your head, IT'S NOT OK TO TRANSITION TO YOUR HEAD, EVEN FOR A MINUTE. RW will not really help this area too much, but again extra airtime will only improve your awareness and help your learning. 3. Once you have achieved two way status in a sit or on your head, YOU ARE A LONG WAY FROM THREE WAY STATUS. The third person will make the safety in the dive five times (at least) more difficult to maintain. You cannot keep you eye on two people at the same time, no matter how hard you try. The speeds of freeflying, and the corking that goes with them, make visual contact essential. You need to demonstrate conrtol and dicipline though many two ways before moving up to a three way. Even then, all memebers of the jump need to be at this level, and should have two ways together before. Anything beyond a three way has the same considerations. All of the jumpers need to be good at smaller ways, and have done smaller ways with each other. Problems with #3- Again, ego. Overestimating your ability, or the dangers invloved with a third jumper. 10 OR 20 TWO WAYS DOES NOT A THREE WAY JUMPER MAKE. This is getting deep into a freefly learning progression, so RW is getting further away, but more time in freefall, regardless of the body postition is always helpful. OVERALL PROBLEMS- People who want to freefly are typically young, aggressive jumpers, looking to set themselves apart from the older folks. This type of person isn't likely to follow the above guidelines with any degree of consistancy. Freefly is cool, and fast and aggressive and pretty bitchin', but it takes time to be bitchin', and much like the downsizing problem with canopies, everyones in a big fuckin' rush to be a star. Learing to freefly safely and being in a rush don't mix (unless you have buckets of money and hire a world champion for a coach). As an extension of the big rush, jumping a camera, no matter how small, has no place in a learning progression. If you are learning to freefly, do that first (as in 500 jumps) then try a camera. Camera flying is a skill in itesf, and needs to learned by iteslf, away from other learning. Also, your skills freeflying are not related to your canopy skills. Many good freeflyers are good swoopers (again the young aggressive jumpers) but freeflying skill does not mean that 400 jumps is a good time for a x-braced canopy, or any other canopy much over a 1.3 WL. Don't confuse one skill set with the other. The solid ground in the landing area may confuse your femurs with a mid-day snack. Of course you need safe gear and good altitude awareness, but that's a universal requirement for skydiving. Freeflying does require a better conatiner than RW, but if you're still jumping a non-freefly container, you need more help than I can give. So, yes, you can freefly with 20 jumps. You need to stay in your own airspace, and need to progress slowly and carefully, but you will not catch fire, or explode if you freefly with low jump numbers. There is more to think about, and factors to consider, NONE OF WHICH ARE "OPTIONAL", but it is possible. RW offers an easier intro to the world of fun jumps, and you can never have too much time in the sky, but if freeflying is your bag, progress carefully. As a side note, keep up on the RW jumps. It's embarrasing to have 500+ jumps, and not be able to dock on a ten way belly round for your buddies 1000th jump. I've seen it happen, and it aint pretty.