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I do know two people who literally femured from slammer openings on Pilot canopies. It caused both of them to give up the sport. I had a wicked slammer myself on a 210 Pilot that wrecked the canopy, even damaged the risers. Had to chop it. Fortunately I didn't break any bones, though I was bruised from my neck down to my knees. Lines were Spectra. Aerodyne said the canopy was totaled and they gave me a sweet deal on a brand new 188, which never gave me any problems. Also owned a ZPX 188 Pilot with no problems. I've always done my own packing and after the slammer I religiously checked that my slider grommets were all the way up 2 or 3 times while packing. Skydiving's a dangerous sport - you pays yer money and takes yer chances.

Why is management affording him the opportunity to get paid at the rest of our expense.

Not known... This cut suggests it was cut by a right handed person,, based on the two angles. Flip it over and cut up... right handed.

Good luck understanding why the USPA BOD does anything. A WL BSR was requested repeatedly by USPA members 20 years ago after far too many people died under perfectly good parachutes they shouldn't have been under. But "education is better than regulation". "Sure, Joe, you're my buddy, I'll sign that off for you, you don't really need that canopy control course." You must pull by 3k and have a current USPA membership but you can fly whatever canopy you'd like at 25 jumps, because you have been educated - you have a piece of paper that says so.

Bigways, like BIG Bigways usually get a waiver. Also days with low cloud ceilings to allow hop & pop loads, as the freefall is short and sub-terminal. As I recall from Parachutist Magazine, the waivers can even just be verbal, but are only good for a day at a time.

You are WAY off base with that comment. USPA encourages skydivers to chase their passion, and promotes best practices regardless of the discipline. Is canopy piloting safe? Nope. Not even close. CP is dangerous - damn dangerous - but that doesn't mean USPA should discourage it. Is freeflying safe? Nope. How about CRW? FS? And then there's speed skydiving. Consider a premature deployment at 300 mph. Nothing we do is safe. The CP culture is the most peer-policed discipline in skydiving. Go to a CP comp sometime and observe. You will see the best pilots on the planet coaching, mentoring, and critiquing - all with the goal of keeping one another safe. CP has come a long, long way since the days of toggle hooks and ditch digging. Today's pilots have a deep understanding of the science behind the discipline and continuously hone their skills and education to stay as safe as possible. They are also acutely aware of the risks. From an organizational perspective, the ISC (International Skydiving Commission) and national-level organizations like USPA have and do modify competitions rules and practices to make safety a top priority. One great example is the change in distance rules that now require pilots to stay below a certain height for a portion of the run before climbing their canopies. This was done specifically because folks were getting injured by climbing so high that landings were becoming sketchy. I have been following the competition CP community for over a decade. My son is one of the top pilots in the world. Do I worry about him? Every single day. Would I ever dream of discouraging him from doing what he loves? Never. USPA does not "endorse canopy piloting competitions that encourage skydivers to land in very unsafe ways". USPA encourages skydivers of all disciplines to conduct their activities as safely as possible. Some disciplines are more dangerous than others, but none of them are safe. Canopy piloting is not safe. Neither is any skydive you have ever made or ever will.

Agreed. If you are too stupid to know not to park on train tracks, then you are way too stupid to be trusted with a badge and a gun.

I was just thinking about that,,, The sticks were red,, people have claimed it was fake because dynamite was only tan,, this is false, I found there was red dynamite. Maybe, Cooper just copied the bomb from the Airport movie...

Every year the human factor contributes to fatal and life altering incidents in skydiving. And the life altering incidents are usually more brutal than an outright fatality. Some people can't react correctly to the situations they encounter and rapidly wreck themselves. It doesn't matter how much training, or how safe the DZO tries to run things. I always review incidents, no matter how serious, with the jumper involved. It's pretty eye opening the responses. As long as the human factor is involved, we will never eliminate the accidents. We can only strive to get the information out there and mentor those that need it. I think we do a disservice to many newer jumpers by not explaining to them how dangerous this sport can actually be. This week my 54th friend went in at Deland. Now granted, I know a lot of skydivers around the world, but this shouldn't be hidden from the newbies. As far as the USPA and the BSRs, if every DZO took a hands on approach to safety and stopped some of the shenanigans their own staff and fun jumpers are pulling, we wouldn't need so many rules. It all starts at the DZO level. Good planes, good pilots, good staff, good riggers, good load organizers and overview of the fun jumpers and a well prepared DZ in case of an emergency all lead to a better success rate in skydiving. It doesn't eliminate the human factor, but it sure helps mitigate it.

Back around 1983 or 1984, I introduced the concept of wing-loading to simplify canopy choices. Back then we only had to select between 5-cell or 7-cell. Configuration was limited to precision landing competition or all-purpose. Reserves, canopy formation and BASE were all done with popular 7-cells. But new materials, planforms, etc. complicated the decision process. We really need a 3D or 4D chart to include all the variables related to canopy selection. Last time I checked, no one was publishing 3D charts. BSRs help to keep decisions simple for junior jumpers. Junior jumpers only need-to-know that "in that corner, death lurks." Few of them have the patience or depth of knowledge of many posters on dz.com.

I think it would be interesting to see someone launch a military operation to seize it. At this point in time, if it was a Boy Scout troop doing the invasion, I'd give them even odds against the Russian army.

What's good for the goose... Czech Petition on Annexing Kaliningrad From Russia Signed by Thousands For those not familiar with the situation, Kaliningrad is an exclave of Russia, i.e. a part of Russia that is separated from the main part of Russia by Lithuania, Belarus, and Latvia.

If you’re planning this big of a crime, your seat matters. So he’s taking a huge risk that someone will take his seat. I like the back. And on a short flight there may not be many people using the bathroom. He wanted those seats. His whole plan goes to shit if he gets on and someone is in those seats. It’s also Thanksgiving and a busy day. Huge risk. This also makes me think he may have tested the waters before. Maybe gone to the airport. Maybe talked himself out of it once or twice.

sure have been a lot of tandem fatalities lately, and from what i recall, most are due to low turns. it isn't hard to implement an endorsement to licenses, and this would include wing loading limits, as well as allow high performance canopies. it wouldn't be hard to enforce since we already have to show our paperwork when jumping, it would be just one more item to check. this would be the best solution for the issue with the least amount of disruption. as for your last sentence, it's more than just a way to dismiss it, it is arguably irresponsible and borderline negligent to just do nothing about the increasing death toll from low turns.

In a large aircraft I might -just might- overlook people jumping if the open parachute is contained far away from the door by more than one person. In a small aircraft like a 182 or 172 not so much. IMO the risk of fabric escaping containment and inflating is much larger. You'd get at least a talking to. I'm no S&TA, but if you'd close your container and jump, I guess you'd get your ass grounded. But then again, I've always been known as a cautious jumper.

The title of Hero of the Russian Federation has been awarded to Colonel Alexei Katerinichev. Killed by a HIMARS rocket just before he was to give a speech. This FSB buddy of Putin got too close to the front lines.But when the FSB has to push the unwilling. Bad things happen.

Covid causation aside, the raw numbers don't tell the story. Fatalities per total jumps is a more accurate reflection of our safety. Additionally, it's very hard to point at anything a year at a time because the sampling is so small that it only takes a minor shift in the annual total to make a significant move as a percentage. USPA uses 5-year and 10-year averages (by decade) to provide a meaningful look at trends. That said, I truly hope I see any 12-month period with no fatalities in my lifetime.

Hi folks, This survey is looking good for here: Oregon voters appear poised to support new gun control regulations: The Oregonian/OregonLive poll - oregonlive.com However, IMO it is merely the first step in a long journey. Jerry Baumchen PS) From the article: Among voters with a college degree or higher, pollsters found 63% of respondents planned to vote yes compared with 40% of respondents with a high school diploma or less. Trump did say something about this, I think.

Maybe, but the real game changer will be robot TI's and packers.

If someone reopens the aircraft door and I am in the aircraft with a loose canopy or pilot chute, I'm going to lose my damn mind. "and all ride down with the aircraft"

Ah the good ole days, before MySpace, Facebag, etc took over I would spend hours watching the main page of the "Bonfire" refresh. I still check in here about once a year.... but it's not the same as the early 2000's to be sure!

Good afternoon folks billy was my friend and I talked to billy everyday all day for the past 15yrs about anything and everything up to and including incidents similar to this. There was zero indication that billy was capable of doing what he did with that said he could have done what he did with a pair of scissors a hammer a glass ash tray or any other stupid shit Billy was late to guns he always spoke of a garand or a mini 14 or some rifle he had as a youth other than that he wasn’t a gun guy by any definition. I have brought billy hunting to a property down river here in New Orleans that I was actively managing for feral hogs and armed billy with a .308w rifle with a 25rd magazine locked and loaded for the excursion if there was any doubt in my mind that billy was unstable mentally in any way if for nothing else than self preservation billy would not have been there and at times had my back to him. We ended up with a deer out of that hunt Billy was excited about the hunt and subsequently became interested in firearms. I have no desire whatsoever to get into a gun debate on here I treat firearms as tools and you need the proper tools for the task at hand for best results. To say that an automatic firearm has no purpose I would respectfully disagree. I use automatics for different types of game management because they are appropriate for certain situations. I carry for self defense and I carry an automatic pistol because of the high capacity if you are ever in a defensive situation where your life or somebody else’s life is on the line then the amount of rounds you need to stop the threat will vary depending on the threat. I lost my father to a gunfight that he would have won had he grabbed his pistol that morning and not a revolver he didn’t have enough capacity to stop the threat and he died as a result. there is absolutely no chance of me ever hurting innocent people and girls no matter what it’ll never happen I use firearms for all legal purposes for shooting sports hunting and defense and there is no single firearm that fits the bill for all of the different things I use them for. as far as mental health billy was a straight up comedy show to all that knew that deaf fucker he could stir the pot better than the best and could piss off the damn pope given the opportunity he had a lot of shit with him but he wasn’t a mental health issue until he he was because he used a firearm in the midst of that crisis doesn’t mean much considering he could have used anything to do what he did

We need Aggiedave

I was just thinking the same thing! Seeing all these peeps from back in the day brought a smile to my face! Used to be some wild threads in the Bonfire!

Holy shit, a thread where i recognize names!!

Looking at most performance runs, the glide levels of around 3, even for the top pilots. 3:1 is current sustained glide. 3.5:1 is mostly wishfull thinking. Looking at canopy design, its progressed with huge steps, but a 25 year old canopy has the same glide as the latest one. Its only dive/swoop/response etc thats been updated. But glide, close to zero. Glide is limited by physics, and not influenced by marketing JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?