skr

I'm not sure I'd enjoy a round jump now, you have to think ahead too hard about where you're going to land. I had 1,800 round jumps before I got my first square in 1975. Rounds work just fine, a lot of the stories you hear have been greatly exaggerated for the jump story effect. Skr

>pay to get these supplemental ratings >complex bureaucracy will evolve >bureaucracy will require food (i.e. money) Yes, I feel uneasy about those points myself. Skr

Now *that's* fast service! >do by typing it and replacing the "sharp" brackets No sweat. I still do html by hand with vi. In fact vi is my main writing program, I'm probably the only guy around who uses vi to write poems :-) :-) Skr

> OK - code markup causes the monospace effect Actually it worked here in the test case but didn't work when I tried it on the real post, so I guess I'll upgrade my light weight request for to medium weight. Skr

At the bottom of http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/ are several articles on exit separation including three by Bryan Burke, two by Bill Von, and a pointer to John Kallend's simulator. Separation Explained for Students http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/sg_skr_coach_weekend.html contains a few pages on the physics of a typical situation, and several pages on psychology - why stuff looks the way it does to our untrained intuitions, how to expand our intuitions, and how to learn how to do exit separation. ---- >Is that realistic in terms of will i be allowed to do this >will the other people in the plane not just decide to >toss me out the door? >Will the pilot not start to shout obscenities All that and worse will happen. The ongoing lack of training on this topic is hard to understand. OPEC changed the oil prices in 1973. Within a few years multiple groups per pass was common. USPA safety and training did nothing. Dropzone owners and pilots did nothing. S&TA's and experienced jumpers did nothing. In the 90's several huge discussions happened on rec.skydiving and a few DZO manager/thinkers like Bryan Burke started working it out. Now there is some awareness that exit separation is an issue, but there is *STILL* no training of new jumpers. diverdriver is the only pilot I've ever heard of who tells people about uppers and time between groups. All other pilots I've ever seen either say nothing, or are one of the people screaming go. I think exit separation is one of the harder skills to learn. Maybe someday people will be taught how, but probably not any time soon. "Don't hose the last groups out" translates to "Just kill the people in the first ones instead". Skr

> Our club is adopting the ISP method of training this year > and I have been charged with creating a student manual. > I would like feedback from anyone using student manuals > at their dropzones. Further, I am collecting samples from > those willing to share info. We have been using the ISP for two years at Calhan in Colorado. I re arranged it slightly to put more emphasis on canopy control right after the AFF (levels A - E) phase but other than that it's pretty generic. It's a good step in the right direction and I believe that after it's been hammered on in the field for a couple more years it will be pretty good. When they finish the AFF (levels A - E) part I hand them a folder of what to expect in the coach phase. I put that folder of stuff up at http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/index.html#learning This season I'm hoping to get something similar going Brush, Colorado. Skr

Well, I don't know how to do markup to force a monospace font so the formatting didn't work but hopefully the meaning and intent are clear. Skr

I just sent this to the safety and training committee, [email protected], in response to their plan to change the licenses. If you have opinions about this change please let them know. I know from decades of experience that they do listen. Comments on Proposed USPA License Changes Wed 2003-3-5 ----------------------------------------- ------------ Part 1 - Comments on the Whole Licensing Philosophy Part 2 - Comments on the FAI licenses ===================================================================== Part 1 - Comments on the Whole Licensing Philosophy --------------------------------------------------- I don't know why licenses were first created, but I assume it was to indicate various levels of proficiency. (My imagination pictures Jacque Istel and Lew Sanborn (sitting around a kitchen table some snowy New England (evening in the 50's ... ( ( "We need some licenses. The French have them, the ( Russians have them, everybody but us has them." ( ( "OK .. Do you know anybody with 200 jumps? Nope, ( me either, let's call that a Master Parachutist." ( ( "Good, how about 10 jumps for a Novice and at 25 ( they're a Parachutist?" ( ( "I think we need something in between, how about ( Jumpmaster at 75?" ( ( "Looks good, I think we need some requirements too, ( how about so many style and accuracy jumps?" ( ( "Right, and a Master should probably make a night ( jump and a water jump too." ( ( "I think we're done, Novice, Parachutist, Jumpmaster, ( Expert. You want another beer?" ( ( "Maybe we should number them, too." In thinking about what properties a license structure for today's world should have I come up with: - It should reflect the many faceted nature of today's and tomorrow's jump world. - It should indicate levels of proficiency and experience. - It should take into account the effect the license structure has on the future course of skydiving. - It should be easily expandable and adaptable to future developments. Today's world looks like this: ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Big Ways Wingsuits AFF ~ ~ Boards Demos ~ ~ Freeflying ~ ~ Experimental ~ ~ Base Jumping ~ ~ CRW Recreational Skydiving Canopy Swooping ~ ~ ~ ~ Formation Skydiving ~ ~ Coach Ratings Stunt Jumping ~ ~ Classic Style ~ ~ Relative Work ~ ~ Tandem Ratings Skydancing ~ ~ Competition ~ ~ Classic Accuracy ~ ~ Night Jumps ~ ~ Freestyle Record Attempts ~ ~ ~ \ Camera Jumping Raft dives / \ Teaching FJC / \ / \ Test jumping New stuff / \ / \ / \ Instructor Examiners / \ / \ / \ \ | / / | | | A cloud of mostly | | unrelated activities | |-----------------------| | | | |-------------------------| | A set of fundamental | | parachuting skills | | common to all these | | unrelated activities | | | | | | | | Gear maintenance | | Canopy control | | Weather / Spotting | | Exit separation | | Emergency procedures | | Basic freefall skills | | | | | | | | First 100 - 200 jumps | |-------------------------| It seems that the old monotonic license structure - a few jumps, a little style and accuracy, a few more jumps, a little more style and accuracy - doesn't reflect or represent today's varied world. Maybe a better model would be what pilots use - a couple basic licenses covering the fundamentals common to all activities, and then ratings for the more specialized activities. Ratings would be somewhat helpful when people who don't know each other are trying to jump together like at a boogie or in going to a new dropzone, but their real use would be that they would foster more training. Want a Big Way rating? Go to a Big Way camp. Want a Freefly rating? Go to a Freefly camp. Want a coach rating? Go to a coach course. The way it is now learning is very haphazard, partly because there is so little organized training available. Nobody would *have* to get a particular rating, most people would jump together because they already know each other, just like they do now. But when ratings become part of normal consensus reality people will get them just because they're there and other people get them, and that will result in more skydivers with better training. Finally, it is easy with this model to adapt to new activities without disturbing what is already there. If a new activity reaches a certain level of maturity add a new rating. It may be that the old linear A / B / C / D approach is too entrenched even though it no longer matches the real world, but maybe not. The ISP is the first level of skills common to all jumps. Perhaps in a few years the B license could become the second level of skills common to all jumps. A few years after that it could become possible to develop appropriate ratings and some time after that switch over. Thinking ahead to the world we will be leaving to the jumpers 10 and 20 years from now would be a *Certified Good Idea* [tm]. ===================================================================== Part 2 - Comments on the FAI licenses ------------------------------------- I understand the intent is to align the American licenses with the FAI licenses. Here are the FAI license requirements gleaned from the Norwegian application form found at ftp://www.fai.org/parachuting/CoP_form.zip about 2/3 of the way down the page http://www.fai.org/parachuting/certificates_proficiency/ near the pictures of the licenses. Parachutist (FAI A license) 1. 25 freefall jumps. 2. 5 minutes of freefall time. 3. 5 formation skydives involving at least two participants OR 5 freefly jumps under the supervision of an instructor. 4. Demonstrate control of the body in all axes (backloops, turns, barrel rolls etc.) 5. Ability to pack a main parachute. 6. Demonstrate ability to land a parachute within 50 meters of a target, on at least 10 jumps. Freefall Parachutist (FAI B license) 1. 50 freefall jumps. 2. 30 minutes of freefall time. 3. Successful completion of ten formation skydives, OR ten formation freefly jumps, at least five of which, in either discipline, must involve at least 3 participants. Experienced Parachutist (FAI C license) 1. 200 freefall jumps. 2. 1 hour of freefall time. 3. Successful completion of fifty formation skydives, OR fifty formation freefly jumps, at least ten of which, in either discipline, must involve at least 4 participants. Senior Parachutist (FAI D license) 1. 500 freefall jumps. 2. 3 hours of freefall time. Now I understand where this word "discipline" for the various activities came from. Let's see how the various requirements are distributed across the licenses. Jump Numbers and Freefall Times ------------------------------- A - 25 jumps / 5 minutes B - 50 jumps / 30 minutes C - 200 jumps / 1 hour D - 500 jumps / 3 hours The B license seems a little out of balance. 75 jumps and 30 minutes would be more reasonable and would be more in line with the rest of the progression. Also, 50 more jumps beyond the A license would be more in line with what they need to learn at this early stage and how long it takes people to learn it. Even 100 jumps for the B license would make a lot of sense. Canopy Flying Requirements -------------------------- A - 10 jumps within 50 meters B - none C - none D - none This makes sense but is incomplete. It makes sense because the old 2 and 5 and 10 meter requirements focus on the wrong canopy flying skills. People don't need the braked approach, pea gravel and disk skills, they need traffic management and flying a good pattern, and flaring, and thinking ahead up high. The American ISP canopy flying requirements are a good start in this direction. Let's develop a B license level canopy education program that helps people deal with the peer pressure and fashion pressure to downsize too fast, or make ignorant hook turns, or even how to keep your wings level on landing and stay out of tight situations that lead to stupid last minute moves. A B license level person is thinking about their own gear. We need a Consumer's Report type part of the SIM that helps people learn how to shop for used gear, how to get it checked out, how to think about wing loading vs elliptical vs cross bracing vs airlocks vs ... There's a lot of knowledge out there but it's not centrally located. USPA could do a real service in this area by making this more advanced knowledge part of the B license requirements. Besides toggle technique and wings level for landing it would be good to add something to the A / B level that starts them learning how to think ahead after opening. The only way I have found so far is some form of follow the leader, either I lead them so they can see an example, or they lead me so they can start thinking of their own plus other people's flight path. There must be some other ways to get at this. Perhaps some form of CRW would help. I've used no contact but flying fairly close over the years. Freefall Requirements (FS = Formation skydive, FFS = Freefly Skydive) --------------------- A - 5 FS or 5 FFS (with instructor (or coach?)) B - 10 FS or 10 FFS ( 5 with at least 2 other people) C - 50 FS or 50 FFS (10 with at least 3 other people) D - none Here is where I start thinking that a couple levels of parachuting fundamentals plus a variety of ratings makes more sense. Why single out formation skydiving and freeflying (whatever that means) for one thing? Activities come and go and this is tying the licenses to what's popular at the moment. Why not also wingsuits? Or what if freestyle or boards had been added back when they were new, but are now done by only a few people. And why force people down one path, either 50 formation skydives OR 50 freefly jumps, why not a total of 50 that could be any mixture? Also, and I'll try to stay calm here, doing freefly jumps at the A license level is a really bad idea, even at the B level there is a dubiosity factor. I'm picturing a small girl, just off of AFF, standing there - with an ill fitting student rig, chest strap loose, main lift webs falling off her shoulders, pilot chute barely held in place by a worn out elastic pouch with a big loop of exposed bridle - a protec helmet, well used goggles, a banged around student altimeter, a height of fashion student jumpsuit - who has never gotten on a plane unassisted, has never looked out the door before going, is maxed out just being in freefall and overloaded at pull time - and a hot young stud with 125 jumps, a camera on his helmet and a coach rating is going to take her out, hang on to her harness, hold her head down so she can totally lose sight of the ground and cover 1,000 ft every 3 1/2 seconds - and she's going to do 5 of those and then they're going to turn her loose to jump on her own? I think this would be wrong even if she had really good gear and Mike Ortiz or Brian Germain were teaching her. I encourage people at this stage to play around in freefall, do a few maneuvers, try a stand up, fall off the plane on their back and so on, *BUT* ************************************************************ *** What people really need at this stage is parachuting *** *** skills, canopy flying, gear maintenance, exit *** *** separation, weather sense, aircraft and emergency *** *** procedures, and so on *** ************************************************************ Formation skydiving vs freeflying vs anything in freefall is almost irrelevant. We talk and talk about canopy injuries and deaths, but the current mentality as reflected in these licenses is all about freefall. I think we would do a real service building a strong canopy flying program into the license requirements. Skratch

OK - code markup causes the monospace effect but it intrusively announces its presence, so I'd like to ask whether there is some other way to do this and if not make a light weight request for Skr

Being an ascii monospace font type of writer I use spaces for layout and formatting. So this post is a test to see whether code and/or quote will do what does in html. If it works, it works, otherwise I'd like to suggest adding to the markup tags. So here goes this is code markup ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Big Ways Wingsuits AFF ~ ~ Boards Demos ~ ~ Freeflying ~ ~ Experimental ~ ~ Base Jumping ~ ~ CRW Recreational Skydiving Canopy Swooping ~ ~ ~ ~ Formation Skydiving ~ ~ Coach Ratings Stunt Jumping ~ ~ Classic Style ~ ~ Relative Work ~ ~ Tandem Ratings Skydancing ~ ~ Competition ~ ~ Classic Accuracy ~ ~ Night Jumps ~ ~ Freestyle Record Attempts ~ ~ ~ \ Camera Jumping Raft dives / \ Teaching FJC / \ / \ Test jumping New stuff / \ / \ / \ Instructor Examiners / \ / \ / \ \ | / / +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My first Racer came with a pull out. I jumped it for a while but didn't like the handle being at the bottom of the pilot chute, so I switched over to a throw out. I jumped that for a while but didn't like that the container didn't open when I pulled. So I took a throw out pilot chute, sewed a light piece of webbing from the handle at the apex to the skirt with a small loop at the skirt for a pin. I packed it like a pull out. When pulling it worked like a pull out, but as soon as the pin came out it was like a throw out with the handle at the top of the pilot chute. All that took about 150 jumps. I decided I didn't like any of it and went back to a ripcord and spring loaded pilot chute for a long time. Skr

>What is the average time/jumps for downsizing from >a student rig (Skymaster 288) to my own (PD170)? Well, the background concern is will you hurt yourself (or somebody else). And the answer to that is have you learned the basic toggle techniques to keep your wings level close to the ground and not land on awkward stuff, number one, and number two, are you thinking far enough ahead about where you're trying to go under canopy so that you don't get into tight sitations and do some last minute bad move. And a good way to get to there is to ask a couple experienced jumpers who seem both sensible and approachable to help you with your progression. There are too many variables to put a number on it. Canopy flying is not simple and it's not easy, and it's good to put some focused effort into it. Keep us posted on what you're learning, everybody needs to know this stuff. Skr

> I read it, and re-read it a lot, it's very helpful. Thanks. Ahh, there's part of my reward for writing it :-) >It's still a little frustrating to not get it from your instructors though. We're in an awkward spot in history. In the 80's and 90's the instruction pendulum went too far in the direction of freefall. That's starting to change a little now with more emphasis on canopy flying, but if your instructors were new guys who started in the last 10 or 20 years, they were taught the old way and they are just passing on what they learned. Hopefully by the time you are teaching people it will be more in balance. Passing that Wings Level thing on to your friends could help. The change happens one person at a time. >planning on booking canopy control school >immediately after my license jump Good idea. The whole mind set today seems to be to push people into some format, head down or 4 way or what ever, when what people really need is a basic parachuting foundation, canopy flying and exit separation and spotting and tracking and gear maintenance and stuff. The various activities, boards and wingsuits and what not go much better when people get the basic mechanics of just jumping out of an airplane down first. Skr

Thank you, John. I've sent many people there. I ran a lot of possibilities myself when you first put it up. I think going there and running some typical situations ought to be a license requirement. In fact what about writing to the Safety and Training committee and running a copy on uspa.org ?? Some day you're going to graduate from official academia and that simulation program really ought to be part of the heritage. Skr

>one aspect I found frustrating was the lack of canopy instruction An article called "Canopy Control - Wings Level" at http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/index.html#learning can help with that. On the original question of SL vs AFF vs something else, you're going for the same initial set of skills, get stable, keep track of altitude, pull, canopy skill - both toggle technique and large scale technique, packing, and so on regardless of which route you're taking to get there. Skr

My current approach is to go to a forum, say safety and training, in one window, and then just scroll up and down in that window, but don't left click to individual threads in that window. I right click individual threads into a second window, read them and then close that second window. That helps me keep my place in the list of threads. When I've read all I can handle, I reload that first window just to see whether anything new has arrived and then go down to the bottom left and mark all threads read. Skr

The sun moving through the interstellar medium http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020624.html Astronomy Picture of the Day http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ and an archive going back to 1995 with a bunch of really interesting pictures http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html Skr

>Have they given up teaching history here? A long time ago. An uneducated people is much easier to control, they don't keep asking all these awkward questions. Skr

>I dunno wtf is going on lately with people on the forums, >but everyone seems so quick to jump to conclusions >and have negative things to say. Maybe it's war and other stress. One thing I've been doing is accepting that people do that, from ignorance, fear, or what ever, and focusing on being conscious of my own corresponding tendancy to counter punch with something even stronger. I've been doing that for a long time, and over the years I have gradually changed. I still have the initial reaction often enough, and have even started replies, but at least I'm not crawling through this glass screen to get my hands on the worthless wretch. I remember when I first started learning this in San Francisco, there was a guy named Frank who was 70 something when I met him. He had had a really rough early life, the goon squad on the waterfront, the military in World War II, prison, but he had learned how to do this. He'd listen to us ranting and venting our rage and then he'd say something in that gravelly old New York voice like: "You just gotta *pray* for da fuckin' assholes." Skr

>What else is there to do? I probably would have flown over to several people, gathered us into a loose horseshoe, and exchanged looks of astonishment and amazement, not to mention "cool - far out - did you see that? - wow" and so on. Probably why my business card would say (lets see if this markup formatting works) Custom Far Fetching & Professional Appreciation Skr

>Of course we started building the formation That's the part that cracks me up. We hairy chested thrill seekers are nothing if not unflappable :-) :-) Skr

These days for a high one it's at least 40F on the ground in dry Colorado air. I would probably go a little lower than that if I jumped a full face helmet. My minimum temperature gets a little higher each year. My first water landing (inadvertant) happened in the middle of January in North Carolina. It was well below freezing on the ground and the wind was howling. I couldn't find the drop zone but went anyway because the pilot / jumpmaster said go. I blew over some woods and landed about 100 ft off shore in a lake. It was a really hard landing because there was about an inch and a half of ice. This morning when I got up it was 2 degrees outside. I think I'm officially moving my limit up closer to 45 degrees from here on out. Skr

It sounds to me like people are trying to teach you technique - elbow here, shoulder there, mantis this, center point that - when what you are looking for is your place in the sky. Even at the initial coach level just off of AFF I see people who are maxed out just coming out the dropzone, jumping out and throwing their pilot chute, and there is someone trying to dirt dive them through some complicated freefall routine. Somehow people get too focused too soon on form and structure and accomplishment. There is something missing in how we teach perspective to our teachers. I wish I could stop by Elsinore and make some jumps with you. I probably wouldn't be able to find it from the air now though with all the houses and stuff :-) :-) Skr

>Or is it just coincidence that nobody there seems to >jump with them? Wide spread use is relatively new, and I think it just hasn't reached its equilibrium percentage of jumpers yet. Also there aren't very many jumpers total, so there aren't very many people doing anything - boards, wingsuits, head down, 4 way ... If USPA has 34,000 members, and if 10,000-20,000 are really active, that averages out to 200-400 per state. I don't know the numbers for other countries, but skydiving is a really, really small world. Skr

I've always packed for myself. Skr