Eiley

I wish you would provide some concrete examples or facts when you make these sorts of statements. I've seen nothing here in Oz to substantiate your claim. The vast majority of incidents are caused by errors of the victim. One incident I know of personally that was apparently 'buried' by the media was a pretty darn clear case of suicide (which the media has a policy of not reporting). Nothing sinister in that. The incident reports you speak of are pretty easy to come by, unless there are double 'real' incident reports I don't know of kept under lock and key by the sekrit cabal? Could you perhaps be a little more specific about your concerns? nothing to see here

I hope your second will be the Beer Bell Boogie! (wish I could get to Wickham at Easter... ) nothing to see here

Heads up for any Oz jumpers who ever wanted to: jump from a BALLOON or wing-walk (then jump from) a BIPLANE or launch off an AEROCHUTE, fall off a CHOPPER, do a ROUNDY jump, a NIGHT jump, an INTENTIONAL CUTAWAY... all followed by a DEMO into the pub for dinner... 27/28 MAY is the BEER BELL BOOGIE! (But you Better have a B-Licence...) (non-profit Club in south-east Melbourne) SLABS FOR FIRSTS MAY BE SERVED CONCURRENTLY! See you there, The Beer Bell Boogie Committee :-) nothing to see here

Oh, God yes. "Welcome Eiley, we have Recommendations for you! Would you like to add them to your cart?" Yes. Yes I would. Every bloody one of them. nothing to see here

At which point the defense quickly settled, thereby leaving nothing on the legal record? It wasn't even a negligence case. The plaintiff claimed that by not telling her the winds had risen, the defendants (ie the DZ) had engaged in 'misleading and deceptive conduct' about their product under the Fair Trading Act (legislation designed to protect consumers from hidden defects in products they could not possibly know about). The judge in the inferior court interpreted the legislation strictly and awarded damages. All three judges of the Supreme Court said "yeah, right" and reversed the finding. (See my post above). Then the High Court (that's the BIG one here folks) disallowed her appeal against the Supreme Court decision. Trae, are you claiming only the first judge was honest and the judges from both the Supreme Court of NSW and the High Court were somehow corrupted by the wealthy and powerful owner of a weekend DZ? Parliament subsequently changed the legislation to specifically provide that grown-ups could make their own decisions about whether to take calculated risks or not about participating in adventure activities, and the providers of those activities would be protected from "boo hoo, I hurt myself who can I blame" lawsuits as long as they operated within reasonable safety parameters. I simply can't see how this is a bad thing. nothing to see here

Erm... if they didn't make it to court, they ain't 'cases'. Could you help me out with what laws they might be please? Then you understand it wrong. The TPA (and state FTAs) is designed to protect unwary consumers from defects in goods that they could not possibly know about. To claim that you didn't know there was a chance you could break bones when jumping out of an aeroplane is utterly dishonest, IMHO. And its not llike it was her first jump. This case (among others) is the very reason the TPA (and derivative state legislation) was amended. It's all right there, in the Explanatory Memorandum behind the reasons for the change. So who are they? Can you at least give me a hint? Say, a link to a thread about a fatality which supports your claims? Certainly not the case you cited. Established: the wind was below 15 knots when she went up. It increased while she was in the air and the ground crew radioed the plane. Here's a quote directly from the judgment (other than removing the names): (Mr L***, by the way, is the DZO) This is the very sort of 'shit happens' risk you sign up for when jumping. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, criminal. nothing to see here

Apparently you missed this. I posted it this morning: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2042688#2042688 It has been pointed out to me by two people who actually read the link I posted that Dead Mike was not dead. And indeed, I was working from my memory of the accounts at the time, not from Mike's account on his website, which clearly states that he was not dead. There's more to the post. But it's not relevant to your post. rl You are correct. That'll learn me to not read the thread thoroughly! (Original post deleted). nothing to see here

I refer you to www.deadmike.com. When the ambulance left the WFFC, the lights were off and they were driving slow, because there was no reason to turn the lights on and drive fast. Mike was dead. He died in August 1997. He made a base jump at Bridge Day in 1998. He is currently a 43-year old dead guy. Apparently it's more difficult than you think. rl Thanks for the reference. I refer you to http://www.deadmike.com/FAQ/index.html From the Dead Mike FAQs: nothing to see here

Sometimes though, I think, the conclusion we 'already knew' is the wrong one. For example, to me it would have been 'obvious' that for the recent tandem drowning they 'should have been wearing flotation devices'. Having read the thread, I now know what I didn't know. It was useful. nothing to see here

I was replying to your original assertion that I dug. I couldn't find them. nothing to see here

Assuming you are talking about Australia here, I'm sorry but I don't believe you. I have access to databases of judgments from every state, including ureported judgments. Doing searches on keywords such as 'skydive' (and all the derivatives thereof) and 'parachute' (ditto) pulls up surprisingly few cases. In fact, the only one relevant to this discussion is the one you referred to earlier, which I explained in my earlier post and which you yourself pointed out was turned over on appeal. So I have 'dug for them' as you suggest and come up empty. Which operaters, do you imagine, have the power to 'hide' these cases from us? Feel free to PM me if you don't want to name them publicly for fear of reprisals from such powerful and dangerous figures. Your allegations are very serious, but without any evidence to back them up, I would have to relegate them to pure fantasy. nothing to see here

This is not likely to happen again. The plaintiff in this case used a technicality in the consumer protection legislation of the Trade Practices Act. Generally in a contract that there is an implied warranty that services will be rendered with due care and skill and that material supplied in connexion with the services will be reasonably fit for the purpose. The remedy for a breach of the implied warranty is for the consumer to bring an action to recover damages for breach of contract. A contract that sought to exclude the warranty was rendered void. Since then the TPA has been amended to specifically permit companies that supply recreational adventure services to enforce contractual terms which seek to exclude the warranty of due care and skill implied by the TPA. It was introduced to address the increase in public liability insurance premiums and to codify the common law assumption of risk one assumes when doing an activity that is inherently dangerous. The legislature has stated that a waiver signed in such circumstances would operate as a good defence against personal injury claims, including actions based in negligence, where the supplier of such a service has complied with the relevant safety requirements. HTH nothing to see here

Okay, but this was listed in a nice prominent box in a nationwide daily newspaper. Target audience: whuffos. It is therefore utterly misleading to tell them that they have a '1 in 1000' chance of being killed in a skydiving accident. Agreed. nothing to see here

I'm not really sure I know what these stats mean: Is it deaths per participant in each activity? nothing to see here

True, but most people don't read entire articles unless they have a specific interest. Thus, many people will see that lovely headline and the opening paragraph: Jumping out of planes is a dangerous sport, as borne out by the recent spate of skydiving fatalities in Australia, writes Peter Fries Which doesn't really reflect the rest of the story (and I'm not really sure that 4 (though unusually high) qualifies as a 'spate'). I liked the way they took pains to separate sport skydiving from tandem skydiving and mentioned that all the Oz fatalities happened to the former. However, all of the colleagues who've popped in to draw my attention to the article today never got that far. nothing to see here

Some more stellar reporting on the sport... http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17902829%255E28737,00.html Not quite as bad as the title suggests, but still... nothing to see here

Hey Sheri, As a guide, at the last Nox: Jump tickets: $37 each Rego: $150 Accommodation for the duration of the boogie: - Camping - free - Powered campsite or bunkhouse - $55 - Caravan - $440 Lobyernoxoff package - $1500 - includes rego, 30 jump tickets, t-shirt, Boogie DVD (awesome), breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. Allow for a bit of an increase, I guess, but this should give you a rough idea. I'm getting all excited just typing about it!!! nothing to see here

Heya Andy! Just got back from a night out with KC and Denae. How you and Piriya doing? (yes, I so know I spelt that so wrong)

Cool. I'll be at Bridgewater on Friday night, so I'll keep an ear out for some Pommie accents. nothing to see here

This is more a 'security' issue, but it appears only Red People can start posts there. Just noticed that www.bugmenot.com (which I generally love) lists a bunch of usernames and passwords for dropzone.com. It appears that the ones they have listed at the moment are invalid, but wondering if its worth keeping a periodic eye on them in an effort to combat trolls? nothing to see here

Just on the wire: nothing to see here

Hiya, I put some helpful links re events and DZs in Melbourne in this post. Re your 'no transport' dilemma, my best suggestion is to subscribe to the RelWorkers Yahoo Group by sending an email to relworkers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Once you're on the list you can beg for a lift to your preferred DZ from there. No DZs are serviced by public transport as far as I know. Hope to meet you at one of the events listed!

There are Yahoo groups for each State: Vic: relworkers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com S Qld: sqj-subscribe@yahoogroups.com SA: SSO-subscribe@yahoogroups.com WA: sscwa-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ACT: ACT_Jump-subscribe@yahoogroups.com NSW: skarsy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com They are all moderated, so give it 24 hours from sending your request. nothing to see here

Nagambie as a general proposition in Melbourne. However, this weekend coming (21st-22nd) and a fortnight after that will be the 4-way for everyone and freefly for everyone events at Bridgewater, run by RelWorkers (which is a non-DZ-affiliated club run by skydivers for skydivers). Nice low-stress way to meet people. Otherwise, Tooradin is closest to Melbourne, Cessna DZ but very pretty, on the coast, and has a biplane you can jump for $A55 (ring ahead). HTH