mbohu

Caravans are some of the faster planes, so there is definitely lots of airflow that you can "lean into" on exit. Again: All the advice here is great (and coming mostly from people with more jumps than I have) AND I would mostly focus on FEELING the air as it comes at you at 100miles an hour as soon as you leave. If you can feel it on your body, you will automatically make the right micro-adjustments, even if you initially aren't 100% in the right position. That way you can also keep your mind much more empty and calm on exit (rather than: "ok. where does my foot go? Where do I need to put my hands...f**ck I'm 13000 ft up in the air!!!...ok, calm down...arms stretched out...look at the airplane...f**ck!!!!!...up..down..FEAR!!..out...what do I do with my legs?..sh*t I'm tumbling, what now..................................................(mind calms down as your body starts flying and feeling)...Now I'm stable. I'm flying!...................................................(no more thoughts) PEACE! ") Since it is much harder to focus on FEELING when your adrenaline is really high (as it usually is when you face "the door" on your first skydives), it's easier to learn that aspect in the tunnel first.

Assuming you are jumping from a larger aircraft that has some decent speed (Twin Otter or faster), this may help. It's what helped me the most: Go to an indoor skydiving facility and spend enough time there so that you can enter the tunnel from the door and immediately fly on your belly. This gets you used to feeling the wind on your body and immediately trusting that it will "hold you up". Then pretty much do the same when you do a poised exit (facing forward into the wind) except that you need to keep in mind that the wind will come from about 30 to 45 degrees from the bottom-front, rather than 90 degrees from the bottom, as in the tunnel. This helped me much more than any description of where to put my arms, legs or how to position my body. Instead, it established an intuitive relationship with the airflow that I could rely upon and trust. Before getting this feel for the wind, I actually found diving exits towards the back the easiest, because if I just stretched out my arms and folded my legs over completely, they would always work themselves out automatically. If you are jumping from a really slow, small Chesna, I can't help you. The air feels almost dead, and when I jump from those, it still feels like it takes 5 to 7 seconds before there is enough airflow to really feel stable (Then it's more like jumping from a diving board, where your body position depends completely on the launch)

sqrt(horiz^2 * vert^2)

If you go in the fall (or winter, or spring) I'd go to Skydive Arizona. When I visited, I got 5-8 jumps every day, all day. Almost all of them with an experienced organizer. (In the summer it may be less, because it gets too hot in the middle of the day) The on-site wind-tunnel and various hot-air balloon options are pluses too (and landing out in the desert isn't as bad as it would be where there's more civilization either) They've got a gear store and rentals, as well as a restaurant and you can stay on-site over night as well.

Just one more, and I hope you can see the humor in this: No, no, no! In a free market no one has to PROOF anything to anyone. If a company succeeds in marketing something completely useless so well that everyone wants it although it doesn't benefit them at all, then that company is absolutely free to do so and will be hugely rewarded for it. Who would they have to PROOF anything to anyway? There are countless examples of that. But I do think I get it now: You want either ALL or nothing: fully "enforce the GM pledge or drop the GM program" (I added "fully" because they clearly seem to enforce it to some extent. You just listed examples where they failed in that enforcement) My guess is the "fully enforce" option would mean more money and more invasive procedures which many won't like.

So then just clarify for me what you actually are arguing FOR. This quote sounds like you DO want these kinds of ratings and license requirements but you want stricter and better oversight. Is that what you are saying? (Maybe your "free market" arguments were confusing me here because it sounded like you wanted the opposite: no ratings, no licenses, no oversight)

Yes, and I am saying having something here is better than nothing...and the only way to have something better than the SOMETHING I am relying on, is to have something else with MORE oversight and rules. There is simply a continuum that goes something like: 1. BASE: no oversight, no requirements, it's all completely up to each individual. 2. Something like USPA for skydiving: A membership organization that sets some rules and has SOME capacity for oversight and enforcement, but not really THAT MUCH 3. Governmental oversight and laws with strict enforcement and stiff penalties. I don't want 3. for sure. I think 1. may work well for BASE jumping, where there is generally much less need to rely on others...but for skydiving I like model 2. It's a good intermediate model and keeps oversight from outside sources outside of the picture. Nothing at all. That's not the point. I DO know that the one with an A License has gone through a training program and has a minimum number of jumps. That is all. If he jumps without an instructor at my DZ, I know that he has a license. (exception would be the small number of jumpers cleared for self-supervision before they have a license but they would always jump alone and in a specific place in the exit order)

Ron, your logic is faulty. You say you're an instructor and have ratings, and then say that ratings are irrelevant and should be dropped. Well, of course, if you are dropping your membership now and loose your ratings, you don't loose your skills (or my trust in you--EXCEPT: that I may have no way to verify your skills if I didn't already know you). But the point is you DID go through the training and ratings process. Did you learn much more in other ways and are you much better than what's necessary to achieve these ratings? I bet you are! But none of that is an argument against the ratings. And as for the free market: Correct me if I am wrong, but ANYONE can come along, create their own organization, get people to join it, get DZs certified and do everything the USPA does in order to compete with it. They can require the DZs to require jumpers to have membership in their organization, or not. It's completely up to them and I am certain there is no law preventing this and the USPA has no way to prevent it. Where is the market not FREE in this case? If anything, you are complaining about the USPA having a de facto monopoly--just like companies like Amazon.com have--but this is exactly a feature of the FREE market, that this is possible and generally a likely outcome in most industries. It would require outside intervention into the market (from government rules, etc.) to prevent that. Even if I had the same problem as you with the USPA requiring member DZs to require their jumpers to have USPA membership, the fact that they can do so is exactly a FEATURE of the FREE market. Just as Amazon.com requires me to be a Prime Member of their online service in order to get the cheapest prices at the Wholefoods stores they now own. Yippikayeahh MFs!!!

That's exactly what I meant.

So: You are asking for MORE stringent requirements and monitoring? From your previous posts, it seems like you asked for LESS! There are clearly specific requirements for the licenses (after all that's how the whole post started and the people who did not agree with the BOD decisions wanted LESS, not MORE) As I see it, the USPA may not audit individual student programs but does seem to be more active in monitoring Instructor Examiner ratings, which should make sure Instructors are taught correctly, which gives at least a decent chance that most students are taught correctly. Better than NOTHING and, in my opinion, also better than TOO MUCH monitoring and too much oversight (again, I thought most here opposed to the rules were arguing for MORE FREEDOM after all) I'd also assume that MORE oversight would mean more costs and therefore higher membership fees. No one here seemed to be wanting that.

Of course not. But how would I know it's you? How would I know how many jumps you have? Right now, I'd still don't know it's you...but at least I know you have at minimum an A License.

Yes. But if someone isn't a USPA member that also means (s)he has no License. (Unless you are suggesting USPA gives out and manages the licensing process for free) I for one, do not want people on the plane who went through no training whatsoever, or have to figure out at each DZ what the specific DZ requires.

So, maybe I'm misunderstanding how this works then. The way I understand it is that if I jump at a GM DZ, I know that everyone is at least a licensed skydiver (or in rare cases they may be a student released for self-supervision, in which case they would only do solo jumps or be with a coach or instructor). If the GM DZ would not require USPA membership then theoretically anyone without any type of license could jump or the DZ could have whatever rule it wants to--which I would not be aware of. So it DOES matter, no? Also: While I'm in the sport only for a couple years, I have yet to talk to ANYONE who has had a problem with having to acquire a USPA license in order to be able to jump.

This is dishonest at best. Remove the requirement from the GM pledge and let the chips fall where they may. Just because no one has mentioned this yet. There IS a benefit to the individual members to requiring GM DZs to only allow USPA members to jump. If I go to a GM DZ I can be assured that anyone on the plane or in the air with me has at least a minimum of training and knows about some minimum safety requirements. I find that quite reassuring.

Apparently our freedom here is a very fragile thing--although I think it's more the idea of considering anything from outside the good ol' US of A, that seems so threatening to him. Clearly, you've never tried BASE jumping, otherwise you'd know that many of those "nanny states" actually allow much more freedom than we do (at least in that regard)

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Yes, Rookie Roundup last year was what started my interest in 4-way. It was absolutely awesome and we got Mikhail from Arizona Airspeed to coach us. First time ever I experienced non-funneled 4-way exits. Looks like this year I have too many jumps (unless they aren't too strict about their under-150 requirement)

Can we get rid of the stupid drug ads in the "Skydivers with Disabilities" forum clogging up the feed? One every few seconds!

Any suggestions of places to go to have some coached 4-way (belly) practice, either as a team or as an individual?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I am pretty sure that the AFF jumps that would count as FS are not the ones where one or more instructors are holding on to the student, but the last few jumps, where the student flies on her own relative to the instructor and practices turns and forward/backward movements. That's really not that different from doing a 2-way with an experienced jumper. Yes, makes me feel like I should apologize for the ignorance of my country-men. (Also in regards to being the winningest, considering most actual US competitors are quite aware of how much more support jumpers get in other countries like France and Russia...and how they therefore dominate many disciplines)

#5 really drives me crazy. I don't recall if I ever heard an instructor say it, but pretty much everyone at one of the DZs I go to seems to insist on it. Recently I asked the group behind us: "give us at least 7 seconds after exit" (based on the groundspeed they reported) and the reply was "don't worry: I just watch until you are 45 degrees" When there is time I try to explain, but--being that I'm already not one of the cool ones and a geeky old guy, I'm not usually very successful with that. on #1 though: I don't quite understand that one: I thought that these are the proper pull altitudes on (at least some) AFF jumps and that is why pre A-license students exit at the very end, after freeflyers (but before Tandems, who also pull that high) and that everyone is aware of their higher pull altitude, simply because they all wear helmets saying "Student" and always jumping with an instructor or coach (again, at least at the DZs I go to)

You're right. It doesn't seem like the lines are THAT elastic. The funny thing for me, though was, that the Navigators (all the way from size 300 to 240--which was just above 1:1 for me) all behaved in the same way on landing: If you just wanted to slow the canopy down for landing and keep it flying at the same angle, it was real easy and you'd usually land softly enough. However, if you wanted to plane it out first, it was extremely hard to time: The first stage of the flare had to happen as a very sharp pull of the toggles about half way down--it had to be timed perfectly, and it felt that the plane-out would happen with some delay, after you pulled the toggles for the first part of the flare. (Admittedly I was a complete beginner, so some of it might have been me...but then again: I did not have that problem once I changed canopies) More experienced jumpers (not jumping Navigators) kept telling me that I should be doing more of a dynamic flare (adjusting as I went along) rather than the very defined 2-stage flare. I never got this to work, as it wouldn't plane out, if I did not make the first part very strong and defined. As soon as I tried other canopies (at 230 sqft, so essentially the same size--I tried Saber2, Storm and Spectre, none of them very elliptical) this changed: I could easily plane them out by a smooth toggle stroke and they would respond so immediately, that I could adjust the speed and depth of the stroke dynamically as I felt the canopy respond. There was no delay. Anyway, based on the OPs original post, he seems to have the same experience with the Navigator. I still think he should downsize on the Navigator first and then try other canopies at the same size before deciding on any one.

Absolutely!

OK. Makes sense. The difference in reaction time between the Navigators (at any size I jumped, all with Dacron lines) and everything else I jumped was staggering, though. So, this would then be related only to the canopy design itself?

How come?

I would not recommend it in a single step. Not only are you skipping 2 sizes but you also are going to a completely different type of canopy. (I don't know the pilot well, but assume it's quite different from the Navigator) I am around 225 lbs and started on a Nav 300 for my first AFF jumps. I went to a 280 after that and then skipped a size and went to a 240. These transitions weren't extreme and, while I'm glad I did it step by step in about 30 jumps, I would probably have been fine doing it in one step. (although I DID hurt my sit-bone once, sliding it in and I can still feel that a bit even after 18 months...it re-activated a snowboarding injury in the same area) Anyway: After getting comfortable at that size, I tried a number of other canopies at 230 to 240 sqft, and that difference (to the navigator) was much bigger than the simple size difference. Completely different flare. Different openings too, on some of them--mostly better, though) If at all possible I would downsize on a Navigator, get real comfortable at that size and THEN try different types of canopies. Also: I would not decide on a canopy to get, if I previously had only jumped Navigators. I am jumping at 5000ft+ AGL though, so that also makes a difference. Still: After all that I got a Spectre 230 and LOVE!!!! it. If I never had tried any other canopies I probably would have bought a Sabre2 (because that is what everyone jumps at my DZ) or a Pulse (because I liked the descriptions of it on the PD website) and now I know I wouldn't have been as happy with them as I am with my Spectre. You are right about the flare taking a while to react on the Navigator. That was one of the biggest differences I felt when going to a sports canopy. Someone told me though--and that made quite some sense to me--that this was partially related to the lines: The lines on student canopies are the ones that are quite elastic and therefore the whole thing takes a while to react. Oh, and definitely take a canopy course!