benlangfeld

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Everything posted by benlangfeld

  1. And to stand any chance of doing so you have to significantly exceed the C license requirements in terms of belly skills, so it’s no problem in your case to require them.
  2. As per my question above: if one doesn't intend to compete or become an instructor, why is a C license important? What's wrong with "average fun jumpers" just getting a B license and hanging out?
  3. Why would one be screwed if one is not near a tunnel? The announcement says: There is no requirement for tunnel training, but simply clarification that it is acceptable to the USPA to consider freefall stability demonstrated in a wind tunnel as sufficient to make the second instructor unnecessary (effectively skipping AFF levels 1-3). Are you concerned that this is a threat to students' learning opportunities or instructors' earning potential?
  4. I'm genuinely interested in contributing to some mutually agreeable understanding here, so please bare with me for a few questions: To those who either don't want to, or believe they cannot complete the belly formation requirements for a C license: * Why do you want a C license? * Why is not having a C license a problem for you? To those who defend the license requirements at each level: * Are licenses explicitly intended to demonstrate competence as a well-rounded skydiver, or competence in some specific discipline? * Does the USPA/FAI consider progression in the sport to be linear, or acknowledge that there are multiple paths that may be traversed? * Are the license levels considered to be a convenient shorthand for quickly assessing an individual's experience, or intended to be keys to unlock particular privileges? * Is there an established mapping of privileges to the specific experience requirements to unlock them, without the generalisation of license levels as an approximation? * Is there the potential for a more flexible licensing program to replace the existing rather coarse scheme, such that progression in particular disciplines may be recognised and may unlock relevant privileges without the necessity of demonstrating competency in seemingly unrelated disciplines, or is the A-B-C-D scheme sacred? * Is there a licensing scheme in some other sport from which inspiration is taken, or is the existing scheme entirely home-cooked within the skydiving community?
  5. What will your wing-loading on the Safire be? What does your instructor think? How are your canopy skills?
  6. Figuratively. I just meant sell mine and buy an Ares. Nothing official that I know of.
  7. Thank you! The Ares is quite a bit larger and clearer. I think I might trade in my Viso.
  8. Does anyone have a photo of one next to a Viso II+ (switched on) to compare the size of the figures on the display?
  9. And for anyone who finds themselves approaching a similar situation: it's never a bad idea to run a serial number and *your* measurements past a manufacturer before committing to a used rig purchase. I have done this and it helped me avoid bad purchases, and the manufacturers don't seem to mind.
  10. I'd argue that before you've been through ground-school and done a few jumps, you're unlikely to understand everything in the SIM. A lot of it will seem like Greek until you have a bit of practical experience. If I would you, I would focus on the BSRs and the first few levels of student progression, but ignore all the later chapters; you're not exposed to most of those things (camera, wingsuit, etc) and your instructors are taking care of others (spot, cloud clearance, wind limits, etc) for your first few jumps. Don't overload yourself; it may make you more nervous if you're trying to deal with things you don't need to yet.
  11. I've watched those, as well as the Australian Parachute Association videos. They only cover serious malfunctions, and not common "opening mishaps" like this, with the exception of line twists, which were easy the first time I encountered them. This time the canopy failed the first visual check; it wasn't there (*points up*), it was _there_ (*points forward*). Intellectually, sat on the ground, it's obvious, but on this first time it happened to me, I just couldn't see what was wrong; the canopy was mostly inflated, riser input did nothing, it sped up in very short order, and my reaction was more instinctual than logical. I think this is probably something of a gap in training: not really a malfunction, but surprising enough to be tricky to deal with. The only videos of toggle fire I can find through Google are cases where the human was smart enough to pop both and get it under control; am I the only one who has ever chosen to cut away in this scenario?
  12. I figure now I've been through it once, am now confident in my ability to execute EPs quickly, and have seen a reserve above my head already, the next time I have anything abnormal, I'll be able to deal with it more calmly and clearly. Thankfully, this was my last jump on rental gear before receiving my own rig, which I will get to know intimately. That's a fantastic idea. I'll be spending a whole weekend on canopy drills on my new rig, and will include this on a high-pull. When I've switched rental rigs in the past, I've done normal drills (everything Brian Germain suggests pre-downsizing, which includes all the B-license progression card stuff), but I've never attempted to simulate this particular situation. I'll do this and some other drills that get me scared in the same way and practice a calm response (high, on my own pass).
  13. Having a turbine DZ in the city that I could get a taxi to would be awesome. I hear the shutdown was mostly to do with noise complaints from residents, but I havn't confirmed it. Getting a NOTAM filed so close to two busy commercial airports might also have become more difficult.
  14. There's occasional helicopter jumps done in Barra, and rumours of a Cessna 182 returning, along with an annual boogie at new year (Caravan heads in from São Paulo), but there's not a regular dropzone in the city any more.
  15. I had my first cutaway today on jump #66, with a Silhouette 190, rented rig. On opening (pitched at 5k, where video shows me stable and horizontal), I encountered line twists that seemed to bounce me from one side to the other before winding out of their own accord after a few seconds. As soon as the twist was out, the canopy got into a sharp left spin, which I tried to control with rear risers without success. After 3 or 4 seconds the canopy went to the horizon and I stopped looking for ways to recover it, and went straight to EPs (no RSL, lost the cutaway handle when the reserve handle seemed not to want to come out from the pocket and I added my right hand to help). I did not look at my alti once open, because everything happened very fast. I have seen a bunch of incident reports citing failure to execute EPs early enough as contributing factors, I was stressed and my heart was racing and the problem wasn’t obvious, so I cut away without a second thought. Once I established my reserve was functional, albeit with the appearance of a postage stamp (PDR 160, having never jumped anything less than a 190 despite much encouragement), I began to focus entirely on traffic avoidance and eliminating any action that might put plan B in jeopardy. In that process, I lost sight of the main. Once on the ground and sat down, I became very disappointed in my response to the situation. It was very likely a popped toggle, and I feel like I should have been able to identify it, at which point the solution is trivial, but in the heat of the moment in unfamiliar territory (never had more than low speed line twists before) I decided that I distinctly did not like what was happening and didn’t want to give it much time to find out how much worse it might get. I was under my reserve by 3k, my normal pull altitude, and so was easily able to land in the normal landing area with light traffic. From those who have already encountered a bunch of malfunctions, I’d like to know this: is there anything I can do to improve my response to this situation, in order to prevent a potentially unnecessary cut-away like this in the future? I’ve done hanging harness drills with positive feedback from my instructor, with the exception of executing EPs before she could tell me to wait because she wanted to show me one more photo before I actually did it and had to re-set the gear. The main is potentially lost, having been spotted heading over houses, and I feel guilty for having caused a fuss that could potentially have been avoided if I had been calm enough to spot a popped toggle (if it indeed was that). How can I improve for next time something feels this badly wrong?
  16. PD say the Pulse 170 packs about the same size as the Spectre 150 (see http://www.performancedesigns.com/pack-volume-chart/). You might also consider a Pilot 168 ZPX.
  17. I've never seen it. I think most people want to enjoy the jump and not drown it out with noise they can get on the ground.
  18. My KISS doesn't fog in freefall, but I've only jumped it in Rio de Janeiro, so YMMV. It does fog slightly once in the saddle, but not a lot; once the rest of my routine is done (traffic avoidance, slider, chest strap, etc) I open it fully and land like that. I've also had no fogging problems with it in iFly tunnels where the AC was down way low.
  19. And the important thing there is that you apparently know they make up 7% of all jumps. Most DZs don’t have that kind of data about non-incident jumps. I’m curious, how do you gather that? If filling out accident reports is so onerous that people complain about it, imagine providing that data for every jump.
  20. Thanks, that’s exactly the sort of comparison photo I’d hoped to see! Almost certainly too big on the wrist for my taste, but will probably be nice on a mud flap.
  21. What's it like for size? I like the VisoII because it's slim, and I can't find any pictures of the production model that clearly show how much bulkier it is. Are you aware of a mud flap mount for it? I'd like an alti under canopy that's easier to see than on my wrist, and this or the X2 would be it (with info like distance to the target, glide ratio, etc) but they've only mentioned a wrist mount.
  22. > Should we consider pin checks to be statistically insignificant and stop doing them? No, that's precisely the point. Pin checks tell you "my pin is good on this jump", not "my pin has to be good because it's in a vector". It's the same sort of difference here. Knowing what wingsuit someone was wearing when they impacted might help you understand why they impacted, but it won't tell you reliably that a certain wingsuit model is more or less dangerous than any other, or even that wearing a wingsuit is more dangerous than not.
  23. But that's just not how statistics works. The data being written in front of you doesn't change the rules about how you must analyze it in order to reach defensible conclusions.
  24. Well, the push-back you're getting is that any conclusion you might come to based on the aggregate data gathered would be highly likely to be false, and you're suggesting that there's some sort of cover-up going on. I think a majority of people in this thread have also said that the data might be useful, just not for patterns.
  25. No, I think you've misunderstood, or are taking it personally for some reason. The argument that's being presented is a purely mathematical one which states that anything that you might do with the data once gathered that you wouldn't have planned to do before gathering it would be an attractive un-scientific trap. "See what it tells us" sounds like code for "if X brand helmet shows up a lot, there MUST be something wrong with it", which would be lacking in rigour.