Skydvr823

Thanks Sangiro! I just got an e-mail from this guy about wanting to buy my canopy.

For heading maintenance and hover control, Cat-B and Cat-C. Also to help prevent line twist and other malfunctions caused by unstable deployment.

YOU! You are exactly what I'm talking about here. (Lets face it, you can teach someone to freefall in an afternoon (it's called the FJC). It's really not that hard. It's just falling. A rock can do it.) Thank you for making my point. You will be the kind of person that will be able to teach students. Turns are a "Survival Skill". That is why we as AFF Instructors teach them. At the end of every skydive every jumper has to be able to deploy their parachute stable. If they can't do that then they probably won't have the opportunity to use their canopy. We all use our canopy skills after every skydive. That is not what is in question. You need to sit down re-read my previous posts and get a clue.

What I think a lot of people are missing in this is that without proper training.... You can become a bad combination of both jumpers 1 and 2. Don't get me wrong the USPA did a great thing in producing the video Fly to Survive. We plan on incorporating it into Safety Day at our dropzone. Where they went wrong is in lessening the training required for jumpers to instruct students. I've seen people argue on this forum that jumpers with 100 to 200 jumps are not experienced, yet you are only required to have 100 jumps to get a coach rating. Do you feel that it is okay to have a person with 100 jumps teaching a jumper turns for the first time? With this new system they will be allowed to take a static line student as soon as they complete their clear and pull(7th jump). That means the student will have no other freefall experience. Would you have a coach do the same thing for AFF. That means it will be the students 4th jump. This argument is not about what is more important to the student (canopy skills or freefall skills). It is that the USPA is dropping their standards for student instruction. You can't preach safety and do this at the same time. Instructional Rating courses have been implemented for a reason. A person looking to be an Instructor is evaluated on their ability to fly with and teach a student. D-License holders are not instructors or coaches.

So what you're saying is that we can't focus on both learning safe canopy flying and learning freefall skills too! THAT MAKES NO SENSE! I'm not saying that we shouldn't become safer canopy pilots. I'm saying that the USPA is wants us to find expert Canopy Pilots to learn from, but that anyone can teach freefall skills without proving their skill level. We should teach Freefall and Canopy skills the same. They are equally important.

I agree with what you said. I am an AFF, Static Line, and Tandem Instructor. I'm also a Coach Course Director and have seen a lot of D-license skydivers that can not skydive very well themselves much less know how to teach someone else how to skydive. Example= Joe Blow gets his/her A-License then goes out and makes 450-475 solo jumps, takes the tests and gets their D-license. That person can now go and make jumps with students without having proven to anyone that they have the Air/Teaching skills required to properly instruct. We read on these very forums everyday about how low-time skydivers jumping beyond their skill level get hurt. What will happen to their skill level now? The USPA just released a video(Fly to Survive) regarding canopy skills and how younger skydivers should look to experienced people like the PD Factory Team and other Canopy COACHES for advise. What about Air skills? I guess that Freefall skills aren't as important as Canopy skills. I am someone who until now has had the highest regard for the USPA and what they try to do for the sport of skydiving. It looks to me like the DZO's on the USPA Board are looking out for themselves and not for the future and safety of the skydiving industry. At this time I think we should all give a big round of applause to the USPA Board for taking the sport of skydiving back about 10 years in the safety and training of students.

I'll tell you the same thing I tell newer jumpers at my DZ. I think it is all about how your canopy skills are on what your flying. Are you a heads up pilot? how are your landings? If you are landing what you currently jump okay, then there is no reason you can't downsize to around a 210 or a 190. Another consideration is the size of the landing area at your DZ. What are your outs like. You have to feel okay landing off in someones backyard with whatever you jump.

I like the pics. Good job Sporto and Marshall.

This is addressed to everyone that has expressed their sympathy for the loss of my father. Thank you all for your support. It has made a rough time a little easier to handle. My father and I were closer than most. He was my best friend and my hero, as well as my father. Skydiving was our way to kick back and spend some quality time together at our happy place, even if we weren't on the same skydive/load. A lot of the time I was doing Tandems and he was teaching S/L students, but we were still together at the place we loved most. As everyone at Skydive Tecumseh knows, my mother and I have been in a serious state of shock since the accident. For the past week I've seriously debated taking a long break, away from the sport. Yesterday in honor of my dad, I took to the sky and made a jump. It felt strange with him not being there in body, but I felt him there in spirit. I know that he will be looking down on me every time I jump wishing we could be together. My mother and I have such a large extended family of skydivers. Everyone at Skydive Tecumseh has shown there love for us, and for Pops. It would have been impossible to get through this without them. Thank you to all of our Friends at Family. Blue Skies, David "junior" Ludvik & Bonnie Ludvik