D11281

"Guidance only" may be the current position but I remember when BSR stood for Basic Safety RECOMMENDATIONS.

I think Airspeed just started jumping Firebird rigs. That's a pretty solid endorsement to me.

Over the years, I've taught somewhere over 2,000 FJ students, with only a very few, maybe 5 or 6, not being allowed to jump (solo). I say solo parenthetically because in the very old days, tandems were not available as an option. Some examples: One guy was obviously mentally ill. Seriously. When advised that he would not be cleared to jump, he pulled from his wallet a letter from President Jimmy Carter (I said it was LOONNGG ago) thanking him for some artwork he had contributed to the White House. It was his feeling that this lent him the impramatur of the Office of the President in this matter. He was sorry to go over our heads but he was intent on making this jump! Another, some year later, was a woman i offered the eoptions of sitting through the FJC again or doing a tandem. She opted for the tandem but was really quite irate that I would limit her in this way. A very good friend of mine was the TM and he related the story later. Immediately on exit, she began to violently flail around and generally freak out. Soon, she grabbed the handle and dumped them at ~11 grand. She then started puking all over herself and him for the next 10 thousand feet. He was PISSED and not very grateful for my referral. I have not had any regrets about the few times where I refused to clear someone to jump. I have, however, regretted some of the times that I've had serious concerns about someone but let them go anyway, most likely because I don't want to be the bad guy who refuses someone something they really, really want to do. On one such occasion, the guy ignored all radio instruction and flew into a quite large tree ending up about 25 feet off the ground. He then cutaway. He wound up with only some scratches and scrapes but I know I had let this student down. Also the DZO and other interested parties. My position is that an Instuctor's role is more than teaching and educating students. A very large portion of that role is in the area of supervision and risk management. Despite what the waiver's say, students are not capable of assessing and managing their own relative risks due to insufficient information and experience. If, as an instructor, you've never come across a student that you thought was outside the limits of acceptable risk, maybe you haven't dealt with enough students. Or maybe you're not doing one of the hardest part of the job. BB

That looks pretty much just like the factory bag I got with my new X-210 in a Security Alpha system in 1984. BB

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