Liemberg

Actually, that is what's in place in my country. Apart from 25 freefall jumps, they should also have 10 landings within 15 meters from the target. And they are supposed to make five jumps, with a compulsory program, solely dedicated to flying their canopies. I find that implementation is a bit of a pain in the ***. I could very well live with the 10 jumps within 15 meters, provided that it was up to me to distinguish between 'landing' and 'arriving'... ("Congrats with the well executed PLF at the right spot! The secondary goal however is to also keep your brand new salmon pink jumpsuit in mint condition...") If it were up to me, 10 consecutive LANDINGS within 15 meter*) would be mandatory, before any downsizing could take place... *) With of course freedom for the instructor to waive the 'breach of a series' when the student, through no fault of his own, had to balance his physical integrity or that of his fellow jumpers against completing his series... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

For you or me? Nothing probably. But I can imagine an AFFI making a few objections when his STUDENT appears for the jump wearing 'true aviators Ray Ban' sunglasses. You can't see if the lights are on, let alone if there's anybody home... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Thrillseekers, them limey's!

One of them used to work for me... I'll never forget the occasion where he grabbed a young & cute female passengers hand to walk of with her towards the plane and another TM (who had a HUGE and not-so-cute male passenger) looked 'puzzled' for just one second, then grabbed his male passengers hand and followed them, saying:"Ah, so this is how it is done!". The whole DZ started to laugh AND we had it on video!

What strikes me as funny is that I'm pretty sure that riggerrob (like me) can arm and disarm a sentinel without having to look at the manual (though I'm not 100% sure about myself for it has been a while...) Can you? (BTW: Rob is 100% right about students not disarming it under canopy, though I do remember something about water landings...first hand experience sinks in best, don't you think? - mine had fired, when I surfaced... AND: contrary to what was said in the above link you found, we used to arm them on the ground, prior to every students jump that was made... AND: Do you know why I NEVER would throw away a pulled reserve ripcord? Because my instructor is going to beat the shit out of me if I do... )

Tandem Instructor Examiner?

Ask in the CRW forum. They do it for fun. (i.e. build a stack, transition to side by side, grab each others foot, hold firmly, transition to downplane... I got scared at 500ft... on another occasion it broke up earlier and I was left with a tight grip on someone else's shoe... Your mileage may vary....) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

I'm not so sure about 'more', but with 'better' you are definitely on the right track... And though at times 'dead cargo' seems appealing, if you are not into interacting with other human beings and therefore not good at communicating what works and what doesn't, 'interesting times' are guaranteed when you start out doing tandems. Breaking news: They are alive! They are going to feel you breathe...they observe you as you observe them. Rumor has it that some of them are actually able to think...

And if I may add: especially when she says that * I * hit the nail on the head!

Q: What is worse than a heavy passenger? A: A heavy passenger without arm muscles... In case of 'super sick' as a rule I don't jump - my business terms say I can do that. Should anything in that nature happen anyway MY PLAN is to give the student the toggles and point him towards land... When thinking about this whole situation and what one could do about it, I was reminded of a fellow jumper who passed away recently. He was jogging with his brother, said he didn't feel well, sat down and died. AFAIK he passed a recent medical test for parachute jumping. He was in his fourties... I have to weigh that against an island that is only 3 miles wide, with a DZ only a mile from the surf. Since there are cases where a student opening at altitude could get us in the water AND I don't want to change my routine all the time, I would never do that on a first tandem. Most of them are first tandems... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

* bump * Not that it is of particular interest, but I got an email about recent developments around this rig. It reads: "Bob made a couple of jumps with my complete rig + parachute and says (without prejudice) that the whole thing turns significantly to the left. Then he put my chute in his own rig and it flew straight. Then he put HIS chute in the rig and it was flying straight...{/} This surprised him..." Needles to say that Bob's own chute is smaller and more heavily loaded than the parachute in 'the suspicious combination'... Sound advice (and I told him) but apparently kind of impractical to execute... (Hey - we should play true scientists and go for the 'double blind test' with 2 complete rigs, not telling beforehand which one may have a problem AND a go-between who is left in the dark also... "Put your evaluation papers in the envelope and seal it"

1. Knowing what a good canopy looks like isn't going to help you in any way if you are not able to cut away and pull the reserve. When you jump with me, I sure as hell am not going to tell you. 2. Knowing where and how the brakes are stowed wont do you any good either - if your not an urang utang. Your arms are too short... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

IMO? None, whatsoever other than "pull right - turn right, pull left - turn left." There is no way of knowing what happened there In Real Life from behind my computer screen but in order to steer, if nobody hands them to you - you first have to reach the toggles! When a tandempassenger of mine steers, he/she usually starts after I have presented the toggles in front of his/her face. In MY breefing this is emphasized as "I'll show the toggles in front of your face. You grab the lower portion. This is the only thing YOU get in your hands, during the jump. WAIT therefore untill I do so and don't start reaching behind your back..." Why? It has happened in the past that a student grabbed behind her, probably looking/feeling/ searching for the toggles. She found and pulled the cutaway handle, killing both herself and her tandemmaster... Though what tombuch said sounds good in theory, and I do like to show a few things while under canopy to the passenger, it doesn't go any further than 'monkey training' - they wouldn't know where the toggles were on opening to begin with and IMHO couldn't reach them even if their life depended on it. Their best chance is a good dose of old fashioned luck and a docile canopy left at half brakes. Just picture a passenger still firmly attached at the hips, trying to reach BOTH toggles and steering the pair out of harms way... NOT! Recently, when a videoman had a midair with the tandempair on opening and the tandemmaster was killed in the collision, after the landing the passenger freed himself from the harness and managed to reach a nearby farm for help... This incident suggest we should revisit the way we deem tandemmasters 'physically fit' to do their task... (You may also want to notice that the press 'sort of frowned upon' the age of the tandemmaster in question (69!), while the DZO told everybody about the excellent shape this senior citizen was in...) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Sorry if I am 'touching scar tissue' - didn't mean to. Of course, that is the focal point for me too and I can't count the times when I have seen someone turn up in the first shining new jumpsuit and we (my staff and I) made ironic remarks about their choice of colours ("Yellow and Light Blue? Nice!") Yes, we are insensitive brutes - but after they stained it and washed it we DO help them with avoiding a repeat on a weekly basis... If I had my way then for every student in the first 50 jumps every other landing had to hurt a little, if not physically, then at least "poke their pride a bit" - I find that it helps to get their undivided attention on the most important part of every jump. I could speculate what would have happened had you made your first 50+ jumps under my guidance, but in the end that means nothing, just speculation. I make it a point though that there is no place for these things at my DZ and find it hard to believe that you 'would have gotten past me' had you started out at my place with such a bad landing technique as you say you used to have. You may not have LIKED me for it, but that's another matter...

Funny thing, human memory. I do remember that Bill Booth said he feared that the minirings (plus mini-risers) had too little margin of error to be succesfully produced consistingly by the parachute industry as it was at the time minirings and -risers appeared for the first time. IMO history (with a load of incidents involving torn risers, stuck rings etc.) has proven him right. What else is new? O, and by the way, I find that your position on what the AAD ought to be borders trolling... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

That's why I happily repeat it free of charge again and again, especially for those who appear to have missed it, the first time around.

Well then, what can I say other than 'sometimes they don't, but sometimes they do' - and since you asked ("you are certainly entitled to tell others your opinion of that particular course or instructor. Hopefully you will also tell the person who taught the course!"), here goes: Although I didn't attend one of your courses as such, I attended a lecture you gave several years ago to the Dutch instructors during their annual meet. I know this isn't completely fair, since the nature of a lecture in a classroom before an audience of 40+ foreign instructors is a whole different ballgame than spending a whole day with a presumably smaller group, filming their landings and giving them one on one critique, but it was presented to us as 'sort of' the outline of the courses you give. It is certainly possible that what you do has evolved since that time, in which case I urge you not to take offense in what I'm about to say. Now what is it what I remember as the most striking feature of that lecture? I distinctly remember that three quarters of the lecture you told us basic stuff that I teach on an almost weekly basis during static line instruction at my own place. You even showed a picture with a wind line, a holding area and a landing pattern that looked "extremely familiar"... (It is in the course book my students get during their first jump course...) In short: the package is shining, but the content is not (or shouldn't be) new. In that same course book that my students get there's a diagram of the forces involved and the difference in behavior of a parachute in straight flight versus a parachute in a radical turn. Believe me when I say that I'm almost religious when it comes to explaining this 'piece of valuable information' to my students... (Can you say "ad nauseam"?). My static-line students are told from jump one that at any given height ("H") they will lose that height at a faster pace when turning and when that loss of height is called "Lr" for "loss of height in radical turn" and "Lb" for "loss of height in braked turn" for the same height, weight, canopy and weather conditions the following is always true: Lr > Lb and H - Lr < H - Lb. (Verbalized: "You will always lose more of your height in a radical turn than in a braked turn...") But now ("here comes trouble") after a couple of jumps and "watching the big boys" my students want the know "the secret formula" which is aimed at finding point P. Point P? Point P is situated at that exact height above the ground where H - Lr = 1,5 meter (they want to go screaming through the electronic gate, after making a radical turn...) Point P however is somewhat elusive. Rumor has it that it only reveals itself after 1000+ jumps, at different places in different weather and even than, experts have been known to miss it and increasingly smaller canopies complicate the search... The consequences of perceiving point P at *true P-3 meters* and finding out about the miscalculation after the fact need not to be explained here, nor the influence that smaller canopies and higher wing loads usually have on the grim outcome. Though through no fault of you or any other canopy coach, it is a fact that some students are under the illusion that attending a canopy course will speed up the learning curve so much that it installs in them the ‘esoteric knowledge’ they need to find point P and land a 2.2 loaded Velocity screaming through the electronic gate after a 270 degree turn with only 100 jumps to their credit. I and other instructors should recognize their accomplishments. They took a canopy course and got a certificate to prove it! Well then, excuse me for being cautious, but I doubt very much that your course (or any others) has such a beneficial effect. They still will have to make the 1000+ jumps to practice, practice and practice - where the pursuit of safely finding point P ALL THE TIME could benefit a whole lot more, safety-wise, if it were only conducted over a large body of water... And here, from a safety point of view, the canopy course even becomes counterproductive IMHO if we end up with people who lack the practical experience but feel safe since they attended a course... At these forums here we end up with students discussing the 'famous life saving braked turn' (*cough*) and the fact that canopy coach A said to go to half brakes and lift one toggle 10 percent while canopy coach B proclaimed that you should go to 40 percent brakes and push down one toggle slightly - which is true? What do the experts say? Recent history meanwhile shows us once again that turning too radical too close to the ground can kill you, even on static line jump number 2... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

It does happen, but in this case it wasn't. He was just PARTLY following instructions about "no go area's" (runways, runwaythresholds, taxiways, parking), mixing up priorities... He ended up avoiding a nice empty pasture designated to park planes only to bust himself up in the next lot where occasionally a plane taxies. Actually, he was trying so hard to do everything *right* that with a bit more lenience towards himself he would have been OK. Indeed, the call for beer (at my place the penalty for every landing outside the designated landing zone) can be counterproductive - though it is never on MY mind when I'm under a parachute... For me as the DZO it's easy: an average of 3 cases per year is calculated into the lifttickets as unforseen expences, so they end up jubilantly drinking their own beer...

And the trouble with us old timers is probably that we are inclined to take "the obvious" for granted. More times during my skydiving career than I care to remember, I have seen people do something very stupid and end up in the hospital. Yet in the heath of the moment it wasn't as clear for them as it was for me, that they were acting stupid and dangerous... None of them "femured" on purpose - femuring hurts. Examples? A guy who after a bad spot gets so fixated on flying back to the place where he's supposed to land that he ends up turning too radical, too close to the ground. Any time during the last minute of the descent, he could have turned against the wind and land safely. If he had turned 10 seconds earlier he would have walked away. Now he femured close to the landing site. Another guy who is so fixated with landing against the (almost non existing) wind that he ends up turning too radical, too close to the ground. If he hadn't finished the turn when it was clear to him that he was already too close, he would have walked away. Now he almost femured (as *luck* would have it he only tore off the bands in his knee joint...) Another guy who cracked two vertebra when avoiding the EMPTY airplane parking lot (parking lot = "forbidden landing area") People who - when not landing into the wind - again and again stretch out one arm "in the direction from where the ground is coming too fast", only intensifying the effect. People who don't flare 'automatically' with equal toggle pressure. People who don't 'hit the brakes / make a braked turn' when in the last part of the descent their landing area is obstructed. My problem is that it is always the same story - yet it has to be told again and again, to different people... So, what is obvious for me, apparently isn't obvious for people who started later in the game. Also, when I'm preferring to be rather safe than sorry (and tell *the obvious* twice or more), I get the "Are you becoming senile? You told that yesterday and the day before" response once in a while. If that happens twice in a row, I'll conclude that I should shut up and let the ground take care of "further education"... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Now go and humbly apologize to skratch (I thought all you kid's had google nowadays...)

Then there are the few of us who are well aware that cutting away first might also lead to an entanglement, yet choose to do so because this simplifies the decision proces AND the odds of no entanglement are slightly better when you cut away first. YMMV "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

umm, I thought that nowadays dissing ment disrespecting. Maybe seen the wrong movies then...

Since I'm not a religious person, I'll skip the gods and go back to the definition (and if I'm allowed maybe Jan's whole point of discerning two different situations that would appear to be the same if you find yourself in any of them): Is there a pin still through the loop, keeping the container closed OR is the container open? I think you would have to stretch the imagination pretty far to come up with a pull-out pilotchute in tow WITH A CLOSED CONTAINER (i.e. the pin still in place...) With the throw out the distinction Jan makes /proposes is even more important because on opening of the reserve the tension in the main container lessens as we all know... With throw out PC in tow I have seen several of them with the pin still in place upon landing. I have also seen bags 'not leaving their tray' (i.e. container open) That alone leads me to the conclusion Jan has a valid point. And for the time being we might also forget about scenario's with the pouch on the misrouted bellyband (almost extinct IMO - if anyone still jumps it then let him carefully revise his procedures and not be influenced by this discussion - the same goes for legstrappouches...) Seems to me she is not 'dissing' them but asking attention to fallacies in reasoning. I'm not familiar with base equipment other than that it seems to me you have a very short time and only one option, which is Roger Ramjet's original solution... For the time being I think it would be wiser to keep baserigs altogether out of this discussion, were it alone since most of them don't have a cutaway + reserve option... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Ah - but that is where you are wrong! Why? Because of the angle of your arm; where normaly IF the PC get's pulled from your hand your arm would be stretched sideways under an angle of roughly 90 degrees and the pull force is in an upright direction (even so much that you shouldn't be mixing pull-out and high loaded canopies that react 'surprisingly' with slight unstability on opening) here the thing gets blocked almost immediately. Lots of people have proven my point by (in the pre-AAD times) losing grip on the pud and spending the rest of their life trying to find it back, somewhere between the corner of the container and the grommets. I'm certain they wouldn't have done that if they thought their container to be open with the pilotchute out. (Mind you - post jump gear inspection would almost always reveal 'pud out of place, closing loop of main broken, the other two handles in place...') BUT (as this is spinning off topic fast into pro's and con's of opening systems) I'm with MakeitHappen on the PC in tow subject: When you have thrown a pilotchute and are not stopped in your track towards terra firma, you would have no way of knowing if your container is closed (pin holding everything in place) or open (container itself 'clinging' onto the main bag) In situation one you can get away with silver only most of the time, situation two might require cut-away first. Cutting away first takes one extra second - if you wasted that second already in freefall then in the next life I suggest you make it a habit of opening slightly higher... And besides that anyone ever experienced or even heard of a pin seperating from the pull-out? "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Trial and error 101 1. Pack your pull-out the regular way (i.e. with the pilotchute inside the container losely on top of the main bag) 2. NOW close the container with a temporary locking pin in stead of the straight pin that is attached to the base of your pilot chute... 3. Gear up. Lay down on a creeper, grab your pud and pull...