Kingkong

So wich DZ would be the closets from Jackson, WY? Ogden in Utah? Will do my best to get to the Lost Prarie boogie. /O

I'm gonna be spending some time in Wyoming (Jackson) this coming july. I'm really looking forward to this trip, but got a bit disappointed when I couldn't find any DZ:s listed in Wyoming. No skydivers up there, or what? Where should I go to get a few jumps in before I go back home? All suggestions appreciated... BSBD /O

Yes, the sample is small, but there's still a lot of intersting facts to be learned from it. So far, I haven't read anything better or more accurate on the subject. /O.J

Check this one out: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16039597&query_hl=1 A very good article written by an experienced skydiver & MD. /O.J

QuoteBrian Germain was relating a very similar story this weekend just gone though, in the story he told, the pin stabbed through the bridle before pulling out of the closing loop, resulting in a total. The jumper in question failed to identify the cause of the total and so, one reserve repack later, had another total . The jumper Brian was relating to was me. The incident happened a few years ago at my home DZ in Sweden. Me and my team were being coached by Colon Berry for a few days, and were doing back-to-back jumps all day long. After pulling my pc (Vector III rig, BOC with at normal killine PC) on the second jump of the day, I immediately felt that something was wrong and that i had a total. So with out much hesitation, I cut away & pulled my reserve. As the reserve was deploying, the main bag fell out of the container. I managed to get hold of it wit my foot and held on to it all the way down. Since we'd payed a lot of money for bringing a coach from the US all the way to Sweden, I wanted to continue jumping a.s.a.p. So I just threw my rig to one of the riggers at the DZ and asked for a quick re-pack, and continued jumping with a borrowed rig. At the time, I thought the total was caused by a horseshoe mal or something like that - I didn't even think about checking the bridle to my main. And neither did my rigger (who btw still is my favourite rigger ). An hour later, I got my rig back - and on the next jump I had a total again. Needles to say, that freaked me out a bit, so we took a time out from jumping and sat down with the rigger to try an figure out what the problem was. I remember Colon (who saw the 2nd incident from the ground) saying "you looked like a tandem, dude... you had a drouge!"). After a while my rigger noticed a small hole in the bridle to the main. And lo & behold... the pin fit neatly into that hole! This is what we think happened: when packing, I always used to place the pin with the tip sticking out on the right side of the bridle, curving upwards (smiley). When i pulled my PC. the tip of the pin went over the bridle - and then straight through it when the PC stretched the bridle. These days, I always place the pin with the tip sticking out on the left side of the bridle & curved downwards (sad mouth). After the incident, I called RTW in DeLand and told them about the incident, and they said that they'd never heard anything like it before. BSBD, /O.J

Do you know what they're classifying as a "student"? 77% is a lot higher than I would've expected. Uhm... sorry. My fingers were faster than my brain on this one; here's what the report says: "Fatalities breakdown by percentages, against jump made by each category, in 2002 in 27 countries only (excluding Czechrepublic, Netherlands, New Zeeland, Spain, Sweden and USA, as the percentage of jumps/category cannot be ascerted for these countries). Students 77% of jumps (!) 30% of fatalities Intermediates 9% of jumps, 15% of fatalities Experts 13% of jumps, 56 (!) of fatalities" (Mental note to self: think before writing!) Sorry that I mesed that one up. The other figuerres should be correct, though. I belive "a student" is anyone who is not a A, , B , C , D... (etc) licenceholder. BSBD, /O.J

As far as I know, you can't get them online. The report was distributed at the IPC coference in Lisbon, Portugal last week. /O.J

I've just read the new 2002 safety & AAD reports from the IPC Technical & safety committee - pretty interesting stuff, especially after all the threads about "safe" or "not safe" in this forum... The results in the 2002 report are based on information (some in exact numbers, some in estimates) from 33 countries (including the US) all over the world. In 2002 a total of 357155 skydivers from 33 countries made 5769010 jumps. 73 of those jumps ended in fatalities. Wich means an average of 79028 jumps/fatality. 77% of the fatalities were students, 9% were intermediates, 13% were experts. The biggest group of fatalities (33%) was in the category "fast canopies", followed by "other landing errors" at 19%. The third largest group (16%) was "no activation or too low activation of the main parachute". By careful estimation, it appears that 94% (!) of the fatalities happened with the jumper having at least one good parachute on his or her back. 60% of the fatalities occurred after the successful deployment of the main parachute. Overall, 66 out of 73 fatalities "may have been caused by human error by skydivers". In the last chapter of the report, the technical & safety committee make the following conclusion (this is for you, Ron... :) "With human error being such a major factor in skydiving fatalities, the attention of all those involved in coaching and training, at international, national, regional and local levels should be focused on this issue." Blue skies & soft landings, O.J