bart

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  • Main Canopy Size
    79
  • Reserve Canopy Size
    98

Jump Profile

  • Home DZ
    Mission Beach
  • License
    F
  • License Number
    670
  • Licensing Organization
    APF
  • Number of Jumps
    7000
  • Years in Sport
    16
  • First Choice Discipline
    Freeflying
  • Second Choice Discipline
    Wing Suit Flying

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  • AFF
    Instructor
  • Tandem
    Instructor
  1. I've heard it to... from someone who was in the states recently in the area of said tunnel. Also heard that someone was flying in the tunnel and had just got out of the flight chamber before the fan fell and went through the net!!! Would be an interesting story if it was true.
  2. I want to know where he got his frap hat from, it looks like he's been to a DR Who convention!!
  3. Quote Nope. Calling you a liar is an accusation on your behavior, not an attack on your person. I've explained why but your not sharp enough to understand, I can only be a liar if I'm not telling the truth, since I am telling he truth and you have no proof I'm lying then it's a personal attack. Quote Changing the language won't change the facts any more than your previous efforts to steer the conversation away from those facts did. You initially said your federation advocates NOT using radios, then later balked and said they simply don't address the issue. Your right it doesn't change the facts, The use of radios is not in there, but the change of language means you wont be able to read it. And they do address the issue with a comprehensive canopy flight lessons that allow us to operate without them. I've also said that before so I refer back to my last statement last post. I'm not balking on anything, the Federation here doesn't use radios, student training by the book, there book does not include the use of radios for TA. It's simply just not in the book. How can a federation advocate the use of radios if there use is not mentioned in the training manual?? I've also said that before so I refer back to my last statement last post. As far as steering the conversation. The tread I posted was about the use of digital altimeters and audibles, the only thing I have steered towards is the origional topic, while you try to hijack it and steer it away QuoteI'm a sharp enough tool to comprehend the difference. I think you have proven to me chuck your not very sharp at all.
  4. Actually chucky you haven't called anything although if you believe that well I guess it might be good for ya ego so go ahead... I've answered all that chucky boy if you don't get it then well I guess your just an idiot, sorry dude but I don't respect dickheads Well now that's professional. Hey Mods, ya wanna take of this personal attack? And calling me a liar isn't a personal attack Really chuck, if a organisation has no mention of student radios in it's training manual how can it advocate there use?? your really not the sharpest tool in the shed are you? I mean we all get it you can't train a student to fly a canopy without your radio, but we can and why did I know you were going to cry to ya mommy
  5. Whoa! Don't get ahead of yourself yet. I didn't say I agreed with anything you're doing. I said it sounds like....and since you refuse to document your claims, I have no real reason to believe anything you say. I'm with Chuck on the audible issue and the reluctance issue. Relax pops me old buddy it's not me getting ahead of myself I know ya don't agree with what we were doing I was only refering to the part about the ground course verses first jump course, wow you old timers need to take a chill pill!!!
  6. First you said your federation advocates NOT using radios because (your words) "students would just have to land without one if it failed". In this post you say radios aren't part of the handbook. So were you lying when you said your federation has a position on the issue or were you lying when in this post you say they don't? BTW, I'm not talking sh*t about you. I'm just calling you out....mate. Actually chucky you haven't called anything although if you believe that well I guess it might be good for ya ego so go ahead... I've answered all that chucky boy if you don't get it then well I guess your just an idiot, sorry dude but I don't respect dickheads
  7. Just curious: are the audibles used only as long as radios would have been used? I.e., after a certain point (usually, once they graduate AFF) the student goes without them? I'm not an instructor (nor very experienced) but it seems to me that one useful function of radios is getting students through that phase where they have limited experience flying a landing pattern. I.e., at a time they have little or no experience visually judging altitude, little or no experience controling a canopy, little or no experience orienting themselves to their ground picture, and when they might also be close to being overwhelmed by all the other unfamiliar aspects of the experience. Since the audibles are useless for one important function that radios allow (helping the student learn to time their flare), I'm wondering when you think it is appropriate to wean them off of it. I.e., when exactly do you feel they are "grown up and ready to leave the nest"? BTW, on my AFF level-1 jump I had a long spot, and barely made it back to the LZ after flying a direct line the whole way, and was unable to land following the preplanned landing pattern. (The other AFF-1 student who exited before me landed off.) I landed safely and uneventfully by being directed in by radio to do an opposite-turn pattern putting me on the preplanned final leg (with somewhat abbreviated downwind, base, and final legs due to my lack of altitude). An audible would have been less than useless for that jump, more likely to have distracted me than anything else. (And it probably would have been useless for the other student who landed off.) This is probably the most difficult one to solve, when is it time to take the Audible away. Some students nail the pattern on the first jump some it takes awhile to get it. For most part I think that most students who have progressed past the level 7 could be done with it for the canopy part. But then perhaps the hard deck indicator, the free fall alarm is then better served when they do there first jumps without an instructor present. We have allowed our students to keep using the audibles as they progress with there consolidation jumps. A few have also jumped without them as they approached there A licence and flown there canopies well. As far as the off DZ situation goes, every student is briefed on landing off as we all should be. They know if they can't make it back that they need to find an alternative. The audible can still assist them by letting them know there altitude and working out there decent rate while they find somewhere else to land. What I mean is still conveying info to them audibly while they fly with there eyes. The pattern remember is just a pattern and can be flown over any part of the planet, whats important is finding a safe place to land and making that decision as early as practically possible. Many injuries are caused by people fighting to make it back to the DZ and turning into wind at the last minute because they relised they can't make it back too late. They either turn to low, or put themselves somewhere that's not safe to land. An audible wont make you land anywhere on or off the DZ but it can give you some valuable info while your looking for somewhere to land.
  8. Thanks pops I apprieciate it, there are lots of really good instructors behind it, and we all work hard at it. I hope you read the post for Chuck and I hope it finally explains the whole thing. I think I have written enough on the "posting" subject now.
  9. Feel free to omit which federation you are with - just copy and paste the text from their documentation proving your claim. Or we could just open it up and ask everyone the question.....Does anyone know of a national skydiving organization that actually advocates NOT using radios on students? According to Mr. Secret Guy here, his "federation" advocates NOT giving students radios because (as he claims) "they will just have to land on their own if it fails"? Anyone? Anyone? Hell, while we're at it, does anyone know ANY national skydiving organization that advocates such a strategy????? I've been around quite a while and have seen a lot of interesting techniques, but not using radios because they might fail is a new one on me. I think he's lying to the entire forum, but I really want to give him every chance to prove me wrong about his repeatedly defended statement. Nice try again but still not gonna say where I am. You can call me a liar, Heck chuck you can call me susan if you want, I'm just not posting it. If you really want to know then you will just have to wait. It's not about being secret, it's about respecting the people I work with and the Federation that has given me the opportunity to work over here with the many student we have. I am very Fortunate to have found this place and it means alot to me. The Figures I quote are correct we have not only a solid program but great follow up awesome retention and a sports jumping scene that is just out of this world, so again you were right it really is something special. On the other hand mate... sorry but I have nothing to prove to you really. You have shown me very little respect chucky. You can think what you like, I know what I say is the truth. What you think about that matters little to me more than ever. But the more you talk shit about me then the more will rebound on you because student radios aren't part of the handbook. You might have been round for a long time but how much time have you spent out of the states?? Oh and just so you don't have to ask me again about it there is one small problem with me cutting and pasting from the hand book. For starters it does not exist in PDF. I could scan it but that would mean I would have to scan the whole section on training student canopy flight to prove that they don't mention the radio. But the biggest problem for you is you wouldn't be able to read it anyway because it doesn't exist in english. Which means as soon as I post it you would know where I am!!! But thats not what this is about and this tangent has gone on long enough.. When the reports are finished with the Federation then I hope someone will publish the whole report as well. But It's not up to me. . As I said this for me is about discussing AUDIBLES and DIGITAL ALTIMETERS, It's NOT ABOUT RADIO's, been here for 4 years I know we can operate with out them provided we educate our students in the right way. So anyone? anyone?
  10. That was a whole lot of typing for very little answer. So you can't produce the name of the federation or a copy of the text advocating not using radios. Just trying to keep us all honest here. Exactly... I couldn't have said it better but I'm being totally honest, I'm just not gonna bite on that one. I'll make it a little shorter this time for ya. Where I am and which Federation I work under is not the Topic, the use of Audibles and Digital Altimeters for students is The rest for me is irrelevant, and as you say I've typed enough about why. Bite on what? An honest question about a statement you made and then defended without citing the source? You lied. That's ok. Just be honest and admit it. People who make up sh*t up to try to win a debate are part of the problem with the sport. It's called misinformation and it can be deadly. But I know that doesn't matter to you anyway. No misinformation Chuck, nothing made up, I'm just not going to tell you the Federation I work under it's pretty simple really. I'm here to discuss instructor issues and training methods not politics!! Believe what ya like but there's Nothin Deadly about that!! And your right that doesn't really matter to me, politics that is not the truth The truth is always important
  11. That was a whole lot of typing for very little answer. So you can't produce the name of the federation or a copy of the text advocating not using radios. Just trying to keep us all honest here. Exactly... I couldn't have said it better but I'm being totally honest, I'm just not gonna bite on that one. I'll make it a little shorter this time for ya. Where I am and which Federation I work under is not the Topic, the use of Audibles and Digital Altimeters for students is The rest for me is irrelevant, and as you say I've typed enough about why.
  12. I don't remember saying anything about where you are, but I'd be interested in seeing a copy of your federation's guidelines (whatever country you are talking about) encouraging NOT using radios. You are apparently convinced that they advocate it, but I'm interested in seeing it for myself. Which federation is that????? Your right Chuck you never asked where I was but others have commented It's interesting whats happening down under, I just put that in so people aren't assuming that. Thats why I wrote "people" not "you" or "chuck". Sorry If you felt that was directed at you.
  13. Again I never disagree on the use of radios but I know we can do a good job without it. Again from your question, I would not say it if it wasn't true, but one thing that isn't true is that I'm in Australia. I'm not and never said I was. People assume that because I'm Australian. So it's not my National Federation it's someone elses. But as I have seen I agree with the method. Most AFF courses I have been involved with were done in one day with the student either jumping at the end of the day they started or first thing the next day. Putting people through this quick radio is a efficient option. As are tandem and I think doing a tandem with an instructor is probably the best way, having someone there with you not only for communication but takes lots of pressure of the student. But we don't work that way here. When people come here to do AFF they do not come for a first jump course they come to do an AFF course the whole 7 jumps. For sure we have a few drop out skydiving is not for everybody. And I mean very few. There is no such thing as the first jump course, they call it the ground school. That's because they not only come to do the first jump they come to do the whole course. They give up a week of there life to do so. They arrive on a friday night or early saturday. They begin there training on saturday morning and are being examined sunday evening. Jumping begins on monday, by tuesday evening they are usually finished easily by wednesday with the AFF and onto consolidation jumps. By the end of the week weather permitted they have enough jumps for an A licence. Our CI has signed of 150 A licences this year. This sounds fast and we do put them through fast but this year on average we have had one repeat jump for every 21 or so jumps. That's one repeat jump for every 3 students doing the whole course so I don't believe we have any quality loss either. We also follow them through with every aspect escpecially canopy control while they are doing there consolidations, but that goes with out saying. With a longer ground school it give people much more time to learn the canopy stuff, it's not like its just one 50 minute lesson. So yes chuck I think we do have some thing special here something very special indeed.
  14. Maybe we do Chuck, escpecially if you with all your experience can't imagine how we make it work
  15. The brand new unblemished N shiny audible can fail as well. And when it fails, the student has NO indication of it. A visual altimeter, whether analog or digital, will appear to be wrong. The needle falls off, or the needle stops, or the digits start going up, or stop going down, or the display goes blank or all the segments come on, or something. SOMETHING will give a clue that the device is not working. What clue is there when the audible fails? All this talk of students having weak skills really bothers me. It is NOT a solution to add a device, which can fail in many ways on its own, to compensate for students who are not yet ready to do what needs to be done to become a safe skydiver. I liken this to the problem faced by all the makers of aviation-certified GPS devices. A huge hurdle that the makers of certified GPS units faced was to be sure that the device told you when it had failed. Because without that clear indication, you won't be able to take the appropriate steps at the appropriate time. If we are going to use an audible for pattern guidance, the user needs to know when it has failed. For an experienced parachutist, he may be able to discern this without any help from the audible. He'll just see that something is not right, and he will use his other skills to execute a safe approach and landing. But the student has no ability to identify that the device has failed, and is literally left hanging. So, while I was trying to keep an open mind, I have to close it now. If the audible has no mechanism to unambiguously indicate failure, then it should not be used by a student. That's a good point paul. The devices we use as well as actually having 2 atlimeters inside them (meaning the device operates with a back up actually inside it) also hold charge when they get to 1000 feet. ie when it beeps at 1000 feet it has taken charge from the battery to be used for the alarms on the way down. If it doesn't beep then it wont function. When we use the audible it is simply briefed to the student as a guide not a rule. They have it so they can learn what the heights look like without having to look at there altimeter. It's hard for someone to begin there pattern at between 1000 to 900 ft if they don't know what that looks like. If they don't here the beep at 900 feet then they know its not going to work but they already have a plan. They have taught it this way here for years without the audible. The problem has been that students tend to rely on the altimeter to give them the heights no matter how much you tell them to do it visually. Atleast in the begining, I think they actually pick it up pretty quick with the proper de-briefing. The audible is an attempt to get them to focus visually while still receiving the information about there height. To me it's just about education and how you brief the student, for us it is proving to be a plus but not a crutch