bart

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.

I want to know where he got his frap hat from, it looks like he's been to a DR Who convention!!

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.

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

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!!!

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

Maybe we do Chuck, escpecially if you with all your experience can't imagine how we make it work

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

1. The reason people are responding to the newbie (and subsequently questioning his wisdom) is because he is making comments, just as people reply to you when you make them. 2. The newbie's opinion may be valid (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean), but let's be honest - the odds of anyone's position being accurate go way up with long term exposure to the environment of which he or she opines. 2 years and 60 jumps? Sorry, but that's not the guy I'll hang mine or a student's safety on. 3. Do I need to swoop to know it adds risk? Do I need a pilot's license to understand the physics of flight? No and no. You are correct that I have never worked with students using audibles. That's because there's no need to. It's not the physical act of training student on audibles that I disagree with. It's the concept of adding to the complexity of canopy control unnecessarily, and for that I don't need trial and error. The point is simple. Radios are available, reliable, and cheap. In the hands of a qualified operator, radios can be used to actually TEACH. Audibles beep. That's all, just beep. That's not teaching. 4. I do have experience with no-radio operations as I was a no-radio baby. And you know what? It worked just fine for every student I watched when I was training. "Be here at 1000, be here at 500." What the hell is so hard about that? Most importantly, you made the original post to solicit qualified (valid?) opinions, and then you argue with very qualified people who opine. If you like audibles on students, go for it. But why ask for input when you've clearly decided what is right? And finally - why have you not answered the most important question in this entire thread....I'll ask it again. Why the hell does the DZ just not buy some damn radios???????? 1. I have no problem with anyone questioning the newbie responses or mine for that matter, I believe the line I used in the other thread before I posted here was fire away!! But the comments where using his experience against my arguements, and directing it at me, that's doesn't really make sense. 2. Everyone opinion is still valid escpecially when it comes from there own experiences. 3. No you don't need to swoop to know it adds risk but as a swooper you will understand the risks and the reality much better as a participant than as an observer. The same way as if you have used the audible with students like we have you will see the implications first hand through experience, and not just through theory. We have not found it at all ads any complexity but rather it allows the student to receive information in there ear while they are training to do there canopy flight visually, remember we have no radios but I'll get to that!! The fact is reading your comments I think we actually agree on how a parachute should be flown we just teach it in a different way. 4. I'm glad you have experience without radios but the be here and there at that height way of teaching doesn't allow for different flight paths when the winds change. I'm sure you told me that yourself. I think its more important for the student to have good theoretical knowledge about effects of wind, descent rates etc, then they can make these decisions themselves. And as I have said before they do a good job, maybe students can handle a little more than you give them credit for, I know ours can, but it depends on the method and there education. And yes the big question, well I have actually answered this one before, but maybe not in reply to you chuck. The way the Federation here sees it is that if the radio fails the student needs to be able to land themselves anyway. So we prepare our student to be able to do just that. We just don't have the radio, they know when there parachute opens up it them that will get themselves down and they have a plan to do so. As I have also said I come from a place where we use radios and the thought of this scared me to death at the begining. But after seeing it work like this over the last 4 years I have seen it work very well. Our students are making decisions for themselves from day one. When they grow up and leave the nest they are independant and thinking canopy pilots. So to put it in the short for you we don't use radios because we feels it's better to spend more time teaching them about canopy flight and then allowing them to put in practice for themselves, you may not believe me chuck but its working and has done so here long before me and the audible!!

All devices fail I like your Idea of having the 2 as a backup but what if one of the analogs fails or reads incorrectly how will the student know which one is right?? I have seen far more analogs fail than digitals this does not mean that digital wont fail. But the devices are very reliable. A student is no more likely to do a radical turn on the beep as they are to do a radical turn when told on the radio, again as I have already written if you read the material, we don't train them to turn turn turn on the beeps. I'm not going to say to much more about this part I think I have written it 5 times already, but we train our students to land with out radios, to fly visually to look out for hazards and traffic, the audible just gives them some more information while there doing this. As for the last thing Our young friend isn't the one who has been conducting the trial, he didn't start the thread. However his opinion like everyones is valid, but for sure all our opinions are valid. For sure interpreted in conjuction with the left hand column. Why your comparing his experience with my thread and not my experience I'm not really sure. I really dislike talking about the whole jump number experience thing, for sure it's important to have a solid background and experience when discussing these things but the I have more jumps than you kind of fades when you have instructors all with years and 1000's of jumps training students. So If your into reading the left column you would see I'm not a new comer either. Chuck may have lots of experience (I also read the left column) and I totally respect that, but does he have experience with these devices and students?, does he have experience training students to fly parachutes with out the use of radios?. I'm gathering from his responses that the answer is no. Here we have experience with both and plenty of experience with training students with out the use of radios!! I'm not theorising here, I'm actually communicating results from what we have actually done in the field. As I said the audible thing is really new for us but its working. oh and no offence taken

Full disclosure, I haven't read the entire thread. That aside, I think you might need them, because there is a jumper who started a thread called 'Flarrrrring' (or something like that), in which they describe their trouble with canopy control, they might have even been injured on a bad landing, and they go on to say the DZ does not use radios, but just started offering digital altimeters and audibles to their students. Is this your DZ? In some cases, this being one of them, the instructor is not the one who get's to say what does or does not work, it's the student. It's like a chef being told the food tastes bad by a customer, no matter what the chef thinks, the person the meal was made for didn't like the taste. Beyond that, the radio is the better training tool by far. Provide all the ground training you normally do, and then provide modern, reliable radios. They'll work 99% of the time or better. The radio allows you to give real-time advice and training to the students during their canopy flight. They also allow you to give real time advice when conditions change and the student would be better served not following their pre-determined flight plan, and using an alternate plan. A radio also allows you to tailor the amount and type of help each jumper gets according to their needs. A smart, heads-up jumper who seems to do well might need little to no assistance by jump 3, while a dim-witted or more timid jumper might need guidance up through jump 10. Each person is different, and the radio work well for all of them. You can arugue the semantics of the 'best' training method all day long, but you cannot argue the safety enhancement by being able to talk to jumpers under canopy. As we all know, just opening a parachute does not guarantee safety or survival, and there is no way to replace the keen insight of an experienced jumper on the ground who's keeping an eye on the entire situation. They see the student, other canopies, weather conditions in the LZ, approaching aircraft, or other hazzards that may have arisen in the LZ. To expect a student to be aware of, and capable of handling all of the above is asking too much. While a student might do well on their own if faced with unexpected problems, the better choice is that they get through it with help from the ground and they increase their chances for landing without incident. You may find out later on that they had no idea of the problem, or no idea how to handle it, and maybe you come to the conclusion that skydiving isn't the sport for them, but that's much better than finding out by loading them into an ambulence with a broken leg or worse. I would never suggest that radios are a bad idea, its just we don't use them here, in fact they never have. If the radio failed then the student needs to be able to look after themselves anyway, we work hard at making sure they understand what this involves before they go up on there first jump. The program we run has worked well and the audible is just an addition to that. As I have already said it's important the way you use them, the way you brief your students. If a radio is 99 percent reliable then the audible is just as reliable as far as its function is concerned. Perhaps even more, the devices we use actually have 2 components that read the altitude inside the single device ie the device is designed with a back up inside it. Also the device does store charge on the way up so once your at 1000 ft the device has enough charge to work on the way down. But as we know all devices can fail so we don't teach or students to rely on it. Just as you would brief a student on there planned flight if they had no radio we brief them as if they have no audible and what to do. The difference for us is we have been doing this for years anyway. The Flaring for sure is the most perplexing problem for any student. That's why we follow this process and always have with comprehensive de-briefs with students about there flare height. As far as the Flaaaaaaring thread, if this is one of ours I'm not sure but I would like to know. We have had several girls this year who were short with short arms. The problems have been with there flaring not one with the height of there flare but rather with there strength or technique with how they are pulling the toggles down. In the begining I know for one in particular she was pulling down the toggles with her arms to wide and just couldn't finish the flare, we fixed this by briefing her to keep her arms closer to her body and she could then finish. This can't be fixed with a radio either but only by de-briefing the landing itself. No teaching system is perfect, there are pros and cons with every system. I'm happy now after the last 4 years here the one we use is very good. And it produces independent student capable of making there own decisions landing on or off the DZ. The audible has just been added to see if we can improve the way we deliver our program, and the results are encouraging but is early days yet. I would just like to here from someone who can tell me they are a bad Idea because they ACTUALLY USED them and ACTUALLY FOUND something negative about it, NOT JUST THOUGHT about it. We have already been through that process put it into practice and its had a positive effect.

I totally agree that flying a parachute is something that needs to be learned visually. Im curious were you ever trainned on radios or another form of TA like an arrow?? We don't have any of these where we are. Our students are briefed to land and fly on visuals. We use the audible to give them some extra info about there height and decent rate so they can focus on learning to fly visually without using there altimeter. It allows them to see what the appropriate heights look like when they have never seen them before. What the hell is up with you people? You're trying to tie and untied shoe with a motorized, remote-controlled, double-whizbang doodad. Just get some damn radios, already. Geez. oh damn radios so dang was a typo??? ha ha ha seriously chuck we don't need them!!!! As I was saying our students do a great job without the radio and its been done here for years we are just now using another piece of technology to help us train them better and it's working well here what ever you say it doesn't effect our results. I like the way our students are independent making there decisions from day one, The audible doesn't make decisions for them it doesn't pull down the toggles it just gives them information they can use. What ever methods Instructors use it comes down to the way they are applied the teaching and the briefing thats the important part not the device itself. I guess the guys that use to use an arow for TA might call your dang or damn radio a whizbang doodad too!!! If your students are already doing "just fine" without radios, they don't need audibles. You pro-audible guys are now talking in circles. Again Chuck we I will again disagree, the students we have do a good job without the radio the way we train them, the audible now only just introduce is assisting the process. That's the point Chuck, sorry dude no circle there. Rather just a new addition to a solid training program. Its working, that's also the point. I mean if you think it's a bad Idea then obviously you will never use it, that's cool with me Chuck, I was just letting people know we have actually used the device and the effect has been positive!!! Of course this is provided the right education methods are used. So when you THINK its a bad Idea we have seen from ACTUAL USE it is not.

exactly, cheers Pilfly

I totally agree that flying a parachute is something that needs to be learned visually. Im curious were you ever trainned on radios or another form of TA like an arrow?? We don't have any of these where we are. Our students are briefed to land and fly on visuals. We use the audible to give them some extra info about there height and decent rate so they can focus on learning to fly visually without using there altimeter. It allows them to see what the appropriate heights look like when they have never seen them before. What the hell is up with you people? You're trying to tie and untied shoe with a motorized, remote-controlled, double-whizbang doodad. Just get some damn radios, already. Geez. oh damn radios so dang was a typo??? ha ha ha seriously chuck we don't need them!!!! As I was saying our students do a great job without the radio and its been done here for years we are just now using another piece of technology to help us train them better and it's working well here what ever you say it doesn't effect our results. I like the way our students are independent making there decisions from day one, The audible doesn't make decisions for them it doesn't pull down the toggles it just gives them information they can use. What ever methods Instructors use it comes down to the way they are applied the teaching and the briefing thats the important part not the device itself. I guess the guys that use to use an arow for TA might call your dang or damn radio a whizbang doodad too!!!

Well that's just dumb. Get some dang radios and you won't have the problem to begin with. Yes, I'm brilliant. That's why they put up with me. No Chuck I disagree, as I have already said they are trained to fly on there own and that's what they do. When I first got here it scared me to death, but with the program we run from what I have seen in the last 4 years we don't need them either. Our students do a great job without the radio. We added the audible to give them some extra info, but it is just a guide. We thought we would try some new technology to see if it could help us train them better and our results are encouraging.

I totally agree that flying a parachute is something that needs to be learned visually. Im curious were you ever trainned on radios or another form of TA like an arrow?? We don't have any of these where we are. Our students are briefed to land and fly on visuals. We use the audible to give them some extra info about there height and decent rate so they can focus on learning to fly visually without using there altimeter. It allows them to see what the appropriate heights look like when they have never seen them before.

So, great. You're teaching them how to land and at ONE DZ. As long as they stay at home they're good to go. The ground reference can be used anytime, anywhere. You go to 600ft for base at some places, in some wind conditions, you'll be hosed. Actually pops we see that as quite the opposite. The back of the landing area is actually just the down wind side, so it actually applys to either end which in turn translates to any landing field for any wind conditions. I'm actually at a loss as to how you could come to that conclusion!! We train our students to be able to land anywhere because where we jump we do lots of off DZ jumping and in all the years I have been jumping I have never had to fly past the back of my landing area, (that's the down wind side just so you understand) on or off the DZ!!!, thats actually when you do get caught out!!

I like to know who are the ones staring at altimeters in the pattern. It helps me to know which ones aren't paying attention at critical times and helps with avoiding them. Exactly why the audible, while still giving the information about hieght to the student while there new to canopy flight allows them to look around for you!!