skydived19006

I would eventually like to move to one of these cameras for HC video. I don't really like GoPro for HC video because there's no image stabilization. Last I recall seeing, the AS30 was restricted to a narrow view when the image stabilization was active.

That's awesome! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Perhaps we don't need that part of the BSR at all. Perhaps this alone takes care of it: "1. General [E] a. All student training programs must be conducted under the direction and oversight of an appropriately rated USPA Instructor until the student is issued a USPA A license." "direction and oversight" is a powerful phrase, and means a lot. It means the Instructor is going to tell them how to do it, and is going to check to make sure that it is done. We may currently be relying too much on the historical interpretations of Instructor (teacher) and Jumpmaster (supervisor on jump), (which effectively is now a Coach). All we really need to do is to insure that students are trained well, and that can be done in a wide variety of situations. I hope we get comments from some other people. I'll take a little time tomorrow and send a proposal to the S&T committee for exactly that change Gary. Good idea! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Craig, If you'd take a trip out here to Fly Over Land, you'd see that static line and IAD are alive and well! My opinion is that these decisions, like most decisions, are driven by economics. I don't believe that it's economical or good use or resources to send up 182 loads with one student. As it's not economical to loiter a Twin Otter over the DZ for multiple passes 4 minutes apart putting out static line students. On top of that, many small DZs would be very hard pressed to maintain enough AFF staff to make it workable. In the meantime Top, you could just have one of your buddies hang onto your PC (IAD) as you leave the airplane just for the fun of it! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I don't recall if anyone has requested a waiver to this. In general, if enough people contact the USPA Safety and Training committee about ironies, inconsistencies, and other issues with the way things are specified in the SIM, they might change it, or clarify it. Of course all instruction that a Coach does is supposed to be under some kind of supervision of an Instructor, but that supervision varies a lot. This rule states specifically "All ground training must be conducted by an instructor in that student’s training method,..." I would think that changing "must be conducted by" to "must be conducted under the supervision of an instructor..." would be a realistic and workable solution. I do agree that the level of supervision varies a whole lot. In reality I'd guess that most of the supervision that Coaches get amounts to answering any questions the Coach may have. Otherwise, at least once he's proven to be competent, he's pretty much doing his thing with casual oversight. How about one of these!? "must be conducted under the casual supervision..." "must be conducted under the perfunctory supervision..." "must be conducted under the cursory supervision..." Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

(5) All ground training must be conducted by an instructor in that student’s training method, until demonstrating stability and heading control prior to and within five seconds after initiating two intentional disorienting maneuvers involving a back-to-earth presentation. You're correct sammielu. Though when this rule was first changed, the Coaches were to be given instruction on a couple of things covered earlier in the progression, then they were to ground train as well, at least that's what I recall. That additional training was a condition required of me while operating under the waiver. In practicality, I'd guess that the vast majority of the ground training is also being conducted by the Coach. I see it as ironic that Coaches have the authority to run an FJC, save the exit, but can't run the ground training for the jumps that they'll supervise. This rule has an "E" waiverability, I wonder if anyone has bothered to submit the paperwork. Gary Peek might know, and if not could sure find out. Jen Sharp generally runs the Coach Courses for our people. I'd just bet that she would be willing to cover some of the earlier category stuff for the IAD/SL guys round these parts in her courses. Originally, the Coaches were to be given additional training once they'd completed their rating. It would be nice for the rule to more aligned with practicality and reality in this instance. Here's a thread regarding the waiver from 2006. I should have spent a little more time editing and spell checking, but typical of me. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2088205;search_string=coach%20waiver;#2088205 Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I'm sure there are plenty younger than me, But I'm 26 and starting doing tandems at 23. Some 500 +/- in that time. The others at the dz are upper 40's and I'll tell ya what, I don't know where they get their energy. By this spring Mike, two of the four of us will be over 50. It's not so much the tandems that wear me out. By Monday, I feel pretty much the same if I'd done 6 or 16 tandems over the weekend. It was still two 14 hour days, often in 100 plus heat. Doing the DZO bit, as soon as I sit down, something needs my attention. Rest in the airplane on the way to altitude! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

That was me but, no, not a DZO, just an C-E S/L I-E. Lots of resistance, and unfortunately I was not able to attend the meeting and explain things. For the first decades of this sport, "young jumpers" (100 jumps) could and did act as jumpmasters, safely putting out thousands of S/L students, but unlike today, were not allowed to do the training. That was ONLY done by an instructor. I now realize that in this day and age, anything pertaining to S/L operations needs a lot of explaining, as most skydivers (and board members) have no experience with this aspect of skydive training. I had a discussion a couple of years ago with my "then" regional director who was questioning me about AFF vs SL, as she knew I had both ratings. What she wanted to hear was that AFF was much more difficult for the instructor. What I tried to explain was that although AFF required more flying skills, S/L or IAD required better TEACHING skills. When I'm doing AFF, worst case I can always grab the student, get them stable and even deploy for them. With S/L or IAD, if I haven't taught it well or right before the student leaves the plane, there's nothing more I can do to help them out. Not a popular answer nowdays, but it's the truth. Bill, I'm curious. Did you enter a Waiver request for a specific DZ for "hardship" or "research". It seems quite silly to think that you'd need to request a waiver for research purposes in order to demonstrate that the way it was done for the first 40 or so years is still safe and practical. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I don't think the number of new A license holders listed in Parachutist is a good barometer for your statement. First, I think the mag sometimes limits listings when necessary for space and then lists more new license holders in a month than actually got the license when they have space to catch up. Second, you don't know what that 600 number represents relative to the number of people who started jumping and didn't graduate, so saying student retention isn't an issue seems to be made from a position of incomplete knowledge of the real stats. The raw number of new A license holders doesn't tell the story. Whether we have 6, 60, 600, or 6,000 new A's in a month, the truth of success would be in stating the percentage of new starts vs new A holders. I agree that we could do a lot better retaining students. I also believe that there's room for improvement in retaining licensed skydivers in the sport. Since 1994 when I got my A license there have been well over 50,000 new A licensed skydivers. As Gary pointed out, there are a whole lot of issues with retention that "we" can't do anything about, mostly external pressures. The "Sisters" program is geared to overcome some of the things that we can do to maintain female skydivers as students and as new A licensed jumpers. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I've thought the exact same thing Jesse. "We" should look at "A license retention" more. I believe that once many skydivers get to their A license, they're somewhat pushed aside. Instructors no longer need to jump with them, and more experienced skydivers often shun them due to their low jump numbers and skill level. I actually believe though that new A licensed skydivers are nurtured more at the small DZ, but I'm sure that varies from DZ to DZ. I look at the A license numbers. I got my A license in 1994 A19518, and D license in 1996, D19006. In that time the USPA has minted over 50,000 A licensed skydivers, but only about 13,000 D skydivers. We lost 40,000 folks between A and D, or in the neighborhood of 2000 a year. I'd guess that the "Sisters" thing helps quite a bit with new women in the sport. Maybe we need a "Brothers" program as well? Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I have used that quote more than once. Interestingly (to me anyway), this may be the longest thread that I've ever started. This is my second post to it. It was something that I had found interesting, but otherwise don't really give a care. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I'll try that next season. Good thought. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

The point of my post was two fold. One, get a feel for what percentage of IAD/SL DZs don't understand that they can use Coaches in Cat C. Second, to educate as such. This issue is near and dear to me as I was involved in getting it moved to Cat-C. I filed the original waiver, and chose the first 10 second delay simply because that's the point that I thought would meat with the least resistance, yet still fairly early. Another Northern DZO was pushing to have "young skydivers" deploy static line students. His thinking is/was that it only would require training and observation skills to deploy static line and/or IAD students. I think that this one had met with considerable resistance on the BOD. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

It flew nice once open, but openings were pretty inconsistant so nobody was interested in jumping it. I replaced it last year with a NZ Aerosports 364. I now have three NZ Aerosports mains, one 330, two 364s. The 330 has a turn that you need to compensate for on final so you can "let it fly". Holding that toggle on final slows it down enough to be fairly noticeable in the flair. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Talking the other day with an IERC Director (the guy who runs the Instructor Examiner Rating Course). She mentioned to me that many SL and IAD DZs are not aware that their coaches are allowed to start supervising students as early as their first 10 second delay in Cat C. They don't understand the difference in the an IAD/SL program as compared to the AFF paradigm. I was curious how prevalent this misconception is, and also trying to do a little education in the process. Here's the relevant SIM reference: 2-1 (Basis Safety Requirements) F. Student skydivers Note: All references to USPA instructional rating holders apply to higher rating holders in that training discipline. 1. General [E] a. All student training programs must be conducted under the direction and oversight of an appropriately rated USPA Instructor until the student is issued a USPA A license. b. A person conducting, training, or supervising student jumps must hold a USPA instructional rating according to the requirements that follow. 2. First-jump course [E] a. All first-jump non-method-specific training must be conducted by a USPA Instructor or a USPA Coach under the supervision of a USPA Instructor. b. All method-specific training must be conducted by a USPA Instructor rated in the method for which the student is being trained. 3. All students must receive training in the following areas, sufficient to jump safely [E]: a. equipment b. aircraft and exit procedures c. freefall procedures (except IAD and static-line jumps) d. deployment procedures and parachute emergencies e. canopy flight procedures f. landing procedures and emergencies 4. Advancement criteria a. IAD and static line [E] (1) All jumps must be conducted by a USPA Instructor in that student’s training method. (2) Before being cleared for freefall, all students must perform three successive jumps with practice deployments while demonstrating the ability to maintain stability and control from exit to opening. (3) All students must be under the direct supervision of an appropriately rated instructor until completing one successful clear-and-pull. (4) Following a successful clear-and-pull, each student must be supervised in the aircraft and in freefall by a USPA Coach or Instructor until demonstrating stability and heading control prior to and within five seconds after initiating two intentional disorienting maneuvers involving a back-to-earth presentation. (5) All ground training must be conducted by an instructor in that student’s training method, until demonstrating stability and heading control prior to and within five seconds after initiating two intentional disorienting maneuvers involving a back-to-earth presentation b. Harness-hold program [NW]... Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

If I hadn't started getting instructional ratings and working with students, I'd have quit long ago. I'm a bit of a parasite as an instructor, I feed from the excitement and enjoyment of my students. I love sharing in their fun and excitement. It does amaze me when I meet the rare skydiver who's been in the sport for many years, has 2000 or more jumps, and has never been an instructor. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Just a brief comment, not to anyone in particular. This reminds me of the cattle drive days in Kansas. The city of Abilene decided that they didn't want to to deal with the cowboys anymore, so told them not to come. Damned if they didn't come the next year, and didn't send their money either. The city of Abilene decided that they'd rather have the money and problems, but by that time it was too late. Though, in this case, the rail had moved South as well, so they didn't have need to drive that far North regardless. I'm sure that this is a pain for the State Police. And at a command level, they'd rather it go away. They don't give a shit about the revenue, it doesn't affect their pay. And remember, the main function of any bureaucracy is to protect and perpetuate that bureaucracy. Short version: don't cut off your nose to spite your face Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

The Koch brothers have lot of that. As does the coal industry and electrical utilities like Alliant. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question about his cap-and-trade plan. He later added, “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” Barrack Obama The Koch brothers don't hold a candle next to the United States annual spending. I would say "United States Federal Budget", but our Federal Gov hasn't passed a budget since 2009. The Fed has put out in the neighborhood of $150,000,000,000 in funding for Green Energy and related over the last 5 years. I'd imagine that for a cool Billion I could come up with scientific evidence for just about anything you'd like! Big deal. Exxon Mobil ALONE spends more than that every 5 years. Then there are all the other oil companies, the coal companies, the electric companies..... Free market commerce as opposed to Government Handouts, two different animals. Why can't the Koch boys get the old school media to push their agenda? Oh, and what the hell ever happened to the Ice Age that Scientific Consensus proved was coming? "Global Warming" is already dead replaced with "Climate Change" which is anything out of the ordinary, and everything ordinary. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

The Koch brothers have lot of that. As does the coal industry and electrical utilities like Alliant. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question about his cap-and-trade plan. He later added, “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” Barrack Obama The Koch brothers don't hold a candle next to the United States annual spending. I would say "United States Federal Budget", but our Federal Gov hasn't passed a budget since 2009. The Fed has put out in the neighborhood of $150,000,000,000 in funding for Green Energy and related over the last 5 years. I'd imagine that for a cool Billion I could come up with scientific evidence for just about anything you'd like! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Doctors, or at least quite a few of them push circumcision, which as far as I can tell is an opinion based on religious dogma as opposed to medical. Lemming think at it's best. Climatology is more political than science. Follow the money. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

This is an excerpt from an article in the local news paper. These two paragraphs were in this order. Seems a touch ironic (hypocritical) how only after moving to the minority is the result a message that "they" want us to work together. Boehner, who has watched Republican bill after bill die for years in the Democratic-led Senate, pledged votes on “commonsense jobs and energy bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years with bipartisan support but were never even brought to a vote by the outgoing Senate majority.” Senate Democrats tried to be conciliatory. “The message from voters is clear: they want us to work together,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/election/article3566009.html#storylink=cpy Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I had Mel Lancaster reline a Precision 365 with Icarus 365 line trim. The Precision was very flat, and extremely snively on opening. Mel indicated that George Galloway had flattened out the angle on the Precision tandem mains at some point. My experience was that there was not enough air speed for an affective flair. With the Icarus line trim, it flew faster and flared nice but still way slow to open, so I sewed an "S fold" in the slider reducing the cord (fore aft measurement) by 6 or 7" which made it open better. So, basically had an experimental tandem on my hands at that point. That main had come to me in a complete rig, I'll never buy another Precision tandem main. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Very interesting, thanks David! In a world where dollars didn't matter at all, I'd switch to Sigma. The fact that my Eclipse rigs have perfectly good Precision TR375 reserves in them, and that the Plexus/Wings Tandem is the only rig on the market (that I'm aware of) which I can legally put my reserves make this rig quite a viable option. That it now has a long established rig manufacturer behind it makes it a whole lot more attractive to me. I've been operating with orphaned rigs for over 10 years, and would prefer to not go that route again. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I've "only" been jumping since 1990, and don't have a ton of old pictures. I do have connections with a few of the guys who go back to he 70s who may have pictures. I'll circulate an email and see what we can come up with. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I'm not going to dig through the whole thread right now. I a thread regarding current and former Kansas DZs here in 2008. Not a real long thread, but seems to cover the history pretty well. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=3204702;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ