MajorDad

Merry Christmas to everyone from Eloy. Now to jump out of perfectly good aircraft Major Dad CSPA D-579

What happened to "Make new mistakes... not the Same Mistakes"? Then again 7 points from 5 Grand are quite rare........ Major Dad CSPA D-579

Amen.. To absent friends... Be excellent to each other, always. Major Dad CSPA D-579

A kick-ass day of skydiving at Eloy! ....... and World Peace Major Dad CSPA D-579

Jee is persistant because he wants to be entertained (see one of his earlier postings). His subsequent postings, when read with this in mind, back that up. Sounds like the original poster has got things figured out and has already got some canopy training. He also seems receptive to the solid advice being presented in the thread. Jee will continue to get his jollies stirring up the pot for the sake of stirring up the pot. AggieDave hit it dead on and hopefully Jee learns with experience or fades to the background as time goes on (the sport tends to be self correcting)...... Have a good one, I'm off to Eloy for the Boogie Major Dad CSPA D-579

Done Work for the year, loading the car for the 30 hour drive from the Great White North, got some traveling music and a bud to ride shotgun! Time for some drinking dark ale with jimstermer at the Bent Prop and get some serious skydiving in. Rolling in sometime Saturday evening and staying until the 4th or so. Major Dad CSPA D-579

USPA out together a "Risk Quotient" Checklist (http://www.uspa.org/safety/safetyday/RiskQuotient.pdf) (clicky someone?) that was a very effective way to see how much risk a person had jumping their canopy. We have been discussing it at the provincial level in Alberta and will probably be adopting it as a tool as most of the landing accidents lately would have scored in the "High Risk" or "Scary" Categories. It is also a good tool to determine what you need to do to fly your canopy effectively (training, drills, currency, etc). Hats off to those who developed the quiz and checklist as it can be an effective training tool to work through with someone after they have had a near miss as to what is contributing to their performance and what they can do about it to reduce their risk. Have a good one. Major Dad CSPA D-579

42. cell only Major Dad CSPA D-579

You did good. You were at your hard deck with a canopy you didnt want to land and you followed your emergency procedures and lived. I had a very similar event like tbrown in that when I was kicking out of the line twists and the load shifted resulting in a ground hungary spinner. I knew from previous experience that I had to deal with it quickly as it wasn't salvagable or survivable. The spinner contributed to a very hard pull and I ended up in the saddle of my reserve below 400feet. We had an event earlier this year where an experienced jumper spent way too long clearing line twists before cutting away then ended up under a reserve with line twists which he landed under. This resulting landing caused serious injury to the jumper. It was not a highly loaded canopy or a high speed spinner which may have contributed to the lack of urgency in dealing with the original event (his short term memory of the incident is fuzzy). Major Dad CSPA D-579

But he's immature so it all averages out. Happy Belated Birthday Remi. See you Saturday Night in Eloy if the roads are good. Major Dad CSPA D-579

Jee There is nothing wrong with posting for the "entertainment value" if that is what turns your crank. Don't present it as advice Perhaps your sigline should be a disclaimer not to take anything you say seriously since you just want to be entertained After you clean up the carnage from a few people who downsized too quickly you may see the some of the advice being presented in this thread is spot on. Regards Major Dad CSPA D-579

Major Dad CSPA D-579

It is not a myth. The Stiletto is a High Performance Canopy and there are risks that one assumes when jumping one. I have over 1000 jumps on my Stiletto with two of them being Spinetto's requiring cutaways. Dont get me wrong, it is a great canopy, but it requires experience to jump it safely. My last Spinetto was in Lost Prairie 2006 and it was a close run thing. Half the drop zone ended up watching (the noise of two low openings from the 15 way I was on got them looking in my direction for the "Real Show"). I ended up doing up an article for Canpara cause there were some lessons learned and I think it bears repeatining here: "If You Are Going To Jump An Elliptical Parachute…. The trend the last few years is for people to start jumping smaller, high performance parachutes in a relatively short amount of time. When elliptical parachutes first started to show up in the marketplace, it was recommended that one have at least 400 jumps before jumping one. Now, for a variety of reasons, it seems there are many cases of skydivers with under a couple of hundred jumps to be jumping elliptical parachutes with relatively high wing loadings. There are many arguments both for and against people jumping the parachutes they think they can handle. I just wanted to relate the events from a recent jump that I made at the 2006 Lost Prairie Boogie: - Nice Mad John 2 Point 15 Way - Base Break-off at 4000 feet - I pulled at 2400 - Parachute sniveled to 1600 (not overly unusual) - Mild line twists for a couple of hundred feet - Parachute locked into nasty line twists at 1440 feet (became very ground hungry) - Decided to chop it at 1200 feet (the “32” painted on the runway was getting way too big) - Finally got rid of it at 700 feet (very HARD PULL) - Pulled at 460 feet (1.5 seconds after cutaway) – very unstable after the cutaway and needed to do a barrel roll and a front loop to get stable and avoid severe line-twists in the reserve at a low altitude in an area with numerous obstacles. Sacrificed altitude for stability but figured it was the best of a bad situation. Doing freefall math at that altitude is somewhat annoying and the “32” on the runway certainly had my attention. - Reserve at “Snatch” at 385 feet (another bottle of wine for Aidan). Cypress 2 fired after the Reserve Handle was pulled. - Enough time to riser turn into the wind, check the line for obstacles, release brakes and flare. I kind of figure since I am wing-loading my parachute to 1.4 to 1 and have a thousand jumps on the critter, a junior jumper would not have realized at the 76 second mark when the Stiletto locked in that it was not salvageable at the altitude I was at." The ProTrack Log of the jump is attached to drive home the point how quickly this all happens. I was not taking my time as I was VERY AWARE of the altitude I was at as I was dealing with the problem to the best of my ability. The original poster of this thread is jumping a canopy that is an appropriate size for his weight and experience. There are a lot of resources out there for him to learn to fly that canopy to its fullest potential before downsizing. Going to a Stiletto, Crossfire or Spingo at that experience without proper training increases the risk of injury or worse. Major Dad CSPA D-579

I didn't want to haul out the Statistics Textbook to show the math as the risk factors for each person is different. I remember hearing on a video a couple of years ago that "with todays equipment, training, and the proper respect for the situation... Skydiving can be very safe... However if you want to make it dangerous, you can do that too" Canopy selection is an example. How many fatalies are caused by big student type canopies? However most are "bored" with the "performance" of student canopies and downsize to smaller canopies. A 100 jump wonder on a pocket rocket loaded at 2.0 has a different risk factor than one jumping a conservative canopy loaded at 0.9. Darwin loves 100 jump wonders Major Dad CSPA D-579

I'd apply but I only qualify on one of those three requirements. Too bad, really. I have nice boobs. Good luck. 'Shell, Dont sell yourself short - you're young at heart and you eat aisan food too. Go for the cruise. Beats shoveling snow in Edmonton! And for those who havent seen them, Michelle does have very nice Boobs. Hard to believe that I first saw them a dozen years ago..... Major Dad CSPA D-579

Ah, but here's another way to look at it: statistical risk of death on any given jump. I was under the impression that, in the US, there are roughly 3 million sport skydives made per year, and roughly 30-ish fatalities per year. So that would mean that on any given skydive made in the US, the statistical chance of death would be about 1 in 95,000, give or take. Big difference from 1 in 1,000. That is why Statistics can be misleading. On average per year in the US there is one fatality per 1000 USPA Members (but not all Fatalities in the US are USPA Members). There is on the order of 1 in 100,000 chance of a fatality on any given jump - all other factors being equal (which they are not - some people are at higher risk than others). If the average skydiver makes one hundred jumps in a season, their chances of dying is 1 in 1000, all other factors being equal (again they are not) This brings to mind a first year University statistics courses I took too many years ago. One of the recommended texts was "How to Lie with Statistics" - not to encourage the practice but to appreciate how statistics could be manipulated and to question how the statistics were derived. The only statistic I believe is that for every birth, there is one death. How you chose to use the time in between the two events is up to you. Ten days till Eloy! Major Dad CSPA D-579

It isn't lawnbowling (to state the obvious) and it is not a roller coaster ride. I've taught the First Jump Course to a lot of teenagers over the years. Some are more mature than others. If you can accept responsibility for your own actions and work with the instructor to comprehend and perform the drills associated with the first jump course, you will probabably have a great experience that you will remember fondly for the rest of your life. If you are young, dumb, full of cum and are too cool to listen to the instructor or the guy on the radio, then you may become just another statistic (plus cause the guy on the radio much stress). Most people belong in the first category and do fine. The First Jump Course Instructors try to get to or weed out the ones in the second category ("You should go tandem...... or go home!") By the way, you could always tell your parents after the fact..... like I did! Major Dad CSPA D-579

1. Because I can. 2. Because it is fun being part of this great big dysfunctional family with incest Major Dad CSPA D-579

I think Flacid Monk is the one whos having popcorn and laughing his ass off while his troll just keeps on going... Just cause its a troll, doesn't mean we cant have fun with it.... Major Dad CSPA D-579

With a Swoop Pond complete with Aligators in it on the other side of the Bonfire (Good News is the water will put out the canopy and/or clothing that is on fire.....) Pull up the lawnchairs, beer and popcorn! Major Dad CSPA D-579

Go for it. I'll put my money on Darwin to win though.... Definately need more Chlorine in the Gene Pool!!!!! Major Dad CSPA D-579

Karen's an even bigger wuss then I am now! I didn't know that anyone could be THAT much of a wuss. Consider the source Remi - give Karen a grope from me! Look forward to seeing both of you in the sky again! Major Dad CSPA D-579

But it is a "Dry Cold". Never would have known you lived in Edmonton.... Major Dad CSPA D-579

I read that exact poem at the funeral of a fellow skydiver in Mobile, AL almost 11 years ago... (cut) I first heard this poem in 1996 after two friends died in the same week in separate accidents in separate locations. Both were very well known in our corner of the world and it rocked us to the core. But we gathered together as a group, we grieved, we cried, we remembered and we laughed as we remembered our friends and the impact they made in our lives. Although some of the group has moved on from skydiving, the experience made us tighter friends as a result. We planted two trees at the drop zone that year in their memory. The trees are 25 feet tall now and doing well. Those of us who knew Mel and Dave make sure they are taken care of and they help us remember our absent friends eveytime we are on the Drop Zone. My sincere condolences to Lee's Family and Friends. I did not have the pleasure of meeting him, but he certainly was one of those people who left a large wake behind him. Eternal Blue Skies Lee. Major Dad CSPA D-579

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