sundance

Does anyone out there give a damn about impact protection in a skydiving helmet, or have we simply gone the path of "helmets are a mounting platform for instruments and cameras?".

Supersonic Felix! Nice job. Cheers to you and the Red Bull Stratos Team!

I use a Giro snowboard / ski helmet and I love it. No it does not look like the trendy skydiving helmets, but as far as function, it works great. I used to work for Bell Helmets as VP/GM of the Auto Racing Helmet Division for about 8 years. Therefore I have more exposure and experience with head protection and impact properties than the average bear. I have always been a bit confused by the fact that modern skydiving helmets really offer little or no protection for serious impacts. They are not designed to perform in this way. Sure, they will protect one against minor hits, but if you ever hit your head hard in freefall or landing, you would have very little protection. I've heard folks counter this need with comments like, "no helmet will save you if you go in hard or have a hard impact on landing, so what would be the point?" Well, the same arguments are used for non use of motorcycle helmets in particular and sometimes against bike, snowboard and other action sport headprotection. It is true that a motorcycle crash impact to the head above a certain point will kill you even with a helmet, but helmets are not meant to save one from every situation. Where they are invaluable are the impacts that would have otherwise killed you without a helmet but save your life because you have that added protection. By the way, I don't care a lot about mandatory helmet laws. If someone doesn't see the sense in wearing a helmet for any given sport, so be it. Darwins law will sift them out. However, IMO why not have the extra protection? Kind of like, "why not have a reserve parachute?" They come in very handy when needed. Anyway, don't kid yourselves about modern skydiving helmets offering much in the way of high energy impact protection. They don't! Personally, I like the idea of snowboard/ski helmets for skydiving. Mine even has a perfect place in the fit pad by my ear for my pro-track, almost as if it was built for it. I have seen many other models that work as well. My wife found a great snowboard helmet at Sports Authority on sale at season end close out for $20.00 (normal retail was $140.00 for this helmet). What I like most about snowboard/ski helmets is that they usually have optimal impact protection if they utilize an EPS (expanded polystyrene) liner inside the hard shell. They are authentic impact energy management systems, whereas skydive helmets are merely bump/bruise protection and brain bucket. Bell invented the use of EPS in helmets back in the late 1950's and it changed head protection for ever. Prior to that time, head protection offered little advantage beyond containing your brains in a bucket, dead or alive (usually dead). Google Kevin Cogan's horrific crash during the Indy 500 in the late 1980's and tell me that his helmet did not save his life. I was sitting right on pit row when the smattered remains of his Penske monocoque came to rest in front of me. The engine was still attached to the driver's pod and was hissing and venting coolant steam. He lost control exiting turn 4 and T-boned the end of the pit entrance concrete wall at 200 mph. The car literally desintigrated into a bazillion pieces. We all thought he was dead, but he ended up walking away. It was unbelievable! One week later I spoke with Kevin at the Wisconsin 150 where he was qualifying for that race. He told me he still had a headache from the crash, but thanked me and Bell Helmets profusely for building a helmet that literally saved his life. Protech helmets, at least the ones I have examined, do not offer as much impact protection as a helmet with EPS liner (the foam liner iis much softer than EPS and bottoms out quickly in a high energy impact), though probably offer more than most skydiving helmets. I agree that motorcycle helmets, while they offer excellent high impact protection, are not well suited to skydiving. They are too bulky and heavy, compared to other alternatives. Modern skydiving helmets, IMO, are basically brain buckets with designed in platforms for mounting cameras. True, it would be difficult to effectively mount a camera on my Giro Ravine. I believe the perfect skydive helmet would incorporate the use of an EPS impact liner combined with all the other features we see in todays skydiving helmets. Of course, this would add to the overall size of the helmet, but I think it would be well worth the added protection. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

IMO paypal has many problems and I will never use them again after my wifes recent experience. She tried to pay for a canopy she bought from someone on dropzone.com. She had to set up a Paypal account to pay for it. Paypal was a royal pain in the ass. During their verificatoin process they cancelled payment twice, finally took the money from her account but cancelled the sellers payment request and then would not return the funds to her bank account. They told her that she would have to open a new bank account to get the funds back. They never paid the seller. She only got her money back from paypal by filing a fraud claim with her bank and it took forever. Finally the seller just sent the canopy and we sent a check. By this time we all knew like we had known each other for years. LOL . I swore I would spread the bad news about Paypal any chance I have so I took that opportunity here. I like the idea suggested above of using a Local DZ as the intermediary myself. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

I have taken Brian's canopy course (highly recommended for anyone who skydives) and I just finished reading "the Parachute and it's Pilot for the third time. I learn something valuable and additional with each read. As DSE is suggesting, psychology is a softer and more slippery science than the hard sciences are. In fact, in the short span of 10 or 20 years, many things considered to be known in psychology have taken a 180 and one should not be surprised if this continues to happen. I think it is important as well to consider that Germain does not have the hard core approach that maintains psycology in itself has all the complete answers. He seems more wholistic. He has a heavy Zen perspective in his writing and teaching and appears to me to blend the insights from something like Zen with those from psychology. Perhaps this is a partial reason why he may read less academic in that respect. I personally love the way he teaches, his passion, his knowledge, his experience and the impact it has had on my experience in the sport. My two cents. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

I believe what everyone has said is really spot on. Anyone who does this sport without fear is nuts. Brian Germain, IMO really does have some useful and helpful advise. He is an outstanding coach, teacher and writer on skydiving and reading his books and attending a course he is teaching is well worth the effort and money. I'm sure there are others out there who are excellent as well. I just identified with Germain quickly and get what he is teaching. My own experience.... when I was going through AFF and for maybe 60 or 70 jumps thereafter I had wicked butterflies everytime I drove to the dropzone. I had to force myself to continue on. I really wanted to jump but I was also wondered at times WTF I was doing. I felt compelled to do it in spite of the fear. After I completed AFF, I have to admit that there were even a couple of times that I was halfway to the dropzone and turned around and went home, one time I was in the parking lot and turned around. LOL I never do that anymore and fear is well managed and much subsided since about 100 jumps, but I hope always to have a healthy fear and respect for the dangers we deal with in skydiving. Like others have said, I agree that this helps keep us alive and jumping. The other thing about fear worth mentioning is that working through our fears can actually be an incredible life affirming and growing experience. I was involved in life coaching for a while and some of the people I worked with had all kinds of debilitating fears about some crazy things. If I could get them to do a tandem jump, it always served as a lesson and confidence builder for these people. It was not uncommon upon landing to hear them exclaim, "I jumped out of a plane, damn I can do anything, there is no good reason now to let fear cripple me. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

I think Skybytch is a pretty damn smart girl. I would jump with her anytime. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

True, just because someone has 200 jumps does not necessarily mean they are ready to jump a wingsuit safely, so I tend to agree that instructor evaluation before someone moves on to a new and challenging discipline would also be a sensible idea. However, in most cases, someone with 200 jumps has moved beyond the tunnel vision sensory overload stage (if they didn't spread out those jumps over 10 years). That in itself would help prepare one for the demands of a wingsuit or other new discipline, so I think jump numbers serve some purpose. Jump numbers alone are not the sole answer, but should be part of the equation in my opinion. Maybe the recommendation should include jump number requirements (experience) combined with bonafide instructor evaluation (determination of skills developed from that experience). This might make sense for downsizing, swooping, flying wingsuits, freeflying, etc. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Doing what I can! Oh, and by the way, congrats on the new tunnel. Don't know whether you're close to it or not, but at least you have one in-state now! Jewels, Thanks, that new wind tunnel is about 30 miles from me. We are really psyched about it. I need to get my ass up there and try it out soon... maybe this weekend. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Good luck getting that next jump in Jewels. It becomes increasingly more difficult to double the jump numbers from here on. LOL Reading your post brings fond memories of when I took up the sport nearly 5 years ago. Never regretted it and damn has it ever been an incredible, adventure filled 5 years. Come jump with us in Utah when you're ready. And yes, count the first tandem for sure. Rodger One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

The Baghava Gita and the Upanishads One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Around jump 150ish I had friends from work at the dropzone going out for their first tandems. The TM and video guy both agreed to let me lurk one of co-worker - friend's first tandem jump, as I had done before with other friends. When the TM waved off I turned and tracked away, knowing that the video guy would be filming the opening and then opening himself shortly thereafter. Well, I didn't track long enough or had brain fade or something. I recall turning around and looking up at the open tandem canopy above me and then pulled at about 3K and had an uneventful ride down to landing. I'm back in the packing hanger, when the video guy comes storming up to me (he is also a TM, AFF Instructor and Rigger). He was pretty hot and worked up, proceeding to explain that after he pulled he saw me right below him. As his canopy sniveled and inflated he was holding his breath and filling his pants and even lifted his feet to miss flying right into my canopy (though he admitted this was more of an "oh shit" reaction than being truly necessary... he just felt awful close). Obviously it scared the bejesus out of him. I had no idea we came that close during the skydive, but I listened to him, apologized profusely and thought long and hard about it afterwards. I have lurked tandems since and you can bet your ass I track away when the TM waves off like a coyote in the gunsights. I was dumb lucky and the video guy, considering the situation and scare was really pretty damned civil about it. He should have tore my head off. I was surprised he ever jumped with me again after that, but he did. LOL. Luck fell our way that day, but I realize you can't count on luck in skydiving. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

I was intrigued with it from as early as I can remember. When in grade school (a long time ago) I spent repeated school recess periods bailing out of the swingset at the highest point I could obtain and practised my plf's. I thought I was impressing the girls too. I rememeber jumping off of house and garage roofs, and using my plf skills to tumble and break the fall. I tried an umbrella once to break the fall but it collapsed backwards... bad idea. Then at about age 12 I started jumping on trampolines and had my friends take pictures of me belly to earth from the ground angle because it was cool and looked like I was in freefall. By the time I was 16 I was sidetracked for a few years by scuba diving, which became a passion for many years and lifelong enjoyment. Finally, at 18 while in my first year of college I made a static line jump with a friend under a round canopy (ram airs did not yet exist). It was the supreme highlight of my life and I even landed 5 feet from the outer edge of the pea gravel target, but other things got in the way for 28 years, like marriage and family, Kart racing, then open wheel formula cars, boating, wake boarding, skiing, etc... until a few years ago when I woke up one saturday morning feeling a compelling need for new adventure and a desire to feel more alive. That morning I simply got fascinated with the idea of skydiving. It just felt like time to look back into it. I had been divorced for 2 years at the time and felt like, what the hell, I can do anything I want and I want to jump. I had been having a lot of flying dreams too, and was very curious if skydiving might be similar to these exotic and fascinating dreams. So I looked up the nearest dropzone online that day, got in my car and went out to just check out what was going on. Two minutes after I walked in the door, the friendly staff had me sitting in front of the tandem training video and I made two tandem jumps that day, knowing after the first jump I was hooked and would become a real skydiver. I had to wait until the next spring to go through aff due to winter setting in. It was the longest winter of my life. I was obsessed with getting back up there and read everything I could about skydiving that winter. In March, I was at the dropzone taking ground school, immediatly entered aff and was off student status in a few weeks. I found out to my delight that skydiving was very much like my flying dreams, only more vivid and real. It is real. My only regret in taking up skydiving is that I didn't do it 28 years earlier, but I am trying to make up for lost time now. The dropzone I jump at is awesome, the people are family to me and I can't imagine my life without skydiving being a part of it. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Two summers ago Jay Stokes was conducting new Tandem and AFF Master courses at our dropzone. I think it was July or August. One day there were intermittent rain clouds about but enough blue sky to fly loads. I was on a load with him and I remember him spotting, looking back at the rest of us and shouting, "you're going to get wet" and he left. Our three way group was out next and we assumed it was just rain, but it was Hail for the about 6000 feet of freefall and then rain. We didn't execute the points we had planned, just sat and looked at each other mouthing "oh shit, damn, f---, etc." I can assure that the hail stung like hell, left red marks all over our bodies even under our jumpsuites, but especially on our necks and faces... no blood however. At lower altitude the rain didn't hurt a lot less. I don't want to repeat this experience. To add insult to injury, some smart ass on the ground suggested we could have avoided the beating by rolling over on our backs. Didn't even think of it at the time. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Brian did his canopy seminar at our dropzone last month, Skydive Utah. I have to say it was the best money I have spent in the sport since I took up skydiving 3 years ago. If I could make it mandatory, I would require all skydivers to attend his course. LOL Seriously, his communication style, approachability, Zen attitude, coupled with his ginormous knowledge and first hand experience in canopy flight and design make for a very educational and mind blowing experience. I didn't want it to end on the third day. I think it was and will continue to be a priceless component of my canopy skill evolution. There were very new to quite experienced jumpers in our class and everyone was amazed at what they learned. He helped a couple of very nervous jumpers still their mind, get control and be able to walk through walls that had been blocking their progress. Anyway, just my two bits on something profound in the world of skydiving. One of the surest signs that intelligent life exists in outer space is that none of it has tried to contact us.