kwarthen

Hope you slept well. Here's to sleeping better tonight... An egg will lose roughly 15% weight throughout incubation. More than 99% of lost weight is water. Basically simple diffusion across the membranes and out through pores in the shell. Oxygen enters. Diffusion rate is directly related to environmental humidity in the incubator. High humidity retards water loss, lower humidity enhances it. Wrong humidity equals dead chick in egg. You may want to ponder this one tomorrow night. As the little chick is growing in the shell why doesn't it drown in it's own urine? You may not be weird but I'm not sure I can say the same. On the other hand, this is dropzone.

Hey LJ, I made that same transition, though one size up from yours. I had the smaller of the two Sabre 2 sizes recommended by the container manufacturer. The Katana packing difference is so slight it wasn't appreciable in my Mirage. Having said that, I may have noticed it if I were already a size below manufacturer recommendation. Ken

It will be more productive if you understand the difference between fact and opinion before you publish your survey.

You're right, it's not good. The effects are you will spread it to others on the plane. Stay home. Why would you want to give your disease to everybody else?

From the original post regarding oversized canopies: >Increased susceptibility to turbulence and decreased penetration issues< In early 2000 my best friend had a canopy collapse in mild turbulence during her student training. She weighed about 100 lbs. The canopy was a Manta 288. Winds were light but the student landing area was a relatively small field with trees on 3 sides. DZO/STA/AAFI on radio. Approach as planned. The collapse occurred around 100 feet altitude and she fell approximately 50 feet before re-inflation began. Despite a plf attempt she struck hard enough to fracture 2 bones in her foot. Kept her out of jumping for several months and she had to overcome a lot of canopy fear to get back. We still jump together and consider the injury a matter of instructional ignorance rather than negligence, though that difference is arguable in life risking situations. We are all passionate about skydiving but that passion shouldn't result in complacency and blindness. There is absolutely no excuse for putting the small profit ahead of the welfare of a student. If a dz can't provide the proper equipment they shouldn't accept the student. Safe gear use requires a reasonable match to student size as well as ability. A 100 lb. student and a 290 square foot Manta are not reasonably matched when one considers the possibility of turbulence. Blues, Ken

Seems the thread wandered a little from the original question and got focused on the question of whether USPA should be more of a regulatory organization than it is. If I were a DZO I’d say no. Why would I want interference in an operation I’ve poured my heart and soul into? If I saw it purely as a money maker or as a realization of my passion, I don’t think it would make a difference. On the other hand, if I thought there were other operations out there doing a poor job, I might welcome it. If I were particularily greedy I might want to manipulate it to narrow the competitive field. If I were considering or brand new to skydiving I'd say why not? Guarantee the safety of skydiving. If a DZO is ligitimate (s)he has nothing to worry about and would benefit from the recognition of legitimacy. It would make me feel more secure to know there is structure to the system and someone independent of the business operator is insuring safe operations. As a relatively recent current jumper I’d say I’m not sure. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. From a pragmatic standpoint I don’t feel like there are major problems. If I did, I wouldn’t jump at the places where I do. USPA keeps the government out of my face and I like that. If I had concerns about my home DZ I’d want more USPA involvement. If I were the outlaw mentality I’d want USPA to keep the government, DZO and S&TA off my back. I’m responsible for myself and that damned DZO can kiss my ass. I’m paying for the ride damnit. Make me a tree hugging liberal democrat and I’d probably want some authority to protect us from the rogue operators and make sure the others remain in line too. As a longer term involved skydiver I’m sure I’d have a wide variety of experienced and knowledge based opinions. That’s what I’m looking for here. Blah, blah,.....I’ll try to be forever done with the useless hypothetical impersonations and get on to my questions - It’s been mentioned here that the S&TA incident reporting system is broken. Is it broken or did it ever function the way is should? Has the release of information to an attorney been the sole problem? Any opinions on how that can be corrected at this point? Is there specifically anything else USPA can do to strengthen the reporting process? It seems that some BSR’s and possibly some FAR’s may occassionally be violated. Some jumpers simply don’t see it as a problem and would like the rules changed anyway. What, if anything, should USPA (or some other entity) do about these situations. Enforcement / ignore / change regs? If USPA should be more of an enforcer, how could / should that be structured? Ken Industrial haze ?............. excuse me, while I kiss the sky.....................

Can't get rid of me that easy. I didn’t exactly volunteer. Was just trying to throw out some ideas and questions for further discussion. Meanwhile, having read a lot of your posts, I’ll take it as a compliment, but if it wasn’t, I’ll just let it blow right over my head. I simply would like to see more depth to incident reporting and have been curious as to whether others feel the same.

Hook - Thanks for the link. Interesting reading, hadn’t been over there in a long time. I’ll try to visit more often.

Please excuse this long post. I don't recall seeing it discussed in depth before. As I see it, in summary: -S&TA's are not filing reports for all incidents, fatal or non-fatal. -USPA does not use the information effectively. -USPA has failed to uphold its stated standard of confidentiality. -DZO's may feel threatened by potential negative advertising and/or lawsuits as a result of filing reports. -S&TA's may feel threatened by lawsuits if their name is attached to a report. -A conflict of interest may arise when an S&TA is a DZ employee or DZO. -An anonymous reporting system may not provide accurate data. Some added personal observations: -To my knowledge USPA has shown no method (maybe even effort?) to guarantee confidentiality in the future. Is this correct? -The USPA annual analysis as published in Parachutist is a failure. As my knowledge grows, the annual summary increasingly seems poorly researched, analyzed and written. As has already been mentioned in this thread, the reports are so sanitized they are not really worth reading. I have never seen a quarterly report at a dropzone so I can't comment any further on that. -Analyzing fatalities separately from non-fatal incidents needs further evaluation. At times the difference may be simply dependent on medical care availability rather than a function of the accident. Perhaps more useful would be a categoric breakdown such as fatality, survivor but fatal without medical intervention (very serious injuries), survivor requiring medical intervention (uncomplicated sprains, fractures, head injuries, etc. that wouldn't result in death without further complication). No medical intervention required (minor first aide included here) could be an aside if pursued that far. -I wonder if the low number of incidents compared to the total number of skydives annually is possibly statistically insignificant. Including all but minor incidents may make this a more viable report. I'm not a statistician but would like to see this evaluated. My guess is there are comparatively many more injuries requiring medical intervention that are unreported. -Is there a danger, for instance increased insurance problems for commercial operations or jumpers if more detailed information is available? Maybe we don't really want it. -Can USPA develop the resolve and absorb the cost of reliable information gathering and analysis? -Well hell, maybe we should just forget this and just go out and jump. Ken