crotalus01

I have personally seen 2 cutaways because of the PC falling over the nose of the canopy. Both were on modern sport rigs with BOCs. In both cases the PC entangled some cascades/lines and distorted the shape of the canopy. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

I understand your enthusiasm and dedication to getting jumpers to understand canopy flight and get everyone to be the best canopy pilot they can be, but damn Dave. That post was really harsh on the student AND his instructors . You are an instructor - have you never had a student fuck up two different canopy related issues in a day? As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

+1 - if thats really what you are doing then probably the people at your DZ figure if you wanted to jump with them then you would ASK. Hell, they probably all think YOU are a skygod snob that thinks he is too good to jump with THEM. Make some effort dude, ASK. Worst they can do is say no, and someone is gonna say yeah, come on heres what we are planning..... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

75 jumps is WAY more than enough to have SOMEONE wanting/willing to jump with you unless there is some other issue. Something is missing from this story. Maybe your best bet is to try a new DZ..... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Serious question here - are you at all an outgoing (extroverted) person? Some DZs can be clique-ish, and sometimes up jumpers dont want to jump with lowtime jumpers because they want a successful dive for whatever reason - but I find it hard to believe that you were specifically excluded from any after-jumping DZ hangouts unless you just dont talk to anyone at the DZ, you put out a dickhead vibe, or maybe you need to bathe. If you really feel that way your best bet might be to ASK someone you know at the DZ, or just find another place to jump. Skydivers are people just like anyone else, a little friendliness goes a long way. For what its worth, Dave is completely correct with what he said - you are not winning any friends here by taking everything he told you out of context and whining like a baby - would you want to hang out with someone who posted the stuff you have put in this thread? Skydiving is an adult sport, so man up. I dont know the specifics of your issues, but I can for sure tell you that YOU sound like the problem based on the tone of your posts on here. And that is not trying to slag you, I am actually trying to help. Edit to add that I personally have never been to a DZ where I didnt get invited to jump with someone, even if it was just a two way. I have found that most skydivers are by nature fairly friendly people. Seriously, maybe you need to branch out and try a new DZ. OR, maybe you need to just walk up to someone at your DZ and say "Hey how ya doing? My name is __, I have XX jumps and I would really like to do a XX jump. Would you be interested, or if you have something going on do you know anyone I could jump with?" Just trying to help man. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

+1. And from what I have seen if you know the right people (or know the people who know the right people) you can actually get a better deal than most of the certificates I have seen at boogies as far as canopies go. Honestly the best value certificates I have seen are the ones for jumpsuits, altimeters and maybe options on rigs. I have yet to see a rig or canopy discount that the right dealer couldnt match or do slightly better on - although I am sure there are some out there. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

I really like my Walther P-22. Its very ergonomic, comes with 2 backstraps so you can change them out for the best fit for your hand, its lightweight, light trigger pull and has a nice laser accessory that slides right onto the picatinny rail and looks like the gun was made with it. It also has a threaded barrel on the short barrel model, which was important to me because I bought it for a suppresor host. Drawbacks are it is fairly difficult to reassemble after cleaning for anyone not really familiar with how to use the buffer rod to reinsert the spring. It is also not the most accurate gun I have ever shot, but for plinking its great. Also cheaper than the Mosquito at most gun stores I have seen. You may also want to look at the Browning Buckmark - its a target .22 pistol, and one of the best on the market in my opinion - but like the Sig, you are going to pay for it. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

In about 12 boogies I have attended I have won 2 certificates for discounts - 1 for 45% off a PD canopy and one for 50% off a jumpsuit. I gave them both away as they had expiration dates and I didnt have the money to take advantage of them before they expired. Personally though, I dont see the problem with selling discount certificates as long as the price is fair (if the certificate was worth $1000 off a rig say, I could see selling it for $200 or so - the buyer would still come out way ahead). As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

There is no licensing system in BASE.... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Probably will have to get your license in CT but I would think you could take the course anywhere - the "license" is just an endorsement on your current drivers license (assuming you have a license for a car). At any rate, if you can drive a stick shift then transitioning to a motorcycle should be easy. You work the clutch with your left hand, shift with your left foot -most cycles are (from neutral) 1 click down for first, then up, up, up, up for 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th - neutral is a half click up from 1st or a half click down from 2nd. Right hand is the front brake, right foot is the rear brake. It might sound complicated but its not - driving them is easy. The hard part is avoiding all the assholes in cages (cars) that are trying their best to kill you! As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

I mentioned CRW, but Bill had a good point with his reply - as much hell as people raised about his proposed skill set possibly requiring a 90 degree flat turn at 100 feet, no way anyone would accept being forced to do some CRW as part of the skill or learning demonstration. Personally I think CRW has done much much more to make me a better canopy pilot than the canopy courses I have taken, and I have not even scratched the surface of it due to lacking the proper gear to attempt anything more than small stacks, planes and proximity flying.... Edit to ask, has anyone considered adding another license type like Australia has? Perhaps require an F license for sub-100 swooping canopies? As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

This would make a very good episode on Punked! Someone should contact Ashton Kutcher! As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Fair enough. You also made a conclusion "This means that most of the 35 incident would have benefited from more training." Neither of us can prove them, so I guess its all moot. Edited to add on second thought, most of these guys would be the ones teaching a canopy course, so I am not sure what good the proposed training would have done them - if you require training for each license and a D is 500 jumps then the majority of these guys were years advanced from the last time they ever would have had "mandatory" training. Not that I am against mandatory training (like I am against mandatory w/l restrictions). As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

I am dismissing nothing. I just posted the stats. Just for informations sake, here are the total numbers listed for the 23 >500 jump fatalities (in no particular order) - 4000, 4300, 1000+, 1200, 550, 3000+, 1000+, 4000+, 3000+, 1100, 2000, 1100, 2000+, 3500+, 2000+, 665, 1000+, 1000, 5400, 1600, 1100, 500, 617. I am all for more training, I believe there are very few (if any) in this sport who would not benefit from additional training. I personally do not believe the data available supports a w/l restriction as doing a whole lot of good to reduce the current fatality trend. I DO believe that if we had access to total injury data (meaning incidents resulting in a broken bone or worse) we would be seeing a different picture. I am not really for a w/l restriction, but I do believe it would reduce injuries - fatalities I am not so sure about. I would definitely be for mandatory canopy control courses provided they could be held at all DZs and not just USPA DZs as is currently the case with the ratings courses. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Just for the USA - 51 total fatalities involving landings in some form or another from 01-07-04 to 12-27-11. Remove 2 CRW downplane fatalities, 2 military, and 4 tandems leaves 43 fatalities. Of those 43, 8 did not have info available on total number of jumps - that leaves 35. Of those 35, 23 jumpers had between 500 and 5400 total jumps. 12 had between 3 and 475 total jumps. Of those 12, one was a stall at a low altitude, one was an AFF student who buried a toggle on a 280 main, one had 100 jumps and turned low on a 210 main loaded at 1.0, and one 99 jumps and made a low turn on a 190 main loaded at 1.1. That leaves 8 that a w/l restriction might have saved. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Not necessarily true - there are a few blind skydivers out there. Not just sight limited, either, truly completely blind. Google Dan Rossi..... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

I have jumped at Oklahoma Skydiving Center in Cushing OK - they had a Cessna 206 at the time. I believe they just got a new airplane last year. At any rate, its a nice DZ, friendly people and a nice wide open landing area (but not many outs IIRC). And the winds are a bitch.... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Just a couple, but pretty cool - here is the best one (IMO) of Baumgartner about to exit from 71K.... http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=389236247754051&set=a.389234254420917.100241.122924687718543&type=1&theater Someone more computer savvy than me might make it a clicky? As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Thanks Drew. Yeah, the Vengeance is trimmed super steep - I believe the Katana is a bit steeper but at the time it was made it was the steepest trim of any canopy available (or so I was told). In fact, I put it up for that very reason - I never had any problems landing it (even landing out) but I always felt like I was behind the curve. Maybe I will be ready for it in another couple hundred jumps. Until then it resides in my locker.... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Not sure how accurate it is, but my Neptune shows me flying an average of 17 MPH forward speed under my Safire 189 loaded about 1.3. It shows me at 36 MPH under my Vengeance 170 loaded at 1.4. For whatever thats worth... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

I would suggest bumping down 1 size per category for Beginner and Intermediate - and honestly, I think required education would be much better than an arbitrary blanket w/l restriction. Do you not think if a program was put together where jumpers received about as much canopy education as they do freefall education, then not only would they make better canopy choices, but also be capable of flying and handling a smaller canopy or larger w/l sooner in their progression? Has there been any thought in the direction of requiring some very basic CRW, or maybe requiring an altitude hop and pop (or even a series of them)? I learned more about canopy flight from doing CRW than anything, and when I started I did a lot of jumps where I opened at 12K and just saw what my canopy could do. I still do that when I demo a new canopy if the upper winds allow it....hell, in the summertime I do one everytime I am at the DZ and the winds allow for it. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Any chance of making the canopy choices a little less conservative? I know a DZ where the newly licensed jumpers are given a decent bit of latitude as to what they can jump, and are encouraged to get a canopy that will be somewhat safe but also something they can fly for several hundred jumps before they even want to downsize (in most cases anyways). Of course, this DZ also emphasizes canopy skills almost as much as freefall ones, and it seems they have relatively few canopy related injuries. If I am reading your chart correctly I would be required to jump a 210 - 220 canopy. I was on a 190 on jump #12, and stayed on it to around #150 (when it was destroyed on opening). I replaced it with a 189 Safire (so closer to a 170) - no way would I want to go back to a 210-220 sized canopy! The rest of it seems fine to me, those canopy skills you list are super basic (with the exception of rear riser landings and induced speed landings)... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

He was trained, and he fucked up. You can even SEE the fuckup if you know what to look for. Incidently, this guy sued the DEA and his fellow officers for releasing this video and "permanently damaging" his career - as if shooting himself in front of a classroom of 5th graders didnt do that already. He won As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

I would love to get some coaching from you Dave, even though we disagree on some aspects of this... No shit. I dont know where your home DZ is....I am in West Tennessee... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Hey Dave, I can't argue with anything you have said. There is a huge problem with open canopy fatalities in this sport. I do not know what the solution is- perhaps a w/l BSR would be it - I just don't know. People will ALWAYS make poor choices in this sport, education or not - be it Mr. Bills, low pulls, jumping camera before they are ready, etc. I just hate to see the freedom of the sport going away. Maybe that is a necessary sacrifice for the overall well being of the sport - but I sincerely hope a better solution or compromise can be found. " As far as w/l goes - personally I would rather see a X-brace BSR rather than w/l one. Perhaps make that the first step and see how that goes? As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...