sfzombie13

i sent an email. other than that, it is all talk since the numbers are not searchable and not complete when they are. you're right, it's just an opinion and this is the place for it. have a great weekend.

sounds like we found the cat.

like that will do any good. even if someone suggests it, uspa will just screw it up to the point it is worthless. too much fighting for a safety feature means nobody cares about safety. they sure do worry about a "nanny state" though, like anyone has any real freedom in the us anyway, unless you are rich that is. you guys just keep up the look you want us to see.

or they could implement an endorsement system covering everything. what uspa CANNOT DO is nothing. to continue to do nothing is to allow fatalities to occur, something a "safety" organization just isn't supposed to do, legal authority or no legal authority. they've made their choice, doing nothing for decades. time for action, unless uspa is ok with preventable fatalities to just continue.

ah, so your opinion is the uspa is a business organization and not a safety organization like folks are implying. got it. i don't know what you find so hard to understand, except that maybe things aren't black and white, in other words, they have nuance. just so you're crystal clear on my views since i would hate for you to continue being confused by my words i'll spell it out for you one time. i am in favor of endorsements on licenses, and it doesn't affect me and most likely never will. it is a matter of safety, and the uspa should implement it regardless of what a few <insert something descriptive here> holdouts say or think. said endorsements would cover wing loading, crw, wingsuit, angle flying, head down, and anything else that needs one. when the endorsements take effect one could grandfather any of them by requesting a waiver and a performance test. as far as the rest of your comment, welcome to the old us of a. restrictions are a fact of life and there is no true freedom here, and it's high time you learn that. unless you think you can drive around without a seatbelt, or motorcycle helmet, or want to provide food for yourself without a license, or want to stop paying taxes and think they'll let you keep your land, or whatever. you sound like one of those idiotic libertarians, aka the cat class. i'm hesitant to call you one though since that is an insult to me i treat it like one for others. calling folks wrong is arrogant? when they are obviously so wrong? nice to know. it seems to have worked extremely well in the uk, and that is what i was referring to, since they can do it, obviously it can be done and to think otherwise is stupid, foolish, and the way to get people killed. if that is arrogant, so be it. go ahead and post a comment i made that contradicts any of this, i'll wait. i've got all weekend and i'm not jumping.

some sort of skills assessment, like when they do the coach course or affi course. they have to demonstrate they can do what they need to do. we could have a checklist the examiner could check off. we need to actually do this with everything as an endorsement system to be honest but i'd settle for starting with the one that kills folks more often. after reading your last comment again, i can tell you right now the collective opinion is wrong. there are not too many variables for a wingloading restriction, ask the uk. and you are correct in that some are more capable than others and that is why we need endorsements. get a waiver if you want one and can earn it, then get the endorsement. one time everyone just KNEW the sun revolved around the earth...

this is what makes the decision to implement a wing loading bsr so easy. all one has to do to get a waiver is to demonstrate said skills in front of someone like they do for ratings now. not like anyone is preventing you from jumping what you want, we just don't want to see you die doing it. if you can prove you're safer and can do it, then by all means, jump that handkerchief. some people can.

the real winner right here. it was time for something to be done decades ago before it killed so many people. with blood on their hands they need to make amends, and do it quickly. i read the comment several times before replying as i did, and i am glad they did not let that factor into the decision. as for the second part of the comment quoted above, i would think that they would be registered as an llc to avoid that scenario, but i also wouldn't have thought they would be registered in ny and couldn't find any articles of incorporation quickly so they may be. there are no legal problems with mandating anything relating to parachuting by the uspa, as they are all nothing more than recommendations, or so i've been told by the resident legal expert i know. he could be wrong though with the differing states' legal structure, and in that case, i'd say the risk was worth it. serious question for everyone reading this: is the POSSIBILITY of preventing a lawsuit more important than the POSSIBILITY of preventing a fatality? if anyone in the uspa says yes to that they need to go. it's not like any of it would affect the meat of the sport anyway, just the minimum of folks that don't listen well in the first place. take that to it's logical conclusion and it seems like a minuscule chance of a problem.

if that is truly the case, and the reason the uspa isn't implementing wingloading recommendations is due to fear of being sued, then they very much need to stop pretending they care about safety.

maybe i misread that part and it was intended to show the lawyer asking a company rep. see attached picture.

that doesn't answer the question. it wasn't the question. your scenario had a rigger marking on the canopy, not the manufacturer. i'll ask again just in case you have a valid reason why it would happen from anyone other than the manufacturer. why would you mark not air worthy on a reserve if you don't want to pack it because it's too old if you're not the manufacturer?

why would you mark not air worthy on a reserve if you don't want to pack it because it's too old? obviously it's air worthy, just not reserve worthy. i could understand if there was another reason, like porosity, but not just for being too old to be used as a reserve. that sounds like a dick move.

no, i still use an outdated product because i am too cheap to pay for a new one. i appreciate the suggestion. anyone trying to help is always doing a good thing. ms is famous for how they make you buy things new. first they cut the help, then push an update that bricks whatever you're using. they cut the help on office 07, now it has an update i refuse to accept the license terms for. it kinda sucks because it won't let any other updates come in either, but oh well.

which is $7 every month that i don't have to spend now. why on earth would i spend that for something i use just fine for free?

thanx. that's why i said i may have had it backwards or they added it in the past three years. now i know, and i liked openoffice better than libreoffice, but had to have the save to .doc ability. i may be able to ditch my office 2007 now. damned thing has windows updates stopped because i won't accept the license terms to the update. that's how they zap the old programs you have and make you buy new ones. i had a licensed version of office 2010 from school but lost it somewhere over the years. that's not .doc, or .docx, it's .rtf, not a word format. word can open it, but it loses functionality. i usually get it right when i do research, but am always open to being shown i made an error. not in this case though.

nope. libreoffice can save word docs, but openoffice can't. i may have it backwards because it's been a while since i looked but one can and one can't, the one that can't can open and work on them, but saves them in a different format and not a .doc or .docx. i suppose they could've added that functionality in the last three years, but when i researched a free replacement for my office 2007 it couldn't. op is making a newsletter, not signing documents, so doesn't need to have any "full functionality" and if they do, then xodo is the free way to go, but it's on a phone, and i haven't checked if it's on a desktop. with xodo, you have the "full functionality" of being able to take any pdf, put text onto it, and sign it. there are others out there that allow that but as mentioned, are full of ads or other crapware.

can't get office any more without a subscription. hardly the choice for a once a month newsletter, but that's just my opinion. libreoffice can save word docs, openoffice can't. i think they both do pdfs though. on a phone, xodo allows you to open and enter text and sign them, i use it for workorders, but not sure if it's on a desktop. no ads and free.

install libreoffice. it has a print to pdf function, is free, and almost identical to word. edit: export as pdf, not print to pdf.

there is no decision whether to cutaway or not. that is why it is a hard deck, you DO NOT cutaway. no decision to be made, just ride your main in. deploy your reserve as needed but DO NOT cutaway first. yep, that's where the argument is, no room for a decision in my line of thinking.

that would make my head spin. it makes a good comedy skit in my head, like fandango or some crap. why not just say the decision altitude is where you make a decision to cutaway or not. hard deck don't cut away, ever, but deploy your reserve if you have to and do a canopy transfer if you have to (downplane or some other scenario). i mean, whatever gets the message across, but if we keep it simple and try not to change things too radically or all at once, we can absolutely substitute anything that makes sense. i just haven't heard one, except maybe soft deck, but we are skydivers so you know how class is going to go with those terms...

and that is the failure of the training. when a student starts jumping, they don't know anything. if they get this idea, they got it from not having the real situation drilled into their heads. they two altitudes are a bit apart, and this needs to be emphasized. every skydiver at my dz knows the difference, maybe we train them better, maybe they're smarter, maybe we got lucky. making it an arbitrary number is the worst thing we can do. as mentioned in this thread, the number can change based on lots of things. at my dz we use seatbelts and helmets in the plane until 1500' not the 1000' in the sim due to hills around the dz that are about 500'. this also raises the others, and most of us have raised our aad firing altitude just in case. maybe having a variable altitude is what makes our jumpers more aware of the correct terms. perhaps we should emphasize this with students, and not stop emphasizing it until they are d licensed. that would solve the problem, just randomly talking about the two terms constantly.

pretty sure i've been asking anyone for a suitable substitute. you know, one that does the job of communicating the difference between decision and no decision without also throwing off the thousands of skydivers who have gotten it right. you fix the poor training by retraining. repetitions of the terms until it is understood. much easier to do with newer students, but not that hard to do for everyone. yeah, no way we can make it any more clear than having the word "decision" in one term and not the other. but again, i'm open to suggestions.

that is a result of poor training, not poor terms.

except it isn't ambiguous at all. the word 'decision' in the first one says you make a decision to cutaway or not, which could be phrased like "when you reach this altitude, make a decision to either cutaway what you have or ride what you have to the ground". hard deck says nothing about a decision, but rather SHOULD say something to the effect of "do not cutaway your main below this altitude. deploy your reserve and if you need to, then cut the reserve away." i just do not see how anyone can mess this up. they are completely different terms, and they mean completely different things, uspa definition notwithstanding. this way we can modify what we teach new students while keeping the terms the same as every other student has heard. uspa needs to clarify the terms, and then update the training to ensure that all instructors use the terms correctly. sounds like a good safety day gimmick.

i've heard that the breaking of surface tension is a myth, but hard to say these days. i would think the angle would be shallow enough to bleed off some speed before taking the brunt of the impact. maybe if they put some sort of wing extension on to get just a tad more glide. probably want a full face helmet for it, and drowning may crop up as a side effect even if you slid across the water without getting hurt.