Emma

OK so does it count when I save my own life by remembering to apply the brakes when coming off the freeway at 90mph? And I don't have a cypres/ AAD/ RSL equivalent on my car... Just playing devil's advocate here.

Well, in general I prefer to hang out with my skydiver friends because I have a lot in common with them, but I get a bit suspicious when people start to talk about skydivers being 'better' than non-skydivers. We just jump out of planes, we aren't saving the world here...

Yeah, I had that kind of arrogance when I had 8 jumps too... Guess next we'll be hearing that all non-skydivers are a waste of space and there's no point in even attempting to communicate with them. There was a time in every skydiver's life when they weren't a skydiver, incredible though it may seem... Depression is fairly complex and can't necessarily be 'cured' by saying 'do something fun and take your mind off it'.

Depression affects every social group. Sorry to say, but I don't think being skydivers makes us in any way different or 'better'. One of my very good friends was a skydiver who suffered terrible mental problems for a variety of reasons. He is no longer around and yes, you could say in a way he got 'too depressed to pull'. When we fail to see that depression can affect anyone regardless of background/ upbringing etc we stigmatise mental problems and exacerbate the problem. Just because you can enjoy the 'thrill factor' of jumping doesn't mean depression can never strike, for any number of reasons. Look out for your friends and don't judge them because they aren't always riding high on the thrills of skydiving.

This sounds a bit like idle gossip/ speculation? I spoke to Thomas Hughes about it last night to clear it up and he told me the team haven't said anything yet as far as next year goes. They won't know what next year holds until at least two weeks after the World Meet. However the team all have houses and other commitments in Sebastian so they will be returning there regardless. Cheers Emma

I just sold my beautiful Audi A3 a month ago for £6,500 in order to spend the money on training camps and tunnel time. I am about to remortgage my house (again) under the pretext of 'renovations' (ahem). I now have an £850 Audi 80, 1991 model, with the boot smashed in (a bit). Definitely a better position to be in! Sell the freakin' car dude! Who cares about what moves your ass around on the ground when you can invest in moving your ass around 13,000 feet above the ground?!

Don't forget to breathe in freefall... Nethers is nice, hope you have fun, and good luck

Dammit, I only got 17 years! Right, I'm off to break some laws...

Dangerous ground, Remster...

So, if it's a scientific term, why haven't you taken your reference from a scientific dictionary, and instead have used Webster's? Dear dear, when will you septics understand that there is NO SUCH THING as 'American English', and that the mis-spelled abomination you call a language is, in fact, simply a corruption of the Queen's English, spoken in the Mother Land? If we are to use a 'standard', for God's sake let it be the OED. However to further complicate the argument, I would point out that lexicography is an art, not a science. Language is an ever-growing and evolving entity; it is nothing more than a mechanism for the majority to communicate using commonly understood terms. To circumscribe a word, phrase or even a whole language with the intention of 'fixing' it rigidly with certain definitions, is not only impossible, it is irrelevant. Langauage functions through the general consensus of its users. Lexicographers are simply trying to reflect the psyche or conceptions of a group of people who all use the same terms (or 'signs') to communicate. In essence, a perfect dictionary is an impossibility. I think nit-picking over semantics serves no purpose on here and clouds the real issue, which is whether or not prejudice based on a race, nationality, colour or creed is acceptable. And regarding the 'savages' comment - the French, believe it or not, do have a sense of humour. We should stop looking at a nationality as a whole and remember we are all individuals. I have met nice French skydivers and nasty French bus drivers, nice American skydivers and stupid American waitresses. Mind you, I'm yet to meet a Welshman who hadn't shagged a sheep.

http://www.thesite.org/magazine/dodgy.html

Oops..I know some people who ARE forty and are still 'seekers of new thrills'...Or is that meant to be the preserve of the young???? Better let them know...

Probably better idea to keep my idle speculation out of this forum...

My god..that means i have known that freak Will for about as long.... Moral of the story - be careful who you meet on here and agree to 'meet up with' in real life...

Since around April 2000. How scary.

Oh yeh forgot about that.... Although it wouldn't be too hard to find out how a rig worked if you were really determined. I just think it's a coincidence that's all. My gut feel tells me it's a skydiver but I can't bring myself to believe it could be someone who had been in the sport long...or how could they do this?

Dream on sweetie... Soundz like a kick ass boogie...I'm sure I can handle the fly in the ointment that is you

Quality! A bit small though dearie.... So are you lovely gentlemen going to this boogie at Xmas then or what?

Will, you never lick MY arse! Or are you afraid you'll run out of saliva?

I think the problem is not that it occurs (binge drinking etc) but that there is an implied (or explicit? I can't remember) connection between that and the murder. I am still suspicious of the fact that Dropzone the movie was on tv about a month ago. I know it sounds dumb but there are actually psychos out there who get their ideas from tv and films. Is it reasonable to point this out or am I being crazy in thinking there could be some connection...I mean, WE know it aint quite like that, but that's not to say everyone out there does.

Would like to see them get their asses sued. However, it is an ironic twist that keeping them sweet is probably better than pissing them off. Sick-making, it really is. We worry about the stuff about 'binge-drinking' and wild parties being printed, but the scary fact is that any journalist who read through these forums religiously would find plenty of stuff to moisten their dirt-digging palettes. Unfortunately our community and sport is weirdly fascinating to the rest of the world and it always will be.

Would be interested to see what they wrote though - is there nowhere online where the Daily Mail is published? It pisses me off no end that we can't even have a discussion online within our own community about such a devastating event, without some hack stealing what we write in the name of journalism. Aren't they contravening some copyright laws? Seems evident the skydiving community has pulled together and refused to give them the salacious tidbits they want voluntarily, so they resort to these underhand tactics. Nice. Not only do we now have to watch our kit, we have to watch what we say too.

Yes but the other 3 might be weekenders... At the end of the day it is still 4 separate people and you can only go as fast as the weakest link on the team, not the other way round. I really don't know, sounds like a bloody nightmare to me. I do, however, think that it is up to the individual teams involved, even if the rules about 'having' to go Open need some reviewing. It's a shame if it is really all about medals for some people, I thought the US skydiving scene was cooler than that. Bugger. Another fantasy starts to fade. But I guess we all do this sport for different reasons - each to their own I guess.

Yep, if I was entering the US Nationals and Advanced and Open do the same draw I would definitely enter Open. Advanced and Intermediate should only be used as routes to get into Open in my opinion - it's where I would want to be as quickly as possible. Does this really piss people off? I would measure my 'success' by my team's point average and how well the team functions as 4 or 5 people, not by the shiny medals on my wall. As Andi said somewhere, better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a fox. But if a team with a player coach beat my 'Advanced' team, I really wouldn't feel too hard done by. They still had to skydive hard themselves. If the draw is the same I can't see a reason for any team to enter Advanced though - player coach or not. The class looks redundant to me.

I still don't think this is an argument against player coaches. I never said adding a better skydiver would not improve the average. When we put a team together we generally want to jump with the best people we can. It doesn't mean the rest of that team should have to enter a class that does not suit them personally. Agreed, that is a bit f$cked. However that anomaly does not make the player coach thing 'cheating' as you seem to imply. That is what I take issue with. Hmmm. Not trying to be difficult here but when we entered AAA at Deland recently, the draw was different for each class. AAA had more complex dives. Excuse my confusion in this -could you explain why? Yes there is no argument that they do not make a difference but they don't do the skydiving for the others. It is a physical impossibility. I've done some training with world class skydivers, just like most 4way jumpers have - and yes, dammit, it was easier to do better dives! But I am under no illusion that it made me as good as them - it just meant I did not have to compensate for or deal with other team mates' errors to the degree you have to on a regular, equally balanced team. It helped me focus on getting the technique for my own particular slot right - and I think that is good for my jumping. If I do a 30 point skydive with someone from Sebastian XL, none of my peers are going to think for a second that I would be able to replicate that on a 'normal' team, or that I am as good a skydiver as Pete Allum! We have exactly the same scenario in the UK where people who have medalled in Open compete on teams in junior and it definitely improves their score. That's life. How would I feel? I am indifferent - it really does not piss me off like it seems to piss you off. I think we are coming from different places. It is not about the medals for me, it is about skydiving my best, and if that means my team gets beaten by a team with an Open class jumper on it, well, them's the breaks. The rest of that team didn't sit on their arses on every training camp 'letting' their wild card do it for them. Good for them. The other 3 still would have to have worked hard, trained hard and spent money they could have spent elsewhere. Don't slag them off because they have done well. It's supposed to be fun. We're just jumping out of planes here, not saving the world.