Para5-0

AirRage, I guess I am out of the political loop and naive. I thought that we all generally enjoyed seeing the sport evolve. That being said this isnt about any particular I/E. In fact, I was speaking about this long before KL chimmed in. I will not agree or disagree withyour comments because it is not my place or any of my buisness. But Kip has always been professional with me. I am not a moron it seems there is some bad blood throughout the ranks, but I am not involved in that. I have the utmost respect for Jay and consider him to have played a major role in my career. In fact I have gone to him on numerous ocassions with questions. Every time he has answered me expeditiously and professionally. I respect his view, his opinions, his ability, and his integrity. I will defend him and his actions to anyone who has a negative thing to say about him because I consider him a friend. I by no means am trying to belittle any member of the BOD or any I/E. I think that is another topic that I do not want to get involved in. I am just asking that we open some dialog about our current process. If you could put your personal feelings aside I would like to hear your honest opinion. and maybe PM me so I know who you are and your concerns. I drafted the suggestions for a positve dialog. The first topic is increasing a coach rating requirement to 200 jumps and a C license and the second is requiring 12 months as a coach to be eligible for an instructor rating course. I think that is a good platform to start out on. Rich In two days we have nearly 100 skydivers who agree that we should take a closer look at this. Many of these are very seasoned instructors, S&TA's, and DZO's. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/instructorchanges/

"You now want us to shell out more money and go to a recert class and or hire one of these fulltime I/E's to come out here to run it," Who said anything about this. The renewals all would stay the same.

The funny thing is you are already doing exactly what the suggestions are. You earned your coach rating and are working with students and sesoned AFFI's. Next step is AFFI course. Then as a AFFJM you will have someone to help you out as you ease into full fledged one on one AFF. You are doing it perfectly regardless of what suggestions USPA makes.

How exactly is this making it harder or more expensive? Not one suggeted change will make it harder, or cost more.

I am sorry,was this a solo or with an AFF Instructor? 13th jump depending on your progression could be either. Glad things worked out considerably well. Although it would be better without the ankle injuries. Stay Safe and recover well.

"Perris has a better bar" We have a winner!

Chuck, I personally speak about stats and incidents in post 315, 328. Dave hits it a few times as well in that general area. That was painful.

Hello Chuck, I have answered that several times in the other thread before some knucklehaesd split the two. I can look around but the short answer is yes to your first question. and as far as a coach rating, I am a coach I/E and I will tell you a coach rating does not ease you into AFF in any way shape or form. What it does it allow youto teach the most basic of skills, work with students, and fall as a base for them use as a reference. Short of that it does not teach you intervention of any sort. I am excluding hand signals, waving off, tracking, or deploying themself as a signal to deploy to the student. I do not feel that any layer is being added at all here. I feel that a new AFF JM is just going to have person to draw from with situations he may not have been exposed to as of yet. What layer is being created? If you earn your coach rating then you must actually teach 20 students and have it for 12 months beofre taking an instructor rating? If that is a layer than we are in more trouble than you or I could possibly solve. If requiring 200 jumps and a C license is a layer it is a layer that all jumpers must go through anyway, so what is the difference there? except maybe some flying experience. and lastly as the AFFJM nothing will change except the new AFF will have someone to draw from experiences that he/she may not of seen as of AFF number 1 Live student. Again, no real changes just a heirarchy. I went through the old system with AFFJM and I thought it was excellent. I had several senior AFFI's that taught me invaluable tools that I still use today. In fact all of them or at least three of them signed the petition to start some debate about the topic. That is it, but almost every question you can ask about this topic is on the other thread. Like I said it branched off for some odd reason.. It is great debate and I wish the moderator would kill this thread and refer it back to the original Is the AFF Rating to Easy. I will look for the post that answers your question but do not expect a clicky, I suck at them,

Ok, I was also a AFFJM and started out on reserve side levels 1 and 2's. Nobody is saying an AFFI couldnt let the JM do one on ones. Just keep an eye on him or her to make sure he is learning as well as the student. The debriefing process could then work for the new AFFJM as well as the student. You stated,"AFF rating holders should be capable of doing solo jumps with students or they shouldn't get the rating." Yes lets just call them AFF jumpmasters and ease them into the most challenging position inthe sport. And to answer your question, there are unqualified AFFI's out there, I see no arguement against a process that will give a clean clear supervised path to a full fledged instructor, but I welcome your thoughts on the topic.

This is a simple game of telephone. The message is getting confused because there are too many chefs on this thread. (Ozzy) 10 different people ae putting spins on this and it is nothing more than opening some debate amongst qualified instructors. Dave- you are right on point with the thoughts above I read your post after typing this. There is no delay at all becuase if you get your coach rating at 200 you still have to wait anyway to get the 6 hours of freefall. Without copy and pasting my thoughts all over the place, I am not looking for drastic change here. Just some oversight and a heirarchy that does not certify skydivers not ready and does not throw anyone to the wolves. Path to a AFFI that I feel would be acceptable: 1. 200 jumps earn a coach rating. Teach a min of 20 students and have rating 12 months. 2. 6 Hours of free fall and a coach rating for 12 months then take AFFCC. 3. Pass AFFFCC and become AFFJM. Min 20 AFF jumps for recert and 12 months under supervision of AFFI. All student priveleges are the same as now. 4. Earn AFFI and hopefully become an outstanding representation of a thorough process. That is basically what we are doing now except requiring 200 for a coach and a year in coach rating. Now that the thread has split into two, I am sure everyone will be uterly confused. Thanks Ozzy. The reason that this was started was simply to bring it to the attention of the Safety and training commitee that there is a concern and discussion is needed. That is it. There is no mutany here and nobody is saying that anyone in particular is substandard.

If I may interject for a moment. I personally have not said one negative thing about a specific AFF I/E. In fact I know many of them and thank them for their efforts. This is in NO way a negative reflection on any of them. I see that there may be some history here that I am completely unaware of so I will let it be and try to stay on point. As far as statistics go, I truly believe it would be very difficlut to obtain accurate stats. I am personally seeing lost students, AFFI's not in proper slots to make an effective contribution, cyprus fires, off field landings of students, etc. I personally know of at least 6 that fit the above categories. That is in my small corner of the skydiving world. They were not reported because of embarassment to instructor, DZO, dropzone reputation....they just were debriefed and all moved on. I am speaking about several DZ's not just one by the way. Imagine if there was 6 in every region that was not reported. Thats a lot of students that we are hoping deploy their parachutes or the cyprus works. I am not willing to take the chance any longer. I would like to be proactive for once not reactive. Statistics to me means we are reacting to a problem after it occurs. I have a problem using live students as guinnea pigs to justify making a progression safer. If you look at the list of skydivers who signed the petition or at least are urging USPA to go over som eprocedures they are many AFFI's, S&TA's, and skydivers with well over 10000 jumps. If these are the people saying hey something needs to be looked at then what could the harm possibly be.

If I can get enough people on this petition I think the BOD will at least acknowledge we have concerns. I will try my best.. What is in Phoenix? I thought the standardization meeting was in San Diego. I go to Phoenix now and then for work.

I promise to bring it personally, once I see that enough people feel the same way that I do. Once I have enough names on the petition, I hope to initiate good debate. As I have said many times, I have no horse in this race other than a love for the sport and a concern for student safety. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/instructorchanges/

That is what I have been screaming for 13 pages. Thank you. 12 month requirement for coach rating prior to an Instructor rating. In theory that will give them 20 coach jumps at a minimim. Sign.. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/instructorchanges/ If you beleive that we can make a difference, please pass it around to all your skydiving friends.

Yes I am... I think the 12 month in coach rating will help for Tandem Instructors as well. That will stop the coach course this weekend and the Tandem Instructor rating next weekend. It boggles my mind that we give Instructor status to Tandem Instructors that have never made a coach jump, or technically may never once worked with a live student. I cant possibly open this can of worms but I think the Tandem Rating should be 1000 jumps and coach rating for 24 months. I am a dickhead I guess but some will agree. Lets just stick to the Coach and AFF though. One step at a time.

DSE, All good stuff. Ilike your points and that is exactly why we should debate this thoroughly. The safety and training commitee should do the same thing. I have my own thoughts on problems and solutions but I respect all opinions. As far as statistics, I mentioned earlier it will be difficult to get accurate results. AFFI's and DZ's do not report the type of incidents I am speaking about. Sure we can look at reported data but I am talking about lost students, AFFI's not inthe proper spot to respond to problems, not riding the student through deployment, student cyprus fires.. How do we get those results? and if we do we can not compare them to anything because we dont have those results from days of old. signing the petition does not mean you agree one way or another, it just says we would like to open it up for debate.

I have started a petition to see if there is support amongst the USPA general community to increase current requirements. If there is support I will deliver this to the Safety and Training comittee. If not I tried. Remember this is just to start debate, positive and negative. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/instructorchanges/[url]

As if that wasnt long enough one more thing: when you get that new instructor that you cant tell anything because he knows it all. Everyone knows that guy!! Currently, he is on an even playing field with any AFFI, with no experience. With the JM rating he will be under the thumb for at least one year where he still needs you to say he is okay. Now he must at least listen to your thoughts. Whether or not it sinks in is another topic. It will create a much needed post class heirarchy.

The problem I have with calling them conditional AFF is that I do not want to make them feel as if they are substandard. They earned the AFF JM rating by passing the course and should have the title AFF Jump Master. Also what student wants to jump with a conditional AFF? That will allow them to jump with AFF students and intervene if necessary. The year as a JM is just to keep a close watch on them and give them the tools necessary to teach on the ground and fly with unpredictable students. I have taken new AFF's on jumps and on each jump we see something that they learn from. One year later they are ready to go. An example is when a student starts to twist at the waist to attempt a turn, expect them to flip and be ready. If I sit down with the new jm and show them and they see it on a jump we are still teaching them. You never stop learning ever. If you think you have seen it all stop instructing because you are a danger. If you think you can handle any situation stop instructing. I do not care how many AFF you have. Remember we actually already had the Jm rating, so we are not recreating the wheel here. It is a very easy transition. To those future instructors: If you are upset that you may have to gain more experience, I apologize but if you stick with it, you will acquire all the necesaary skills to be an outstanding intructor. You will also be respected for doing so. If you think respect is not important go and ask some of the new AFFI's that are laughed at behind their backs, because one weekend they were taking the coach class and the next they were an AFFI. Further: remember that bullshit word that everyone seems to forget "Safety". Nobody can argue that this will not be a safer progression, and I mean nobody. IF the USPA, I/E's, Or DZO's are honest they will admit that it will be a much more sound transition process. I think that if the DZO's are thinking of income, and the USPA is thinking of fees, and the I/E's are thining of income, there is something seriously wrong with the whole system. This is almost ludicrous that we have to argue for the safer method. If you take money out of the equation then the only person who would have a gripe would be someone close to going for the rating. I say to them, "Trust me you will be much happier if you earn the rating as apposed to going to one class and getting it. I had a new AFFI say something to the effect of, "I got the rating I am qualified to jump with students one on one." My answer to that is you can take that rating card and wipe your ass with it. Until you have acquired the experience to ensure that the student will under the supervision of the most qualified person we can put out, be safe. I do not care what AFF I/E says you are okay. And I will say that to any I/E. A rating means you are allowed to jump with a student in a instructor capacity, but nowhere does it say we have to allow you. What scares the hell out of me is the mind set of some of these new guys. I was a AFFJM and rode reserve side and sat through first jump courses with a shut mouth learning. I was scared to go one on one, second guessing my ability. I did not care that Don Yarling signed a card saying I was ok. All I could think about was god forbid I lost a student. A year later I was scared shitless to jump on upper levels alone. That fear is what keeps you sharp and on top of your game. I see now adays is that lacsadazical, it will be fine additude or even worse, "wow I just couldnt catch that one glad he deployed.". Lets talk about liability for a moment: I have discussed a student sueing everyone. How about an Instructor who turns around and sues because we said he was okay and something went wrong. The whole process will be put to the test. Please, try to put monitary reasons aside for a moment and think of the safety of new students. Now engage in debate, why cant we start the process to change this?. Any I/E's willing to give their two cents? You are either going to not like my view because of cash loss or you will respect it because I have no vested interest in this. Other than I do not want to do a student fatality investigation. I am trying to be procative, here.

This is so easily solved. The BOD and USPA needs to grow a set. Just make the coach rating 200 and c license. You must be a coach for 12 months before being elligible for the AFF course. then once you graduate the AFFCC you are a AFFJM. for 12 months you will apprenticeship with seasoned AFFI's, learning as much as you can. Then you are elligible for your AFFI. I still have not heard any negative to this suggestion. Why is this a problem, we are trying to giv some integrity to the process and to Instructors. OK I will say it, the current process is a JOKE>.. What is the problem with that?

*** Back to jumpers who can at least manage to pass the course 'straight up', the reason you then put them on JM status is not because you doubt their skills, but because they lack experience. Even the top of the class at the AFF cert course graduates with zero jumps with an actual student. The JM status allows them to gain experience from more seasoned AFF Is, and really hone all of their skills before being cut loose to handle students one on one. *** I agree 100% and then some. The JM rating is the answer. no need for conditional anything. pass the AFFCC and you are a AFFJM, thus begins the educational process. let me repost: The first step IMHO is to change the requirements of a coach rating to 200 jumps and a C license. If we can manage to do that: The next step would be to require a 12 month in coach rating to be eligible to take a AFF course. This will presumably give the coach at least 20 coach jumps as requirred for renewal and 12 more months of experience. Then: Bring back the AFF JM rating. After completion require that a AFFJM be a JM for 12 months prior to being elligible for AFFI status. This will allow a JM to train along side seasoned AFFI and learn how to teach and how to fly with real students. mentorship program.

I hope that someone going to the AFF standardization meeting on the west coast this year will print this entire thread out and bring it with them. Feel free to use my name and telelphone number. I cant make it to the west coast but I will be there next year on the east coast. Although I have a web came and would be happy to give my thoughts via the web.

For Sale: Two 92 Sq./Ft. Xaos 27 cell. 1750.00 for both.....

I will tell you how. A lawyer subpenas DZ.com and this thread for the lawsuit that ensues. Or someone with the proper qualifications and same thought process as mine is used as an expert witness to give his thoughts on how the AFFI contributed to the incident. It would be up to a jury. That is fairly damaging testimony when a I/E gets on the stand and says that he warned of the possible problem, and nothing was done. Further, If USPA is made aware of the issue or the concerns and fails to act upon it they are also opening themselves up to liability.

God Help Us.