jacketsdb23

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Posts posted by jacketsdb23

  1. 20 hours ago, BMAC615 said:

    What would be the downside for USPA’s 40,000 members if USPA decided they will no longer support/promote CP competitors or competitions?

    Good question. Probably not much short term...but then are we gonna go to the next discipline that accounts for a majority of accidents and remove that from USPA? 

    I dont have any of the marketing data for how new tandems make decisions to walk through the door. CP, wingsuiting, and probably wingsuit base on social media probably play a small part. 

    Swooping isnt going anywhere. USPA in my opinion is smart to try to frame it and work with it. Dont want it at your dz? its simple, dont allow it. Problem fixed. 

     

    • Like 2

  2. · Edited by jacketsdb23

    12 hours ago, riggerrob said:

    I disagree. 

    When hook turns become the norm, young TIs kill tandem students.

    In 2022, USPA reported 3 fatal accidents after tandems hook-turned too low.

    That is why tandem manufacturers preach against turns more than 90 degrees in the landing pattern.

    Sorry, i was referring to experienced up jumpers impacting new students walking through the door.

    There is zero room for TI's hooking it in for landing. 

  3. · Edited by jacketsdb23

    Its better on average. "We" stopped swooping through traffic...We have nationally recognized teams teaching more advanced canopy control courses...more people are reaching out for this knowledge...at least in my little norcal bubble. All levels of canopy flight are better on average than 15 years ago.

    How many people are landing canopies over 1.5 WL? More, less? I dont know the answer. Its been a bad 12 months. The 24 to 36 months before that not as bad. Was that covid number of jumps related? Maybe. 

    We are much better canopy pilots today than 15 years ago....you will never eliminate swooping deaths....we either accept that or dont, but its not practical to remove that discipline from USPA, in my opinion. I appreciate the productive discussion and alternate view points. 

    I like the option of DZO's figuring out what they want at their DZ. Dont like swooping...dont allow it. Id also say that a handful of swooping accidents a year does not hurt student participation (tandems or AFF)....if that is the concern on top of keeping our friends around. 

    ETA: I work very hard to organize annual canopy courses for Norcal, and we get 60+ students at these weekend long events almost every non-Covid year for past 6 or 7 years. Even during covid we had great turn out. Teaching and access to this information is helping. Im under no illusion that this will eliminate swooping deaths...but its a net positive for the sport.

  4. Its a bad year...no doubt. And yes, my position and experience in the sport is why I feel the way I do.

    You cant really separate swooping from USPA. 99% of the "skydive" is the same stuff everyone else does. You need to have same emergency training, know the same regs. Same license structure etc. USPA has a duty to support a discipline that includes all of this.  And lets put the rat on the table....that also means that USPA / we (swoopers) accept the dark side of the discipline. Doesnt mean we like it or arent trying to improve it, but we accept it. And thats harsh to say and for some to hear. DZO's like Joe who have to answer for that dark side with no benefit from the upside see it as a detriment to their vision of what they are trying to foster and create. Totally understood and one can choose to not allow swooping at their DZ. But doesnt mean USPA is wrong for supporting it...it just doesnt fit the vision for some. 

     

  5. Again its nuanced. USPA isn't encouraging everyone to go swoop highly loaded canopies. They are providing support to those who choose to do it. I think there is a difference there.

    I'm am biased. I swoop. I love swooping. I ran a competitive swoop league. I've competed at Nationals. I have an overall bronze medal at Nationals - yay me.

    I'll never be convinced that banning swooping or limiting its exposure in the public light will limit swooping deaths more than education can. There is no way to prevent people from swooping highly loaded canopies short of banning the manufacturing of those canopies. Support, teach, educate, and provide a path way to do it in a manner that limits the inherent dangers. 

    • Like 2

  6. Joe, I do appreciate your perspective. I was in daycare when a highly locally publicized (news crews, crowds, etc.) fundraiser demo that my dad organized and participated in ended up with his friend going in with a horseshoe malfunction 200 yards from me and all the cameras. A handful of years later another friend went in at my dad's DZ - in my dads gear - due to a heart attack in free fall (before cypres was used). I was very close to the repercussions my dad had to deal with over these events. I've had close friends die swooping and not so close friends, but people I cared about as humans non the less. I say all this to say I'm not hiding under some rock and oblivious to the dangers of this sport or swooping specifically. I'm passionate about the sport and swooping because its something I've literally been around my whole life. I'm more invested than most "weekend warriors" even though I've never had a financial tie to a DZ. I don't think our organization can split hairs about which disciplines to support and which ones they can't. Support, educate, and do the best you can to minimize death in an inherently dangerous sport. I appreciate your dialogue and 'hear' you. I think the gap in our perspective is probably the financial/ business side to the sport which has never appealed to me. Have an awesome day!

  7. 17 hours ago, gowlerk said:

    What is being said here is that USPA takes an active role in PROMOTING CP events. Promoting the events is a form of encouraging participation.

    Promoting the events is a form of supporting participation.

    Sure, its nuanced. But swooping isn't going anywhere. Support it and educate participants is the way to go. Its a better outcome than turning a blind eye and wishing it away. Humans are going to human.

  9. On 4/7/2023 at 3:58 PM, BMAC615 said:

    What is necessary is a culture shift where it becomes a commonly held belief by ALL skydivers that flying a WL >1.2 and/or doing high performance landings are akin to pulling <1.5k and BASE jumping.

    The cognitive bias comes from having BSRs like minimum pull altitudes to keep skydivers safe while also encouraging skydivers to fly a high wing loading and do high performance landings.

    USPA doesn't encourage skydivers to fly high wing loading's and to perform high performance landings. If you want to say they support skydivers who choose to fly high performance canopies and who choose to do high performance landings, I would agree with that. Those are two vastly different sentences.

  10. On 4/1/2023 at 6:13 AM, BMAC615 said:

    You can’t see that and honestly believe “We are making progress.” That is a giant leap backward. 

    USPA can’t promote canopy piloting competitions in its current format and simultaneously promote a goal of zero deaths because the two are mutually exclusive.

    image.jpeg

    Yeah 2022 was a bad year. I agree its difficult to promote zero deaths but its a good goal. I still believe the amount of increased canopy coaching is beneficial and we have much more canopy awareness than before. We arent swooping through standard traffic patterns anymore and I personally have seen better progression. The performance level of canopies continue to improve. Petras, peregrines, leias, and  valkyries to name a few are popular and skill set of pilots overall are getting better. USPA has had a hand in this so that should be recognized. USPA ignoring this sector of the sport would not be beneficial.

  12. · Edited by jacketsdb23
    Adding Covid caveat

    The number of people jumping petra, peregrine and similar canopies is up from say 2013. Look at florida comp and national competitor numbers from same time period. All trending up. If you look at swooping deaths or landing deaths in the same time period its trending down. 

    Not perfect and admittedly some of this is estimating but you can look at landing deaths compiled by USPA.  Trending down. Could probably track down canopy sales by talking with mfgs.

    ETA: Covid could play a factor in swinging the numbers...i.e. number of incidence per jumps for example. 

  14. I think a big topic everyone is missing in this thread and the original one is that over the past 10 years, high performance canopy culture has had a massive success in training canopy pilots and improving safety of an inherently dangerous activity. The number of 'ultra' class canopies has increased and deaths are way down. I think USPA has played a critical role in this.

    @JoeWeber If we want to ban everything that has some increased risk to a DZ business model, lets stop jumpers over 60 from jumping. Stop swooping. Stop basically everything beyond a C license. Its the D license folks that are killing themselves. Older folks who have medical emergencies and improper emergency procedures. Your point about those not happening in front of spectators is noted, and mostly specific to swooping indeed.

    I grew up in a club DZ culture at home in Verona NY and in Malone NY. My dad was a DZO/rigger/instructor/S&TA and I packed parachutes for a club well before my 16th birthday. I myself am an instructor and former S&TA. I've seen some things. The business side of operating a DZ has certainly complicated things - and I can point to most of the DZ's on the west coast getting rid of their swoop ponds 2010 - 2015, it was bad for business and military contracts.

    My point is, things are changing in a positive direction - and with the support  and guidance of USPA. Separating the landing areas by space or time has had a huge improvement. Making canopy coaching cool has made an improvement. My home DZ has a massive amount of swoopers and the new jumpers respect the process, effort and dedication it takes to get to that level.

    As DZO you get to do whatever you want at your DZ. I think the guidance and support of USPA for a small but growing sector of canopy piloting is critical. And it continues to make a difference, whether its supported by everyone or not.

     

  16. 1 hour ago, base615 said:

    That’s fair enough. Just think you’d get plenty of time to do all that from 3 grand, particularly  if you got yourself nicely in position over the DZ before chopping. Still, not for us to second guess when we weren’t there. The decision you make for yourself is usually absolutely the right one.

    Id advise against in air rigging and going lower than necessary. If you've made the decision to chop - then chop.  One thing you can never have enough of is altitude. Would be shitty if you ate up 6k of altitude then had to deal with something on the reserve that required time and altitude.

    Keep it simple.

    • Like 3

  17. · Edited by jacketsdb23
    spelling

    Recognizing you haven't practiced landing on rears (and even that is not apples to apples when one side is in half brakes) this type of mal is why I highly recommend and teach to new jumpers to get comfortable with all control inputs as soon as possible.

    I did something almost identical and I should have known better. I landed my Velo loaded at 2.2 by taking two wraps of the 'good' toggle and landing on rears...however I had years of practice doing so (albeit not in half brakes). It was very natural and soft landing. I would not recommend that to anyone who has not practiced it.


    At the end of the day, its just money. You landed safely and made the right decision. Live and learn. Good job.

    • Like 1

  18. Im gonna get back into photography since a 'retired' my sony CX and cannon rebel xt setup many years ago.

    Has anyone jumped the sony A6000 with Sigma 16mm lens? The lens is much bigger/heavier than the Sony pancake lens - but at 26oz not too much different than similar DSLR camera's like the SL1. Just wondering if the quality difference with the Sigma 16mm lens would be worth the weight/size difference. Also plan to fly with a GoPro for video. Was thinking the Tonfly 2.5x helmet might be a good choice - as long as I can use the pro mount link for quick detachment to fetch the card which is on the bottom of the A6000.

  19. On 8/18/2020 at 6:19 AM, DougH said:

     

    Does anyone currently have term life insurance policy that was written to include high risk activity (skydiving for fun, skydiving for hire).

    Hi Doug.

    We had our child in February of 2019 and I purchased term insurance that specifically covers skydiving. Our insurance provider is Principal. The cost was 2 dollars per thousand of coverage, which was by far the cheapest I found. I actually have two policies due to the expense. 500K that covers skydiving and 500K that excludes skydiving. One policy that excludes skydiving is about 400. The other that covers skydiving is about 1400. I have super preferred rating based on physical.

    I found through the process that some insurance providers would downgrade your health status if Skydiving was included. That never made sense to me. I found Principal to be up front with everything and very easy to deal with.

    The policy that does not cover skydiving has an aerial exclusion...due to my answers to the questions on skydiving. The policy that covers skydiving doesn't have the exclusion. I only mention this since I had been expecting a 'rider' to cover skydiving but its not set up that way.


    Good luck and congrats! Let me know if you have any questions.

    Marcel

    • Like 1

  20. On 6/2/2019 at 8:58 AM, Dionysos said:

    Good point. For some reason I used one hand per handle even though I learned to use both hands.

    Training EPs on a regular basis and going through the motions before each and every jump should help if I ever encounter a similar situation.

     

    You probably used one hand because that is what you do a million times after gearing up and while getting on the plane. Think about your routine - you touch your pilot chute and cutaway handle with your right hand, and your reserve with your left hand. You probably only practice the real cutaway / reserve sequence a fraction of the times that you touch your handles one hand at a time. This exact thing happened to me as well. Practiced two hands...but when it became show time - I used one hand each.

     

    Good job staying alive! Well done.

  21. On 5/28/2019 at 4:12 PM, gowlerk said:

    Ya, but is also too lazy to do the hard work of tandem. There's a reason why tandem pays better.

    I don't agree with that. I never got my TI because I didn't need the money. I teach AFF because I get joy out of teaching skydiving to new students. A good AFF instructor puts in a ton of work and is definitely not lazy.

    • Like 1

  22. I don't think it matters if you are a skydiver, just state that in the insurance application. Of course it will cost more, but you'll be covered if anything happens. I spent 6+ months trying to find insurance that made sense for me and our family that covered skydiving. At the end of the day, I got two policies - one for a fee of $2/1000 of coverage with a general aviation rider that covers skydiving and a policy without the rider. I post as many skydiving photos as I want on social media.

  24. · Edited by jacketsdb23

    I have seen two different AAD fires on AFF jumps (from the ground) at different places. I was able to narrowly avoid having it happen to me on a Cat E2 AFF several years back. Got the students reserve pulled at 2K.

    I have no problems with this BSR. The added information from factual reports may provide input for AFFI courses and added or better emphasis of training in different areas.
     

    If you're writing these reports regularly something is wrong. Seems like good information for our organization to have.

    • Like 2

  25. crapflinger2000


    Of course you can always not use the RSL. I never had one in favor of a cypres. I certainly understand wanting every "get it out quicker" feature available, but my own personal preference was to have only ONE "out of my control" reserve activation device to keep decision making under pressure simpler.



    IMPORTANT: RSL's and AAD's are not interchangeable. They serve very different functions.

    Also, having the RSL attached should not change your decision making process.
    Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen
    God is Good
    Beer is Great
    Swoopers are crazy.