jshak81

I hope this is a joke. After you posted about your incident to "warn other people of the dangers of downsizing too quickly", you've gone from the Sabre1 150 "square" canopy that you injured yourself under to an elliptical 136 loaded at 1.7. You have 250 jumps? Is there an experienced canopy pilot at your dropzone, and what do they say about your "choice"? You may not regret it now, but I sincerely hope you don't later......

I've seen some larger events with multiple organizers, and you're right, they tend to "spread the love" more across the different levels of freeflying. However, I think that Al was referring to breaking into the 8 way VRW, or even maybe getting involved in something smaller (4 way VRW). What I was trying to say was if the organizers don't know you and don't know your skills, they are less likely to invite you on these challenging jumps because 1: its an obvious safety reason and 2: they want the jump to be successful. Sure, if you get the chance you can prove your skills, but with the attitudes, like Al said he described, why would you put yourself through that kind of scrutiny just to earn a slot on a FUN jump. And he says he was told "unless you can consistently pull off head up head down VRW dives et c". How many people actually have the opportunity to do this consistently (certainly not every dropzone in the US). He's looking for the opportunity to increase his skills by joining jumps that are challenging to him. And it seemed to me that the organizers are telling him, "unless this is a cakewalk to you, don't bother". Which I think is the wrong attitude to retain good freeflyers.

You are not the only one. I've seen a lot of attitudes from "local" organizers in VRW. Although, the big time VRW load organizers don't have those attitudes and are open to organizing all different levels of VRW. I've found the best way to go about this is to have someone in the group vouch for your skills (from another event, dropzone, et c). Or, I show up at events early to get jumps in with the locals. I never show up somewhere unless I have a contact that is there. Otherwise, you're right, you end up standing around doing solos or doing "zoo dives". Either way, you might as well have stayed home and spent your money on jumps with friends. It's a shame we can't be more welcoming at those levels. And it's a shame some of these "local LOs" don't go out of their way to include people other than their local jumping buddies, the ones who were lucky enough to have a home dropzone that retains good flyers, so they don't have to travel to get what they need. Good luck bro.

I agree there is peer pressure pushing people, but I think the types of people who have the "going too fast too soon" problem are the ones who are pushing themselves despite other people's recommendations. They are the ones who do not listen to minimum requirements. They are the "exceptions to the rules" or the "naturals". I've seen it way too often when you have a "natural" at the dropzone who has mastered canopy flight at jump 24 and at jump 60 decides to downsize to a highly loaded elliptical and double femurs before jump 120. Do people say things to them? Sometimes. What makes someone a "natural"? Well most likely it is because they are highly coordinated and relaxed. Why are they relaxed? It could be because their perceived risk isn't that high. These people are constantly pushing the limits before they have the skill set to cope with problems because they need to increase their levels of perceived risk. What's worse is that they generally push these limits before they even fully understand the implications or risk involved. Unfortunately it takes either injury, death or a close call to slow these people down and generally they don't make it in the sport for the long haul. Just look around at your dropzone, these low jump wonders exist everywhere. And it's very difficult for anyone other than an instructor or S&TA to get through to these people and slow them down.

No "trolling" as you call it. Maybe think about the fact that I don't want to get a DZO or other staff members in trouble, and that's why I post so "anonymously". The reason for the post was to see if anybody else has seen similar scenerios. I guarantee it happens at alot of different DZs. And if you don't think it happens at your DZ, look closer.

Not a joke! And I have witnessed some of it first-hand. I honestly don't think it is just this dropzone. I firmly believe that it happens at quite a few dropzones, if not the majority. The question is, how would you prove the difference between doing drugs the night before jumping, or 10 minutes before jumping? Aside from accusations and denials. Anyone know Dixie's phone number?

Hi, I thought I'd get everyone's opinion on something that's going on at a drop zone close to me. The dz does not do random drug tests, and even if it did, it would lose almost all of the staff. It's not the recreational drugs that matter, but the instructors that consistently take up AFF and tandem students while under the influence. It's one thing to skydive by yourself while high on drugs, but taking up unsuspecting students and putting their lives in jeopardy with yours is another. Anyone have a similar problem at their dropzones? Or is this just a midwest thing? Any suggestions on how to approach the problem?