VectorBoy

You are close to Temploux - Namur. Then there is Maubeuge just across the border in France.

Chievres had a glider club in the mid 80's that I logged a few hours when I wasn't jumping at Namur. It was stationary winch tow.I know you are a hang pilot but can't help you where to go for that. I was stationed at Florenne for a couple of years. We could take a bus to Chievres and SHAPE to stock up on supplies as ours was a remote site. Sweet memories other than the seasonal airtime

You are thinking of the N3A. Has no sound source built in. It requires head phones sold separate or you can use your own. I use Moto comm motorcycle velcro in speakers. It has an audio in port so you can listen to music from an ipod and the alarms interupt the tunes. Charges and shares data through a mini USB. These Neptunes had a bad batch of components from a vendor. They tell me the problem is being sorted out. Not sure if the problem components extends to the standard N3 which has built in sound source.

second base

the theory that the BOD will allow this issue to become a tool for personal vendetta is hilarious. The question isn't that vendettas will be allowed by the BOD, which I agree is hilarious. The reality is that vendettas exist. I can guide you were to look to make up your own mind. And I agree they should not be motivation for a proposal. They should not be part of the discussion.

What was "more than" covered?

Are you sure you want to venture into the twisted wingsuit family history dark secrets file? Rich W thought he would be delivering a valentine of good news in the form of a USPA WSI program and instead got threats and hate mail......from a twisted bunch. The tragic forgotten leg straps fatality is blamed on a chief WS instructor from another brand. Some others that are WAY pro USPA WSI also hold other unspecified personal grudges against the same individual. Isn't that right markus? I hear claims like "the USPA will never let him have the WSI rating" here in recent posts from the last few weeks pertaining to this WSI. Although I'm not aware of a way to black ball a person from a rating if they can qualify, they qualify.... right? There might also be resentment from one individuals denial of being allowed on a big way, from another individuals criticizing of a judging method for a big way, of another individual being subversive at a big way. There are more personal agendas flying around this topic than particles at the super collider. Non of it is secret, it is all well documented in the open in these forums, well the WS forum. You just have to know what archive to look at.

I'd really like to see us shore up the training. We have room for improvement - always. I would never argue and win that we have no need for improvement. I believe we should strive for excellence and awesomeness in safety, training & performance and move away from complacency. I don't think this measure gets us any closer, it just gives us an admistrative "good feeling" and enforcement and teeth. Lets admit it there is a lot of hostility towards a small number of WSIs that some people here feel have behaved "criminally" and they want the ability to reach out and spank offenders years after the perceived offences. Welcome to the skydiver lynch mob. Too many bad AFFIs and Ti's who deal directly with wuffos are not on any spank list. Is the list of ROGUE wingsuit instructors so large we need to create a new strata of enforcers.......... Come on!?! If you dig deep enough to the issue you may even feel a "brand war vibe".

Where do ya draw a line, something that changes the EP's, manner of exit, choice of spot, This sounds more like CRW Than WS. have you read the EPs for real CRW? They are three pages long. Ah now don't blur the line between what is proper suit to use on a FIRST Flight course and what is an extreme and complicated suit used after gaining, hopefully, much experience. I seriously doubt someone considering flying an appache to run it by their WSI for an opinion. I never consult with my AFF instructor of 13 years ago which velocity I should try, the 90 or the 79. I do however have these conversations with respected canopy pilots.

Today everyone and their pet goat are trying to make money off the sport and hold themselves up as a guru in their chosen discipline. How does a jumper find the right person out of the crowd? As for “regulating a specific discipline of already experienced jumpers” that is already being done. A “C” lic. Is required to compete at the nationals and to get a Pro rating you must complete a course taught by a USPA I. You are comparing apples to radial tires. Not everybody does nationals but if you want to represent some of the competitive best in a given discipline you probably have enough jumps for the license. Some venues require a higher license because the LZ is tight and possibly close to water or gatherings of wuffos. Tight demos? Yeah sure the USPA should have increased oversight if I plan to land close to Wuffos. Open area demos don't need a rating and not everyone does demos. But this measure requires everyone who wants to mentor in the WS discipline to get a rating. This will be all inclusive to everyone who wants to enter the discipline and everyone who wants to assist others enter the discipline. It is not an optional thing. Douglas himself had some pretty consistantly comical exits as I fondly remember with hundreds of wingsuit jumps worth of experience and having gotten training by the best back in the day. I'd like to believe that now with thousands of wingsuits jumps of experience he has gotten better. Maybe all the tailstrike perpetrators just need more practice to clean up their sloppyness. I haven't conducted a WS FFC course myself in a couple of years even though I was prolific back in 03-05. I haven't conducted one at Elsinore since Oct 04. In fact my last contribution was to assist another WS mentor with the in air evalutaion portion of some students as he had a large group. The good work is getting done. The discipline is growing and good mentors are making the largest contribution. Have I seen quik and dirty WS briefings instead of complete and proper training? Yes but it is not the norm. Those are a small percentage. The mentors and instructors care a lot. They want to see the discipline grow and because they engage in it they ( we) all want it to be safe for everybody.

My idea's are that you don't need a skydive university version of a wing suit instructor to train experienced skydivers to remember their leg straps, exit wings closed and navigate an offset jump run. I have been flying wingsuits since they have been introduced to the West coast and I fly an offset jump run on 100% of my jumps wing suit or not. How about you? Got a lot of WS experience? Or thousands of box man jumps and enjoy getting caught up in the current hysteria? Sloppy exits and door jamb reserve and premature main deployments have been happening for decades before wing suits existed yet nobody is advocating we revamp AFF or ban reserves..... Right? Then there is that USPA regulating a specific discipline of already experienced jumpers thingy..... It is pretty monumental......at least I think it is.

Have you consider the idea that he might be right. Sparky More importantly will the whole USPA voting establishment believe that he is better than all the other minds. This solution better than all other possible solutions. That should be your question. My Idea's are based on a personal history of observation going back way before this issue and proposals. No he is not better.

So this transgression does not end up on a possible near strike report you will have to do community service for the rest of summer.... cleaning grass stains off suits used for FFC. Glad you guys had fun.

I like your staff personally. They do good things. As do other WS mentors. Now that the teaching material has been made available finally I can state it is comprehensive and complete but I knew that watching the good lads do nice work, I commend them. I am also of the opinion that other professional wingsuit schools and bird houses also offer exceptional training. I also without prejudice support the part time mentors that are giving back. Their contribution is largely under appreciated and often bad mouthed without merit. Your way is not the only way. Lets not confuse who is getting a fuck you or confuse why. Nobody, nobody will get a thank you from me for going before my governing body with concerns about our sports safety issues real or imagined without being willing to present the same information to other "regular" members of the governing body equally, catch that last part equally? I don't care if it is you or ms Taya or anybody. We are all the USPA, some bright minds within our group might have a better,easier,less intrusive solution. The problem is that you don't view the rest of us as equals being able to take part in our solution, you just think of you as better. BTW don't specifically draw me into a debate if you don't want to hear what I will say and then complain!

There is nothing wrong with education. Nobody on the "against list" is anti education, I dare any of you to prove that. Like Robin says you want a new level of Control and Enforcement. I read the words teeth somewhere. You all admit any given failure is a result of multiple weak links in a chain of events. Some or most of those links might be way out of the initial trainers control. An AFFI is responsible to assess the students readiness (who is a wuffo BTW ) to proceed in training that day and through the course. You guys want teeth to punish a WSI for something that might happen well after the WS pilots (who is not a wuffo) initial training that may have been affected by a multitude of factors....... Up jumpers are not watched like fresh A licenses. Factors can include: Exhaustion Impairment from parting the night before New LZ and therefore a new offset flight area Blame it on the helmet Blame it on the googles Blame it on the gopro Skydiving currency Wing suit currency, I always worry about those that don't do many WS jumps compared their primary discipline but were well trainined. Hell I can bombard you with an excel file of horrible AFF level 3s way more expansive than the tail strike report. Sink your teeth into that. And as far as the "blame the go pro" we can just write a few paragraphs based on the WSI template and have us a photo/ video instructor rating to deal with that...... I'm bathing in safety!

+1 You are providing a valuable service in the rentals. I wish we had rentals available back in 02. And while you are at it keep on doing the FFC, currently legal under the SIM guidlines despite a social engineering move for doing so to be criminalized.

Yes

I lived in Europe when the boards first appeared and most Resorts banned them at first sight. The ban was very common here to. It is funny how some of those same resorts that initially banned boards now feature board parks once that part of the sport got "big". Some DZs have banned XRW and wingsuit flybys and I have no personal objection for their decision. It went as far as someone claiming to me in 2011 that parachutist would never glorify XRW in pictorials there was even a pretty negative article against that year, so I believed it. Until parachutist published project XRW in Dubai..... but .... they were kinda late.

Sorry to hear about you being harassed for basically doing your job. The only Email I sent was to my BOD and the rest is basically my dialog here. I did recommend polling the entire USPA in this regard. Honestly if the " whole community" was for it I would fall in line with the rest and keep quiet And I know a lot of people would love that! Believe it or not even me. This shit ain't fun!. But that is clearly not the case. You are right the WS community is fractionalized. The sub-committee got a detailed incident report. The information we get here is a statement like "hey guys stop hitting the tail or more DZs will ban us.... I can't give more details or more DZs will ban us". It is kind of hush- hush need to know only down here in the ranks. THAT is NOT the way to help your fellow jumper out, help police ourselves. In my case personally ( not speaking for anybody else here) I would review this strike report with unprecedented scrutiny to include all other possible factors of a very clinically detailed root cause analysis by someone who has been at this a long time and not a knee jerk blame on initial training(1). And taking into account our member in good standing that presented this has a history of passionate presentations before the BOD requesting an implementation of a WS instructor rating back since 09 before the tail strike issues. This is what Law enforcement calls "priors". It isn't over there will be a redux at the next meeting, and the next and the next. different angle possibly, same objective. Somewhere in some notes it stated the last minute petition against angered and unified the sub-committee into an in- favor vote . Now I'm not going to validate every name on a petition I didn't author for actual jumpers. The community, like this forum I'm addressing, is international. The petition had signatures of active and talented wingsuiters from non USPA dropzones but that do follow USPA protocol when it comes to training.The petition had names of very accomplished skydivers/ Wingsuiters who might have retired or are on hiatus for a while. The petition had jumpers, someone claimed, with as few as 100 jumps. They are still the constituency, they have a say. The petition featured USPA members who don't wingsuit but who do see the USPA regulating experienced jumpers in any discipline as a monumental change which should be visited very carefully. Every argument about AFFIs and tandem instruction growing pains does not equate and they see this even if the sub committee does not. If you are not selling it to the other fraction there is probably a reason why. This was not a grass roots movement from within the community. Obviously some feel it was a political "end run". Rich I completely agree on your assessment of the wingsuit community's dysfunction or disability to agree on this one subject. You can feel membership betrayal Or you can forgetaboutit and come out to the west coast for wingsuit events that will feature leadership, structure, discipline and cohesion like any gathering of like minded individuals in our sport. Then again if you don't want to see anything to do with wingsuits, Go to Nationals. No wingsuits there. LETS hear it for the free fallers!

Yeah it was recommended to enter USPA # but after the fact in my case. I can't drop my name twice. I don't know how you can tell who is and isn't a skydiver. I personally know over 50 people on the list all active wingsuiters. The WSI poll here had what 50 responses from us? Not counting what was gathered from DZOs and others.

I've spoken with quite a few people on this matter and there seems to be a lot of less than factual 'information' being disseminated by those against it. I seriously AM curious as to the reasoning against this, are some current 'instructors' fearful they won't be able to make the program quals? Is the USPA worried about the time & money the program will involve? Quote There are plenty of good qualified people available to mentor wingsuits to an experienced skydiver as domestically defined by the SIM that simply want to grow their discipline but don't want to get a full blow AFF type rating to do so. Just like the people that mentor in CRW or FF. There is nothing more complex about wingsuits than say CRW and we are not requiring a rating there. More than half of all wingsuit manufacturers rely on the mentors in the field and don't have an in house instructor program... The system works it does not need fix.

I'm real curious Mike... WHAT exactly are the passionate arguments AGAINST the wingsuit rating program...and WHO exactly is making them? Inquiring minds AND membership voters NEED to know! Hopefully they're not the same old bullshit arguments against 'change' in general, for various and sorted misconceptions that come down to a lack of 'big picture' foresight! IIRC the USPA did a poll a while back and the overwhelming response was to implement a ratings program...how can it be that NOW certain members of the BOD are choosing NOT to do what the people that voted them IN are asking?! Pull your heads out of then sand guys, DO what the people have asked you to do and get this sewn up now! Please DO what your constituency has ASKED you to do! I can possibly shed some light as to why there is hesitation. Currently there is poll of well over 2oo actual wingsuiters against this. Enough to build the wingsuit world record three times over. They are also part of the constituency. Not sure of who will be allowed to vote, whether it will be a sub committee or the whole board. Some of the BOD have actual personal wingsuit experience and don't have to rely on sensationalized facts or fiction to decide. I'm sure others don't want to jump down the wrong track as an example the decision to make the USPT a demo money maker for the team fund. They have to represent everybody involved.

Nice pictures. I see a lot of sexy talented people there. Firefox works here.

Getting them to think alike, work together, or in some cases even talk has proven to be impossible. Not to mention if some of the time being used was put to coming up with solutions instead of crushing peoples integrity and motives maybe we would have a chance. Guilty! ( holds hand up) of close quarter mud slinging, yup! But that is what happens in a mud slinging fight ( not that its a an excuse) . Do you really want us to think alike? Do all the other disciplines think alike? Don't we value diversity? Here is a possible solution: Video articles with the proper way to do things, exits, navigation anything we are sensitive and possibly failing at as a dysfunctional family. Bring more function to the discipline. There is a lot of expert technique out there just waiting to grace us all. Thinking along the lines of Brian Germain's video episodes and interviews. Wealth of knowledge I know I look forward to each one. Just don't feel we need to turn WS instruction upside down and involve the USPA is all. Why does it have to be all or nothing? Being completely serious and there you can't say I didn't offer solutions.

very cute..... but still needs a Campos!