polarbear

Sure they can! S/L and IAD instructors are rated to perform any jump in that line of the ISP, from cats A-H, which includes ALL freefall work in the IAD/S/L line. They are also rated to do recurrency work, in fact the SIM requires an 'appropriately rated instructor'...which to me means if the jumper learned S/L, he goes with an S/L instructor. Clearly, with the benefit of hinsight, this guy should have been bumped back further. The point is that's with hindsight. If someone showed up on YOUR DZ and was an uncurrent D-licensed skydiver, would you just grab him and say 'your making an S/L jump'? The SIM does NOT require it...would you? I have never seen that done at any dropzone. Maybe for lower licenses, but not for D-licenses. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

I respectfully disagree with that. I know all of the people involved with this jump very well, they all took it very seriously, and so does the rest of the staff (including me). This is not something we ever want to see happen again and have taken measures to deal with it. We appreciate the comments; people have pretty much pointed out all of things we spotted. One thing I would add is that this particular jumper earned his license way before AFF was really in effect (he was static line). The usual hand signals, which became mainstream with the ISP, meant nothing to him. As for the leg straps I'll have to go back and look at that again. I know for a fact this guy received the usual three gear checks; one during gear up, one before boarding, and one before exiting. I have a suspiscion he might have caused something to loosen as he rolled around in the plane trying to get out. We'll look at that one again. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

That's exactly what USPA teaches...if they don't pull, signal them (altitude permitting), if they still don't pull, deploy your own parachute. Hopefully they'll see it and know to pull, if not, you keep yourself from going low and having an AAD fire or worse. The point of the video (among other things) is to reinforce this belief, and to make folks realize that it's easy to talk about it on the ground but when YOU are actually in the moment you might not actually do it unless you prepare yourself for it. Instructional rating holders fall for this ploy all the time; there have been fatalities from it. What will YOU do if your student doesn't pull and is on his back spinning down to the ground? "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

Now THAT's a recurrency dive Sweet, I've been wondering how he was doing. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

This was his SECOND jump back, the first was done by an instructor. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

Not within 450 miles "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

We didn't either, which is why he was encouraged to give things a real good thinking over before he jumped again. Fortunately the technology saved him and gave him the opportunity to decide how to deal with it. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

That's exactly why the video was posted. I myself am a relatively new coach; even though I have nearly 3000 jumps I am still sometimes caught by surprise with the things that happen on instructional jumps. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

Based on what I see in the video and what I recall from the discussion afterwards, the jumper reached for his handle and could not find it. Instead of reach once, reach twice, go to your reserve, he only reached once and could not find his handle. He stayed in the pull position for several seconds, eventually dipping his shoulder and rolling on his back. He never made any attempt at pulling his reserve; as stated earlier he consciously chose to wait for the AAD. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

I was on site when this event ocurred. First off realize that the video is shot with a wide angle lens, which makes things look further away then they actually are. The jumper was NOT a student, he was a D-licensed skydiver who had been out of the sport for eighteen years. This was his second jump back; he had made a recurrency jump the week before but had been a little wiggy (bad exit, not great freefall stability) so it was suggested he jump with a coach again. I believe the dive plan was simple posied exit (unasisted; as this was recurrency he needed to display exit stability on his own), straight freefall maintaining heading control and altitude awareness, wave off, track, and deploy at the correct altitude. When he rolled on his back at pull time, he became disoriented and made a conscious decision to do nothing further and wait for the AAD to fire. He landed under the reserve uneventfully. The coach became focused on the jumper and lost altitude awareness, pulling his own main too late. His AAD fired his reserve and he landed with two out flying in a biplane. After the event, the seriousness of the situation was discussed with the jumper and he decided on his own that he wasn't on top of things enough to return to the sport. He has not returned since this jump. The coach, who is actually a very good skydiver with well over 1000 jumps and a couple years coaching experience, voluntarily gave up his rating. He was very shaken by the experience and does NOT think it's cool, as some of you have indicated. He actually did not jump for a few months after this incident. He posted the video because it is a valuable learning experience for those of us who jump with students. It is very easy to Monday morning quarterback a situation like this. If you wish to learn something productive from this, it is that you MUST take care of yourself when dealing with students. When it's pull time, pull, period. I know a great many instructors who have had similar situations at some point in their careers. It can happen to you unless YOU prevent it. Another lesson I'll add is that even though somebody might be a licensed skydiver with hundreds or thousands of jumps, if they have been out of the sport for a long time then you'd better be prepared for anything. Not only do people forget but they get older, which can change things dramatically. In this instance the jumper was in his sixtees, maybe seventies. Even though he had once been an experienced skydiver, he clearly was overwhelmed with the basic aspects of our sport when he tried to return. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

Yep. Want people to get better at flying parachutes? Then you need people who already know how to do it well. Alienating these people doesn't seem to me to be a helpful move at all, especially when most of them are in fact just as concerned and motivated about this problem as the rest of us. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

Bill/Sparky - More or less I agree with most of the points you brought up. Luck does play a part in this equation, heavier traffic and faster canopies do reduce the odds on safety. I think I come to a different conclusion, though. It seems to me that attributing this phenomenon to luck is dangerous, simply because I don't find it to be a complete solution. I don't even think it's a majority solution. Remember, if we are talking about 'x' number of hits/close calls and 'y' number of turns without an issue, it seems to me that y is a lot bigger than x, probably by a couple of orders of magnitude. That's one hell of a statistical anomaly if the dominant factor here is luck. If we want to address this problem then we have a responsibility to understand it. By attributing this to luck, it seems that we are sidestepping that responsibility and just saying 'There is nothing I can do except implement regulation X and hope it improves the odds to an acceptable level'. Respectfully, I think there is more to this. I think skydivers DO have the ability to plan for, see, and negotiate traffic. We've done it successfully too many times for me to think otherwise. I think there are other factors than just luck. Attributing it to luck and random chance completely ignores any other factors, and in my opinion these other factors are the dominant ones. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

Now That I actually bothered to read the post you mentioned, I really agree with it. It seems like to avoid a canopy collision, it takes a minimum of - Communication with the rest of load - Planning - Managing traffic beginning the instant you open - Cooperation with the other jumpers - Constant Vigilance - A bit of luck The regulations lots of folks are preaching seem mostly to be aimed at increasing the odds in the 'luck' department but completely ignore the rest of it. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

I tend to agree. I've been trying to figure out the change in mindset that has ocurred over the past 5 years or so. The best I can come up with is that too many people seem to take the attitude: 'This is my sky, you shouldn't be here, you better get the f*** out' rather than 'Hey man, what are you doing on this load? Cool, I'll try to stay out of your way' Note that I'm not just talking about HP jumpers. Regular pattern jumpers seem to be getting plenty stingy, too. This whole canopy collision problem seems to be acting to divide us, when cooperation is the spirit that is needed to solve it. It seems like in the past folks seemed to be more interested in sharing the sky. Now it seems like folks want to own it. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

I've seen quite a few statements like that lately. I'd like to ask for a little more explanation; it does not seem intuitive to me. Granted, we have seen several dramatic and horrific examples of what happens when skydivers do not see each other and turn anyway. But if skydivers cannot see each other when making turns larger than 90 degrees, how can any pilot under any wing ever make a turn greater than 90 degrees? Why do we even have it on our ISP that students must make turns of 180 and 360 degrees under canopy? If it's impossible to see past a 90, why teach it? How many times in the last decade has a skydiver made a turn larger than 90 degrees under a ram air canopy? tens of millions? hundreds of millions? billions? Even if you ignore regular skydivers and just focus on swoopers making a turn to landing that is larger than a 90, how many times has that happened? tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands? millions? It seems that statements like the one you made focus on the dramatic examples of NOT seeing each other, but does not satisfactorily explain the 10-to-the-x-power number of times skydivers have made turns greater than a 90 and have been able to see each other just fine. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

Sure all of those things can happen. Yes, adaptability is neccessary. If you have a plan, even if something happens, you STILL know what everyone else said they were going to do and still have way more information to fly on. Just knowing that somebody did something they said they wouldn't do is helpful, cause it tells you to watch out. It's like encountering a car on the road with the hazard lights on. 90% of a plan is better than 0%, which I think is what we operate on now. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

Exactly. It makes no sense, especially in light of the problems we are having. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

I think having each load organize a plan for the landing is the single most realistic and effective way to reduce the risk of canopy collisions. Come up with a plan and follow it. This wouldn't even require manifest getting involved...jumpers on the load can do this themselves. Traffic at major airports is handled by ATC telling people what to do and when. ATC provides the plan. We don't have the luxury of ATC, but we DO have the ability to all talk to each other before exit and come up with that plan. This seems so obvious to me it's angering we don't have it ingrained in our culture. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

I also want to emphasize two other points: 1) In most of these discussions, we talk about traffic as if it's a black/white, on/off issue. Either there is no traffic (you are the only one in the sky) or there is traffic (at least one other person is out with you). There is a spectrum of traffic, ranging from one person in the air to multiple plane loads. You have to learn to adapt to the traffic at hand. 2)Negotiating traffic starts on the ground, before you even jump. There are things you do on the ground, things you do in the plane, and things you do between opening and the start of the pattern to negotiate traffic. Do those steps right and by the time you get to the pattern traffic is a much smaller issue. If we ignore those early steps and wait until the pattern to worry about traffic, then we are left with whatever we get and not much time to do anything about it. USPA is harping on 'Seperation in space and time'. I think that's great, but in my view, achieving that seperation is way easier if we deal with it BEFORE getting to the pattern. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

No doubt. It is really simple. Yet like I said, go to just about any DZ and watch, and you see all sorts of stuff from all sorts of people. Sometimes even multi-thousand jump jumpers flying conservatively do stupid stuff. Our skydiving community does not really ever teach or impress pattern flying once the student phase is over. And guess what? People do stupid s*** in the pattern. Skybytch is fond of saying 'landing is a team sport'. It is, but we don't teach it that way. We don't encourage it. We assume everyone will just do it right becasue we taught it during the A-license. And then we are amazed that so many people don't do it right. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

I personally agree that the heart of the canopy collision problem lies in complacency and the 'it won't happen to me' attitude. Prior to 2006 canopy collisions happened but with much less frequency. What changed? Several things, in my opinion, but I think as a whole the biggest contributing factor is complacency. It's just like how otherwise safe drivers sometimes get distracted and run a red light. It happens, purely because someone stops paying attention. Having said that, I think the skydiving community as a whole lacks knowledge in canopy piloting. Sometimes even the multi-thousand jump folks. Just spend some time watching the landings at any DZ and you'll see all kinds of carnage. In the specific case of canopy collisions, I think pattern discipline is lacking. I see all kinds of stupid s*** in the pattern; go to any DZ and watch and I think you will see the same. Folks need to learn how to handle themselves in the pattern. I also think people are not thinking ahead when it comes to traffic. I stated in an earlier post that I think navigating a single planeload of traffic is usually fairly simple; a huge part of that is understanding that negotiating traffic is done in several steps. Most of those steps occurr before entering the pattern, some ocurr before even leaving the airplane. These days I think folks wait until the pattern to start thinking about traffic. By then there are fewer options. I think teaching folks to think through traffic before and during the skydive will deconflict a lot of situations. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

I keep seeing you write this. I couldn't agree more; I'm amazed more people aren't hopping on the wagon. What do all successful teams do? THEY COMMUNICATE. We should too. We already take time to plan our exit orders to minimize freefall collisions. Why are we not taking time to plan for landing? The safest air I fly in (aside from being alone in the sky) is when we've thoroughly planned the landings. Personally I find a single planeload (even an otter) of traffic can be very simple to navigate if folks have planned it out and follow the plan. It boggles my mind that our community continually overlooks this. It seems so simple and obvious to me but yet it never gets done. As far as I am concerned it should be standard practice. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

I'm only going to comment on 1)...others have covered the other 4. I personally think more training is key, but it needs to be implemented during the B and C license phase. During the A-license phase we already throw a bunch of canopy exercises at the students. Then we make them do those exercises after they are already overloaded with freefall work, and we give them a huge canopy that doesn't do all of the exercises well anyaway. It is difficult to learn in that environment. My observation is that by the time folks are ready for a B-license, they are much less overloaded by skydiving plus they usually have their own gear. I think this is the appropriate time to focus on canopy training. Doing it again at the C or D license level allows enough time to pass for the essential skills to get thoroughly practiced and absorbed, plus a lot of folks are downsizing by this time. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

They generally fly in whisper mode, too. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

As a corollary to my last post about landing area/landing space, I have a suggestion that all those reular-pattern jumpers out there can use immediately to improve safety: If you jump at a DZ with a seperate HP landing area, make sure you stay out of the space where HP jumpers are making their turns. This space where HP turns are being executed can be different under different circumstances, so you will have to watch things at your location to see. Generally speaking, if you are over the HP area under 1000 ft, you are in a dangerous position. One hopes the swooper above you will see you and act accordingly, but at this point you have given up control and left things up to the swooper. Be proactive and defensive...stay out of that space. "Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"