crutch

The situation you speak of has come up at our place several times in the past (and I am sure will show up again in the future). The instructor you speak of was definitely wrong to question you in front of your "student". That being said, what is he to do if you are giving bad advice?(especially outside of the guidelines of the BSR's and your dropzone's rules) When this has happened here, we have politely called the "coach" away from the student and questioned what they were trying to explain and why that advice was given. Then after clarifing the issue, the student was either assigned a new coach or the original one continued the lesson. There is no cut and dry answer here and needs to be dealt with in a situational manner, but belittling someone in front of anyone, is wrong no matter what. blue skies, art

Your first thought when it happens to you will be "this is what those guys were talking about!" blue skies, art

Actually, the money works out about the same, the time spent earning the money though is exponentialy greater. Trust me, I keep the books! blue skies, art

***now for a real figure of how often does freezing happen, out of my class for AFF 1, 4 or 5 out of 8 froze, didnt pull or pulled and held the pilot chute in their hands. *** You need to audit your instructors because ya'll are doing a piss poor job of teaching! Don't require tandems, give people a choice! blue skies, art

Great response, but I would like to add two things. One, never, ever blame your student for anything that happened. The whole nature of the tandem experience is that the student doesn't have to do anything. No matter what they do, you cannot blame them for anything. I hate it when I hear a TM tell someone the reason they fell down on landing was their fault, why, suck it up and take the blame, they don't know anything about the sport remember! Second, exume confidence! There is nothing worse than a TM who sounds nervous in the plane, It does nothing for the student's confidence in you. The more confidence the student has in you the more relaxed they are, the easier the skydive becomes! Anyhow, my two cents! blue skies, art

Dude, what is this all about, sounds like a little jealousy! blue skies, art

Dave, I don't mind talking about mine...hell, I hope someone will respect doing tandems more if I tell them how dangerous it can get. I have been in three side-spins. The first one caught me completely off guard. I used to be extra careful with the large students (200 lbs and above), but have found it is the smaller ones that get you into trouble. Each time the scenario has been pretty similar. Someone in the 140 to 160 lb range who seemed pretty heads-up during the breifing. Stable exits that rolled into a side-spin about two to three seconds out of the door. I have been very lucky in that all of them have been with the left side down (no apparent reason for this either). Threw the drogue about the fourth time around and kept skydiving. Now I do flips on exits (no side-spins since beginning this). I teach first-timers a whole lot less and spend much more time talking about anything but the skydive in the plane. I try to project a lot of confidence, and talk very little of the things that could go wrong, if at all. I have also started leaving the harness a little looser than I ever thought possible ten years ago. I haven't been in a side-spin in about 2000 tandems now (8 years) and it definitely has kept my hair from graying any faster than it was meant to! blue skies, art

Loadstar-not allowed to fly jumpers anymore, stalled often during climbout. blue skies, art

Yeah, that is an easy one, before the time of zero-p fabric, 1:1 wing loading was very high. Nowadays, with the advent of zero-p, that is very docile. So....., most people loaded their reserves slightly higher for the smaller pack volume and rig size. Now the same holds true as there are very few zero-p reserves on the market, so most people still load the reserve slightly better than 1:1 (same reserve size as the old days), but they now load their mains at 1.5:1 or better. Answer your question? Oh by the way, 135 main, PDR-143 blue skies, art

I am having a good time reading all the responses to this poll. I am speaking with some experience here (3000+ tandems using various systems). To be honest for awhile I was very for doing stable (no flip exits) due to three side-spins I was involved in, in as many months. The thing is, as Dave said, I was VERY stable just before the student did something with their arms to create the side-spin. That being said, this is what I do now. I do a flip of one kind or another (sometimes they aren't very pretty) on just about every exit. I usually have my hands holding the students to their chest as we exit, to protect them from grabbing anything. I NEVER back out of an airplane other than tailgates (ask Mike Mullins what happens to the tail of a King Air). Foeremost though I tailor the skydive to the students. I tell them we are going to flip, if they don't want to, we simply don't. On tailgates, I always ask do they want to see where they are going or where they have been, let them pick, they are paying the big bucks! Anyhow, my two cents! One more thing, as for heads down, I have been known to do it for returning students (not tandem progression dives though). They are great fun! blue skies, art

Two years ago I finally hurt myself in this sport (but that is another story). Two surguries put a plate and six screws in my ankle. A week after the second one, I snuck out tto the DZ with my cast on, made a jump. Not the most noteworthy thing I ever did, but anyhow, I didn't miss out on the helicopter the next weekend and that is how I also eneded up with my name on here. The hard part was explaining to AFF students why their instructor had a brace/cast on his leg. blue skies, art

I see Ron must have gotten to you, but that is another thread. Anyhow, I have taught too many of these problem childern in the skydiving world. Some of them actually turned out to be pretty good at it, others sadly have been hurt or worse. Do you turn them away or deal with them.....most of the time I deal with them. I am ashamed to tell you some of the people I have taught, because they leave a bad mark on every drop zone they visit. But, I have actually only told two people (in 18 years as a JM)that this may not be the sport for them and they were not of the type you are talking about. So in answer to your question, if their money is green (I am going to catch it for this one), I would give them a chance. blue skies, art

You da'man Ron, having girls want to get spanked by you! Anyway, here's the beef, and anyone who has been in the sport for awhile understands this. Most skydivers begin to think they are the "shit" and undestructable for a little while in their skydiving careers. This happens between 50 to 500 jumps. They don't understand why anyone won't want to have the feeling they do when they step out of the plane. They drive all of their old friends wacko trying to get them to jump. You can also get them to try just about any stupid thing you can think of, because they skydive, bullets bounce off their chest. They also give very bad advice. I have had someone with 200 jumps tell a "newbie" if you have a line over, try and pull it off before you cut-away. This is what is wrong about not knowing howmany jumps someone has. To the public (and most new jumpers) a hundred jumps seems like a lot. To these people (I remember thinking this) someone with that many jumps should know it all, and that is where the trouble begins. My first JM had 500 jumps and I thought he was a god. After a couple hundred jumps, I realized, whoa, he doesn't quite know what he is talking about, and he has a very hard time closing any higher than sixth on a form load (two cessnas). Anyhow, just some fuel for the fire. I don't want to curb anyone's excitement in the sport, but at the same time, I don't want any bad advice being given out of that excitement. blue skies, art

Okay, so you have the experience to advise someone on freeflying, but there is a huge difference when it comes to other parts of the skydive. I think the jump #'s are great, it puts some credibility into what some people are saying. It also lets the reader take other advice with a grain of salt. Kris, I once caught my instructor with a punch to the sternum during a sparring session (I held off, but he knew he could have been had). I then got pummeled for the next two minutes. The thing is, listening to his advice is what got me the oppurtunity to catch him. Because I caught him once, did not give me the abilility to teach it to someone else. blue skies, art

Ron, I like everything you said, but would like to add, he/she is never satisfied with how well they flew their canopy and are always critical of their own performance. I have landed my Sabre 135, on a two lane street in Jax Beach, crossways. Some people say that makes me a good canopy pilot, I don't know, while I was doing it, I just thought what kinda stupidity have you gotten yourself into this time! blue skies, art

Kris and Ron, I am sure glad ya'll came to an agreement finally! blue skies, art

Well said Ron! blue skies, art

Dave, I wear a pair of baggy "cargo" pants I got at Old Navy. They work great and at $20-$50 a pair they are a lot cheaper. For a shirt, I wear a winter cycling jersey, but only for big students during the summer. So for less than a hundred bucks I have a pretty nice suit that will last a year or two. blue skies, art

Well, after all these years and jumps (including two world records), I realize now I will never be a real skydiver! blue skies, art

If your exits are fine, why not try some different ones? You don't say anything about bad exits, just problems with your turns (I thimk from reading this you are just putting too much into it i.e. trying too hard). I routinely have people try different exits if time allows. blue skies, art

First, I have been jumping with a pud for 18 years and have had maybe only one come out on me that could not be arbitributed to some other factor (i.e. packing, bumped in the plane, someone pulling it out in the plane, etc.). If you have had 4 come out on you, you are doing the right thing by getting it fixed. Read the SIM, talk to people and develop your own plan that seems reasonable to you. You may get six different responses here for this situation. Me, personally having had a two out progressing to a main/reserve entanglement, here's my two cents. If at all possible, get rid of the main as quickly as possible. You will hear a lot of people debte this, but of the seven two-out situations I have seen, five resulted in downplanes with some type of injury to the jumper. So, my advice again is, get rid of the main if at all possible! Okay, so you can't get rid of the main for some reason...then very small imputs to the canopy in front, if they are in a "stack". If side-by-side, little or no inputs. Just get pointed to an open area, don't worry about wind direction, no flaring and a good PLF! blue skies, art

If you get into some type of group policy like through your job or the USPA sales flyer that comes out every so often it is not too bad. If you try to go out on your own and get a policy, it gets a little ridiculous! blue skies, art

Well geez, I have been doing front riser turn landings since 1987...so should I stop because some people are thumping in? blue skies, art

Forgot the picture! blue skies, art

I want to ride my bicycle! blue skies, art