davelepka

The 'business' case is that they fill in the nooks and crannies of the jump plane. As a DZO, you will have a limited number of tandem/student rigs and instructors, that you will not be able to fill every slot of every plane with high-value tandem/student slots. In those cases, having fun jumpers around to fill in the gaps keeps the plane flying at close to full capacity all day long. The counter argument is that the extra jumpers add weight to the load and time to the turnaround, but I don't think that pans out at the end of the day. At a turbine DZ, and added weight is less of a penalty, so the added time does not add up to much at the end of the day. At a 182 DZ, if you're not full, you're flying with one tandem (not two) and only have two slots full. Flying at half-capacity is never a good idea, and again, the time savings will not add up to enough to make up for the half-load. On top of that, if you're leasing your plane and have a min number of hours you need to fly each month, fun jumpers will help to get the props spinning when you don't have any (or many) tandem/students around. if you can make $50/load on a full load of fun jumpers, and make sure you don't have to out-of-pocket to meet your min hours, you're ahead money on two counts. All of that is in addition to the other things mentioned in the thread. Good luck attracting instructors, or packers/manifest workers/office staff who jump if you don't have any fun jumpers at your DZ. They might be working 90% of the time, but when they have time to jump, they're going to want to be someplace with fun jumpers. Additionally, good luck replenishing your staff without fun jumpers around.

Maybe some additional time spent on the dive flow/dirt dive might have helped to make the sequence a little more 'natural' for you. You should be able to go through the sequence, in real time, without hesitation several times on the ground before you board the plane. Your instructor should also have you recite the dive flow at least once on the ride up. The dive flow is not a tough thing to grasp, it's a simple order-of-operations, and it just takes time and effort to have it memorized. Keep in mind that you're going to be needing it during a 'higher stress' situation, so you need to make sure that you know it better than you would, say, directions to a store.

No secrets, you posted your own Cayenne 150 for sale in the non-secret classifieds, and then you posted a TON of shit in the forums that more-or-less exposed you as either a low-time jumper, or just one with an immature, piss-poor attitude, both of which would lead a responsible seller to shoot you down when you're looking at a canopy that's 2 or 3 sizes smaller than your current main AND much higher performance from a design perspective. How did I know? For starters, I know people and I hear things, like when newbies try to buy gear they have no business buying. Beyond that, when you shoot your mouth off the way you do, expect to draw some attention. FYI, I received PMs from people I don't even know about some of the shit you posted because it was so fucking stupid. People are so impressed (un-impressed) with your crap, that they feel the need to send a PM along the lines of, 'How dumb is that Joey kid', or 'How many more of those Ted, Sanji, Joey kids are we going to have to deal with'. So don't be surprised when you do something stupid like try to buy an X-fire 114, and that too gets around. The USPA just hit 35000 members, but that's really just 35000 membership numbers, so a good number of those people are dead (most from natural causes) or out of the sport, so there really aren't that many jumpers out there. This isn't an x-box, or a Chevy truck forum, where there are literally millions of x-box players or Chevy truck drivers out there, and even then there's no requirement for those people to come to together in real life. Skydiving is a much smaller community, and we all have to go to the same DZs in order to jump, so real life is going to coincide with this internet life, and you're bullshit is not going to go un-noticed.

Why are you asking this question? You don't give two shits about what other people think, and if it wasn't for a seller with some balls and ethics, you would already have an x-fire, 36sq ft smaller than the 150sq ft intermediate canopy you just sold. You're really hell bent on becoming a statistic, aren't you? I know you were super keen on asking for statistics in the camera thread, I didn't know your interest went as far as wanting to be one.

Your best bet is to hold off on making any gear purchases for a bit. Make 10 or 15 jumps using the gear provided by the DZ, and then talk to your instructors about some of the 'basics' like a helmet, goggles, altimeter, etc. Think about it, as of now you have almost no experience with anything, but by then you'll have done 10 or 15 jumps with the DZ gear and will have some opinion as to what you like/dislike. In terms of the 'big' purchase, that being a rig, you should really hold off until you have a license. The DZ will include gear rental in your pre-license jumps, so take advantage of that and jump everything they have to offer during that time, learning more about gear in the process. As for the budget, figure at least $2500 to $3000 for a used rig to start off with. If you want an AAD (the computer that will fire the reserve if you fall below 750ft), you can add $1200-$1400 to the price. Another tip in terms of the budget is to check in with the DZ if they offer any package deals on the training jumps. You can sometimes save a couple hundred dollars by paying in advance, and that money can then be put toward your gear purchases.

Just because you're doing something risky, like any aviation related activity, doesn't mean you should throw all caution to the wind and just do whatever the hell you want. There are smart and prudent ways to do everything, even inherently risky activities. I don't think anyone would support a 16 year old kid teaching himself aerobatics. The thing you seem to miss is that the only reason that you know about that story is because he turned out to be 'Bob Hoover' and he lived to tell the tale. You don't hear about the guys who were not so lucky, and spun their planes into the ground trying to do that sort of thing. Those guys aren't around to tell you about the other side of the coin. Once again it's a case of missing the point. It's not about you protecting your pride and proving me wrong, it's about you protecting your heath and welfare, and staying up here on this side of the grass long enough to learn to do what you want to do in a reasonable way. I swoop on 99% of my landings. Big 450+ degree turns and I love every minute of it. It's out there, and it's not impossible to achieve, but you need the right attitude and solid foundation of skills to get there, and if you work hard, you can be there in a year or two. I did, and that was 15+ years ago, and I've been having a blast swooping small canopies ever since. News flash, I'm not that old. I started jumping at 19 and just turned 38 last week. I've never jumped a round canopy, only jumped F-111 on my student jumps, and have never owned a jumpsuit with grippers (freefly from day one). I was as hot-to-trot as anyone when it came to small canopies and swooping in my early days. I'm not that different than you, just further down the road. Think for just a minute what I have to gain by giving you advice over the internet. A guy I don't know who jumps at a DZ far from where I live. There's nothing in it for me (or anyone else on this board) other than to help a guy out, and maybe avoid another incident we don't want to read about.

Go ahead, compare yourself to Bob Hoover. Go forward assuming you're going to turn out to be one of the greatest aviators of all time, and pattern your learning progression after his. Again, talk about (you) missing the point. After 60+ years of flying, did you hear one word he said? He does not believe that he has any special skills or ability, just that he had opportunity, exposure, and LUCK. Knowing what he knew at that point, after living through one of the greatest aviation careers of all time, he could clearly see that it was the time and experience that produced the living legend that he was, and luck and good fortune that brought him the early days when he was 'less then' a living legend. I feel the same way after 18 years of jumping, and I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone with more than 10 or 15 years in the sport who cannot look back on their early days, shake their head, and thank god they survived some of the stupid situations they got themselves into. I have probably 20 jumps where I was seconds or feet away from being dead, but things swung my way and there was zero incident/injury. Back then, I might have taken credit for making the right moves to create the positive outcome, but years later I can look back and see that I was just lucky. This what countless people, and the video I posted is trying to tell you. If you cut your margins too thin, you're not going to survive for long, and your canopy choice and what you do with it at your jump numbers is cutting it waaay too thin. Let me ask you this, if you wanted some advice on BASE jumping, who would you ask? A guy with 1000 BASE jumps made all over the world, or a guy who took the BASE class in Twin Falls last week and has 4 jumps of that bridge? You're going to listen to the first guy, as he's 'been there and done that' and proven that he has whatever it takes to survive and be successful in BASE. The new guy, while he may be a BASE jumper, has a limited amount of experience/exposure, and may turn out to be a stain at the bottom of an antenna within a few months. Your situation is the same. I (and others) have been there and done that. We've also been there and watched others make the same mistakes you are, and we are trying to tell you from that point of view that you are on a road that will most likely not end well. You, on the other hand, have not been anywhere or done anything along the same lines, and are just 'guessing' that everything will be alright, and that you're not going to end up dead, or maimed, or spending the rest of your life sitting in a chair/hospital bed.

He starts off by saying, 'I was looking for someone to teach me to do loops, but there was nobody around who could'. Any comparison you might be making to your own bad choices in aviation end right there. You have plenty of people around to teach you, but you choose to ignore them. Now go back and listen to the reason I started this thread, where he says, 'I was fortunate enough to survive a lot of situations where others weren't so lucky as to have made it'. If you want to base your survival on luck, or good fortune, keep on your current path. If you want to pay attention to the real message, consider when he says, 'I don't think I have any skill that anyone else doesn't have, I've just had, perhaps, more of an opportunity, more of an exposure'. Get some exposure. Get some opportunity, and you won't have to rely on luck or fortune. If luck and fortune come your way, good on you. If they don't, have some experience and exposure to save yourself when the time comes.

Just to be clear, are you suggesting that in your above example, if the DZO lifted the 90 degree limitation and allowed any kind of swooping, that the end result would be newer jumpers would not downsize so fast, but just throw bigger turn on larger canopies in their quest for speed? If that's what you're saying, that's pretty fucking dumb. What would happen in real life is that those jumpers would be on those same canopies and throwing bigger turn with them. The guy you spoke to was already jumping a 109, and openly told you that he wanted to go faster than the 90 degree turn would allow. Hint - the way to go faster is by making a bigger turn, not by upsizing and then making a bigger turn. The only way to get a handle on the situation, as proven by countless other countries, is by regulating canopy size and type, and tying advancement in canopy size/type to jump numbers and continuing education. It's not a guess or a speculation, it's a proven concept that's been in place in other countries for years (maybe even a decade) and it works. People seem to spout the 'freedom of choice' card, or the 'no nanny state' card, but when skydiving was born, canopy choice was not a problem. All of the regulations we have today were the result of the early jumpers finding out that certain things were overly dangerous, and that it made sense to reign those things in with some solid regs. Adding regs (wingsuit, camera, etc) shouldn't be looked at as a bad thing, it should be looked at as a sign that the sport is growing and developing. New facets are coming into the fold, and as this happens we learn how to deal with the pros and cons of each of them. When you're dealing with skydivers, you're dealing with the tip of the 'type A' personality spear. These are confident, aggressive people, who if you give them an inch will take a mile. It's what got them to jump out of a plane in the first place, and then pour countless hours and thousands of dollars into the sport. Given the performance level of the canopies out there, and the level of what 'we' as a sport know what to do with them, you can't take those 'type A' people, and those 'type A' canopies, and just them freely intermingle.

The same reason that tunnel time shouldn't replace actual jumps in meet the requirements to become an AFFI. Much like the tunnel skills, the teaching is only one part of the overall puzzle needed to make a good AFFI. Some people at larger DZs may forget this, but there are smaller DZ where there is very little in the way of staff. What you end up with is an instructor essentially teaching in a vacuum, where they do the FJC, the ground preps, make the jumps and do the debrief (in the case of AFF, there would be another I, but if that I is a junior instructor, they would be taking their queues from the senior I anyway). The point being that an I needs to be a complete package, who can teach in the classroom, on the DZ, in the plane, in freefall, and effectively supervise in all of those same places, and conduct a good debrief. So just like a certified teacher has a leg-up in some of those areas, so does a certified tunnel instructor. Regardless, there are still the areas not pertaining to their certification where they also need to be proficient in order to do the job.

One more quick note about hop n pops - the first one you do is from 5500ft, which at this point is somewhat above your normal pull altitude, and not really that big of a deal. Once you do that, there is another one from 3500ft, which is still not that big of a deal, but can be more intimidating to a new AFF grad. Otherwise, Pops is right, get good, clean, stable exits down from full altitude on your other jumps before moving to hop n pops.

My advice would be to stop jumping the camera wings with tandems until you have refined your exit technique/timing. Getting hit by the drogue is a big deal, and can pose a real danger to the tandem if it gets snagged on any part of your body. Make sure that your exits and subterminal flying are 100% before taking the wings out with tandems. I would suggest that you become a 'good' sit flyer/back flyer before trying it with a tandem, camera suit or not. Once you feel ready, try it on the bottom end of a jump. Back up somewhat, and transition to a sit/back fly and see what happens. The reason you do it close to pull time is in case you drop out of your slot and cannot stay close, the TI is going to open soon anyway, and the video is not 'ruined' because you're trying something new. Once you can do a clean transition, and hold your slot, try flipping to your back a little higher, and flying it longer.

There have been quite a few fatalities as of late (way too many), and in the same breath, quite a few threads on here with newbies and low timers arguing over the need for experience or regulation with regards to various aspects of the sport. The juxtaposition of the two made me think of a video clip that, to me, is the single greatest comment on safety and longevity in aviation. If you don't have 3 minutes to spare for the whole clip, just watch the 40 seconds from 1:15 to 1:55, and then think long and hard how about where you, your choices, and your actions fit into that line of thinking. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZBcapxGHjE For those of you who don't know, the guy in the clip is widely regarded as the greatest pilot of all time, and he flew more planes, for more years, into and out of more places than anyone.

Rickster, yep. However, he was also jumping much different canopies than you are, doing much smaller turns than you, and had way more jumps than you before he started swooping slower canopies with smaller turns. The PD team? Some of them did start in the early days, and for those guys, see the points I made about Rickster, the same applies to them. Some of the newer guys on the team started jumping after x-brace canopies, swooping and swoop comps were a regular and established thing, and I'm willing to bet they all had professional coaching and good mentors. All that aside, you realize that you're pointing at the best of the best, and saying what you're doing is OK because that's what they did. Of course, you can see that your assumptions about them are wrong, but even if they did proceed the way you suggested, do you really think you're as good as those guys, and that you should be following their path? That seems might presumptuous of you, and if it turns out you're not quite a world-class canopy pilot, you're making a big mistake in following the footsteps of world-class canopy pilots.

In my opinion, tandem student's deserve the most 'hand-holding' and over sight of anyone on the plane. They have the least amount of training, and are more-or-less, walking blindly into the situation counting on the instructors to take care of EVERYTHING. Based on that, the sign is a fine idea. I know that if I'm on the plane when tandems are exiting, I make it point to visually check all four attachment points and that the harness is tight with all straps properly threaded. I have to yet to see anything out of place, but I won't let them go by me without at least taking a look (I don't mean I block them until I have checked the gear, I mean I won't sit there and not look if I have the chance). When it comes to supervision or over sight of anyone on the plane (or the DZ), the amount they garner is based on their time in the sport (or the DZ). More time = less supervision, and of course, less time = more supervision. I can't remember the last time I gave a second thought to whatever some of my fellow staff members were doing. After more than a decade of working together, I feel like they have a handle on things. I also can't remember the last time I didn't take an interest in the gear, dive plan, and exit order of any jumper on the plane with me who has less than 100 jumps.

In the case that the coach works for the DZ, and is provided services through the DZ itself, then you might have a point. If they are going to allow the guy to jump the canopy, then their staff should support that jumper with whatever services the DZ offers. However, I have NEVER seen a DZ that provides HP canopy coaching. I have seen DZs that will host HP canopy coaches, and allow them to coach/offer classes on their DZ, but at that point the coach is a separate entity from the DZ, and can refuse service to anyone they want, regardless of the position of the DZ. Like Ian said, and it's the same thing I've always said, when a 'student' won't listen to lesson #1 when it's to upsize or switch canopies, what are the chances they will listen to anything else? When it comes to HP canopy flight, there is no room for 'selective hearing'. You can't pick and choose the advice to listen to when it's coming from a qualified, experienced HP pilot/coach. I'm not about to be blackmailed into being a part of what I believe to be an unsafe situation by the childish choices of another jumper. For the record, 'Coach me or I'll do it anyway and be less safe', amounts to, in my opinion, blackmail. Of course it's retarded blackmail because the negative consequence being held over the coaches head is the health and well being of the student, and if the coach refuses to teach, they really have nothing to do with the actions/consequences of the student. So the coach really has nothing to lose, and the truth is they have more to lose in that scenario because if they agree to coach the student, who then gets injured or killed, they would be a party to those actions.

Not aimed at Pops, just adding on. Recently I watched a new coach working with a jumper, and then the coach made it all the way to the plane without his helmet. He ran to grab it, and all else went well. The point is that being a new coach, who just barely meets the experience requirements, he just doesn't have the accumulated time in the sport to be able to juggle all of the balls involved in supervising two people on a skydive. I know that the 'student' in this case has been cleared to self-supervise, but like a good coach he put out an effort to supervise the student, and in doing so he forgot to supervise himself. So when you take perspective AFF Is, and remove their time in the sport, and on a DZ, making actual jumps, you are losing more than some people think. A big part of the job is literally 'managing' a skydive for two people, yourself and the student. That student is counting on the AFF I to be sharp enough to handle every facet of their skydive from the gear up, to shedding the jumped rig in the packing room, and everything in between. It just takes time in he sport to be able to put your own skydive on 'autopilot', and be able to focus on the needs of your student, and still have all of your own bases covered. Part of being an AFF I is the freefall flying skills, for sure, but a bigger part is having the knowledge, experience, and judgment to be able to accurately supervise and guide your student through a safe skydive, and you don't get any of that in the tunnel.

Oh, in that case, it must be fine because you can justify it. It's not just the speed of freeflying, it's the direction of the wind. Have you ever seen anyone tell one of the 'bigger boys' not to belly fly a rig that's not freefly friendly because they fall at freefly speeds on their belly? No, the reason being that the directionality of the wind is still in line with the design of the rig. Even if you were a feather weight who could sit fly at 110 mph, it's still a 110 mph wind hitting the rig in a way it wasn't designed for. So if you have a rig that's not freefly friendly, that includes everything but face to earth flying. Back, side, sit, head down, etc, and it's not the overall speed, but the direction of the wind that really counts.

'Fair' is only for real people. Real people are honest about who they are, and from where they speak. Trolls and children with nothing better to do then stir up shit are deceptive about these things because it will hurt their credibility. You gave other people shit about their info, and asked for jump numbers, but you yourself don't even have a 'plausible' number in your profile. I'm not asking anyone to post a pic of their logbook, especially because I myself don't have a logbook that goes past jump 200-ish. What I do have is a history on this site, a D license number that's 15 years old (which can be traced), a USPA number that's 18 years old (which can be traced), USPA ratings (which can be traced), and multiple people who post here who have met and jumped with me. You want fair? How about you start being fair and stop being such a faceless shit-stirrer? That would be fair to anyone reading this thread who for some odd reason might be trying to take your point seriously.

Take the time to go to each DZ on a sunny Sat or Sun. Talk to the staff about their student/A license program, and everything that's involved. Spend some time hanging out and watching the operation, to see how things are run. Collect your info/impressions, and compare the two. One or the other will look or feel like a better choice for you. Once you have your A license, go make some jumps at the other place, just to see what it's like.

I know a guy with a Kat 150. He's been jumping for many years, has 1000's of jumps, and weighs about 210lbs. He's also an 'older' guy who doesn't want to have to (try to) slide out or sprint for any landing in lighter winds. He's qualified to jump a HP canopy, and likes the way they fly, but has a need for a different speed range than some other Kat pilots. Also, if you notice, the higher up the performance scale you go, the 'big' canopies get smaller. For example, the Velo is only available up to 120.

There's a big difference between mounting a camera and turning it on before an activity begins, and operating and aiming a camera during the actual activity. A student pilot can mount and activate the camera before doing anything having to do with flying the airplane. They can then move into conducting a flight, to include the use of checklists, without involving the camera to any degree. It's a 'passive' use of a camera, and truth be told if a student/newbie wanted to mount a camera to the door/wing of an aircraft to film their exits, and did mounted and activated the camera before gearing up, I would not have a problem with that (of course, provided that the mounting was safe and not damaging to the aircraft). However, jumping a camera is another story. It requires direct interaction with the camera during the gear up, ride to altitude, and during the actual skydive/canopy flight. That's the instance where you need to have a good grasp of the basic skills/procedures in those areas before adding another skill/procedure to the mix. The former are survival skills that you need to live through a jump, the latter is an 'entertainment' device that is not needed or required for making a skydive, so you can see why the basic skills need to come first, and the 'fluff' comes later.

It's shocking that this is something you have to say, that's it's not the thought on everyone's mind on every load, but it's not. My question for those people, is what else are they doing that's so important? There's not that much going on in the plane that's so entertaining, and all of the people you're wedged into the noisy cabin with are the people you spend all day hanging out on the ground with, so the chit-chat isn't all that important or necessary. One of the things I like about jumping is that it's 'all-encompassing'. I find it very had to think about much else when I'm on a skydive, so the rest of the world sort of 'melts away' (this is even true to a degree just being at the DZ, but with cell phones and texting it's not quite as 'all encompassing' as it used to be). In either case, the point is that it's an activity that requires your 100% focus, and I can't understand people who don't carry a degree of that through to areas outside of the actual jump. If you could apply that focus to the planning of the jump, to include the packing and gear-up, and the ride to altitude, to include gear checks and aircraft safety, and the after-jump, to include a solid debrief, everyone would do a better job, be safer, and get more out of their jumps. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun sport. There's plenty of time for cocking around at the DZ with your pals in between all the 'serious stuff', but there really does need to be all the 'serious stuff' first and foremost. On a good day when everything goes right, the serious stuff makes you a better skydiver. On a bad when things go wrong, the serious stuff makes you live to see another day.

Just do what you're trained to do. What's the exit count at your DZ? Up/down/Arch? Out/in/Arch? Either one end in 'arch', and if you just arch you will have a good exit. It's just like every other part of the jump, you do what you're trained to do, and that works out fine. You manage to do some practice touches, altitude checks, and open a parachute, all per your training. Well, you need to believe that the training will also provide you with a good exit. One idea is to boil it down to the basics. If you squeeze your butt muscles together, it becomes very hard not to arch. So if you rehearse your exit count on the ground, make sure to mentally and physically squeeze your butt muscles together as you practice, you are training for what you're actually going to do. In the plane, think about the count, and than actually arching by squeezing your butt muscles together. Some people will just talk through the practice, and just think 'blindly' in the plane reviewing the steps but not how to do them. Include the actual actions needed to achieve the steps, and say them out loud as you exit. In all fairness, exits are a problem area for a lot of students. Making the transition from standing to flying is a 'finesse' move, and it takes time to get it right. Just believe in the training and your instructors, and focus on what you need to do during the exit.

David Rickerby. http://www.artopium.com/David%20Rickerby/