castrodavidd

This should be an article about how AADs have saved lives, not about jump numbers. All I'm hearing is sit down why the sky gods go play. I have 425 jumps over 4 active years. I have been on those large track and angle dives, and have never had a problem staying with the formation. Thruth is your DZ preaches safety to the industry while having a horrible safety record. Kind of remindes me when a pilot told me "I've ran an airplane out of fuel 4 times so I think I know how to manage fuel." Rather than shutting people out for not meeting your specifications, why don't you try taking them in. I've been to your DZ and 31 others across the country. I have never been treated as poorly as I was in AZ. Ps. Try putting your least experienced jumpers upfront by the leader. That way the leader can set the pace of the slowest tracker. You may not get the best track but you will all stay together.

^^^+1 Trust your rears!

Follow up to my original post. After checking all of my line trims, I lengthened my brake lines by 2.5 cm. The climb has drastically reduced, maybee down to 3 or 4 feet. Which I can live with, I think.

I hope the 155 on your viso was in meters and not feet. Even then you should be able to get a lot more than 500 feet out of a 270.

Because I have yet to find anyone who will sell me a Petra 169

After checking the line trims, the brakes were set 2cm short of the factory setting. I lengthen them by that, will see how it does.

I have about 125 jumps on a crossfire 2 169, loaded 1.55/1. 100 of those are riser approaches. The last 50 have been 270's. I have been working on increasing my turn and dive times to increase my speed. Over the last ten jumps the canopy has been climbing half way through the swoop, about ten feet. I have attributed this in the past to twisted steering lines, but last jump I made sure they were untwisted before packing. I have tried keeping my hands on the dive loops, and even tried adding a little pressure when it starts to climb. My biggest concern is that when it gets to the top of the climb it's almost stalled, and starts descending almost vertically with little pressure left for the flare. Anny suggestions?

Where's the like button?

Yes but I already swooped the landing area and there is not much to see there.

This post wasn't ment to talk about gear, but to question how much should be taught about two out situations. Remember you can teach just about every thing about just about anything but when a first jump student leaves the airplane they are not going to remember it all. I think it's better to give them the minimum amount of information to survive the jump and build on that.

Probally averages 10 per week, yes we think the gear should be updated but his prices are pretty low. $140 for the FJC $45 for a student or coach jump. Includes gear rental.

I love how people on dz.com can turn a training question into a witch hunt. Yes it is old school, yes the equipment should be replaced, but in 30 years of being a dzo the guy has never even seen a fatality, so he must be doing something right. How many of you can say that about your dz?

To lower the risk of a two out, caused by a aad firing with a main deployed. The student is going to get a canopy. If the main is bad, cutting away will activate the reserve through the RSL. The worst case would be a Staic line in tow. We teach our students rleft hand on your reserve handle right hand on your head. Only when the SLI sees this will he cut the static line. If the student is unable or unwilling the SLI will climb down the SL hold on to the student rig with on hand and cut the SL with the other. Activating the students reserve once clear.

You're saying that the S/L students DON'T have active AADs for their first jump??? Yes

The debate was over every instructor having their own opinion. Not being one of them I watched while forming my own. In the case of a first jump student on a static line, AADs are off or not installed, I thought as a whole it would be better to do nothing, ie leave the brakes set and go along for the ride. Teaching them "at first" to only chop if it down planes. The keep it simple stupid method. To complicate the standardization in this procedure this DZ still has some rigs with round reserves. Hence my go for a ride idea. PS. I'm doing just fine on my X-Fire

The instructors at my DZ had a debate on what to teach the students in regards to a two out situation. They use a static line first jump course. I was wondering if anyone has had, seen, or heard of some one having two canopies out on a static line jump. If so what was the cause.

At 200 jumps I installed a RS it is one of the best investments to my gear yet. It requires less time to stow in the air, and provides a greater field of view while scanning for other traffic. It is no more complicated to reattach than stowing your brakes. Yes it takes a little more time on the ground but I think it's worth it. I also seems more likely that someone would forget to uncolapse their slider, than forget to put the whole thing back on. The problem is that most skydivers perceive "new" as "dangerous" when in fact it is the "old" and "complacent" that kills us most often.

Great people and jumping at both DZ. the only way to go wrong is not to jump at them both!

I like my women like I like my canopy; small, fast and scares the shit out of me.

Some people have implied that my attitude and ego about this sucks. So in conclusion, I write this. I wanted everyone in my last post on this thread to know I just used the top of a ladder as a step. Even though I'm sure thousands of people have been injured or even died "hence the do not sit or stand". I have prevaled, against all odds, and common wisdom of using ladders, I have successfully returned to the surface of the earth without injury. Blue Skies

Also from the USPA website Background—Of the 300 fatalities from 1999 to the present, 158 (53%) were canopy-related. That is, 158 fatalities were due to accidents that involved a fatal landing while flying a fully inflated parachute during some (in the case of a collision), or all of the canopy descent. Additionally, the low cutaway/low reserve deployment category is also included in these figures, because many of those fatalities occurred after a jumper lost a large amount of altitude in a short time due to a spinning malfunction, under a highly loaded main canopy. The types of canopy-related fatal accidents are broken out below into five categories. Presented within each category are two types of averages (the mean and the median) of the number of jumps of each involved jumper. The mean is what most of us think of as the "average;" the median is the actual middle value in the list of jump numbers. Intentional Low Turns—43 fatalities, typically jumpers with several hundred jumps or more trying to swoop. Number of jumps: Mean is 1,489. Median: 1,000 Canopy Collisions—38 fatalities, some caused by being too close on deployment but most are collisions at pattern altitudes. High-performance approaches resulting in striking slower-flying canopies are on the rise. Number of jumps: Mean is 1,490. Median: 850 Unintentional Low Turns—32 fatalities, typically trying to turn into the wind or avoid an obstacle. Number of jumps: Mean is 706. Median: 200 Landing Problems—32 fatalities, mostly striking obstacles and bad landings, many are related to off-field landings. Number of jumps: Mean is 1,419. Median: 450 Low cutaway/low reserve deployment—13 fatalities, many of the low-cutaway fatalities involved higher wing-loaded canopies where a great deal of altitude was lost in a short time under a spinning main canopy. Number of jumps: Mean is 922. Median: 96 I just reliezed these statisicts must be wrong. You can't have a mean more than twice the value of the median

Taken from the USPA website discussion about canopy saftey

Recently I gave a biannual flight review. It had been awhile so I bought a book so we could go over the manuvers. The book cost nine dollars. We did an hour of ground and an hour of flight. I charged him $0.00. Chalk it up to being a nice guy, helping another pilot out, what ever. the point I'm trying to make on this is that the commercialization of skydiving sucks. Yes DZ are a bussines and they have to make money I'm just tired of every 100 jumper wonder with a coach rating standing at manifest with his hand out. Do it because you love it, Do it because your helping a fellow skydiver. It jumping is your full time job sure make some money at it, just don't forget why you jump. And if it's still not enough money go get a real job. I paid 500.00 for my 10 jump AFF course try to find that now. Hell you will almost pay that for a tandem and video.

I got tired of my old canopy, Hard openings, short recovery arc, and wanted to go faster.

Realy? Be half way serious. How many times have jumped where there is no one looking up at you, or watching you land. Most drop zones have a loader or other designated person watching for the sole perpose of knowing if someone landed off and in what direction. Should we charge jumpers for that too. I think we can agree that this would be a minimal inconvenance to the DZ. To talk about law suits, thats what waivers are for. If anything a program like this would protect the DZ more because it would become an industry standard.