JackC1

That hurdle is forced on people, just like your proposal would force 50ft flat turns on people. And again there are the mad skillz brigade who don't want or get coaching. Unless you force them, they still won't get coaching. The difference is you can practice accuracy by trial and error and stand a good chance of surviving a mistake. A flat turn at 50ft leaves very little room for error and mistakes could very well prove painful. You've obviously made up your mind and nothing I say will change it so I'm done.

If you just rock up and buy the first thing you see, yes it is. If you get advice from your instructors and a good rigger, and get the kit inspected by a rigger, not so much.

And there's the crux of the matter. Without mandating coaching, and good coaching at that (of which there is not enough), all you've done is set some dangerous hurdles to negotiate. There are enough people that don't get coaching and fly like shit as it is, if you force those hurdles onto people with insufficient experience and poor skills you would be rewarding the survival of some risky maneuvers with increased wing loading, and punishing failures with broken bones. I think a better bet would be to only allow the 100 jump downsize after the successful completion of a recognized canopy control course to be signed off by an appropriate instructor. Rather than simply setting a bunch of high risk examination drills and expecting people to seek out coaching if they think they need it.

Low turns are dangerous. Swooping is dangerous. Usually the advice given is not to turn low and not to go swooping without many hundreds of jumps and some good quality canopy coaching. And here we are discussing mandated low turn, HP landings and down winders for 100 jump noobs. Do you really think someone with 100 jumps is going to have enough experience to nail a 50ft flat 90deg turn, a 90 front riser hook, a 45 degree carve and a down wind landing given the current levels of canopy training given? And why the hell are you concentrating on get-you-out-of-the-shit maneuvers and totally ignoring all the shit-avoidance maneuvers? The superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations that require him to demonstrate his superior skill. Good choices above 1000ft will go a long way to making sure you don't need to get yourself out of the shit at 50ft. Totally ignored. If you want to make people do this stuff you need to implement a solid training program to teach them how to do it without becoming one of the statistics you're trying to reduce. Even then, 100 jumps just isn't enough experience for the drills you're asking for. It would be reckless to try.

I've read the trilogy. Excellent books. I hope the movies are as good.

So why isn't that part of the proposal? Instead you've got the one shot, do or die, 90 degree turn at 50ft natural selection test. And why, for the third time of asking, are all the canopy drills exactly the same for all levels?

If you fuck up a flat turn at 50ft, there isn't much time to bail out which means you either nail it perfectly or pound in. Kind of all or nothing. I wouldn't want to force a 100 jump noob to take that risk and if it was made part of the canopy progression program, I'd expect to see broken bones. I'd drop the dodgy stuff from the beginner category altogether. Or at least move the altitudes up to something safer. The other thing is why are all the canopy drills exactly the same for all levels? That does not require any real progression or skill improvement. If you can flat turn a 190, it doesn't take 500 jumps to learn how to flat turn a 170. And why are there no pattern flying requirements in there?

This is basically a WL restriction based on jump numbers (after 100 jumps) as the canopy drills are the same for all levels. But really, a 90 degree flat turn is a good skill to have, but don't you think asking someone with 100 jumps to demonstrate it at 50ft is rather Darwinian? The same with an HP landing.

Not quite. At 1000 jumps, the chances are you'd be fine as the wording says coach or person with suitable coaching experience. If the CCI is happy then you're good to go. And the 4-point 4-way only needs one coach or person with coaching experience to do the officiating. This is a BPA thing, no idea what other people get up to.

FS1 is a licence endorsement that allows people to do flat jumps with other FS1 qualified people. In order to get an FS1 sticker, you need to do a number of coached 2-way drill dives and complete a 4-point 4-way (B-O-M-J) qualification jump.

People tend to measure themselves by their intentions. Society measures them by their accomplishments.

What container and pilot chute are you using?

Is exit order the only thing that governs separation at pull time? No it isn't but it will affect congestion in the pattern. If you leave a big enough gap (distance, not time) then any exit order will give you adequate separation at pull time. If your jump run is cross wind, or nil wind, then pull time separation will be virtually unaffected by free fall drift. If jump run is down wind, then free fall drift will work against you. You can have your cake and eat it if you think a bit harder. Or you can jump to a conclusion, parrot the party line and bash anyone who dares to question it.

Interesting. Here's another one. Take 2 4-way groups, one flat and one head down. Scenario A: Flat group out first then the HD group leave 10s gap in the door before following. The HD group spend about 10s less in free fall before deploying at 3k than the flat group do. This means both groups open at the same time, at the same altitude and all fly towards the same PLA. Scenario B: The free fliers go first, followed by the flat group 10s later. The free fliers open at 3k 20s before the flat fliers. Then they all fly towards the same PLA but with 20s separation between groups. In scenario A you are more likely to get better separation at opening time. In scenario B you get better separation in the pattern. The question is, which scenario is less likely to end in collisions?

Depends on the person. It's our job as Instructors to help student learn. Some learn best with one approach, some learn better with another. This isn't a dz or a FJC where you can tailor your response to each individual student. Everyone reads the same posts here so if you're an asshole, you're not tailoring your teaching, you're just being an asshole.

Which is exactly what I suggested people do. If you don't know where the limits are, then you will be in for a surprise on the day you accidentally step over them. Try it, or don't. It makes no difference to me.

If you honk on a rear riser with the brakes still stowed the canopy will lock itself into a turn and you won't be able to stop it until you pop the brakes. Next time you deploy, try doing a fast 360 on rear risers with the brakes still stowed. Really give it the beans on that riser. Everything else, I agree with. Except that good packing practice can make your slim, flat toggles stand out when you deploy. But really, stowing sliders, undoing chest straps and the like are all luxuries you can do without when you're faced with an imminent canopy collision. But the point of practicing this is to give you options.

I think this is actually the first good question posted on this entire thread. I guess the answer to your question is: possibly. Normally you would turn to the right in the event of an impending head on collision (that is unless it is safer to turn to the left). In this case, the other guy had got his toggles in his hands and steered slightly right whereas our gopro hero didn't seem to do anything. The other guy could have executed a fast 90 degree right turn as soon as he saw the collision approaching which seems possible as he had his toggles in hand already or at least he could have gone into deep brakes to slow down (ideally both?). Our gopro guy could have pulled on his right rear riser to turn, he probably had time to do that. So yes, I think if they had both done a little better the collision could have been avoided. But what happened isn't particularly surprising given the circumstances. So why didn't they do better? My guess is target fixation. People tend to fly towards whatever they are looking at, it's a subconscious thing. It takes a conscious effort to break your attention away from the problem and onto a solution when you are taken by surprise. You can train yourself, but it doesn't happen overnight because it requires experience, essentially so that surprises become less surprising. I think there are lessons here that can be learned from the BASE community. Most skydivers don't have to deal with object avoidance on a regular basis so when they deploy, they tend to wait for it all to settle down, then stow the slider, undo the chest strap, switch off the camera, take a good long fart, scratch their arse, pick their nose and then finally pop the brakes. The BASE guys tend to toss the pilot chute and have their hands waiting to take the toggles. The moment the canopy has enough shape to start flying the brakes are popped and they take control of the situation so they can turn away from an object strike instantly. I think it is actually a really good idea for skydivers to practice getting on the toggles as quickly as possible after deployment. It's also a good policy to make your first task after deployment to turn your canopy onto a safe heading. Of course the real reason they collided was because the scuba waves emanating from the camera distort the medulla oblongata area of the brain making it impossible for people to think of anything other than "getting the shot" and uploading it to youtube. The only known antidote for this scuba-wave medulla oblongata interaction is of course 200 jumps and a tinfoil hat.

If you're jumping in the UK under BPA rules you will need a C certificate. That's will require CH1, CH2 and JM1 endorsements plus another '??1' (eg. FS1, FF1, IS1) and at least 200 jumps. Then you'll need a camera briefing and some CCI's ask for a cutaway system on the helmet you will be using.

He would have had to look up to manage that thought. At least he found a nice safe place to hide the video where nobody will ever see it.

Sorry, I shouldn't have picked on your post. But I tend to think the venom directed at cameras is overshadowing the real problems.

Then why did he purposely not video that gnarly mangled canopy after the collision? That would have made great video to show his mates... "see all those broken lines? Yeah, I landed that" [hard_points++]. I doubt this guy was paying much attention at all to his camera. Sure he lacks the ability to shoot video and shouldn't be wearing a camera, but the biggest contribution his camera made was to give the mob of angry skygods living under the dz.com bridge something to hang him for. And that's a shame because they should be hanging his instructors and mentors for not teaching him enough basic RW skills to survive a 4-way. Instead the overwhelming learning opportunity we can take from this thread is "if it ain't on video, it never happened". Or worse still "if it ain't on video, it won't happen".

As I see it, there are plenty of things on this guys substantial list of fuck up that need addressing before you even start on the camera. What's that old mantra? If it ain't on video it never happened? Convenient that.

There's tracking (the get away from a group at break off) and there's tracking (in loose formation for fun). For the former, ski jumpers are awesome trackers :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=013m2BmrQLI For the latter, it's more or less the same but more relaxed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsAi88ROmvU&feature=related

I find it very weird getting on a plane if I'm not wearing a rig and on commercial planes I have to remind myself that when the red light goes on it means wear your seat belt, not open the door.