jokeshop

I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have. PM me if you would prefer.

Revoking ratings does not necessarily impact safety. Raising awareness of a known safety concern and taking positive action to educate those associated with it is the proper course of action. If the approach of revoking ratings for trying anything new was the standard in skydiving and aviation, we may not have many of the new dimensions of flight that we enjoy today. I know there were days where formations, freeflying, and swooping were all considered crazy. Perhaps we need to really look at what allegedly makes this style of tandem jumping unsafe rather than speculating. I would have to believe that with the number of people out there who have done unusual attitudes and stunts while performing tandems, we would have at least had one injury or fatality that could be directly related. I also know Jacko well and can concur with Jono's assessment. Perhaps we should focus ourselves on those who are dropping people out of harnesses and why those harnesses failed rather than trying to pull the livlihood of those who are obviously proficient at what they do. I openly admit that I have learned from many mistakes along the way in many disciplines. I am a better person for it and I pass that experience on to others. Many others benefit from the learning we get from making mistakes. There is an old saying in aviation: "Learn from the mistakes of others as you may not have time to make them all yourself". I encourage all who are reading this thread and concluding that a revokation of ratings is the proper approach to reconsider and write the USPA and the rig manufacturers to send an advisory of the safety concern and corrective action so that we can move forward with sharing our skills and knowledge. What ever happened to the skydiving community?

Same scenario for me. First attempt at barrel rolls. Did one, didn't do the second successfully and went into flat spins. Thought that I balled up but realized I left my legs extended when the spins increased in speed. Balled up again with full leg retraction, regained vertical speed and opened symetrically. Lost over 2500 feet in the whole ordeal. Scared the shit out of me too!

Three times now. On my first solo jump in Gap/Tallard, the GPS failed and we did not know where the mountain tops were due to cloud cover. The second was in Eloy when the winds jumped from 24 knots on the ground when we left to over 40 knots by the time we crossed 10,000 feet. The third was just a couple of weeks ago due to sudden thick cloud cover moving in within minutes of take off.