Divalent

I stopped by for a couple of fun jumps on a weekday this summer when I was down that way visiting relatives. Nice place, seems to be well run. They had their waiver online so I was able to get that out of the way before I even arrived. And they also have a 5 page "DropZone Briefing" newsletter on their website that gave an excellent overview of the facilities, the LZ, and their usual procedures. Folks were very friendly and welcoming, got me checked-in in no time, and got a solid briefing from Quinn, one of their instructors. I did a solo just to get myself familiar with the space and then a 2-way with another low timer before family duties ended my visit. Only con (minor) was the standing water in some of the landing area (but they recently had a lot of rain, and I wasn't gonna let a bit of water stop me). I look forward to returning when I am visiting the area in the future.

Doesnt look like that guy even has goggles on... distraction? Seems only fair - the poor cat's eye's aren't screened from the wind, so why should the guy's be? And the PAX didn't even have an altimeter. It suggests the DZ is really a tandem factory; not really interested in taking the opportunity to teach the student. Sad, really.

Those eastern europeans are quite the tandem innovators. Here's another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz3ZmZKsJC8

well, then perhaps I don't understand the concept of "head on a swivel". Obviously a camera won't tell you what the eyes are doing, but I presume it was bolted to his helmet, and so will tell you what the head is doing. these are the biggest head shifts I saw: 0:23 quick glance up to right (catching right front corner of canopy) 1:06 fraction of a second glance to the left (bringing another canopy they were following) Otherwise, it looked to me that the shifts in position were almost always very small angle about the center. From the camera view and the nice rectangular lay out of the roads and fields, the camera has a view angle significanly of less than 90 degrees (i.e, its not wide angle). Probably not much more than 45-50 degrees, if that. I watched a few times and other than those exceptions, the field of view never shifted more than about 1/4 of a frame, and usually less. Meaning no head movement more than about 15 degrees. (Does make nice jitter-free video, though.) Certainly never even close to a 90 degree "look left" or "look right". Never enough to bring the risers into view. On his right turn onto final, the field of view appears to be locked straight ahead and follows the canopy into the turn: no sharp look into the direction of the turn. But hey, what do I know? My ground instructor taught me that before you turned right, you look right. And I interpreted that to mean (following the example of my instructor who was demonstrating it to me) that you turned your head 90 degrees (or more) to the right. And I do recall my instructor illustrating "head on a swivel" as the head turning up and down and left and right nearly as far as it can go in all directions. (He looked kind of silly doing it, moving his head around like a bobblehead doll, but he made the point: look everywhere). But now I think I got it wrong. I think I'll speak to that dude next time I see him.

broken swivel?

well that didn't last long. (Not that I expected it to)

... that the DB Cooper thread was in 7th place in the forum list? (and can I drive it into 8th?)

I'm jumping back in here because I want to clarify that my previoius post was not intended as questioning the usefulness of audibles (even though from my perspective I don't see the advantage). I was interested in knowing when (if ever) you take them off the audible, so that I could better see how they were integrated into the training period. IOW, are they used only as long as radios would normally be used and then removed (i.e., through AFF level 7, unless the student had particular issues that justified continuing into their solo status)? Or do you mandate their use until getting their A license? Or is it optional according to the student's choice, with a DZ recommendation one way or the other? (I don't have an opinion one why or another whether any of these options are inherently good or bad, just want to clarify how they are used.)

OTOH, that’s kind of their job, trying to get accurate and complete information about events, and situations like this usually arise when people who have the information decide (even for good reasons) not to provide it. In my experience, whether a particular person considers pushy reporters as "bottom feeding scum" or "heroic investigators" serving the public interest by depends mostly on whether that person (for personal, financial, or ideological reasons) would want the information made public. The response of the DZ (providing no info, asking reporters to leave) is why we are sitting here with only the barest information at all about this incident. And without more, it's kind of pointless to have an incident thread on it, since unless we know what happened, we can't learn from it. Sadly, this incident appears like it is going to go the way of the Cross Keys incident of May 27 of this year: a collision and two jumpers seriously injured (one fatally in that one), apparently witnessed by expert skydivers who could provide good insight into what happened and what possible factors were involved, and no one willing to provide us with that information (other than the advice to "be careful"). I mean, what's the point of an incident thread then?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgdIE2t8QkM&hd=1 Anybody wanna try it? (no, I don't have one to lend)

It's part of the game. Officers and prosecutor just want to clear cases, and are willing to allow anyone to plead to a lower charge just to avoid the time they all (judge, prosecutor, attorneys, cop, witnesses, court recorder, bailiff, etc) would have to spend for a 30 minute bench trial. Defendent waits until the last minute to see if the witnesses show up: if they don't, they win, if they do, they plead out on the spot. You can do the same thing if you ever cause an accident: make sure the other guy gets paid off to his satisfaction, and 99% chance he won't appear (in the middle of a work day) to testify against you. (Not that he wants you to get off, but with his car repaired already, 3 months later he isn't going feel that foregoing an afternoons income is worth it to do his civic duty.)

Unless the person who posted a comment on DZ.com was a witness or a party in the suit, this would be hearsay evidence and clearly not admissible. (Unless the defense attorney failed to object, in which case the problem is with the competence of the attorney.)

I suspect USPA considers not paying your dues as egregioius as it can get.

Just curious: are the audibles used only as long as radios would have been used? I.e., after a certain point (usually, once they graduate AFF) the student goes without them? I'm not an instructor (nor very experienced) but it seems to me that one useful function of radios is getting students through that phase where they have limited experience flying a landing pattern. I.e., at a time they have little or no experience visually judging altitude, little or no experience controling a canopy, little or no experience orienting themselves to their ground picture, and when they might also be close to being overwhelmed by all the other unfamiliar aspects of the experience. Since the audibles are useless for one important function that radios allow (helping the student learn to time their flare), I'm wondering when you think it is appropriate to wean them off of it. I.e., when exactly do you feel they are "grown up and ready to leave the nest"? BTW, on my AFF level-1 jump I had a long spot, and barely made it back to the LZ after flying a direct line the whole way, and was unable to land following the preplanned landing pattern. (The other AFF-1 student who exited before me landed off.) I landed safely and uneventfully by being directed in by radio to do an opposite-turn pattern putting me on the preplanned final leg (with somewhat abbreviated downwind, base, and final legs due to my lack of altitude). An audible would have been less than useless for that jump, more likely to have distracted me than anything else. (And it probably would have been useless for the other student who landed off.)

There are several example in the "Fatality - Snohomish WA - 18 AUG 2011" thread. For example, user "freeflysteve" has the sig: "Swooping, huh? I love that stuff ... all the flashing lights and wailing sirens ... it's very exciting!" Nothing at all wrong with the sig except (IMO) in a fatality thread. (that particular incident wasn't a swooping fatality, but if he ever posted in one of those threads, there it will be, right now).

What a great guy, and an excellent and very experienced instructor. I was sad to see him depart for Hawaii, and infinitely sadder to learn of his death. Blue skies, Jack.

@Bolas and Andy9o8: Yeah, except most people don't think to do that when posting, even those that know it's an option. Thus my suggestion to make "no sig" the default for that particular forum. Sig lines run the gamut: from "good advice", mocking a friend, funny references to skydiving risks or dangerous situations, political statements, goofy/silly phrases or quotes, etc. In almost all cases they really aren't appropriate in a thread about a particular fatality or serious injury, and in some cases they end up making a point (about the incident, the victim, or the poster) that was not intended. The issue is that most people set their sig and then don't really think about it (until they later decide to change it). It appears that whatever your current sig is, that is what will be displayed below all of your posts when viewed in the future, even ones posted before you set that particular version of the sig. Thus, even in those rare situations where your current sig complements your message, that will be lost when you later change your sig. (Or worse, make you seem like a callous jerk when you later change your sig to something that seems to fit the incident.)

Agree with adding the warning language in the first post. And a marginally somewhat related suggestion: could people's automatic "signature" be turned off in that forum? It appears that a poster's current signature line is displayed under every message they ever posted. Sometimes those signature quotes are jarringly inappropriate for the message and topic they commented on.

Well, even if your delay was a minute, that's (roughly) only the time to descend under canopy ~ 1000 ft. He might have pulled a few hundred feet higher, you might have sniveled more, he might have used his brakes more than you, you might have executed more aggressive turns, he might have had a lower wing loading, etc. IOW, lots of factors (or just one) could account for why you caught him.

Hmm, I must have a particularly evil imagination, because I can't imagine how intentionally packing a mal can be harder than trying to pack a non-mal. In fact, if you want I can pack a rig with the guarantee that there will be a mal, but I could never pack one so that I can guarantee there won't be one. What do you want? PCIT? Piece o cake to pack. Brake fire? Stuck toggle? Line twists? Line over? Step through? Bag lock? No problem! "Broken" brake line or riser? Heck, I can even give you the rare "Wrap lock"!

I can only give you my perspective on what worked best for me. I did 10 jumps under a static line progression many many years ago. Recently I trained under AFF. IMO, I *much* preferred AFF. I viewed static line as like trying to get into a cold swimming pool one toe at a time, with a retreat to dry land between each go. Maybe each dose of pain (e.g., dose of the fear) is smaller, but you have to keep revisiting it over and over, and you only get to bite off just a little bit more each jump. [ETA: With AFF] Key confidence milestones (ability to be aware of your surroundings during freefall, deploy yourself at terminal velocity, arch well, freefall stable, recover from instability, execute basic turns and tracks in freefall, etc) occur sooner, and you have more time during the jump to learn and practice. And having experienced both, I'll say this: if I was concerned that I might be the type of person that could totally freak out and lose mental and physical control (and unless you do a bunch of jumps, you never really know if you are that person or not), I would much rather learn about that when jumping from a high altitude with two instructors gripped to my side, than to learn that jumping all alone from 3K. But lots of people learned (and are learning) on static line, so what worked best for me might not be best for you.

Of course the "mess" usually happens when you try to get it in the bag. After 30 years of jumping non-Zero Porosity canopies, I really just hated packing when I finally got a modern canopy...then I tried the psycho pack ... Many will say that the psycho pack technique is being lazy, and that there is no reason why you can't learn the tips/techniques needed to get it in the bag easily, but I don't care. I just don't see the downside of psychopacking, it is so wonderfully easy, and openings do not suffer. +1. Been psycho packing for about 20 some jumps now, and I don't get it: why don't everyone use it? After flopping on the floor, you can recheck your lines, the noses, and the slider to make sure all is good. The folding to narrow the pack is done cleanly on top of the pack, so you know you didn't mess anything up when you did that. And getting into the bag is a piece o cake. Still waiting to hear of the downsides to it.

I wasn't at the Farm this weekend (out of state) but I'm pretty sure this is a made up story (or at least slightly exaggerated). Because when stuff like this happens at the Farm, the story almost never makes it onto the internet. (It's that old "nothing ever happens at the farm" ethos.)

But how about those keyless ignitions systems? (Anyone remember that window of time when they just put in those steering wheel locking mechanisms, but you could still shut off the engine and remove the key without being in park or neutral? Really put the kibash on a common teenage prank.)

If you want to be extra a cautious, pick a day where the weather is forecast to be sunny and relatively calm. And arrive early in the am. Winds are usually lighter in the morning, and the pop up t-storms that would cause a weather hold generally are happening in the mid to late afternoon. If you arrive late, you might find yourselves in line behind many others, and might have further delays if rain passes through.