peek

Members
  • Content

    2,434
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    3
  • Feedback

    0%
  • Country

    United States

Everything posted by peek

  1. It will be updated, but I do not recall the schedule. You can find the verbiage in the USPA BOD meeting Minutes from the 2018 summer meeting. This was a BSR change only. Nothing about the ISP has changed. (My apologies for sounding so picky about how this change is described, but not everyone uses the ISP for training. The BSRs need to be worded so as to be as flexible as possible.) I would think that only a specific combination of instructor/student should take advantage of this BSR change. From the people I have talked to, no one is in a rush to do so. It is going to take some planning, and cooperation between tunnels and DZs.
  2. Bill, I'm not so sure about this. How are we learning about the opinions of a "vocal minority"? If you are refering to those who post on dropzone.com, well, yes, they are vocal because they are comfortable using dropzone.com. But there may be many others that are against USPA donating to the museum, but are not comfortable talking about it in public. I would think that there is no way to really know. People don't always tell us what they are really thinking. I realize that I am saying that there is a problem, but that I am not providing a solution. I can't think of one short of holding a gun to everyone's head and forcing them to vote their opinion on it or something like that. .
  3. I agree. But lacking any better public forum for discussion of skydiving and USPA issues, I will at least give it a shot here. I actually learn a lot here. When I ask skydivers why they don't come here they usually say something like, "Dropzone forums are all bullshit" or something like that. I usually suggest that if they would participate in discussions, then there will be that much less bullshit! (FYI, the only thing that really bothers me about some discussions is that people change topics in the middle of a discussion and try to "pile on". This makes it difficult to complete a discussion.)
  4. Only because a few of us participate here, (somewhat successfully I think.) Others will never participate because they do not want anyone to challenge them with questions.
  5. Complaining can do a lot, like educating people on a topic. I am always glad to see Ron share what he knows.
  6. Tim, your comments and opinions are much appreciated here. I look forward to reading them.
  7. Hopefully I understand the questions correctly... BSR's set the minimum requirements. Much of the detail in the instructional programs is not related to the BSRs, so there is a lot of flexibility in how students are taught.
  8. Who is your Regional Director? Isn't it time to call them out? !!!
  9. Yes, it would be nice, but I can't even get members to care enough to give me a call, during which I can explain a lot in a short period of time. One guy calls me every election cycle (thanks Dave!) to ask me who to vote for, and that's usually it. People who cannot justify their answers to your (sincere) questions are not going to allow you the opportunity to put them on the spot.
  10. A proper pack job is important, but is not the only thing needed for a nice opening on a parachute. It is a complicated system, and a certain amount of randomness exists. Also, some models and brands of parachute are noted for opening harder than others. I suggest doing a lot of searching and reading in the Gear and Rigging forum for discussions of this. Then come back with some more questions. And while you are at it, and just for fun, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i16HryVyRaI
  11. If any of you are in the credit card industry and can help a small business owner with some unbiased advice about being a credit card merchant, please PM me.
  12. Thanks for your comments. They do a good job of demonstrating that USPA should perhaps shift its priorities. However, there is so much attention given to safety oriented issues that I think most people would say that USPA is doing well in handling them. I do not specifically agree or disagree with this. It would be nice to hear from as many members as possible about this.
  13. FYI: Those change were not designed to increase safety. They were made to align USPA licenses with FAI licenses. The details escape me, so you might get more detail from a competition oriented person.
  14. Perhaps note, but it does this: https://parachutistonline.com/p/Article/skydiving-related-aircraft-accidents
  15. The NTSB has what I think eveyone needs, but it is not easy to find from their main page. https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/index.aspx Try the search. Enter Part 91 and Skydiving in that section. Download All (XML) is useful if you like seaching in your browser, but it crashed my browser because it has a lot of data.. The "downloadable dataset" used to have pdf files, and there was one for skydiving specific accidents, but that doesn't look like it used to the last time I went there. Edited to include another link: https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/Results.aspx?queryId=8a2d2f88-f34a-4927-9886-00b6a94fca6d
  16. Very interesting, thanks for the info. It will also be interesting to see if this is a local thing to that area. I wonder if people will be as excited, having to jump from a "little" plane like a C182 at a small dropzone.
  17. Has anyone seen any evidence of the movie "Mission: Impossible – Fallout" helping with the marketing of skydiving? Things perhaps like students telling you that is why they decided to skydive, etc? "Point Break" seemed to help back in the day, but in both cases, it is difficult to analyze the effect, with much of the "evidence" being anecdotal.
  18. It was way more than a couple of times. It took place for many years, the last year being 2006. Many large events have disappeared, and one of the reasons is that the things that these events provided are now commonly available closer to home, e.g., larger turbine aircraft, specialty aircraft, etc. Another unfortunate issue is that insurance for some of the specialty aircraft became harder to get, which eliminated the use of a number of them.
  19. Thank you for your understanding and for explaining that even better than I could. Here is some interesting history about USPA BOD meetings and electronic voting. 1. A few years ago Jan Meyer created an online system where the Secretary could set up a vote for each motion, and BOD members could enter their votes from their laptops to a web page on the server. (It inherently recorded all votes "by name"). Unfortunately she had to bring and set up a server computer at the meeting, and it was a bit ahead of its time for the BOD. (Some users were impatient and critical of it.) This system could of course be done better now, but you would need to ask her about that. It would be a lot of work for her to put it all together again, work that she would have to volunteer (again) with no guarantee of acceptance. 2. Many years ago, before the internet was popular, BJ Worth asked me about (wired) boxes with switches that could connect to a computer and record the switch positions corresponding to the voting of the individuals. I thought about it a lot and realized that I would be volunteering a lot of work and a fair amount of money, with no guarantee of acceptance, much less reimbursement, so I never did prototype it.
  20. Not that I know of. I don't want to say too much about it because this is not my area of computer expertiwse. With a USPA BOD meeting, multiple committee meetings are going on at the same time, so I think meetings would be better recorded and available on a web site for later viewing, rather than live viewing. How does Beto get audio from questions asked by people at the meeting? Does he walk among the audience? Do you have any links to recordings he has made of meetings?
  21. Unlike the original Sabre, the Sabre 2 is noted for opening well if packing is done well, and I have not heard of one needing a larger slider. Line trim will need to be checked first. You might need to send it to PD to test jump. To all: Does anyone know someone who has installed a larger slider on a Sabre 2?
  22. Well, I don't quite know what you are talking about. I voted against the museum donations. The only thing negative I have said is that video of meetings will likely not happen in the near future. Mike and I posting here makes us easy targets for criticism. Try contacting other Directors and see who even responds to you. I hope you come to the PIA Symposium this winter early enough to attend part of the BOD meeting. It will fill you in on a lot of the things we are all talking about.
  23. I'm pretty sure it could too. I feel like I should explain that my comment on the difficulty of doing video of a meeting is based on my idea of "good" video and audio. There is a huge difference between 2 people on their laptop computers communicating in their quiet offices, and 20-30 people trying to communicate in a large room with echo, and without a PA system. But that is what we usually have.
  24. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone says how easy it is to do video of BOD meetings. Go to the web site of your local government and find video of a meeting, then go to where the meeting is held and video is done (don't forget the audio, which is more important), and look at what it takes, then tell us how easy it is. Or contact a company that does things like this, describe USPA BOD meetings (don't forget the committee meetings) and ask them what it would take to do it right. Or, contact Douglas Spotted Eagle, who used to be the moderator of the dz.com video and photograhy forum, and ask him about his experience in doing video of a BOD meeting. For the record, I would welcome recording or live video/audio of BOD meetings.
  25. (The following assumes a "larger airplane" with a side door, like a Twin Otter or a Cessna Caravan. If you are exiting a small Cessna with a step, and are fully outside when you leave, this is unlikely to apply.) One issue that I have seen people have that are worried about the exit is that they are hesitant, and exit slowly. This means that one side of their body is out in the wind before the other side leaves the airplane, and this of course rotates their body around. You might try being very forceful and just flinging your body out there symetrically. Someone watching you exit should be able to tell if this is what is happening.