Austintxflight

Just a question, what if the DZ set a jump minimum for having an AAD. So saying anyone with less than X amount of jumps must use one and after that its your choice. I'm sure there would be a number most would agree with. 100? 250? Thoughts?

I agree that DZ's are working just as hard to preserve their reputation as a safe environment. They need Tandems to come in and feel safe and not hear the stories about someone pounding in the day before. No one wants to go through the bad string of luck Perris went through recently. {and they banned hook turns for a while)

I know the talk of fake AAD's is more reactionary, but I think about consequences of such, for example someone borrowing a rig and thinking it has an AAD when its just a dummy to skirt a DZ's rules. I agree we should be responsible for our own safety, but please think twice before going through the time and effort to create fakes as the unintended consequences of such an action could lead to something more serious.

start brainstorming with skyventure, they are based in texas

Just to throw my hat into the ring. If the issues is with you dealing with the outcome of certain events, going on vacation will be a temporary relief, but unless you make yourself right with you, it will eventually follow you back. Forgiving yourself, and accepting outcomes is the only way to truly heal. But it is often the most difficult. Good luck

The big danger of a cat running loose in a car is it getting between the brake pedal, if you need to brake you either crush your cat or crash. That has always been my fear, some cat sophie's choice shit. .

spaceland has an awesome rigger

Can you freefly the halo jumps?

I got a pulse right after getting my A. I've put about 60 jumps on it since then. The flare is almost impossible to mess up. As everyone seems to say it opens very smooth, you don't lose lots of altitude but don't open hard. Its a great canopy to get and learn on for a few hundred jumps. From what I've heard they start to lose flare after they are loaded over 1.4 or so.

I just rewatched this again. There are actually 5 people on the jump. You can see one guy climb out onto the camera step before the 2 guys set up in the door. of the 5 people on the jump 4 of them have cameras. The guy who first goes onto the camera step, one of the guys setting up in the door, and the two guys chasing. So it looks like they had 4 plus a video guy, but it was so FUBAR that the camera guy was never seen except when he goes out on the camera step... If you watch from the 40 second point you can see the first guy go out to the camera step before the 3 guys get in the door.

I wish we knew if this was a planned 4 way or if it was a 2 way with solos following. I keep watching that part over and over, and parts of it make it look like a 2 way with the other two guys just following them out, while other aspects make it look like a 4 way jump. The guy he collided with was not one of the first two jumpers, but the guy that went out at the same time as him. I don't have much experience, but I have yet to see people jumping after me, or getting ready to jump and been as set up in the door as they were. Would there ever be a situation where you jump that soon after another group? It was almost instantaneous. I could maybe have seen it as 2 2ways, although that still doesn't explain his plan during freefall.

In terms of mitigating risk, I think diablopilot or someone else with sufficient tunnel experience and training, plus years as an instructor would be better to explain the different risks and how to mitigate them. That is an area where experience absolutely plays a factor in. And you can get more than bumps and bruises from flying into the wall, or you could fly right out the door etc. Like diablopilot said said, there have been significant injuries. My point was agreeing that on a per basis level it is less risky. Diablopilot even advocated at one point (different thread) that students should go through S/L or an idea mix of tandem, S/L training before moving to AFF because the combination of the AFF learning curve and the canopy learning curve can be too much for some. By his logic, then removing the canopy portion, should therefore be safer than having both. Although still carries risk.

Ok. So I think this is the situation, the OP said they were sticking to the tunnel because it was safer than skydiving. You wanted to let her know that risks are still involved, which is true. (there are no risk free activities in life). And the risks are still significant and from your experience and second hand knowledge(which then you discount others second hand knowledge) you have come to see. One can understand where you are coming from, I think we all agree it is better to prepare for the worst and have the respect to understand and mitigate the risks involved than to undersell the risk and have someone get hurt because they track into a glass wall at 100MPH. I agree that I do not have the experience to know each specific risk, and how to mitigate them and reduce the risk for myself or others, and experience is a key factor. I also agree that your experience is superior in this respect, put each of us in the tunnel and throw potentially dangerous situations at us, and my money would be on you better able to react, recover and reduce the risk. But that was not the point of this endeavor. But it is absolutely possible to compare different, and semi related activities to asses the risk between them. That is why motorcycle insurance on a per basis number is more expensive than car insurance, because on an aggregate level it has proven to be a riskier activity. Its why we can deem smoking long term has higher risk related to it than not smoking. It is also why people can say that wingsuit base jumping is riskier than skydiving. Or XRW is risker than just skydiving. Or that stock A has a higher risk than Treasury bonds etc. Also look at the money, it is easier to finance a new tunnel than a dropzone, because the banks lending the money see lower risk in losing their investment. It is also why it is cheaper for a tunnel to get insurance than a dropzone. Also the children factor, look at how many more children are in tunnels than in the sky, it would simply not be insurable if the risks were the same, or if the risks were actually the same, there should be children 5 years old skydiving. Experience is not needed to calculate risk, if that were the case every insurance actuary would need to experience each event they are insuring. You don't have to have smoked for 20 years to know what the risk is. Experience is key in mitigating risk, and I can assure you, that your ability to mitigate risk both in the sky and in the tunnel far exceeds mine. But it is not a prerequisite for calculation. Calculating risk between different activities, or investments is what the insurance/finance business is all about. I said I couldn't use numbers because I don't have access to information regarding non fatal tunnel injuries, and to make a quality assessment you would need other variables such as number of participants, participant minutes etc to truly get a value to determine the actual risk of the activity. But you don't have those numbers either. Also it is highly improbable that two activities would have equal risk. Even jumping at different dropzones have different risks involved, so saying they are the same would raise a red-flag there. The other variable to look at besides frequency of injury would be severity. Once again without numbers available it is difficult for anyone to make a definitive point, yet we do know there are around 20-30 deaths from skydiving each year while deaths in the tunnel occur with less frequency. Now I agree those numbers mean little without knowing the frequency of activity (far more DZ's than tunnels etc.) But you haven't don't that analysis either. At the end of the day I stand by my claim that the tunnel is on a per incidence basis safer, and severity of injuries occur safer than actual skydiving. If you can provide statistical analysis to disprove that, then we are just going to have to agree to disagree. I do fully agree with your point, that there is risk, you can get injured and killed in the tunnel, and if you aren't aware of the risks and take care to mitigate them you can end up one of our statistics...

dude lighten up it was a joke. This forum really needs to remove the sand from its vagina. I do agree with your assessment though. but this was a joke.

I had some friends that were just there last week. If you are going to jump the Palms be warned the landing area is small and they often times have 1000 jump minimums because of the wind. I would make sure you have enough jumps before going there to jump and then being on a wind hold the whole time.

don't you know gopro's kill? Maybe you should get another couple thousand jumps in before adding a camera.

ok simple numbers... skydiving deaths last year in the US 20+... tunnel deaths in the last year less than 2. Also you first claim that you can't do a statistical analysis, then say that without the numbers its insufficient. Why is it hard to admit that the tunnel is safer than skydiving?

Ok, but why is it silly to do a statistical analysis to see which has higher incidence of injury, severe injury and death? Yes the injuries may be different, but without looking at numbers from tunnel injuries I can guarantee that tunnel injuries happen less often and are less severe than skydiving ones. Just like wingsuit base jumping is riskier and more dangerous than skydiving. There are absolutes. I still stand by the fact that it is on a per usage basis infact safer than actual skydiving, true its not a harmless activity and as you pointed out from your experience injuries and deaths do still occur.

although there is some danger involved, do you really believe that its not safer than skydiving? True there are risks involved, but come on, its far far safer than jumping. I don't see how you could even justify the idea that its not safer. True there are risks involved and injuries can and do happen, not at the rate and severity that occurs with jumping.

Ive always been trained to bail to my back, I know that I can control my fall rate enough on my back that I don't cork when going from sit to back. To all of you that don't think backflying in essential, how do you track away after a FF jump? do you go to your belly and track away or back track?

I can understand him not cutting away, sometimes you are in an unfamiliar situation and make a bad choices. The actual skydive is what blew me away, all he does is hold that position until pull time. He doesn't look for his buddies, he doesn't turn or do anything. (it didn't even look fun) I get all the other issues about the camera etc and not cutting away, but what the hell was the goal on that jump? to fall and look in 1 direction avoiding doing anything?

if you can't fly the tunnel nude, then you can't truly fly your body.

unfortunately its true. The general public has no idea how much harder sit flying is than belly flying etc, if they even knew it existed, and the goal is generally to make the audience connect, not expand their horizons.

i got a bev suit with all the spandex i could fit on it, it was so fast, i need to slow down now to keep up with big guys.

Also they took an Otter up with just 2 jumpers? What DZ is that? Unless the guy was so rich since he had a ferrari that he just pays for the flight, then he has no friends but 1 guy that will jump with him? Next time i get on the plane ill hand the pilot my audible and tell him to match it to the planes