Swooping Same As Low Pulls

[karenmeal 0]

I agree with you about the need for seperate landing areas for swoopers and for non-swoopers. It makes me very uneasy when I am turning onto final and I see a swooper up above me hanging out in brakes about to start their 270. I swoop some myself, usually between a 90 and 180, just a little bit of speed for a bit more fun. Nothing much. If conditions aren't perfect, I am the first to just do a normal, straight in approach. I wish that more hard-core swoopers had that attitude.

It also bothers me when swoopers try to swoop people. I used to go out into the landing area and take video of people's landings so that they could review their swoop. I don't do that anymore, because I don't trust the people to stay far enough away from me. If I do end up doing video, I will often stay on the downwind side of an airplane kinda hiding out.

I know of two swoopers at my DZ who have taken out people who were doing video. One guy got line burn on his neck and the other guy broke his collarbone!! People thought this was funny! I couldn't believe that breaking someone's collarbone because you took them out with your canopy wasn't a grounding offense. It makes me want to become an S & TA and put a stop to that bullshit.

I definitely don't think that swooping should be banned, but I also don't think it should be tolerated when the actions of a swooper place someone else in danger.

"Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

[rehmwa 2]

Ever see a handful of swoopers sitting in brakes with that big gap below them (needed because of the dive of the canopy on the finish).

one problem is it does stack up the crowd behind them

be aware, if there is a big 'hole' below the swoopers, they will fill it in just a second (right or wrong, be aware)

our serious swoopers tend to 'practice' the discipline on hop and pops or open high so they don't back up traffic above them - it's much appreciated. When they don't, it's a real annoyance for them and the others

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[mjosparky 4]

Since Rob was repeating what I posted I will respond.

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Your right to get up and drive to work

Driving is not a right, it is a privilege.

Driving to work doing 70 mph down a residential street is an avoidable risk. Swooping through a crowded landing area is an avoidable risk.

When your actions increase the risk of serious injury or death of others, whether in skydiving or driving down the street you are wrong.

This has nothing to do with BASE jumping or the beer line. It is about dangerous canopy flying in the main landing area.

There is a difference and I think you know it. I also think you are splitting hairs just to argue.

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[dorbie 0]

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Since Rob was repeating what I posted I will respond.

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Your right to get up and drive to work

Driving is not a right, it is a privilege.

Driving to work doing 70 mph down a residential street is an avoidable risk. Swooping through a crowded landing area is an avoidable risk.

When your actions increase the risk of serious injury or death of others, whether in skydiving or driving down the street you are wrong.

This has nothing to do with BASE jumping or the beer line. It is about dangerous canopy flying in the main landing area.

There is a difference and I think you know it. I also think you are splitting hairs just to argue.

Speeding is your analogy not mine. You could drive well within the speed limits obey all laws and still put others in jeopardy just by being on the road. It is unavoidable.

Anyone's skydiving increases the risk people on the ground, I don't care how "safe" you claim you are or try to be, your fun and games in the air affects the safety of innocent bystanders on the ground, ALWAYS.

It's an avoidable risk because you don't have to skydive, you're participating in recreation and it might injure or kill people, and of course skydiving is not a right it's a priviledge.

I'm not splitting hairs. You want to start drawing lines in the sand based on perception of risk. Watch out because other's perceptions differ from yours and what goes around comes around.

[mjosparky 4]

[Trae 1]

in reply to "I know that hook turns and swooping will never be banned or outlawed."
..................

I reckon its fair enough to consider extra regulations regarding hook turns & swooping given the persistently stupid injury record.

It'll be a good day when our sport finally says a collective 'enough is enough' and takes some positive action. eg swoop licence requirement., HP canopy licence requirement, part-time swoop bans as per DZSO.

Newbie canopy pilots and a lot of skydivers just don't get it. They tend to see such regulatory ideas as a restriction rather than good guidance.

Perhaps they haven't seen the trail of injury and death. If current landing injury rates are acceptable then it sucks for our sport and is an indicator of an uncaring, ineffective regulatory body.

Surely we've learnt something from all those years of ZP. The constant combination of high speed , tight landing areas and inexperience regularly produces the now expected incidents. Some people even seem to think it HAS to be that way.


Sure.. ground the dangerous psycho swoopers but encouragement and training works better for most of us.

Who's got the power ?
Who's got the inclination?
CI's, DZSO"s

Who's responsible? The babes in the woods or the wolves taking the $$$$ . If it's the wolves then it'll be more of the same.

[dharma1976 0]

I would fully support measures as such

I support the ideas that Brian Germain has set forth to the USPA (although I certainly didnt fit into them early in my career)

I also like the ideas that some of the scandenavian countries have placed into effect

where up till 500 jumps you have to follow specific guidelines

Cheers

Dave

http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

This is not a wingloading and/or jump numbers issue. It's an issue about having swoopers and non-swoopers sharing the same landing area at the same time and when this happens, we know that we can only roll the dice so many times before our number comes up. Personally I feel that swoopers and non-swoopers shouldn't be sharing the same concurrent landing area. But unless the DZ has the luxury of having multiple landing areas, swoopers and non-swoopers will continue to roll the dice.

I was at an Otter boogie this weekend at a (fun) DZ that doesn't normally jump such a big airplane and I made a point to observe how the swooping and non-swooping traffic co-existed with each other and I can tell you it looked scary at times. I took myself out of danger by pulling high (we were allowed to pull high at this boogie) and landed last. But unless the swoopers have a separate landing area and sequence themselves landing, having swoopers and non-swoopers landing at the same time on the same landing pitch is just rolling the dice. Shit has a way of happening and it can happen to anyone of us.

If people do insist on swooping on normal loads, they should do themselves and everyone else on the load a favor by observing who gets on the airplane, what kind of canopy are they likely to be jumping, what kind of jump are they doing and where will they fit into the landing pattern compared to you. Fly a predictable pattern, keep your eyes open and know when to abort the swoop.

We can't always have our cake and eat it at the same time ...

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[dharma1976 0]

I am totally with you on this, fortunately I realized early in my career once I got to abotu 1.6 on the wingloading that I needed to watch what every one else was doing figure out canopy sizing roughly on the plane set up exit order acordingly where we could and then abort to if needed even a straight in landing (done twice)

I had great mentors when I started and learned good habits...I dont jump at a dz where we can truly split the landing area...we can only really designate a swooping lane as a non regular jumper landing area...and we are currently working on our system of dealing with said issue, so far we have done a great job of self policing ourselves, but with some up and coming swoopers with like 200 swoops, jumping larger canopies and not having the experience yet, we are starting to think how we can fix this problem before it becomes a problem

Cheers

Dave

http://www.skyjunky.com

CSpenceFLY - I can't believe the number of people willing to bet their life on someone else doing the right thing.

[mjosparky 4]

reply]This is not a wingloading and/or jump numbers issue.

[Ron 10]

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Anyone's skydiving increases the risk people on the ground, I don't care how "safe" you claim you are or try to be, your fun and games in the air affects the safety of innocent bystanders on the ground, ALWAYS.

OK, but there are levels. There is a BIG difference between driving 70 on the interstate, and a residental road....Just like there is a big difference between swooping on a hop n pop in a swoop area, and swooping in the middle of a crowd of people.

One is OK, the other reckless.

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I'm not splitting hairs. You want to start drawing lines in the sand based on perception of risk. Watch out because other's perceptions differ from yours and what goes around comes around.

Anyone that thinks swooping in the middle of a crowd of people is as safe as doing a hop n pop in a seperate landing area is fooling themselves.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[skybytch 273]

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... they should do themselves and everyone else on the load a favor by observing who gets on the airplane, what kind of canopy are they likely to be jumping, what kind of jump are they doing and where will they fit into the landing pattern compared to you. Fly a predictable pattern, keep your eyes open ...

imho, EVERY jumper should do the above things, regardless of whether they swoop or not.

[dorbie 0]

Like you observe and others refuse to see, risk is not binary, it's a number between 1.0 and 0.0.

Swooping a crowd of people is just the latest swooping canard and not the real issue at all. Just look at the title of this thread.

I don't swoop but have no issues at all with guys tearing it up on a shared LZ or along the swoop line right next to the LZ. At some point we all take our chances and a heads up swooper is safer than some myopic boobie floating through the pattern. You take your chances and I tolerate them jumping just as they tolerated me when I was a the minted AFF grad boobie.

[CrazyL 0]

Greenlight, sorry i did'nt read through all the posts before posting myself. On banning/outlawing hookturns. The norm used to be 'banned hook turns, no hookturns allowed, will be grounded for 30 days if you do a hook turn'. Ya used to be like that. I've been personally kicked off a DZ in southern Texas for performing hookturns. They used the 3 strikes your out policy. Well, 3 years later , i recieved a phone invitation to the same dropzones 'swoop competition.' They had even made a competition pond just for the art of hook turns. So , i went there and enjoyed hook'n it and not being hassled by management after landing each time. Look at the hookturns know a days. The name has changed from hookturn to swoop. Even on some loads someone will ask ,who's swooping? As it is a normal event now. pretty much every load at a turbine dz is gonna have a hookturner/swooper on it. Hell, their is more prize money now in swooping than any other competition in skydiving. So, yes, hookturns have gone from one end of the spectrum (banned) to paid to perform the hookturn and still the top killer of skydivers. If i were you or any other jumper , refrain from doing hookturns, and always watch out for the idiots who still do them including me.