nigel99 474 #26 March 17, 2015 Jeff, step back and look at the big picture and it is completely logical. Novice jumpers are closely supervised. Every step of the way they have more experienced jumpers monitoring and providing guidance. Intermediate jumpers are free of the constraint of forced supervision. They get to try new things, they are left to use their own judgement on assessing risks. While this is a good thing, it is a vulnerable stage to go through. There are still lots of firsts (whether this is the first 8 way, first angles jump, first higher performance canopy). Experienced jumpers have less firsts and the learning curve should have tapered off, naturally as you are comfortable and skilled at something your risks diminish. *Note, something that we see now is that jump number do NOT equate to experience. I have far more experience in formation skydiving than many people with 10 or 20 times my jump numbers, on the other hand I have 0 experience doing freestyle or tandems. For the most part experience only counts in the discipline that has been practiced - so 10 000 tandems doesn't equate to a good formation skydiver for example. Part of the problem we have now is that with canopy deaths, many people focus on freefall skills and simply land their parachute. Canopy progression is a passive activity and the fact they have 1000's of safe jumps is more accident than design.Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
realpet 0 #27 March 17, 2015 Similar data is provided from Finland. I can provide a link to interested ones - obnote that it is in Finnish and I am not going to start translating it... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
