BSR proposal take 5 (or, the details of mine)

[JYorkster 0]

Although I applaud the attempt to deal with a serious problem, and I agree with some type of wing loading standard, I have to disagree with the following:

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Front riser approaches to landing, turning at least 30 degrees

Not everyone has a desire to swoop. I don't need to have this skill. If we view this as another discipline, we may as well add required skills from every other discipline to get a D...must be able to hold a head down...must be able to get in last on a 60 way RW...must be in an 8 stack...etc. I know I'm being drastic, but swooping is not a requirement and we shouldn't treat it as such. Pilots are trained how to recover from stalls, because they may accidentally induce one. I'm never going to 'accidently' do a 180 front riser approach.

Swooping is a separate discipline, and we need to treat it as such. Those unskilled in the RW, FF, or CRW are not allowed on dives they are not ready for. Someone learning to swoop should be under the supervision of a coach and not allowed to perform maneevers for which he or she is not trained. Ground them if they get out of line, or let them continue to jump until they hurt or kill themselves and bring bad press to your DZ and the sport as a whole.

Just my 2 cents,
Rock

[sundevil777 102]

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Land in a >8kt crosswind

No thanks.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[jdfreefly 1]

Big difference between a 180 and a 30 degree front riser turn. There is no rule out there that says you have to have a D license.

If you don't want to ever touch your fronts, don't get one.

As far as adding a CRW, a big way RW, and Freefly component to the D license, I'm all for it. It is too damn easy to get that little card that claims you are an expert skydiver.

I would even be all for having an E license with all those requirements. But that is an alltogether different subject.

Methane Freefly - got stink?

[kallend 2,027]

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Big difference between a 180 and a 30 degree front riser turn. There is no rule out there that says you have to have a D license.

If you don't want to ever touch your fronts, don't get one.

As far as adding a CRW, a big way RW, and Freefly component to the D license, I'm all for it. It is too damn easy to get that little card that claims you are an expert skydiver.

I would even be all for having an E license with all those requirements. But that is an alltogether different subject.

My "D" license card doesn't say "expert" or anything like that.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 2,027]

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Although I applaud the attempt to deal with a serious problem, and I agree with some type of wing loading standard, I have to disagree with the following:

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Front riser approaches to landing, turning at least 30 degrees

Not everyone has a desire to swoop. I don't need to have this skill. If we view this as another discipline, we may as well add required skills from every other discipline to get a D...must be able to hold a head down...must be able to get in last on a 60 way RW...must be in an 8 stack...etc. I know I'm being drastic, but swooping is not a requirement and we shouldn't treat it as such. Pilots are trained how to recover from stalls, because they may accidentally induce one. I'm never going to 'accidently' do a 180 front riser approach.

Swooping is a separate discipline, and we need to treat it as such. Those unskilled in the RW, FF, or CRW are not allowed on dives they are not ready for. Someone learning to swoop should be under the supervision of a coach and not allowed to perform maneevers for which he or she is not trained. Ground them if they get out of line, or let them continue to jump until they hurt or kill themselves and bring bad press to your DZ and the sport as a whole.

Just my 2 cents,
Rock

Not everyone has a desire to jump at night, but night jumps are still required for an unrestricted "D". People get badly hurt on night jumps too.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[jdfreefly 1]

The sim used to refer to the D as an expert license. Regardless of if it still does or doesn't, it is still too easy to get in my opinion.

Methane Freefly - got stink?

[meandean 0]

, or let them continue to jump until they hurt or kill themselves and bring bad press to your DZ and the sport as a whole.
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I think the idea of Billvon's proposal is to help avoid the scenario that you suggest.

[DancingFlame 0]

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Not everyone has a desire to swoop

Then why downsize?

[DancingFlame 0]

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In Reply To
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Land in a >8kt crosswind

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No thanks.

Why not? It's easy. Someday you might need this...

[NWPoul 1]

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Not everyone has a desire to swoop

Then why downsize?

This requrement for category not only for allowed W/L One may have "D" still jumping at low w/l and don't swooping at all


P/S Also there can be a various reasons to downsize even I won't swoop...(just IMHO)
regardless of above mentioned he

Why drink and drive, if you can smoke and fly?

[billvon 2,991]

>>Land in a >8kt crosswind

>No thanks.

I think a lot of serious injuries (and some fatalities) occur every year because people think they MUST face into the wind to land. I think it makes sense to teach them how to land in other directions; it could save a lot of broken bones.

Landing crosswind isn't something you can say "no thanks" to, any more than you can say "Malfunction? No thanks." Sometimes it happens. I figure it's better if it happens with an instructor who has told you how to do it and is watching you land.

[MarkM 0]

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Not everyone has a desire to swoop

Then why downsize?

This requrement for category not only for allowed W/L One may have "D" still jumping at low w/l and don't swooping at all

Thing is you don't have to do the canopy requirements for the license. You could still get a restricted license.

If this went in today, I'd get my B so I'd be legal on my current canopy and in another 40 jumps I'd just get a C restricted since I don't plan on changing my canopy any time soon. Then at around 300-400 I'd either open up my C license so I could downsize or I'd just wait an extra hundred jumps and get a full D.

[billvon 2,991]

>Not everyone has a desire to swoop. I don't need to have this skill.

A 30 degree front riser approach isn't a swoop. It's barely a high speed landing, and only demonstrates the ability to control the canopy in that mode close to the ground (i.e. descending and turning.) If you really don't want to do it - get a restricted license. Many people do.

>If we view this as another discipline, we may as well add required skills
>from every other discipline to get a D...must be able to hold a head
>down...must be able to get in last on a 60 way RW...must be in an 8
> stack...etc.

We already have 8 way RW requirements for the C license and accuracy requirements for all licenses. I would be fine with adding a basic CRW skill test to one of the licenses (like doing a 2-stack and a side by side) - indeed, that could save people from injury when their cypres give them a two-out.

But I was just discussing canopy-control requirements in this thread.

>Pilots are trained how to recover from stalls, because they may
> accidentally induce one. I'm never going to 'accidently' do a 180 front
>riser approach.

Take a look at the thread "Learning an invaluable lesson" in this forum. He didn't mean to do a 120 degree hook turn either.

>Swooping is a separate discipline, and we need to treat it as such.
>Those unskilled in the RW, FF, or CRW are not allowed on dives they are
> not ready for.

And that it EXACTLY the reason canopy flight is different. If you can't do a 400 way, BJ isn't going to let you get on the dive - and he has a team of the world's best organizers whose job it is to determine (and often test) who can perform to that level.

Canopy flight? All you need to swoop a 2 to 1 Velocity is $1500. Unless we get something like this included in the SIM that is.

>Ground them if they get out of line, or let them continue to jump
>until they hurt or kill themselves and bring bad press to your DZ
>and the sport as a whole.

That's the objective here.

[crotalus01 0]

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A License
Front/rear riser turns at altitude
Braked turns at altitude
Braked approach
(Note - these are already part of the ISP; no change is required for these)

B License
Demonstrated canopy directional control during the flare
Same accuracy as current B license

C License
Double front riser approach to landing
Turn/recover during the flare (no degree requirement)
At least begin a flare with rear risers; preferably land with rear risers
Same accuracy as current C license

D License
Flat turn below 200 feet at least 45 degrees
Front riser approaches to landing, turning at least 30 degrees
Turn in the flare at least 30 degrees
Land in a >8kt crosswind
Same accuracy requirements as the current license

3. Add canopy loading limits to each license level. These should be:

A license 1.0psf
B license 1.2psf
C license 1.4psf
D license no limit

4. Add a provision to the SIM to allow a jumper to 'place out' of the canopy loading restrictions by demonstrating the skills appropriate to that loading level to a canopy coach. Ordinarily it would just be performing the license requirements for that loading. Once the jumper accomplishes these to the coach's satisfaction, he gets signed off to the next level. The signoff can be used by DZO's and gear dealers to determine max loading, and can also be used by the jumper to get the next license once he has the jump numbers.

i think these are good guidelines with the exception of the front riser approach. i have 32 jumps and i have already had to do the majority of the things you have listed (flat turns at around 200 feet on final, rear and front riser flares and turns up high, flare turns, crosswind landing, etc). i have no desire to get on my front risers down low however. i have done front riser dives at around 3K and that was enough for me.
other than that i particularly like the test out option since i am over the BSRs you have listed (1.21).
my question is: if i went to a new DZ to jump, and i have been signed off to jump at my current WL of 1.21 by a canopy coach, will that be good enough? or will they make me pay to go through their course, or pay slot for one of their instuctors to evaluate my skills for themselves? just curious as to how that aspect of it will work.

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

[DancingFlame 0]

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i have 32 jumps and i have already had to do the majority of the things you have listed

Are you SURE you can do it EVERY TIME you need? When you are in stress, when you are landing with a lot of people around (e.g. after a 60-way). Unless you are, you shouldn't downsize.
Are you able to land your current canopy using rears? What if you get a broken steering line?
Human body is pretty fragile...

[dorbie 0]

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i have 32 jumps and i have already had to do the majority of the things you have listed

Are you SURE you can do it EVERY TIME you need? When you are in stress, when you are landing with a lot of people around (e.g. after a 60-way). Unless you are, you shouldn't downsize.
Are you able to land your current canopy using rears? What if you get a broken steering line?
Human body is pretty fragile...

It's not in the requirements that you have to do this under stress after a 60 way etc. Demonstrating this once would not make anyone more able to perform under these circumstances or "every time".

[dorbie 0]

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>>Land in a >8kt crosswind

>No thanks.

I think a lot of serious injuries (and some fatalities) occur every year because people think they MUST face into the wind to land. I think it makes sense to teach them how to land in other directions; it could save a lot of broken bones.

My first jump course covered this and I did a crosswind landing while I was still on AFF rather than a low turn after a long spot (I still got chewed out for the decision making process that got me in that situation
I'm in favor of canopy control courses but I sometimes wonder where your example jumpers get their A licenses. Maybe I just had spectacularly good instructors but you teach or at least taught AFF students at one point didn't you. If you think they lacked this knowledge & skill (xwind/downwing landing & shallow turn) after your AFF instruction why didn't you teach it to them? My instructors told me in absolutely no uncertain terms to land crosswind or even downwind rather than turn low. They also absolutely made it clear how to turn shallow and to experiment with this at altitude and ultimately to fly a pattern like this (which from memory included A license signoff requirements).

It seems that you don't trust the quality of training delivered by other instructors and are adding redundancy with some of these skills tests.

[JYorkster 0]

Let me first say that I still believe something should be done, and I agree with 99% of your suggestions. However, I don't think you are truly buying much more of an education from a 30 degree front riser approach than you would get from a straight in front riser approach. What you may buy is a false sense of security in a few skydivers that will say "Oh yeah, I know how to swoop...I've got my D!"

I'm just afraid too many will see it as a license to swoop instead of a license to learn.

Also, as you pointed out...

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All you need to swoop a 2 to 1 Velocity is $1500

I just don't believe that a few lines in the SIM and a single, slightly turning front riser approach will change that fact.

To truly see the impact, we should apply your recommendations to all the fatalities over the last several years and try to determine which ones these rules may have prevented. Certainly it won't be an exact science, but it could provide some very convincing data.

-Rock

[crotalus01 0]

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[Are you SURE you can do it EVERY TIME you need?

my answer to that is an absolute NO. i am not sure i could do it every time i need to. but can anyone answer that as a yes? i see folks here with thousands of skydives that still screw up. however, i think you misunderstood my post. i have no intentions of downsizing anytime soon (or of going on a 60-way for that matter). i plan on probably 500+ skydives on my 190. since i have no plans to swoop i see no benefit in downsizing from my current main until i am wringing it out. i simply said that i have done most of the things listed in my 32 jumps, and wanted to object to a front riser approach as a required canopy control skill lower than 1000 feet.
i would think it should be painfully obvious that with 32 jumps theres no way in hell i could say that yes, i can do these skill sets whenever the need arises.
in fact, i have sacrificed 3 weekends now when i was dying to get a jump in, and didnt, because my reserve was too small (had a PD160). i grounded myself until i got a bigger reserve - fortunately i just bought a PD193 so i will be back in the air next weekend (weather permitting).

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

[billvon 2,991]

>To truly see the impact, we should apply your recommendations
>to all the fatalities over the last several years . . .

I did it for two years, 2001-2002. The original analysis is below, and was compared against the original proposal loading limits (1.0/1.1/1.3/no limit) to see what the effect would be.
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This is what I could get from USPA and my own searches. Wing loading was not tracked before 2000, so much of the data is simply not there.

2001 35 deaths
Of those, 14 deaths were due to canopy control problems. 2 collision, 2 hit something or landed in water, 5 unintentional low turn, 5 intentional low turn. The 5 intentional low turn victims all had over 500 jumps. Of them, 3 were due to getting in the corner due to plain lack of skill; the other two were equipment failure and turbulence. The 5 unintentionals were:

39 1.16 Turn low to avoid power lines
70 1.21 Turned low; landed on the side of a hill in a turn
300 1.02 Demo jump; turned too low
4000 unknown Demo; not much known
170 1.5 Turned low while trying to land in a small off-DZ area

So in 2001, the restriction part of the BSR could have saved 3 lives, and the opt-out-training part of the BSR could have saved another 4. Total of 7.

2002 33 deaths
Of those, 7 intentional low turn, 2 unintentional low turn. 4 were pond swoop fatalities. None of the pond swoopers had any canopy training at all that anyone knew about, formal or informal.

Intentional low turn:

1500 ?? Pond swoop, drugs
700 1.7 Pond swoop attempt
404 ?? Recently downsized and had been warned several times
275 1.6* Pond swoop attempt
270 1.5? Recently downsized and had been warned (spaceland?)
170 1.4* Pond swoop attempt
161 1.4 90 degree turn to final; did not recover in time


201 1.12* Low turn to avoid power lines (zara)
135 1.0* Low turn to avoid a fence (coolidge)

* - not USPA stats; from web searches

So in 2002, the restriction part of the BSR could have definitely saved 3 and likely 5. The training part could have saved another 1. (I am assuming the drug involved fatality was caused by impairment not lack of training, although he had no training.) Total of 6.

So that's 13 people over 2 years whose deaths may have been prevented. 6.5 a year average.

[DancingFlame 0]

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since i have no plans to swoop i see no benefit in downsizing from my current main

Then you are choosing wisely and you should not worry about BSR.

[kelpdiver 2]

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I did it for two years, 2001-2002. The original analysis is below, and was compared against the original proposal loading limits (1.0/1.1/1.3/no limit) to see what the effect would be.

With respect, Bill, I'd view the use of those two years as cherry picking. When I did the 1996-current review (JYorkster- posted last week in Excel format), those two were by far the worst in terms of underqualified canopy fliers dying. Looking at the 5 years prior, this tendency wasn't so evident, and 2003-current also didn't, *at least not in terms of fatal incidents*.

This isn't to say that your recs, or mine, or Dave's, or anyone's won't have the desired effects. Increased training and a slower progression pace should result in better judgement, which should result in fewer fatally bad decisions. But this won't be seen just by matching up the rules to the incidents, esp when the median jumper had 500 jumps.

[billvon 2,991]

>With respect, Bill, I'd view the use of those two years as cherry picking.

Well, I originally did it in 2003, so all I had was 2001-2002. And that was a solid three days of calling people, tracking down incidents and keeping a lot of notes. Before 2000 there was no wingloading tracking, so going back farther is not that useful. If someone wants to pull the data from 2003-2004 that would be great.

>But this won't be seen just by matching up the rules to the incidents,
>esp when the median jumper had 500 jumps.

Geez! The last guy said " To truly see the impact, we should apply your recommendations to all the fatalities over the last several years . . ." I can't win here!

[kelpdiver 2]

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Geez! The last guy said " To truly see the impact, we should apply your recommendations to all the fatalities over the last several years . . ." I can't win here!

Well, no, you can't. If you only had the fatality info as your dataset, you're dead in the water.

My sheet has a lot of the wingloadings for 2003, 2004, but far from complete. 2004, otoh, was a bad year for the experienced folk, with 8 of 13 specified over 1000 jumps. Only one @201 jumps was an obvious candidate for BSR type reform. The rest would have indirectly benefitted, could have been the difference in a few more.

[kallend 2,027]

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So in 2002, the restriction part of the BSR could have definitely saved 3 and likely 5. The training part could have saved another 1. (I am assuming the drug involved fatality was caused by impairment not lack of training, although he had no training.) Total of 6.

I think I'd word this differently, especially the "could have definitely" part which I find hard to interpret.

I'd be inclined to say that the proposal would have improved the chance of survival of XXX skydivers. After all, the others showed very well that you can still kill yourself very effectively when operating within the parameters of the proposal.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.