skypuppy

The professor isn't 10yrd, not even close, and there are books upon books and articles showing the sharp decrease of unions recently. Statistics don't lie. __________________________________________________ I didn't argue that unions weren't losing ground in these days of global competition and instant international money movement, what I said was that they did (and still do, to a certain extent) serve a purpose. __________________________________________________ Unions are loosing steam because more people are taking the initiative to do it on their own to keep the unions out. __________________________________________________ So, in other words, if there were no more unions, then company's wouldn't feel they have to pay so much... Unions aren't necessarily the greatest, but I've been screwed over enough by big international companies to know that without a union you're squat. My last big employer screwed me and some 500 other employees out of an average $30,000 in severance (mine would have been more - I eventually ended up getting about $900) by declaring bankruptcy with no notice. Then left the country owing millions (after using bogus ways to move money out of the country to its various other international divisions... Left the pension underfunded, sold their assets at firesale prices (often to other branches of their own company) and sure paid the plant manager a bunch to screw us that way. If we hadn't had some sort of union we'd have been even worse off. If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

Family business has never had unions and our workers conditions are far superior to most union environments and our benefit plans kick their ass. Some of us do it right from the get go. Unions are loosing steam because more people are taking the initiative to do it on their own to keep the unions out. Spent all quarter learning about the decline going on today and why. __________________________________________________ In other words if there were no unions your company would go right back to paying the least amount it could for as much as it could get for it? Your college professor have tenure? I have some problems with unions and the way they're run, but they've certainly helped me get past the 'old boy's club' in the past... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

How do you plan on keeping the monkey from trying to climb back up the lines and spiralling or collapsing his parachute into the lines? What if he starts to throw crap at you from the exit point? edited to add: Just heard about the monkey... Too bad, but did we really need another primate just hanging around and throwing shit at us anyways? If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

I'm curious as to where you got your facts? I just looked at the BASE fatality list and the majority of the entries do not list either BASE experience or Skydiving experience (note to self - I meant to contact Nick a couple of years ago that we needed a generic form for incident/fatality reporting that would answer such questions as approx BASE and skydiving experience, years in sport, type of gear, specifically so we would have such information). Looking at the 77 fatalities, 21 occurred in the '80's (>25% so it narrows it down a bit) but even looking at all the entries I find 9 or 10 I know had more than 1000 and maybe 25 or so who may have had. There's at least 8 who definitely had < 2-300, and 32 I just don't know, although I do remember several from past issues of skydiving magazine or BASEline and think several of them would have between 300-700 jumps. So unless you have access to more statistics then are on the current List, I don't see how you can support that claim... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

Back in the day, "skydiving teens" was 200-500 jumps. I was voted to most likely to die before I got to 300 jumps but I'm still here and I know why I was that person. I was stupid and 18yrs old. I only hurt myself when I had 2500 jumps, and then again at 4000 jumps. I agree with Jon and that it has dropped to about 100-300 where they think that they are invinsible. __________________________________________________ I'd say it can start around 50 and go up almost to infinity now, certainly easily to 1500 jumps - it just depends on the individual. We have jumpers who don't even know how to pack or how to spot a load - they can get by without it now - how are they supposed to realize there are some things they really NEED to learn? If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

I don't believe that - frankly I don't generally consider someone with less then 1000, or at least 700, to have lots of skydives - and, as Ray said back in the old days before BASE went mainstream, most people had quite a few skydives before starting to BASE jump anyways... You'd have to narrow your search down to relatively modern fatalities, say early to mid '90's. ------------------------------------------------------------ Not a question of "belief," really. It's just a fact. How we interpret that fact is the real question. Also, the majority of the List entries date from the early to mid 90s. So it's not really "narrowing the search" much to discuss the correlation on the list between skydives and fatalities. I'm thinking of 1000+ as, roughly speaking, "lots of skydives." ________________________________________________ I'm curious as to where you got your facts? I just looked at the BASE fatality list and the majority of the entries do not list either BASE experience or Skydiving experience (note to self - I meant to contact Nick a couple of years ago that we needed a generic form for incident/fatality reporting that would answer such questions as approx BASE and skydiving experience, years in sport, type of gear, specifically so we would have such information). Looking at the 77 fatalities, 21 occurred in the '80's (>25% so it narrows it down a bit) but even looking at all the entries I find 9 or 10 I know had more than 1000 and maybe 25 or so who may have had. There's at least 8 who definitely had < 2-300, and 32 I just don't know, although I do remember several from past issues of skydiving magazine or BASEline and several of them would have bettween 300-700 jumps. So unless you have access to more statistics then are on the current List, I don't see how you can support that claim... Admittedly it is too bad that the list doesn't support that information even the cases of guys like Nick, Skypunk or Rob Tompkins where numbers are available, but I still don't see where you got your numbers? If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

Airplane skydiving gives exactly zero preparation for BASE exits. Balloon jumps or helicopter jumps are pretty much the only way to practice BASE exits on a skydive. How about Mr Bill jumps - probably cheaper than balloon or heli jumps? Of course you probably need a few more than the minimum # of skydives to do them - just like in serious CRW. If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

My tax man says that if they tell you when to come to work and what to do while there you are an employee, not a contractor. This is for California not Canada. __________________________________________________ But how much do you work? Do you work on a regular basis? Can you turn down work if you don't want it? Does your employer deduct pension/employment insurance/workman's comp/taxes etc. from your paycheque? I've no doubt that in your case you're correct - but it can get sort of dicey up here. Of course up here if you're a contractor (self employed) you can deduct the costs of doing business (ie. equipment, courses, training), whereas if you're an employee I don't know if you could. If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

Look at the List; most of the fatalities have come from folks with lots of skydives. If skydiving made for safe BASE jumpers, this would not be the case. __________________________________________________ I don't believe that - frankly I don't generally consider someone with less then 1000, or at least 700, to have lots of skydives - and, as Ray said back in the old days before BASE went mainstream, most people had quite a few skydives before starting to BASE jump anyways... You'd have to narrow your search down to relatively modern fatalities, say early to mid '90's. As for Tom's statements about doing 200 jumps off a bridge instead of skydives, I disagree on that too. 200 jumps off the bridge at what, 12 seconds per canopy ride? - sure you can do it, but how much experience to you get flying and playing with a canopy in 10 seconds? - versus jumps from a plane which give you, from 3000' s/l, say 2.5-3 minutes canopy time... Which are you going to learn more about canopy control on? Sure if you're not using the time to learn the canopy control you are possibly wasting much of that, but you're still probably getting 30 seconds to a minute of valuable experience dealing with the opening, steering and then setting up for landing. If you're seriously trying to learn you would use most of the time. Crw is invaluable for learning heading and canopy control rather than passivity, and you can get literally 10 minutes per jump! Of course if you have less then 50-100 jumps, there are probably not a whole lot of people willing to do serious crw with you. So it comes down to how long are you willing to wait if all you really want to do is BASE? Maybe you don't need 200 skydives to do it from a bridge over water, but I'd certainly prefer to have at least in the tens, starting out on student canopies and then working down to seven cell BASE-style canopies. I question how much canopy control experience a newbie gets on even a relatively safe high span like Idaho, basically the canopy opens, they turn around and land where the canopy takes them, rather than learning to take it where they want to land. And generally I think, the more parachute experience the better. Just my opinion If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

Actually, the way I understand it, even if you're using the dz's rigs, you're probably an independent subcontractor - you would have to purchase your own medical insurance. You would only be an employee if the dz issues you a T4 slip at the end of the year. I doubt most tandem masters - in Canada anyways - are viewed as employees or would be covered for things like employee's comp... In Canada however if you are at an approved school with insurance, all passengers are covered under the school's insurance for 3rd party liability, instructors have access to the defence fund and are covered for their own 3rd party liability through their individual memberships, I believe. That's the only way I could see it work, considering how cheap it is for a school to affiliate and become insured (compared to an individual membership which only covers one person). Without insurance, in the case of 3rd party liability, yes the dz would probably get sued, but so would you personally, and you would probably have to cover your own legal expenses... It would be possible for the dz to get off and you to be found liable in the case of neglect for instance, or for both of you to be found liable, but very unlikely for you to be exonerated and the dz found liable... Anyway, because of that you'd want to have your own lawyer separate from the dz's. In Canada instructors have access to a defence fund to pay for that through their individual memberships. In the event that the instructor is not qualified, presumably the insurance for both the school and the instructor would be nullified. If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

If this is true, Jason, you have to tell us what happened... Did they lose their gear? Penalties? What? If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

This might be off topic but I remember when BASE 100 got his number - I took him up on top of a building I'd gotten my BASE number off the previous week (with BASE 81). I jumped first and landed right beside my car - still remember the whuffos standing on their balconies clapping as I flew down from the 42nd floor. BASE 100 went feet first into the grill of a chip wagon parked at the base of the building. Groundcrew ran over to him and said 'Hook-knife!', and slashed his lines to pull the canopy off and get him to the car. After stashing my rig in the trunk I was running up to their van (parked in front of me) to see if anyone wanted to get a beer somewhere when they just took off - so I got in my car and took off too - to the end of the block, turned right and came to stop at an intersection facing 3 rows of headlights - uhhh, one-way street, and guess what? The next day they had a full page add in the H******** Spectator with a pic of the building and the caption, 'Daredevil skydivers leap off our building! You can land on the 2nd floor for x$'s/month!' If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

What's this about Tom Buchanan being on the new Survivor show? If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

The question is do you log this in your logbook - you jumped, but you never landed? Quite the conundrum.... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

Irvin maintained only a small presence in Trenton, Ontario, Canada to do ongoing maintenance on Cdn. Forces equipment but they do have extensive manufacturing/design capabilities in North Carolina and in the UK I believe... Closing the plant here put about 4-500 people out of work, but was the result of a change of ownership at the corporate level.... Their headquarters is located in the UK. If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

Irvin of Canada closed their plant in Fort Erie, Ontario at least 5 years ago I think... I don't know where they're made now. 'Irvin' might make another interesting thread... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

On a demo, it's my buddy's first time spotting the Beecch 18 from CWH. Things get rather hectic after throwing the wdi, and buddy's got his head out the door craning to see the spot... Suddenly he sees it and starts waving his hand at the pilot to go left, but we're all standing in the way blocking his view... One of the guys motions to the side of the plane to the spotting controls - a switch with left and right buttons - but buddy misunderstands and grabs the first thing he sees... It's a funnel, connected he supposes to a speaking hose going to the pilot... He starts yelling into it but nothing happens so he gets his face right into it yelling at the top of his lungs... Turns out to be the receptacle of the inflight plumbing that the aircrew uses on its long trips from airshow to airshow... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

I did it before but I found it sort of scary... Docking a square under a round was easier - when I was docked on top of another round I felt that every time the canopy I was docked on would breathe it was about to engulf me. Never did get to the point of climbing down the lines to a plane, let alone a downplane... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

Legal ones sound nice, but the illegal ones usually make better stories... How about Nick Feteris jumping Lady Liberty because he had no money to get back to Oz, and was seeking to be deported? (Click your heels and repeat after me, 'There's no place like Oz....') In 1975 Bill Eustace, a construction worker on the CN Tower, took a round military surplus canopy off a crane sticking out from the tower at 1500'. He lost his job for it. At the time Bill had only about 30 skydives... How about the best ones that didn't happen? A jumper I know climbed the cleaner's ropes on the Sears Tower in the early '80's, then didn't jump because he was worried the cop climbing out on the platform to talk him back in might try to stop him and fall off/get hurt... He helped the guy back into the building.... Another jumper climbed the cleaning ropes outside the CN Tower and was stuck just below the restaurant trying to get turned around for the launch... The cops took out one of the windows and said 'Don't jump from there - it's too dangerous... Come on in and we'll let you up onto the roof so you can jump and we'll arrest you when you land on the street... The jumper was later seen on the news coming out the doors at the bottom of the tower, handcuffed, saying "The suckers lied to me!" If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

I went to the bank and got a loan for new furniture. Then I spent it on some used student rigs, and just made my payments out of the rent I generated... More than paid for itself in the first year. In fact, I chopped my rental fees each year for the second and third years - didn't think I needed the money. Helps if you're a rigger so you can maintain the equipment yourself rather than paying something. Also, gear was probably cheaper back then... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

I could be wrong on this, but in viewing Johnny Utah's BD Safety Video, it looked like the worst of the malfunctions occurred on skydiving gear. Again, I could be wrong, but I recall seeing several skydiving canopies twirling off into the trees or into the river. __________________________________________________ Any canopy will go twirling off into the trees if you have linetwists and do nothing about it... It would be interesting to know Johnny Utah's idea about the Safety Video - were there actually more linetwists on skydiving canopies, or was it just that there was more video of skydiving canopies from previous years (I realize he very well may agree with banning skydiving gear, I'm just asking about the footage)... Also notice they stopped allowing pocketrocket canopies this year (a good move, as far as I'm concerned) only allowing low aspect ratio canopies... That would also make a difference... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

I've just sent this email to all the member groups of the Canadian Sport Parachute Association that I could find: Hi I am trying to get an idea of who is going to the agm this year and would be willing to carry proxies supporting a motion to drop the lifetime suspension of Bill Cole. Likewise I am wondering what member groups out there will not be going to the agm but are willing to give a proxy to someone supporting our motion who would be there. If you can get back to me I will try to match everyone up before the meeting. I apologize for leaving it this late but I've been sort of busy lately... Bill has just recently gotten out of hospital after 5 days of tests and his prognosis right now is uncertain. He is not hopeful of jumping on his own but I have suggested that he could do some tandem jumps with me at a later date, which idea he seemed to like. Right now it's a matter of removing obstacles to his jumping so he may be able to resume at a later date. People wondering about Bill can cut and paste these links http://hometown.aol.com/pricesmoneypit/myhomepage/extreme.html and http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=394520;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread I look forward to hearing from you... Rob Price __________________________________________________ I'm hoping that those of you who are CSPA members could talk to your group member's representative (before the Feb 7th agm) about allowing Bill back into the association... Those of you who are not members of the association but wish to voice your support could email individual members of the bod (or use the last address below to mail all of them at once). I would appreciate it if you do that you copy one to me so I get an idea of the numbers... President - president@cspa.ca Vice President - vp@cspa.ca Western Director - western@cspa.ca Mid-Western Director - midwestern@cspa.ca Mid-Canada Director - midcanada@cspa.ca Ontario Director - ontario@cspa.ca Quebec Director - quebec@cspa.ca Eastern Director - eastern@cspa.ca Board of Directors - bod@cspa.ca Thanks for your time... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

So there are no landing incidents with the first timers at all??? Maybe Jason could tell you for sure, but I figure very few of the accidents are actually first timers - more likely semi-experienced jumpers. Certainly I doubt they're any more likely to get hurt - a lot of them land in the water because of this... _________________________________________________ yeah there is nothing wrong with skydiving configd right - but why bother when there is the gear to do it right is out there......??? Maybe for one thing, cost. I have a hard time justifying making everyone buy base gear to jump a bridge simply to do base equipment manufacturers a favor when the the jumpers don't need it for any other objects, they're only doing this one day a year, and it's relatively easy to borrow compatible equipment. The wild card is a person's training and experience, not really his equipment... If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

On an 876' object with no object strike potential and a 42" pc with appropriate bridle, you can put any canopy you like (ie BASE or accuracy, not pocketrocket) in there with as much or as little chance of anything going wrong as on a one-parachute system... Which system had risers release out West before landing? Which systems were other jumpers on the same object using when they went in? You configure or choose gear for the object you're doing, and on BD there is nothing wrong with skydiving gear properly configured. If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

I think it would be great if there were some sort of umbrella organization to help organize large-scale competitions and events - and skydiving associations have bigger budgets then base jumpers! Of course you'll always have a dichotomy between legal jumps and illegal jumps, and skydiving organizations are always going to disavow illegal jumps, but that doesn't mean they couldn't lend their warchest to arranging more legal sites and events... Let's face it, who benefits from Base jumping most??? Skydiving schools, that's who... People see base jumpers for real or on tv and they want to learn to do that... Right now skydiving benefits from the exposure base-jumping gets without contributing to it... Personally I log 'parachute jumps' in my log book, and a base jump is no different to me than a CRW jump or an accuracy jump or an RW jump - they all require their own specialized equipment and techniques, but they're all 'parachuting' - How many cutting edge skydiving movies come out that DON"T include BASE footage? It's all the same to me. If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone