Liemberg

Our neighbours mishap started with a sudden windchange. Seven parachutes and 13 people ended up in the drink. AFAIK all were wearing floatation gear (this was a demo jump on the beach of yet another island) Everybody survived so whatever else they were doing that day they got the most important thing right. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

"Flying a Parker" is new for me (the expression, not the practice. Flying club planes f.i. are somewhat notorious for flying "with two pilots in command" in my small corner of the world...) Your USPA award? I'll take your word for it In this whole thread the "positive rating of the trustworthy" appeals more to me than "banning the fakers", simply because it would be easier to do it AND I think there is more to say for positive reinforcement when you want to influence human behavior. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

With 25000 registered users and 800 more joining every month? Just recently I saw a profile from someone in Egypt that claimed to have just about every rating there is, with 176 jumps to his credit. "show us proof" (uploads arabic document) "Hmm... Could be egyptian instructors license. Could be Koran verse. Could be Al Qeida claim letter..." (Could be the guy is completely bona fide - just not much comprehension of the English language + a typo in the jump numbers...) If it is physically impossible to wade through the credentials like they are right now, what can of worms are you opening with the uploads? Bill Booth f.i. still hasn't found out how to make an URL clicky...

Just for the fun I opened your JPEG with windows 'Paint', erased your name and put a text there, to show how easy that is. (Like five minutes) I would have uploaded "MY" 25 years achievement diploma, but it gets to be above 60kb. Believe me, if Sangiro goes that way, my fifteen year old could show "proof" of all sorts of ratings and achievements, almost as fast as you guys could upload them on your profiles... (Which is not to say that your idea isn't sympathetic...) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Since Saskia (elswhere in the thread) declares me to have expertise : The "agreed procedure" for tandem water landing is the same as for landing the plane upside down: AVOID, AVOID, AVOID! So far, so good...

After reading the different suggestions here about the problem we are plagued with ‘since the usenet days’ I would like to ad my 0,02$ Who is who and who to trust? As Sangiro mentioned, the likes of Bill Booth are not the problem and maybe even the likes of me are not (if I dare to be so bold). You read my profile, find a clicky, end up on a DZ-advertisement page in a language you might not understand but the pictures suggest that they do skydive there. My name appears somewhere on the site as being the local ‘alpha-male’. My avatar picture is genuine in al likelihood – or I would have gone through an awful lot of trouble to create a fake identity on a forum. Probably I have to think before I speak here because I know it can bite me professionally. Like every one else I have opinions. And opinions I have about the day-to-day running of a small DZ come from the day-to-day running of a small DZ for over forteen years. Opinions I have about the do’s and don’ts of tandem jumping come from over a thousand tandemjumps (which isn’t much but enough to form an opinion). But: opinions I have about wingsuit flying come from looking at other people doing it. Opinions I have about swooping and freeflying ditto. My opinion about basejumping? “Never! No-f**king-way! At least for me not – and most of you should be doing something less hazardous to your health. Besides you give skydiving a bad name”. I think they might meet some resistance if uttered in the Base forum. I have a nice camerasuit, a velocity camerahelmet and a Sony pc105 to replace the Sony pc6 that was stolen last year. My profile reads that I’m a freefall photographer but last year I made for various reasons exactly ONE camerajump. And on a per year basis it isn’t much more in the last decade. (Eager young cameraflyers who are less rusty than me combined with enough other work on the ground). Last two years I bought about $ 3500 worth of videorecorder, DVD burner, camera, computers etc – mainly for others to play with (and hopefully give me a return-on-investment by sending every tandempassenger and every student home with a truly kick-ass video that shows ‘prospective buyers’ what a nice place to jump we have here…). Should I change my profile? Should the camera flyer profile have an extra option (retired)? Am I allowed to voice my opinion in the camera-forum? (I know how most of this stuff works, more-or-less…) One personal experience is from more than 15 years ago. In case you are wondering what you would look like, should you land with virtually nothing out and be killed by the impact – Ask me. I was the first skydiver on the scene then. I have a vivid memory which makes me somewhat reluctant when it comes to discussing all my POV’s with every 100 jump wonder that just walked in. That event changed my perspective on skydiving more than anything else did and I KNOW that on these forums here there will be others “with the same T-shirt”. Sooo… my identity status falls apart in several different categories. And the first and foremost one (do I really exist?) seems the hardest to solve on the internet. I could get a fastmail.fm account free of charge within an hour and therefore could have a fake DZ.com ID up and running within the next hour. (If I was a bit more childish and had more time on my hands I would like to see how long I would be tolerated here disagreeing with Billvon on every opportunity, before I was kicked of the premises – just for the heck of it… ) I could scan my licenses and AFAIK Sangiro might be able to read what is said since he has some comprehension of the dutch language. But what if I were what I am, but doing it in Russia? “This one is in Cyrillic Alphabet...”. Scan logbooks? “OK mr. Hathaway – show us proof that you actually made more than 10.000…” “You want me to WHAT?” (Then again, my conservative approach might have taken the better of me. The ratings are in Dutch, but are ‘subtitled’ in English. And I could scan the first logbook entry ‘08/08/1979’ and the last ‘17/10/2004’. But would Sangiro and the greenies want to wade through 75000 scans mailed to them?) However - I have a gut feeling that in 95% or more of the cases I am listening to and speaking with real people who actually made so-and-so-much jumps, actually fly skydiving aircraft, actually design and build parachutes and containers, et cetera, et cetera. And just like on a real DZ it just takes a while to find out who is who. "See that young hotshot with brand new RW suit and full face helmet? Just of student status. See that unimpressive character helping out at the tank platform? Chief pilot with over 5000 hours PIC." One last thing though (since you have all these neat buttons). Wouldn’t it be a nice idea if right next to the 'typing window' there was a ‘noise to signal’ button that would send you back to the thread you were reading with just one click? Or a standard windows nag screen making you click twice before you actually post? Just a thought... O well, am I glad this isn’t a democracy…

Me too, me too... 1. It could be 'automated' easily (I think?) 2. My spelling and grammar would be looked at more forgiving (or is it forgivingly? Whatever... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

I have a fifteen year old here at home that I try to teach to always think, consider and question things that he sees, hears and learns. He does an admirable job at it. About once a week I tell him to shut the f**k up. He is (of course) an 'expert skydiver' with 8 tandemjumps as a passenger, hours and hours of packing parachutes, editing skydiving video's, eavesdropping on first jump courses (he could give a first jump course and other than "wow, this is a YOUNG instructor" the students wouldn't know the difference) parachuting-lectures in every classroom since kindergarten and oh... zero solo jumps. Since he'll be sixteen in may, arrangements are in the making to correct that. (Luckily I found 2 volunteers to do that task. They will give him private tuition, since no one wants him in a class with regular students...) My guess is that somewhere in that first jump course one of his instructors is going to tell him to "SHUT THE F**K UP" I can see it coming...(frankly, I insist on it. And lots of old fashioned boot camp style PLF's ) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

???? It DOES deal with the physical act of skydiving. An act that can leave you physically impaired - on CRW jumps, on Wingsuitjumps, on Freefly jumps, on RW jumps, style & accuracy jumps, swooping jumps - all the disciplines have this in common. Now if we, starting with a HIV-positive tandemmaster, moved to a poll about whether the students should be informed on the TM's HIV condition, another poll about whether the students should be informed about all contagious diseases roaming the DZ and ending with a poll about fellow passengers with HIV on public transport - we went of topic and the moderators should step in. (By removing the whole bunch in one clean sweep - but that's another matter...) Besides, moderating these forums must be like cleaning your hard disk...(or the average DZ's toilet after a particular good day of jumping with lots of "firsts"?

During my static line course in 1979 I overheard a conversation of two fellow students in the airport restaurant. A girl was convinced that in case of a malfunction (like: "the parachute doesn't open") her hero, the instructor, would jump out of the plane and come to her rescue. The other student thought that was impossible. The debate ended undecided. Mind you, I was in the course and had jumped just once at that time, they were from the previous course - both had made several jumps already. I don't know if she was told by yet another student that the instructor would come to the rescue or she had found it out all by herself. Doesn't matter, me thinks. Neither does it matter that I was smart enough to understand from day one that instructors were not in the habit of coming to the rescue, should the parachute not open as promised. Sorry to bring the news but the uneducated / inexperienced are not "smart enough". (seen 'a few' go through my classroom since 1985... Take it from me: when they start educating each other unsupervised, disaster strikes...) On several occasions I "brought something down" by sheer luck and walked away unharmed. (It wasn't turbulent, I DID manage to end up in that part of the DZ which is wet and has high grass, the space between the parked car and the concrete pole was just wide enough for my body, etc.) That was dumb. I'm not smart enough. Michelle brought something down "safely and confidently..." meanwhile relearning how her canopy was flying that day, that moment, with that issue. I wish I knew how to do that. (Or, to put it in another perspective: If you lurk these forums with well-written stuff and on several occasions people who have forgotten more about the subject at hand than you managed to learn in your short career tell you politely to "shut the f**k up", maybe it is time to do just that. We know you are literate. What else is new?) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Just out of curiousity: Is that dead guy still jumping? "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Granted, especially where you talk about not knowing what went on in a deceased person's head (but I don't think every mal is unique - I for one have seen repeaters, thats what you get from slow learning...

I just posted the two as true*) examples of incredible chance. Chances I at least found so incredible that one is tempted to believe in fate. I can see why people do believe in (their) fate - doesn't mean I do believe in it also. If there is a fate for me, I don't know it yet so I might as well take every precaution to avoid it sneaking up on me in an untimely manner. Then again, I might be resembling the gardener from Isfahan, running away from death towards my appointment with him. *) The Mig in the bedroom - widely publicized, The french skydiver under the train - maybe some 'frunchy' out here that can corroborate? I did read it as an accident report ("Flash accident mortal") in La Ferte Gaucher in 1984(?) and the details about the train once per hour / five minutes late were told at the DZ...

A couple of years ago a pilot bailed out of a Polish Mig, since he thought it was going to crash. The Mig didn't crash but went on it's way with no-one at the stick. It flew over Germany and Holland, went into a shallow turn to the left and ended up in someone's bedroom near the belgium-french border. An 18 year old guy was taking a nap after dinner. He died in his bed, with the Mig on top of him. He should have gone skydiving? Another one. A guy jumps in France with a PC-type canopy and a chest mounted reserve. He is trained not to cut away but deploy the reserve next to the mal. The two canopies next to each other are unsteerable and he lands on a railroad track near the DZ. Not busy there, a train passes once every hour. The train that cathes him on landing is five minutes delayed at that time... He should have stayed in bed? "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

No,no,no - this thread is about mandatory AAD's. Means you could jump without the rig and let your buddy carry it for you. But it should have an AAD. Wouldn't that add a bit more spice to certain endeavors? "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

The inevitable $64000 question is of course: Would you jump with a passenger that 1. Is HIV+ ? or 2. You suspect of being HIV+? or 3. Might be HIV+? Do you / does your DZ interview potential passengers about their status in this respect? (If your blood might be mixed with mine, then the same goes the other way around, doesn't it?) There is a difference between tandems and unprotected sex - in case you haven't noticed...

thank you. I realise it is impossible to read everything on all the forums. whining voice: "It wasn't me! I'm an innocent victim of the ruthless greenies!" "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

N/A

That can be helped: We could have two different visible signs. "I got it while donating blood in Africa / I got it from sleeping around..." "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Subject HIV came up in another poll. Apparently a majority of people that voted there said that a HIV infected tandemmaster is under some sort of moral obligation to inform his passengers. (63 vs 39 at feb 22 4:09) BTW: Legal obligations start with votes over moral obligations in a democracy... Medical braclets are a good idea - but that wasn't the question in the other poll. "It is not a stigma, it is a sanitary precaution, like lepers rattling on the public road " "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

It is said, that when trains derail or cars collide, sometimes bleeding occurs. Body fluids might get mixed. Do I have the right to be informed about this additional risk that I am taking? I paid for my ticket!

Which is an addendum that wasn't there the first time you shared your opinion with us. And although it looks mighty political correct, it has no practical implications in the real world. We don't test our passengers for HIV. A passenger that signs up for a tandemjump does so with the assumption that no 'mixing of body fluids' is involved and he or she is right (if everything goes according to plan). I made a few tandemjumps in my life but during the jumps I managed to avoid that. Don't let the passenger bleed all over you and even more important don't bleed all over your passenger. First rule of the game, if you catch my drift. I'm pretty sure tandemmasters have taken up HIV victims without being aware of the passengers condition. We are on the terminally ill's shortlist, in case you didn't know. Several professionals have tried to explain here the relative risks involved. To no avail, it seems. Since a majority of the passengers would not jump with "deadboy2004" (if the poll elsewhere on the forum is in anyway representative) while catching HIV is the least of their problems, telling them would make him unemployed as a tandemmaster. I wouldn't hire him if I were obliged to tell the passengers. It is simply to much of a hassle. So even if there is a slight additional risk that someone is taking while he/she is unaware of it, the passengers estimation of the real risk is usually so far from what is really going on that I can live with that. Besides - they signed the waver, didn't they "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

What happened? "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

He could and should disclose his condition to the doctor. If the doctor doesn't see a problem, then there is none. You either have a 3rd class medical or you don't. If you can get one while being HIV+ than there it stops and no one else needs to know. What is to be proven by taking a poll here? Witches and devilworshipers should be taken to a bonfire so that decent people can feel warm and fuzzy? No thanks... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

No they don't. I'm 99.9% certain that at least one (and maybe more) of my tandempassengers was HIV+ or had aids, at the time they showed up. Yet no one ever told me he was. In one particular case (one not so healthy looking young man, clearly homosexual, making a tandemjump with me while his friend paid for the ride) I was almost certain, had a strong feeling about it - like you have when you go up with on one of those 'things to do before I die' passengers - but I didn't feel it was my place to ask. Since I was pretty sure I could avoid "mixing body fluids" with my passenger and I was curious whether he or his friend would speak to me about it I waited and gave them the initiative. (Would have taken him anyway...) They didn't speak to me about it and I didn't mind. As I said, it wasn't my place to ask. There must have been others. (To the tandemmasters in this forum: Did you ever have an HIV+ passenger come up and ask if his medical condition would be a problem for you?) If an HIV+ passenger would not inform the tandemmaster, why should the HIV+ tandemmaster inform the passengers? For some of us it is livelihood and if it is ok to remain working in the ER it certainly is ok to remain working at the DZ. Other than that, in general it is a smart plan to keep the DZ's medical kit up to modern standards.(Gloves etc.) AND "deadboy2004" is under no obligation to tell the DZO. It would be prudent however to be a bit more 'reserved' in his contacts with the passengers than your average TM is. Which could turn out quite refreshing, IMHO... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...