rmarshall234

Congratulations on all you've accomplished and welcome back!

I think Bill meant class G (Golf) or E. Both of which have much more relaxed rules.

Not really what you asked.....but given those MSL altitudes, you'll be running up against the regs and practicality of providing onboard oxygen as well. If the engine is having trouble 'breathing' up there, so will the folks.

I can tell you what Jonathan Tagle would say, from experience: "I don't know. Go try it and find out."

I believe erdnarob has it right. It's a matter of sensory overload and the mind is Triaging so-to-speak. Clearly what you are seeing and feeling is of utmost concern for your survival, and your mind has decided that the sense of hearing is of little use. My then-girlfriend and now wife, had the same problem for about 50 jumps. Her solution was to set the ditter to go off under canopy (when everything had slowed down) and then slowly move it up to where she wanted/needed it for the skydive. She basically had to condition her mind to hear it.

Way to go guys. Congratulations!

Myles is definitely the man. And if he weren't so unassuming, we'd all know about him. Yes, a hell-of-a good guy.

First jump in 78 and PP's License in 98. Prefer sport flying but our Cessna Cardinal keeps my happy enough, until the Acroduster is built.

>Condolences to the PD Factory team and to JTs friends and family. i was at the services and very-much impressed with how the pd team presented themselves; professional, respectful and compassionate. All... while mourning the loss of their brother.

> have mine gorilla taped on And mine are secured with Pro-Seal. Noticed they were wanting to slide off a couple of years ago and fixed the problem once-and-for-all.

That was a class-act send-off for Adam. Kudos to Bonnie and Buzz and the rest of the Skydive SD crowd for honoring to the man like you did, and for reminding the rest of us, of why we loved him so much. Forever young...Adam Callahan.

Adam Callahan....... So many great memories of you, brother. Fly free. A total "natural" in the air - he could fly _anything_. Should have been born with wings. See you all on Sunday.

The guy that put the test jumps on the Paradactyl might still be in your backyard at Elsinore, Eric. Several years back we had a guy show up to do some packing for the school and he overheard a few of us talking about the Paradactyl and he says rather quietly...."I did the test jumps for that canopy". No shit, turns out he was the real deal and knew everything there was to know about it. A really interesting guy....he was working for one of the local wineries. Check with Lob, he'll probably remember.

Yes, I am. Thanks for the clarification.

>SkyDance in Davis uses the same system of the pocket on the outside of the upper arm. If the oldest dropzone in the nation and a progressive dz like Skydance are using them with success, that's good enough for me.

>This pocket is the way the radios are done at Skydive Orange Interesting. Any idea how it is working out for them?

>And what about mounting options? When I was teaching at Elsinore I suggested putting the radios in a pocket sewn to arm of the jumpsuit. Basically, in the bicep / tricep area. So that when the student had their arms up holding onto the toggles, the speaker would be in very close proximity to their ear. The idea never caught on (nor was ever tried) so it's probably not worthwhile. I was never satisfied with the speaker in the ear or the radio on the chest strap solution though.

>The problem is that we have a good process for learning, it's just that nobody uses it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And as leaders in this sport we need to recognize that our instructional approach is failing miserably. And if we want to reach/help the less experienced we need to try something different. (Which is why this discussion is being held in Safety and Training and not Swooping and Canopy Control.) Another buddy (Bill Von Novak) just wrote a wonderful article in Parachutist (The Downsizing Checklist) that addresses this exact point. We need to keep trying different approaches until we find one that works. Bring your expertise as a swooper to the party and lets all fix this problem.

So if Swooping is king of the skydiving disciplines then by extension, Reno air racing must be king of the flying disciplines. (Not that I believe that either). And when my buddy Charlie says an audible slip indicator will improve his performance on the race course (which I do believe) why can’t it be that better information can improve one’s swooping performance? Or at least, flatten the learning curve and thereby - make it safer. The challenge isn’t to your swooping skills, it’s to the notion that we can’t develop a better process for learning to “go big”, as you say. And to address another post: the ridiculous notion that one must develop superhuman traits like “spider senses” to play in the arena.

>Perhaps a device could be programmed by performing a "model" swoop first, in order to >calibrate it to your canopy and weight. Then in the future, if you deviate from this pre->determined path, the device could issue a warning. And if the altitude at the beginning and end of the swoop are known, the average rate of descent can be calculated by measuring the time between these two. Your device could serve as a personal "debrief" for each jump. People like you that question the status quo provide answers to questions. I'm certain that Steve Snider, Irwin Jacobs and Burt Rutan were told by some very credible people that "it can't be done" too. Good luck with your device.

Good student instruction will provide a solid foundation of knowledge, basic skill, and practices and procedures which serve to make you "safer" over the long haul. With the rare exception, student jumps are pretty tightly regimented and controlled so the safety record is good. It is what you do with those influential days down the road that matters the most.

>I earlier suggested a grad student.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here’s another project for our mythical grad student: Conduct a study of all the swoops that have gone horribly wrong in the past 15 years to determine what the atmospheric peculiarities were that day. In particular, what was the exact air density/pressure? It can be mathematically computed. And, how did that air compare to the “standard day” air that that particular jumper was accustomed to at his home DZ, or time of day, or usual canopy he jumps, etc. I’ll bet our grad student finds a connection between “thinner air” and the accident jump. Or better yet..Ha!...advocate for greater FAA oversight and let the NTSB begin investigating skydiving accidents. I’ll bet they would come up with an interesting and factual-based analysis of what we are doing to ourselves. Any fixed wing pilot can tell you that the air is different based on atmospheric conditions and the wing will react differently as a result. And, we’ve got long, rigid, efficient wings with a fixed Center of Gravity (CG) that loads that wing predictably. Skydivers on the other hand have short, mushy, inefficient wings - and more importantly - a shifting CG that moves-about in the loading of that wing. Since, it is essentially -- a pendulum on a string. So, when one paints themselves in the corner because of a miscalculation, the CG is lagging behind and can’t provide the immediate wing loading to get you out. Otherwise, what we would we would be witnessing is a bunch of accelerated stall accidents instead of behind the power curve crashes as are happening now. The question and the answer I believe, is the AIR. And since you can’t see the stuff the challenge now becomes: How do we sample it, measure it, and feed that information back to the pilot in a useful way? We need to get past this egocentric mindset that says: The only reason he crashed and I haven’t, is a difference in skill level.

>As a former competitive swooper.. Did you have anything to clue-you-in to what the atmospheric conditions were that day? And therefore, what adjustments to make? Or were you simply relying on your experience and eyeball to tell you this doesn't look right and therefore to bail.

Sorry, I have no knowledge of that and defer to someone that does.

There you have it. Excellent. Much more sophisticated and accurate than the standard VSI we see in aircraft. I would think something like this could be adapted and then used for the skydiving industry. As you said, one could practice their swoops up high and know _ exactly_ when they’ve leveled out. An audible tone to represent what is happening in real time, with the ability to log and review the jump would be a great learning aid. A Heads-up display would be best of all. The simple point I’m trying to make is that we (as an industry) are bouncing people off the dirt all over the country and the present approach of training, harping and banning people, isn’t getting the job done. Meanwhile, we are still using a lone altimeter and our eyeball as a reference. (Hell, when I started jumping at least we had a stop watch too ;-) Maybe a turn towards technology and what the other industries are doing would be helpful. Your post is wonderful, thanks.