tkhayes

how does money enter into it? I have no idea what a Sigma costs, but our DHS systems cost (now) over $10K each. A Set 400 main is $2700, risers are $300, drogues are $400, linesets cost $300+ dollars and I still have to get them installed. We spent $24,000 in the past 12 months on our 10 tandem systems from Strong in maintenance and new components. Pretty typical year for us. So not sure about 'saving money' part that you refer to. The reason we use Strong? We compare two companies, their products and their parts and service, and we make a choice. Strong was the obvious choice.

when you cut away from a spin, your body (or any object for that matter) stops spinning and goes in a straight line. Any tumbling, wiggling, kicking and flailing that happens AFTER the cutaway is of your own doing. So don't kick, wiggle and flail- just lay there and let the RSL do its job (and pull your handles too). The reserve pilot chute still launches 90 degrees to your body and extracts the reserve. the RSL-is-going-to-kill-me story line has been around since the dawn of time and I get tired of hearing about it. You are far better off with one than without one. I also get a kick out of people that have Skyhooks, but refuse to jump with an RSL. A Skyhook is simply a fancy RSL that gets the reserve out quicker. If you want a good test of how fast your canopy is going to spin and what it feels like, deploy your canopy and release just one brake toggle, leave the other set. Have your hands ready to release the other one - but within 2 revolutions, you will be spinning violently and probably horizontal with your canopy. A brake-fire is 'not' a malfunction, or at least most people do not think it is, but if you do not fix it within SECONDS, it certainly becomes a malfunction rather quickly. RSLs save lives. Most of you have not been skydiving long enough to remember why we put them there in the first place.

I love it when people take a simple paragraph disclaimer that probably resides on MANY government websites and turns it into a communist doomsday scenario destined to take over the world. Glenn Beck - He's my HERO!!! puh-leez TK

Responsible folks get shafted all the time in the USA, and they have insurance. I am one of them Their 'recourse' as you might suggest, is civil action. While the process is admittedly there, it is costly and time consuming and the insurance companies can fund is far better than Joe Average, - so the 'recourse' is not much 'recourse' for most people..... if your solution included insurance for EVERYONE, then there might be a solution here, but sadly, that is not actually the reality. Of course you already know that.

actually if you could possibly read my post, what I said was what I said, nothing more and nothing less. if you want to read more into than that - that is your choice.... millions of Americans, apparently including you, took one persons 'so-called' experience, and based a 'wrong' opinion on it. of course this is America and you are entitled to our wrong opinion.

I like that a ad comes out with bad information, that millions of people in the USA use it as justification to discredit an ENTIRE system of health care delivery, and then it is found out to 'not so true'. But that's OK, you can continue to discredit an ENTIRE SYSTEM OF HEALTH CARE DELIVERY on one 'inaccurately portaryed' case. If you want to. or you can go get the facts and choose for yourself. rather than one 'inaccurately portrayed case'

Jonathans are old technology - a generation out of what is avilable today. They were a great canopy - in their day. By today's standards, they are 'terribly average' at best. Unlike airplanes or cars, you cannot keep replacing parts to keep them flying well. A lineset may help, but bottom line, it is a OLD parachute. jump it carefully and retire it when needed,

I already commented on it

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/07/31/medicare-ad-exaggeration523.html I love this shit.....

almost ALL two-canopy-out situations are caused by one of two things - poor gear checks, i.e. dislodged pins or reserve handles, or by pulling low and having the AAD fire when the main deploys. All the these are preventable. Newer gear has better pin protection. Check your handles, maintain your gear to high standards And pull on time. Having two canopies out is NOT a situation you want to find yourself in. These days with higher performance canopies, even student zero-p canopies, it can turn into a very ugly situation is a very short period of time - and the situation is not easily dealt with, even by experienced skydivers. prevent it. Do not ever let it happen - that is the key.

sounds like your dive went bad - I would love to hear the instructor's point of view as well.

since I got got asked to reply to this thread I will - I usually keep my posts to simpler things, like religion and politics. Strong Enterprises has been nothing but responsive and helpful throughout the history of the tandem skydive, especially when it comes to changes to the system and the gear as needed. The 'other tandem company' has demonstrated to me personally; 1. that they think their gear is perfect and they do not need to make changes 2. that they 'eat their young' when it comes to tandem instructors, their ratings and any incidents that might happen 3. that they did not/do not particularly care about your opinion and your needs. Strong saw a possible issue with broken closing loops on the main and developed not one, but TWO different system to help keep the container closed in the event of a broken closing loop. The second, an improvement over the first. Strong enhanced the strength of their risers after a riser broke - even though their was little evidence that the riser was defective in any way - there has never been another riser incident since. Strong developed a system to release the drogue after it was repeatedly demonstrated that tandem instructors might not do that in the event of a cutaway. Again, helping the system overcome the fact that people make mistakes. Strong developed a good maintenance program (25 jump inspection) for their gear and included a lot of input from the community on what needed to be included. I know they certainly asked us what we thought. Strong has demonstrated that they will not 'hang you' if you make mistakes and they are willing to work with you. I personally have had 3 'major' incidents with a tandem jump, each a mistake that I clearly made before or during a jump. Each time I actually sent them the video and/or explained the situation. Each time I ended up in a discussion with them about prevention and how we learn from those mistakes. Those discussions also included reprimands when needed and justified. The 'other tandem company' yanked one of my instructor's ratings based on a rumor. There are at least a dozen other improvements that have been made to the gear over the years. So yes, you can look at the glass as half-empty and say "what a piece of shit- look at all the changes they have to make and it is still a band-aid on a old system....." Or you can say "Wow, what a responsive company - they obviously care about their gear enough to respond to the skydiving community, come up with changes when it is OBVIOUS that the users of the gear are not going to follow our recommendations, and they continue to make improvements on a system that has MILLIONS of perfectly safe tandem jumps done on them already." "the other tandem company" decided to design a totally new rig to replace the one that was already 'perfect'. Is that not the same end result? If it was so perfect, then why come out with new ones? Strong is a great company. They have demonstrated that despite the fact that there are obviously shady and corrupt operators out there that only care about making a buck; who obviously do not give a shit about safety and who are reckless and careless with the operation of the systems and with people's lives; that they will still stick with and work with us 'safe' operators out there who do actually care. I have nothing but good things to say about them. You sir, are welcome to your 'wrong' opinion. TK Hayes ------- to answer your original post directly: No, they are actually addressing the problems with real changes to both the equipment and the procedures and policies, despite our best efforts to use their equipment incorrectly and dangerously. No, they have fixed them, BTW, they were not 'design flaws', they were operator errors that were addressed with better safety features. The 'present standard' has not changed since 1983, and that is not the fault of Strong - it is the fault of the FAA and the fact that they take 20+ years to allow changes to happen, essentially adopting the same 1983 standards for tandem jumps are the 'law' in 2001. Unless of course you have some other 'present standard' that we do not know about? Would you rather that they lower their maintenance standards? Try to justify that in a court of law...... I fail to understand what is 'unsafe' about it. We have had probably a hundred cutaways in 15 years of using Strong systems, and have had no serious issues with the reserve system. If you have a specific issue with the Strong reserve system, and you bring it to them, I expect they will listen to you. Works every time I pull the handles....

if you are Canadian, then NAFTA allows you to work in some professions int eh USA. skydiving is not one of them - but you can work as a 'management consultant' - you just have to make that job description fit the job that you will be doing. And you have to have previous experience in that job in Canada, Or you can work as a 'Computer Systems Analyst' again if you have experience in that field. All other professions (I think) require a degree to prove your ability to work in the professional field, doctor, nurse, engineer, physical therapy, etc Consult an immigration lawyer 1. they will tell if and what you can do and probably not bullshit you 2. they will tell you how much it will cost and how long it will take Lawyer in Buffalo called Grasmick, specializes in Canada US work, his website is very informative. I do not advise the under-the-table plan, especially if you are Canadian. If you get busted, you may never get into the USA again in your life. That is generally serious consequences when you live in Canada and limits a lot of future possibilities for you.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/17/gop-rep-health-insurance/ touche

not available to me or millions of other americans Not single payer - so I would and could very well go broke getting it - or I could just choose to die. so again, where is this 'single-payer' system that exists in America that is available to ALL Americans?

and your profile says nothing of the same - so I guess that we are BOTH full of shit then. My neurosurgeon treated my broken neck with a 'cure'. the cure was a spinal fusion. some would say, well that is a 'treatment', since now I have a fused spine - it cannot be ever 'cured' But somewhere out there, someone is working right now, on a CURE for spinal fusion, another procedure to either fix it, replace it, or undo it to its natural state. The goal is a CURE, not just treatment. And I expect my neurosurgeon is very happy with the 'cure' he provided me - I know I am. Same in the mental health profession. They are searching for cures, via treatments. I googled mental health cures and other searches of 'cures' versus 'treatments' I found nothing to support that statement that the mental health profession is not trying to find 'cures' for things. Now if you can find that , then post it, otherwise, my profile and whatever it states is not up for discussion here. my statement stands ALL, if not, MOST medical professions are searching for CURES, not just TREATMENTS. treatment is the path to a cure. Stating that a cure is not the goal is fundamentally incorrect. now prove me otherwise.

so ONCE AGAIN, you cannot definitively state that mental health as an industry or profession is NOT seeking a cure.....only treatment. So therefore his statement is fundamentally INCORRECT. I stand with my statement. I find it hard to believe that as a professional, ANYONE would stand up and say "We are not seeking a cure - only treatment"

I don't know? What is it? I could not find anything online about it. most of the google searches turned up disputes about how much Medicare was paying for any given procedure - not that they were NOT paying.... so if you have some research, let me know, 'cause I cannot find it......

sorry but we do NOT have a public, single-payer system in the USA that is available to everyone.....

canuckinusa's experience is one of millions. I stand by original statements that while Canadians might complain about health care in Canada, few of them are willing to give it up for a completely privatized system. Most of them consider it to be a uniquely CANADIAN right and they are glad to have it. They just wish it worked better (geez, don't we all?) but yes, some things in Canada could be improved. they could allow private MRI businesses to open up, private X-rays, private lab tests, the stuff that people can actually afford to pay for themselves. - even private surgery centers. People who can pay would probably pay. I would pay for a private MRI if I needed (JUST LIKE I HAD TO DO HERE IN THE USA WHEN MY INSURANCE COMPANY DENIED ME THAT SAME MRI - EVEN THOUGH MY DOCTOR DEEMED IT NECESSARY) But no one in Canada really wants us to go to a private insurance-driven system. They just wish they had quicker access to health care. Well you know what - the guy who needs surgery on his knee? Well he can friggin' well wait - he can wait because it does not cost him tens of thousands of dollars. And he is still functioning fine in society, and if he waits 3 months to get that surgery - so be it....... The guy who had the heart attack and is dying? He is getting first rate treatment - in a hurry, immediately, in the emergency room and then surgery, and then rehab and recovery..... The lady who is dying from liver cancer, she is getting first rate treatment, in a cancer center, chemo, drugs, surgery, the works, she is getting it all, those are the facts. The USA public is so misinformed of what is actually going on in Canada it is hard to even describe. And if they live in some remote community, yes, they might have to travel to get that treatment (JUST LIKE THEY WOULD HERE IN THE USA) And neither one of them are going to EVER have to declare bankruptcy due to their condition (In Canada)

a fundamentally incorrect statement. Again, basing any hypothesis on that would then also be incorrect. I think you are making a HUGE assumption by stating that the goal of mental health is not a 'cure'. hundreds of mental health professionals would largely disagree with you. treatments eventually lead to cures... just because we are not there today is some ares does not mean that they are not striving for a cure. treatment is the actual PROCESS, cure is still the goal....

I disagree, read my earlier post(s) - stop trying to deliver INSURANCE. the discussion should be how to deliver HEALTH CARE.

tort laws have to change as well, yes, but you cannot abolish everything we have either. there is REAL malpractice out there, and if you cannot afford the legal fees, that does not mean that you are 'wrong' and should not pursue that. I do not know what the solution is there. But as long as lawyers write the laws, I think it will be a long time before that gets resolved. I expect that with a single payer system, many of the lawsuits would disappear anyway. One of the reasons people sue is because they are saddled with enormous medical bills, and they want someone else to pay for it. Lawsuits happen in Canada as well, but far less frequent. We do not have ambulance chasers like we do here and people do not feel the need to sue, afterall, even in a serious accident, they know that they are going to have their medical stuff taken care of. And I disagree with all the governmetn 'hoops' that you speak of. Medicare is working pretty well. Doctors and patients, if you speak to them - do not get the runaround, they do not get 'screwed', they do not get mountains of paperwork to process a medical claim. old folks go to teh doctor, and the doctors send the bills to Medicare, Medicare pays them. INSURANCE companies on the other hand, agree to terms with the doctor that they have no intention of following, argue with the patient over what can and should be done, refuse to pay, short-change the doctor, and drown everyone in paperwork so that they do not have to pay. And people still think that private insurance is 'freedom of choice?'

what I have been saying all along - a private AND a public single-payer system. perhaps you missed all that in all my previous posts.

who is the 'architect' of the Canadian system you reference?