skybytch

:( Lots of good memories with her! RIP Joan E!

Vallllllll!!!!!

I love this. It's okay with you to spend an undetermined amount more on each jump. But you have no idea what that increase will do to others who maybe don't have your financial resources. Because it won't cost YOU much in the long run doesn't mean anything to the sport as a whole. Regardless, what is scary here isn't the increase in costs to DZOs and jumpers and tandumb passengers... What is scary is that these regulations are a foot in the door for the FAA to end self regulation of the sport of skydiving in the US. And THAT is why skydivers should be against this. Not safety, not money. Your freedom to skydive without governmental interference.

"Here are a couple more areas we agree: A BSR for WL restrictions is impractical. What’s an S&TA gonna do, make someone get on a scale and declare a canopy size before manifesting? Further, the liability for a DZ and USPA is too great if someone were to operate outside the WL restrictions. Also, a ban on swooping won’t work either. There are too many people within the skydiving political structure who are financially entangled with swooping for a ban to get any support. So, the only thing to do is to call on those with influence to change the culture the same way they did with low pulls." Disagree strongly that a WL BSR for low experience jumpers would not be practical. Get a new rig/main? Get on the same scale used for students. Signed off in logbook, good to go. Show up at a new dz, it's part of the waiver process, same as showing a data card and seal. Prove you have the experience and you can go auger yourself in all you want under whatever canopy you choose. If the DZO is cool with it. The culture won't change because those with influence also have a financial stake in the continued sales of said canopies.

This was argued long and hard here 15 years ago. The problem was USPA doing nothing for hundreds of deaths and injuries over the preceding decade and then doing as little as possible to "fix" the issue with "education" when members were asking for changes with teeth that would create measurable positive results. It appears that they have continued to do as little as possible in the realm of education ever since, and those who cared 15 years ago gave up. (I did)

Better on average... Fifteen years of education should have resulted in a large measurable reduction in the number of injuries and deaths related to swooping. Remember, it's not just landing. Add in canopy collisions involving high performance approaches and improper EPs with swoop canopies and those rates are higher. The question remains. What has USPA, the organization tasked with safety and training in the sport, done over the past 15 years to reduce the number of injuries and deaths attributable to swooping? If USPA has done little to nothing, should they be promoting the activity in the ways that they are?

Fifteen years ago, this was the argument used to keep the dreaded regulation of wing loading and canopy types from limiting the freedoms of jumpers in the US. You remember that, right? Education, not regulation! Fifteen years to prove that point and yet it seems to be the same argument today. Educate, educate, educate... and still die. Perhaps a point has been proven. What exactly has USPA done in the past 15 years to educate jumpers to swoop in a way that limits the obvious dangers? According to the report in the May Parachutist, 58% of nonfatal incidents were landing related In 2022. Is this better or worse than when they started the B license canopy course requirements a decade or so ago?

Me: When do I get my kitchen? Him: I thought you wanted another pinball machine. Me: I want both Him: How's it feel to want?

ME: I want to drive across the country and buy another pinball machine. HIM: Okay.

MAD, Cracked and National Lampoon here. Every month. Could explain parts of my sparkling personality.

Got a Spectre 150, less than 400 jumps, Dacron lines (original), no damage, d.o.m. 2004ish. I've been out of the industry so long I have no clue what it's worth. Anyone? Thanks!

A few years prior to this mess,, another jumper from Lodi was caught signing off multiple students without any ratings. He was "disciplined" by USPA by being allowed to get an AFF rating. Consistency and transparency are top of the list when one thinks of USPA. /s

Sentencing decision, yes. Original jury found the defendant guilty but deadlocked on the penalty so we got it. The legal standard may be reasonable doubt, but sitting in that jury room making a decision of that gravity there needed to be no doubt at all for any of us to go home and sleep well.

I was one of 12 who made a life/death decision in a capital murder case. Gut feeling of all of us was the POS pulled the trigger. The DA didn't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. The science didn't show what we needed to see to decide anything other than life without possibility of parole. We were all white and so was the defendant. He grew up in the same middle class suburban white world most of the jury did. We could see the wrong turns he took. There was even some compassion expressed for his family and their "loss " of a son. I wonder how many prisoners he's shanked since then. He'd only paralyzed one before our decision was made. I like to think we'd have made the same decision if he had not been white. That's the thing that makes me uncomfortable about capital punishment in the US.

Thanks Wendy! The Science and Industry Museum looks like a winner - hubby's eyes lit up when he saw that one.