Petition to support a BSR change to reduce canopy fatalities

There is a very sensable idea. To just make a blanket rule is going to make it hard for some dz's to comply. A more general rule that has some guidlines is what is needed. just my .02. I also feel that the other jumpers can make a big impact on the jumper that is making things un safe. I have low jump numbers but have been competing on the top level in the free ski world for years and when I am on the mountain if someone cuts an avalanch above me and buries ( which has happend more than once) I am going to let them know my point of view no matter if they are a beginer or the worlds best skier or guide. I am not going to go patitioning to close the hills. If they are doing it all the time then the communtiy around is going to make sure they are not going to do it again

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The purpose of the proposed BSR (which I support) is to prevent irresponsible people from killing others.

And FARs have surely prevented me from ever falling through a cloud, because it was a another more strict form of regulation that is not followed to the letter every time.


edited to clarify FAR not BSR

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separating high performance and standard pattern landings

This is a DZO function, not an individual jumper function.

It might be more proper to have the Group Membership Program, and the initial and renewal forms, require that a DZ include its individual plan as part of the application. This plan could be as simple as "This is a Cessna tandem DZ, The only HP landers are the videographers who land minutes before the tandem. This is sufficient separation." No plan, no renewal. For various reasons, most DZ's want to be able to say they are Group Members

USPA Governance Manual 1-6.4 (B) 3 already has provisions to discipline a jumper who "While engaging in any phase of skydiving, is so grossly negligent in his conduct or acts as to imminently imperil his fellow skydivers or aircraft or persons or property on the ground, or wantonly disregards the safety of himself or other persons." This is broad enough to cover someone performing a HP landing in traffic, or a sashaying, deep brakes accuracy approach under a big 7 cell in a designated HP landing area. This provision has already been invoked in at least one case of a high performance landing that caused an injury to another jumper.

Of course, when it comes to "groundings" each DZO will still have wide discretion in enforcement. As far as a USPA action, the disciplinary action under 1.6 is very lengthy and would allow the jumper to continue jumping until the matter is investigated at USPA BOD, or at Least Executive Committee level.

Please do not think that this means a disagree with the principal of separating different type landings. I'm just suggesting what I think is a more appropriate way to accomplish this.

In the meantime, I'll continue to land "out" and tip the driver of the pick up truck.

BSBD

Harry

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I’m strongly against BSR. This is bad idea. Education and communication will do much more for safety.

I can't belive people are promoting a policy they have not yet seen. Would you all sign a contract that sounded like a good idea, but had a whole bunch of blank lines to be filled in later (after you signed it)?

I think we need to see exactly what is going to be proposed before anyone should "commit" to it. After that, there should be two petitions. One for and One against. Submitting something saying that 500 people support something, but failing to mention the 1500 disagree with it is a little misleading and I would assume that the orignal poster is not keeping a list of people opposed to the new BSR.

Mark Klingelhoefer

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I'm all for separating landing areas but that doesn't work for all DZ's. I'm not going to support something that as far as I'm concerned could turn into a ban on diving approaches. I feel that individual DZ's need to handle this on a DZ specific basis since no rule can accomadate every situation that DZ's are dealing with.

I do feel strongly that DZO's need to seriously consider what they can do to make the landing area/areas safer for everybody. But right now a rule from USPA saying they need to separate all landing areas is simply going to result in many DZ's having to ban either swooping or straight in approches to accomadate the new BSR.

Joe.

I agree with all of that. I have watched quite a few people die skydiving (including Danny and Bob, both good friends of mine), but I am not going to affix my name to any petition which mandates landing direction, pattern, and degree of turn. What I WILL do as a life-long skydiver/instructor/S&TA/competitor is continue to educate people on canopy flight from jump number one until they don't require my attention any longer. What is MOST needed are instructors and S&TA's with the balls to walk up to someone and tell them they are being reckless. If they don't listen, tell them again and threaten them with banning. If they don't listen again, run them off your DZ and have the RD put out a message to other local DZ's.

I am all for separate, designated landing areas for swooping, "standard", even classical accuracy. All three forms require very-different approaches from 1000' agl down to the ground and we should be able to accomodate all of them. Separate passes work for pond swoopers and low-exiting accuracy guys, but there are plenty of people who go to full altitude which ought to be able to fly whatever canopy is over their head, whether it be a Velo or a Parafoil; they just need better guidance on where to "hold" at altitude and where to setup. The diagrams being distributed by Brian Germain work for some landing areas and that's a good start. Most places, though, offer even more variations and airspace separation. These future guidelines, regardless of any future USPA BSR, need to be implimented at the dropzone level. They must also be enforced at the dropzone level. This starts when a visiting, or new jumper first walks up to manifest to fill out waivers. If the dropzone staff has a good overhead photo with "lines of demarcation" clearly drawn on it indicating where different canopies need to land (and setup for landing) then things become much easier to regulate. Again, the responsibility to enforce any regulation: USPA, local or otherwise, lies with the dropzone staff. No amount of regulation is going to prevent fatalities. None. This is a dangerous sport and people are going to get caught doing even more-dangerous/stupid things on occasion. It sucks when our friend/family member/loved one dies (or gets killed), but hang around a bit longer and another one of your friends is going to die; I promise you. I do my part to educate. I ask that the rest of you in positions of authority and influence do the same.



Chuck Blue
D-12501
AFF/SL/TM-I, BMCI-4, PRO, S&TA

oh, i've seen like 4 versions of proposed BSR. None of them are acceptable. Biggest objective is that they require DZ to have something that is obviously not always there (separate landing areas, low passes and etc.). Those things are not there for the reason. Small landing areas, high gas prices and etc. Those BSRs won’t change any of those reasons so they are virtually useless and just going to create new legal problems for us.

It is as meaningful as

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Do NOTdry pets in microwave oven

I support a BSR requiring separate landing areas, but not one that applies one solution to all dz's. What works with one dz's physical layout may or may not work at another.

Separate landing areas will only reduce swooper vs. non-swooper collisions in the pattern. It will not reduce swooper vs. swooper or non-swooper vs. non-swooper collisions in the pattern, it will not reduce collisions not in the pattern and it will not educate people on how to avoid collisions in the first place.

Educating every skydiver would make a real difference. But the likelihood of canopy control education post-student status ever being a requirement seems to be pretty slim...

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How is "DZO shall implement procedures to ensure HP traffic and standard pattern traffic is separated" require them to have something that is not there?

this is not a requirement this is recommendation. Would be perfect candidate for SIM, but they already have it there.

Try:

"We, the undersigned, support a proposal that increases the number of S&TA's, their commitment, and effectiveness to do their accepted duties. We also demand higher standards from the instructors in our sport, and expect that they are allowed the authority to moderate skydiver behaviors in regards to safety."

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Try:

"We, the undersigned, support a proposal that increases the number of S&TA's, their commitment, and effectiveness to do their accepted duties. We also demand higher standards from the instructors in our sport, and expect that they are allowed the authority to moderate skydiver behaviors in regards to safety."

I'll sign this one.

Mark Klingelhoefer
D 24728

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Try:

"We, the undersigned, support a proposal that increases the number of S&TA's, their commitment, and effectiveness to do their accepted duties. We also demand higher standards from the instructors in our sport, and expect that they are allowed the authority to moderate skydiver behaviors in regards to safety."

You left out the part about, "...and please, no more S&TAs like Danny Page".

Walt

I'm all for education too, but we still need to stop mixing high-speed and low-speed canopies in the same airspace. I don't see DZ layout as being much of a problem if certain aspects of the BSR are waiverable.

Walt

Fortson Rumble B-20158

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I'm all for education too, but we still need to stop mixing high-speed and low-speed canopies in the same airspace.

None of the proposed BSR options do anything to stop the mix of high-speed and low-speed canopies in the same airspace if the people flying them are all doing a traditional pattern.

Only education can make that scenario safer.

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"We, the undersigned, support a proposal that increases the number of S&TA's, their commitment, and effectiveness to do their accepted duties. We also demand higher standards from the instructors in our sport, and expect that they are allowed the authority to moderate skydiver behaviors in regards to safety."

I like it. This and what Chuck posted above make the most sense to me.

No rule is going to prevent any incidents if the rule is not inforced. No rule is going to prevent the "shit happens" situations either. I've been to DZs where I found out after landing from the first jump that I had broken a rule that was never told to me.

I think dropzones need to individually come up with a policy that work for them, explain it to the locals, explain it to EVERY visiting jumper, explain it to students and enforce it. Everyone needs to be educated about canopy flight and understand why a certain pattern is flown and understand the possible consequences of what happens when a conflicting pattern is flown.

The biggest problem seems to be (IMO) people who already know it all and the big egos. There are a lot of people who think "it will never happen to me" or "I know what I'm doing" until they are proven wrong. No BSR is going to stop people like this until they are grounded or killed. Unfortunately, they are rarely grounded even though everyone knows they should be. We all see these people do scary shit in the landing area, whether it's a wannabe swooper cutting through traffic and stabbing out just before pounding in or a massive canopy doing S-turns and sinking it in taking up as much space as possible. The problem is that we already know who these people are and very few times are they actually spoken to even though they are already breaking rules.

So what happens if we add a new BSR? Great, now these people are breaking yet another rule and still nothing is happening.

Education, higher standards from instructors, enforcement of the existing rules.

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I'm all for separating landing areas but that doesn't work for all DZ's. I'm not going to support something that as far as I'm concerned could turn into a ban on diving approaches. I feel that individual DZ's need to handle this on a DZ specific basis since no rule can accomadate every situation that DZ's are dealing with.

I do feel strongly that DZO's need to seriously consider what they can do to make the landing area/areas safer for everybody. But right now a rule from USPA saying they need to separate all landing areas is simply going to result in many DZ's having to ban either swooping or straight in approches to accomadate the new BSR.

Joe.

I agree with you.




As far as presenting anything to the USPA, I would want to know exactly what it is we are presenting word for word before I put my name on as a supporter.

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This year a new problem is surfacing. Education will be more productive than regulation.

Yup.

Not that I am against rules or anything of that sort, but it depends 100% on what the rule is.

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I can't belive people are promoting a policy they have not yet seen. Would you all sign a contract that sounded like a good idea, but had a whole bunch of blank lines to be filled in later (after you signed it)?

I think we need to see exactly what is going to be proposed before anyone should "commit" to it.

Mark Klingelhoefer

Exactly what I was thinking.

yes that is what I really would like to do! ARE you kiddin me grow a brain and quit throwing assumptions out there

I support the petition
Chris Leahy C-35323

It isn't even clear what the petition is yet, so why are we "supporting" it?

Write up the final "petition" that is word for word going to be presented to the USPA and if I agree with it, I'll put my name down as a supporter.

Words can too loosely be translated, so that is why I want to know exactly what is going to be said.

Not that I'm too worried about the USPA doing something stupid. I trust them, but still.

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"We, the undersigned, support a proposal that increases the number of S&TA's, their commitment, and effectiveness to do their accepted duties. We also demand higher standards from the instructors in our sport, and expect that they are allowed the authority to moderate skydiver behaviors in regards to safety."

Is this the final "petition"?

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I do not.

3 years ago, the leading cause of death was from people hooking it in. The industry dealt with that problem through education, not regulation. The result was that last year had the fewest fatalities in recent history, both internationally and in the US.

This year a new problem is surfacing. Education will be more productive than regulation.

_Am

*already responded to up-thread..sorry*

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I'm all for separating landing areas but that doesn't work for all DZ's. I'm not going to support something that as far as I'm concerned could turn into a ban on diving approaches. I feel that individual DZ's need to handle this on a DZ specific basis since no rule can accomadate every situation that DZ's are dealing with.

I do feel strongly that DZO's need to seriously consider what they can do to make the landing area/areas safer for everybody. But right now a rule from USPA saying they need to separate all landing areas is simply going to result in many DZ's having to ban either swooping or straight in approches to accomadate the new BSR.

Joe.

For the Nth time, the separation can be in TIME, not in space. There is no need to ban anything, anywhere. If a DZ chooses to ban swooping, that is a business decision the DZO makes, nothing that is forced upon the operation.

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USPA is not a federal agency and BSRs are not federal regulations.

Of course the USPA is a federal agency. It is not tightly affiliated with the United States government, however the USPA's structure is as federal as they come. Federal as in centralized; governing with authority over participating member institutions. BSRs are legislation by their nature. Compare with the NASD. Secondary meaning and all, but I think it's a perfectly cromulent description.