USPA election candidate opinions

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Those courses are partially a member benefit, but they also benefit the local dropzones

Tom how can you say that? It is a member benefit. So the member can get the rating. If 6 guys can get a plane and want to hold it on a non dropzone grass runway then the uspa should make every effort to do it. However the members can work it. We are the uspa not group members.

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Those courses are partially a member benefit, but they also benefit the local dropzones

Tom how can you say that? It is a member benefit. So the member can get the rating. If 6 guys can get a plane and want to hold it on a non dropzone grass runway then the uspa should make every effort to do it. However the members can work it. We are the uspa not group members.

Geeeze, it's not "us vs. them." The instructional programs were designed to support the training of students. That's really what the rating is about. the idea was to certify instructors so the FAA would believe the public was assured a minimal level of safety. It's not something USPA does for the members, or the dropzone owner. It's something USPA does to help students enter our sport safely.

Instructor training programs help us as individual members because they give us the skills we need to teach students. The programs help dropzones because they create a well trained labor pool. These courses are a benefit to both partners in the training process.

The other question is why should it be a group member benefit. That's a whole different topic, and frankly, I'm tired of discussing it. My position has been made pretty clear in past posts, and I'll be happy to rethink the issue of group member benefits in a few months, and then hash it out again on a different thread.

-tb

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One of the problems we have with rating courses is inadequate publicity -- compare the listing in the current Parachutist with what is on the web site. I'd like to hear comments from prospective Board members on what they'd do about it.

I'm not a candidate, but I'll offer a thought. Those courses are partially a member benefit, but they also benefit the local dropzones. I'd like regional directors to be more tuned into how many courses are offered in their regions and at what dropzones, then push for a course when DZ's or members feel the need. That may mean advocating at the USPA level, or encouraging a DZ with the facility and air support to hold a course. Regional directors can probably better use their S&TA's for communication with regard to that function. Likewise, the USPA monthly S&TA and DZO newsletters should be listing courses and promoting them more aggressively.

I'd also like DZO's to be organizing courses on their own. If a DZO runs a small dropzone he probably won't have a need for a course, but several small DZ's may have that need, and certainly the larger DZ's can be a source of candidates and facility when a local need has been established. DZO's should be working together to pool resources and coordinate needs in this area. Creating an adequate supply of AFF instructors helps create happy customers and AFF graduates, and that benefits the entire industry.

-tom buchanan

With regard to any policy decision, my first question is how it will benefit the membership. If it makes DZOs, pilots, equipment manufacturers or the United Way happy as well, that's all well and good. If it does not serve the needs of the membership as it relates to skydiving as much as possible and getting hurt/killed as infrequently as possible, I think is best addressed by others.

Regarding training, I think it advantageous that there are those among us who are qualified to pass on fundamental skills. I would like our organization to consider equally those who instruct for a living and those whose ratings are part of an expanding skillset.

Having been on AFF and Tandem skydives only while shooting camera, I am not intimately knowledgeable regarding the fine points of either. About the only thing I find disquieting is the feeling that teaching someone to land their parachute safely each and every time is not Job #1 in those new, improved, sophisticated teaching methods.

I think the GM program puts the cart before the horse regarding courses to train instructors. If all the personnel meet the requirements for their level of participation, and all appropriate regulations are observed, I can't see what difference it makes whether the course is conducted at a cropduster strip on somebody's farm or a military base outside of Vladivostok.

I think chanting the mantra "it's a club, not a business" eight or ten times at the beginning of any BOD meeting could have some effect, but that may just be my naivete showing.


Blue skies,

Winsor