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When I posted this on rec.skydiving, nobody responded to it there for some reason, but I got over 200 emails from all over the world agreeing with the observations on student training. I also got about 15 or 20 on the topic of skydiving becoming mainstream.
Subject: Social Evolution of Skydiving
Date: posted to rec.skydiving 1998-9-2
Well I went to Quincy this year (1998) to work in DJan's section of
the Convention Load Organizers.
That's the section (tent 3) for low pressure, instructional skydives
for the young and innocent.
Actually this section is open to all levels and we get a fair number
of people with hundreds and even thousands of jumps who just want to
enjoy some low pressure, recreational skydiving.
(We did some really excellent work this year and if this doesn't
(get too long I'll expand on it a bit.
As the week unfolded I talked to many people in the loading areas
about head downers going first or last and why. There are fiercely
held opinions in both directions. I talked to Tony Uragallo and John
Matthews about this and other stuff.
I watched people showing a great lack of canopy sense, spiraling
in the crowd, panic turning close to the ground, dodging each other,
dodging the helicopter that was picking up the one that had just
happened, trying to get back from a long spot and then burying a
toggle at 50 ft to face the wind.
Some time during the week it came to me to stop by Skydive Chicago
and talk to Roger on the way home. Chicago really is on the way to
Colorado if you hold the map just right :-) :-)
I ran into Charlie Hotze in both places and we also had a long talk
about today's skydiving world.
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All this confirmed and enhanced some opinions and viewpoints that I have:
1 - We are now teaching people how to do Freefall
before they know how to make a Parachute Jump.
That's like teaching people how to scuba dive
before they know how to swim.
-----------------------------
2 - Skydiving has become main stream and the commercialization
of it is remaking the landscape. We now have a fifth kind
of person coming out to jump.
Many people divide the world according to body position or
type of activity, but I see five main categories:
#1 The artist, explorer, pioneer, innovator, questor.
#2 The recreational but totally hooked every weekender.
#3 The professional - movies, demos, jumpmaster, livlihood.
#4 The competitor - numbers/comparison in a restricted format.
#5 The mainstreamer - comes out 5, 10, 20 times a year,
maybe takes a week long skydiving vacation.
-----------------------------
3 - The question of exit order and separaton of groups is
complicated and will require training and education but
is within our reach.
Because the situation is complex the answer will not be
a simplistic, one size fits all answer.
The effort to create an informed consensus reality on this
really, really, really needs to be done.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1 - We are now teaching people how to do Freefall
before they know how to make a Parachute Jump.
That's like teaching people how to scuba dive
before they know how to swim.
By "Parachute Jump" I mean
Gear, packing, basic rigging
Winds, spotting, exit and opening points
Leaving proper separation between groups
Freefall drift, tracking, relation to other groups and the ground
Canopy control, rear risers on opening, braked turns, clean
predictable pattern and reasonable accuracy on landing, PLF's
Unusual situations, out landings, malfunctions
That's the framework in which our relative play, whether head down
or flat, exists.
I believe this trend is coming from two factors:
AFF
Commercialization
The guys who developed AFF came from a world where you hung out
weekend after weekend at the drop zone and went through the slow
progression of static line and freefall. They tried to improve on
the freefall phase in that context, and I don't believe they realized
how, after a few generations of just focusing on the freefall, the
parachuting skills would start to fall by the wayside.
The commercialization is giving rise to a philosophical split that
permeates the early jumps.
Are we teaching people how to become skydivers or are we processing
them through the student mill, sending them home shorn of money but
"certified"?
Are we teaching them correct reserve procedures from the start or
teaching them a one size fits all procedure to simplify the mill
and assuming they won't be back anyway?
Of course the world is not so "either/or" as this, but I'm high
lighting the contrasts because I'm trying to understand what the
jump world is becoming.
But even in a purely commercial orientation would you rather have
people who spent their first 100 jumps learning how to make a
"Parachute Jump" or people who spent their first 100 jumps learning
how to turn donuts and bipoles?
Skydiving is not Disneyland.
One other point about using AFF for the main doorway into skydiving
is that it is too steep a grade for many, too narrow a gate in both
a performance and a financial sense.
Why are we filtering out perfectly good skydivers by keeping only
the ones who can make it through AFF?
AFF is good for the jumpmasters in that it requires them to develop
a really high level of skill and that is good for skydiving in general.
But I don't believe it's appropriate for many students, and it doesn't
make sense to use it as the only doorway in.
----
I got to Skydive Chicago late Sunday afternoon (the last day
of Quincy) and made two jumps. After a week of organizing it
was nice to go out by myself and do absolutely nothing, just
lay there in free plummet and feel the wind.
I don't remember where I first met Roger, it may have been the Gulch
in the early 70's, but I do remember a skinny young kid full of ideas
and energy. He gave me a Freak Brother hat and I wore the Freak Brother
patch on the pop top of my SST for many years.
Roger has always had vision and so, aside from reconnecting with an
old friend, I wanted to see what he was doing about students and
about the commercialization of skydiving.
----
AFP (Advanced Freefall Program) starts out as either several working
tandems or several static lines followed by a 15 jump progression.
This is followed by a free graduation jump where the student makes
a clear and pull with no help from jumpmasters. They pack their own
chute, figure out the spot, spot the plane, jump and land completely
on their own.
Some features of this program:
- It addresses the swim_before_scuba issue. People learn how
to pack, spot, track, grab rear risers on opening, make
braked turns, ...
- It's a more gentle and broader progression. Exceptional
students can combine levels while the average student
doesn't experience "failure of a level" as often as AFF.
- There are several classes in the progression instead of
a single first jump course.
- There's a video on every jump which the student gets a copy of.
The instructors wear the camera (which looked liked Sidewinders
with a Sony PC7 Digital but I didn't look closer).
- On the last 5 jumps people exit back to the wind and focus
on control in all 3 axes.
- You can pay for it in 3-5 jump packages or do the whole 15
jump progression for about $1,500.
I like it.
You can always nit pick things and find fault, and there is usually
more than one way to do things, but this AFP program is a good example
of one way to do it.
Joe Bob says check it out :-) :-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2 - Skydiving has become main stream and the commercialization
of it is remaking the landscape. We now have a fifth kind
of person coming out to jump.
#1 The artist, explorer, pioneer, innovator, questor.
#2 The recreational but totally hooked every weekender.
#3 The professional - movies, demos, jumpmaster, livlihood.
#4 The competitor - numbers/comparison in a restricted format.
#5 The mainstreamer - comes out 5, 10, 20 times a year,
maybe takes a week long skydiving vacation.
The innovator, the recreational, the professional all fit together
in a natural, mutually supportive system.
Recreational skydiving is the grass roots wellspring from which
all else comes.
Competition creates the first great divide, the first "Us vs Them".
(Marana 1968 or 69 - The Nationals - A guy in a grey sweatsuit
(with incredibly short hair - Red in the face - Yelling at me:
(
( "You God damn fun jumpers are ruining *Our* sport!!"
(
( *Your* sport? What's he mad at *me* for? I'm just jumping.
(
( I didn't get it.
(
(John Matthews called it the "animosity thing" and today I do get it.
(
(People who have put years and years into competition sequential
(are now threatened with irrelevance.
(
(The free fly school brings in thousands of coach jumps.
(How much revenue does the DZ sponsored 4 way team bring in?
-----------------------------
Commercialization creates the second great divide.
#1 Not only is skydiving not Disneyland, but
There are no bunny slopes.
#2 The Mainstreamers begin to affect skydiving itself.
"You God damn Mainstreamers are ruining *Our* ..."
:-) :-)
-----------------------------
I picked the word "Mainstreamers" as a more neutral word than yuppie
or ken_&_barbie.
People go skiing a few times a year, think of themselves as skiiers,
but don't revolve their whole life around it. Now more people are
skydiving the same way.
It's certainly not the old days where my first jump cost $2 including
instruction, parachute and the ride up, and we went up to 2,500 ft
in a piper cub, me and the pilot, over a farmer's field that wasn't
even an airport, and I jumped out.
But neither is Quincy the old days and why be selfish? Why not share
the sky? Not that many people are going to come out and jump, and I
think that the more people who come out and make a few jumps, the
better the world will be. It changes people.
But it adds a new element to our familiar jump world and we must face it
and deal with it.
-----------------------------
#1 Not Disneyland - No Bunny Slopes.
The mainstreamer needs more guidance, supervision and re currency
training on how to make a Parachute Jump.
There have always been a few infrequent jumpers, but
Today's gear is way more complicated.
There are more freefall (and canopy) activities.
There are a lot of lawyers prowling around.
This is catering to people who may be nice people, even very smart and
accomplished people, but who don't know how to pack, spot, organize,
change a main canopy ... nor do they care.
That's weird to us regular jumpers, but do I know how this computer works?
(Sure, you turn it on here, and you type on these keys like this ...
(
(But can I design a chip, solder a bunch of parts, write an operating
(system?
So this aspect seems to require learning some new attitudes on our part,
as well as developing new customary frameworks and procedures to ensure
guidance, supervision and re currency training for periodic but not
frequent skydivers.
Organizers could help out here by putting proportionally more emphasis
on parachuting fundamentals and less on freefall points (designing dives
out of parachuting fundamentals rather than just points).
-----------------------------
#2 Mainstreamers begin to affect skydiving itself.
Pope Valley 1975 was the first skydiving resort I ever saw.
The beautiful Napa valley, a DC3, a bar and restaurant, a swimming
pool, a motel, people coming from all over the world, it was heaven.
Curt and Timmy had a good idea.
Roger has taken that to another level with Skydive Chicago.
He bought 240 acres of trees and weeds which now has a runway and
a big grassy area to land in, two Otters, a huge hangar covered with
wrestling matts to pack on, 22,500 square feet of office/classroom/
loft/restaurant/..., 32 tandem rigs and 32 student rigs, a small lake
for swimming, an RV area, and on and on, even horse back riding.
It is catalyzed by jumping, but goes well beyond that into general
human recreation.
This aspect of the mainstreamer induced change seems like a good idea.
Take a vacation, make some jumps, bring the family, go swimming, ride
horses, play volleyball, ...
(Showers at the drop zone! Imagine that! :-) :-)
Or you can just treat it like a regular drop zone and go out every
weekend and jump.
-----------------------------
Mainstreamers and commercialization affect skydiving in another way
that I find very hard to pin down exactly, but I'm sure it's real.
I see allusions to it in the automatic opener and ken_&_barbie and
other threads.
John Muir walked around Yosemite as the only white guy in hundreds
of miles. Now it's so crowded you might as well be in Disneyland.
Some people go backpacking for deep communion with the mountains.
Others walk down the day hike trails talking on their cell phones
wishing they were somewhere else.
Maybe that's the difference, a casual, shallow activity versus
a large and meaningful part of life.
I worked for Dave Burt and Bob Sinclair in the 60's doing demos,
TV commercials, movies. To Bob that was real jumping and he used
to complain to me about how this "sport parachuting" with its
restricted drop zone environment, narrow viewpoint, artificial
opening altitudes, etc was really interfering with real jumping.
Each generation steps into the jump world and thinks that what it
sees is skydiving. A late 60's speed star guy was really upset
with me for doing no contact and other shaped hookups and he said:
"You can't do that. That's not skydiving!"
I was making up the 4 way event and he was really threatened.
Now people step in and think 4 way is real, but it's no more real
than the Berlin Wall.
It's irritating to have some person make a few jumps, develop a
limited idea of what it's all about, then tell us that we should
be doing whatever they are doing.
But I think maybe what's bothering some of the old hands is dilution
of the soul of skydiving.
Screw all the badges and numbers and color coordination and magazines
and groupies and automatic openers and coolness and trendy.
What's left when it's just me, a parachute, an airplane, some altitude
and freefall?
If I find something there then I'm a skydiver. If not then maybe I'm
just skydiving on my way to somewhere else.
But now I'm getting close to saying that you should be doing what I'm
doing and we all have our own unique path.
"Skydiving is human nature in (the context of) freefall."
That's my best understanding so far.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3 - The question of exit order and separaton of groups is
complicated and will require training and education but
is within our reach.
Because the situation is complex the answer will not be
a simplistic, one size fits all answer.
The effort to create an informed consensus reality on this
really, really, really needs to be made.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
OK - I'm running out of steam here and must turn to other things
for a while. I will incorporate what I've learned about exit order
into the first section of that Separation of Groups post and re post
it some time.
Also since returning from Quincy I've talked to Brian Germain,
Raider ... many others. Many people are thinking these thoughts
so you'll probably be hearing more about it.
Sunday I called Mike Michigan to see how he's doing. He was going
out to body surf since the hurricanes were making such good waves
(geez mike :-) and a shark chomped down on his left arm but let it
go and he made it back without bleeding to death, but it was close.
He was in surgery for 3 hours and will have his arm back.
He's thinking about all this too so it must be time.
-----------------------------
Finally, yesterday, Sept 1st, was 36 years since I started jumping.
36 is a nice number, like 56 and 81, lots of symmetries and stuff.
-----------------------------
Skratch 98-9-2
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