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CritaCorn t1_iqylhte wrote

Probably unrelated: I remember a YouTube interview with a Navy Seal who said he would NEVER skydive again after seeing just how careless everyone was folding up their chutes and how the instructors ignore several safety checks.

He explained in the Navy you and your diving buddy check your gear, chutes, pack and reserve over and over.

Topped with my Grandfathers logic being a pilot for 40 years, “Why jump out of a perfectly good plane?”

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JustAnotherDude1990 t1_iqyypvt wrote

I work as an instructor in the skydiving industry and can say with absolute confidence that the military jumpers like seals are some of the most reckless and god awfully dangerous skydivers out there. We hate when most of those idiots come around because they do the most idiotic and dangerous stuff, then act like they’re better than you.

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nascentia t1_iqz2wmk wrote

They’re also the most idiotic and dangerous on public gun ranges, anecdotally. Every time I’ve been on a public range with a vet near me, they’re SO unsafe and reckless and ignorant about firearms. It’s why I’m glad to have electronic muffs so I can hear what everyone is saying crystal-clear from six lanes down so I know when to pack up and leave.

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ComfortablyNomNom t1_iqz8ioz wrote

Ive seen our rangemaster kick out more vets than anyone else its ludicrous. One dude got thrown out and banned because he started making jokes after somebody said "Goin hot" before firing which is one of our ranges procedures. He started loudly saying "Hot??! Its kinda cold out, im not so hot, Im cold! Hyuk hyuk". The rangemaster quickly walked over told him this isnt a place for jokes and told him to kick rocks. Dude actually tried to swell up like he was gonna fight and caught a lifetime ban.

Vets of a certain age and ranges dont mix. Ive never seen any issue from anyone who served in Nam or earlier though just the younger guys.

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PotatoMurderer t1_ir1bx6e wrote

It's coz a lot of vets and military members act like they know more about gun even though they worked a desk job that will 100% never have to shoot except for recertification (which isn't really gonna do much for proper handling).

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soodeau t1_ir2kn64 wrote

Also anecdotally, but they tend to be the most idiotic and dangerous in and around bars. They don’t hold their liquor as well as they think they do.

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kaloonzu t1_ir7typ8 wrote

I'd contest the range thing, it was a military vet who took over for a guy when his gun-bunny girlfriend was flagging people up and down the line with an FS2000

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junglecritter t1_iqz7fyv wrote

30 jumps on a 260 = skygod

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DuelingPushkin t1_ir1akds wrote

Not even a 260...a 360. The military canopies are basically tandem canopies because they need to be able to handle the extra weight of all the equipment.

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wzl46 t1_ir2d6hm wrote

I used to be an instructor close to a military base with a bunch of HALO qualified dudes stationed here. They used to come to the DZ to get transition training for civilian gear. I can’t tell you how many videos of these guys I saw that literally scared me. It was way too common for them to pull their BOC pilot chute and hold on to it as if it were the rip cord on the HALO gear. Many times they would hold on until decision altitude, let go of it to grab the cutaway handle and end up chopping a canopy that was actually reaching line stretch. One of the most memorable of these videos had the AFF instructor on the jump slapping the shit out of HALO boy’s hand to try to get him to let go of the pilot chute.

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Deceased_Puppy t1_iqyopip wrote

It really depends where you go. I got my license and only did 50 jumps but always had multiple gear checks. One before getting on the plane. One before reaching altitude. Sometimes one more before the door opens.

The guys with thousands of jumps may look like they’re doing sloppy packs but really they’ve just done it so much they make it look easy. My pack jobs took 100x more effort because I sucked and my opening were rougher. I always paid $5-10 for someone else to do it if I could.

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ligmuhtaint t1_iqz9oav wrote

5 to 10 bucks seems like a small fee😅

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Deceased_Puppy t1_iqzb56l wrote

Absolutely. For someone else who has thousands of packs under their belt and it’s usually under $10. They finish in like 10 minutes what took me 45-60 minutes and they don’t break a sweat.

My instructors all flew canopies about a third of the size of the one I was renting. Since there was literally 1/3 the fabric, not only was their finished pack job tiny it also looks like they’re folding blankets.

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terminalzero t1_ir0dbze wrote

Watching a bored 15 year old flawlessly pack your canopy in 6 minutes after you took 45 is a bit of an ego blow lol

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DuelingPushkin t1_ir1c9rh wrote

It seems that way but when jump tickets are $28-30 an extra $10 increases you total expenses from jumping by 33%.

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ligmuhtaint t1_ir1chtq wrote

Ah I see. Well, I'd want the pros packing it for me, regardless. 10 bucks is great peace of mind.

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PisseArtiste t1_iqzx6su wrote

The thing with that video is that guy knows little or nothing about sport skydiving. He thinks things are careless because of the very very systematized way he was taught, which isn't how it works in the sport itself.

I don't know about your grandfather but I've never seen a perfectly good airplane myself. And when it comes to plane crash fatalities they usually involve hitting the ground so I'm good with not being around for that part!

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toolatealreadyfapped t1_ir04y8y wrote

By an insane margin, the two most dangerous parts of any flight are takeoff and landing. By skydiving, you're cutting risks in half by removing one of those dangerous parts

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scarboy92 t1_iqyw0ml wrote

Gear checks are important but the actual packing process only has a couple of key steps. I could crumple it into a ball and shove it in and it would work fine.

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jeffreythesnake t1_ir00kr9 wrote

I was in the military and even with all our checks and safety people still died, one I personally attended to who survived but was paralyzed(and eventually died due to being on a ventilator). And another who died in training after taking through his riser lines. Civilian skydiving is perfectly safe, like everything else you can be as safe as you want but accidents also happen.

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PotatoMurderer t1_ir1b40g wrote

> eventually died due to being on a ventilator

Not trying to be a dick, but he was already in really bad shape if he got put on a ventilator. If he was never taken off of it for a long period, his condition was not improving at all and has probably gotten worse over time. Highly doubt it was the ventilator that killed him, unless they massively fucked up when they were intubating him. Sadly, being on a ventilator for an extended period isn't exactly great either.

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jeffreythesnake t1_ir1jrzg wrote

No need to apologize. So I didn't mean to say that the ventilator itself somehow killed him (although it kind of did and I'll explain later). But you're correct that being paralyzed on a ventilator(in his case about 2 years) leads to chronic infections and other problems. His injury was caused during a night jump where he hit the ground and his head was pulled in either toward or away from his chest. If I had to guess I think he unexpectedly hit the ground and when his helmet hit the ground his nightvision pulled his head towards his chest. The injury resulted in a transected spinal injury around C2 or C3. I was able to intubate him there at the scene of the accident and we flew him out to a hospital. He survived and like I said before lived for roughly 2 years on the ventilator as a quadriplegic. He was constantly fighting chronic infections in his lungs and was likely going to die at some point due to those infections. What ended up happening though is that his ventilator actually malfunctioned during the night and he basically suffocated.

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PotatoMurderer t1_ir1r2se wrote

Thanks for explaining that, most people might get the wrong idea if not. Where were the nurses and RTs when it malfunctioned? That sounds like a scary experience, especially with how all the alarms going off from his vent and vitals monitors.

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jeffreythesnake t1_ir1rhb4 wrote

He was at home, his wife was taking care of him at this point. He was in and out of the hospital. Not sure on any details beyond that.

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rohobian t1_ir06bsd wrote

I went skydiving about 20 years ago at a place that doesn't do tandem jumps. Instead they teach you how to do skydiving properly, and send 2 instructors up with you, and they hold onto you while you're in free fall, one of them giving you signals to coach you through your arch position, pulling your chute for you, then landing way earlier than you and coaching you down through a radio in your helmet.

They had very strict rules, and very well defined processes that you had to demonstrate an understanding of before you could jump.

This place had an impeccable safety record. No major injuries in their history, and they had been doing this for a very long time. Just a handful of rolled ankles when people were landing... perhaps from flaring too early or something like that. The lead instructor was coming up on jump # 10,000 when I went.

I can't speak for other skydiving centres, but I very rarely hear of skydiving accidents in general. Seems like it's a lot safer than people think to me. Although I'm sure there are a few shitty places out there that aren't as safe as the place I went to.

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JustAnotherDude1990 t1_ir0arj8 wrote

In the last 10 years since I have been skydiving, the fatality rate has been cut in half. I am also a tandem and AFF instructor, and they've only increased safety and requirements.

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Matt3989 t1_ir0djoo wrote

I can assure you that I have never jumped out of a "perfectly good airplane"

I have jumped out of 50 year old shitboxes that are held together with duct tape and hope.

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feral_brick t1_ir3rtpg wrote

Probably still better than the planes military folks jump out of

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JeffSergeant t1_iqzzxdj wrote

If you’ve ever see how jump plane pilots land, you would know the answer to your grandfather’s question.

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