For jumpers, earning a judge rating can be another means of progress and personal development within the sport.

A good incident report gives a thorough account of what happened without glossing over unsavory information or leaving out crucial facts.

Tandem skydiving has been instrumental in promoting and growing our sport; it brings both revenue and new skydivers to our DZs.

Sometime over the past 10-15 years—probably due to the advent of phone apps, manifest programs and digital altimeters that track jumps—many jumpers developed an indifferent or apathetic attitude toward formally logging jumps.

USPA Instructor Examiners often encounter questions as to what constitutes a rating-renewal seminar. And they often receive blank stares followed by crickets when they ask, “What did you do for your rating-renewal seminar?”

For years, the USPA Board of Directors heard feedback from members who felt that the night-jump requirement for the USPA D License was outdated. The number of night-jump waivers submitted by applicants to the Safety & Training Committee attest to this fact.

As a Safety and Training Advisor, it’s important to take a leadership role during your drop zone’s Safety Day activities.

Safety Day presents the perfect opportunity to strengthen the relationship between jump pilots and skydivers.

USPA Safety Day is just around the corner—on March 14—and most DZs are gearing up for the event.

Studies have shown that the individuals deviating from standard protocols don’t set out to break the rules.

If you’re instructing AFF students, you are engaging in formation skydiving.

At its summer board meeting in Arlington, Virginia, the USPA Board approved significant changes to Skydiver’s Information Manual Section 7-2—Professional Exhibition Rating.

At its summer 2018 meeting, the USPA Board of Directors adjusted the requirements for students obtaining A licenses to align with requirements for Féderátion Aéronautique Internationale Certificates of Proficiency.

As an AFF instructor, it’s important to present clear, measurable, succinct and, of course, correct goals for your students, particularly during this initial phase. Do you know what those goals are?

The USPA incident reporting system has been due for a significant overhaul for some time now, and it is getting one. USPA members reported 4,277 reserve rides and 2,147 injuries that required medical care in 2018, but USPA received only 29 incident reports. Sit back for a moment and imagine the lessons lost to the skydiving community when all it would have taken is for each of those jumpers to have spent 10 minutes filling out a short report.

There are plenty of misconceptions about designated evaluators, those jumpers who assist AFF instructor examiners by performing currency and course evaluation jumps. Quiz yourself to see how your understanding stacks up to reality.

Several changes that came out of the February 1-3 USPA Board meeting in Dallas, Texas, affect USPA rating holders.

How do the best competitors in our sport reach success? Teamwork: individuals combining efforts to achieve a common purpose. Teamwork works best when each member understands their part in the whole. So, in the case of skydiving instruction, who does what?

In the real world of skydiving, people who are coaches, instructors and role models have their own personal experiences, training backgrounds and motivations. Achieving common safety objectives and targets instead of operating as a group of individuals without a common purpose requires an interactive process. Using a Plan–Do–Check–Act process can provide the structure and commonality needed to get everyone on the same page and working together. Like a circle that has no end, the PDCA cycle requires repetition for continuous improvement. When using PDCA for safety initiatives, you, the instructional rating holder, have a crucial part to play.

Real life often gets in the way of skydiving, and jumpers may find themselves away from the sport for 61 days, 30 years or something in between. One of the regular tasks of USPA Coaches and Instructors is to help these jumpers knock off the rust and get back in the air. Every jumper’s situation will be different, so it requires the instructional staff to create a training plan unique to each individual.

One of the simplest ways to become a stronger instructor and a better leader is to change ineffective speech patterns. Three common habits can cause a noticeable lack of clarity. Once coaches and instructors correct these habits, they instantly add power and confidence to their lessons.

Section 4 of the Skydiver’s Information Manual contains the Integrated Student Program, now in its 18th year as the progression that USPA recommends for students working toward the A license. It is a very detailed program, which can make it look intimidating to the casual observer, but it’s actually easy to implement and use. The program makes it simple to track exactly what students have completed and what they still need to accomplish as they work through each of the tasks required for the USPA A license.

At the July 13-15 USPA Board meeting in Milwaukee, the board passed a motion to change the Basic Safety Requirements regarding accelerated freefall student training. The new language spells out the minimum requirements for students who train in wind tunnels before they make their first jumps with only one AFF instructor.

In 2017, USPA conducted five standardization meetings for all current AFF instructor examiners and tandem instructor examiners, as well as those pursuing an examiner rating or attending purely for educational purposes. This was USPA’s first attempt at hosting the AFF and tandem meetings in one location and condensing the length of each discipline’s meeting to one day instead of two. The meetings went well, but the shorter meetings meant leaving out a lot of valuable information and discussion.

Have you ever spent months working with a student, ensuring that you covered each category and transferred the necessary knowledge and skills, then proudly stamped the A-license card and watched in disbelief as he ran off to sign up for a 10-way speedstar competition with a freshly mounted GoPro on his helmet?

Skydiving coaches, instructors and instructor examiners would much rather spend time in the air skydiving than on the ground handling paperwork. While this is understandable (hey, nobody likes to fill out forms, right?), each rating holder’s administrative responsibilities are extremely important. 

Last August, two tandem double fatalities occurred just a week apart. The details for both of those tragic accidents can be found in “Incident Reports” in this issue of Parachutist. While the casual observer may not see a correlation between the two accidents, they should be a flashing neon warning sign that screams for every tandem examiner, Safety and Training Advisor and drop zone operator to regularly review staff members’ tandem procedures.

Several changes that came out of the March 2-4 USPA Board meeting in San Antonio, Texas, affect USPA rating holders.

If you ever need a quick and easy way to make every coach and instructor in the hangar run away and hide, just yell, “I need someone to handle the student radio!”

Each year, more states legalize marijuana for medical and recreational purposes. As the use of pot continues to gain acceptance around the country, the skydiving community needs to be aware that it may lead to some issues with students, licensed jumpers and instructional rating holders.