So, one of my New Years Resolutions is to make sure we have a Safety Day at Skydive California. I’m sure there would be one, even if I wasn’t involved. But I have the energy and the drive, so why not kick it off? There was definitely a point in my skydiving where I was striving hard to be a leader, to be a mentor and to be a guiding force in the lives of newer jumpers. I do admit that that mentality sounds… pompous. Rather self-important and also naive. Now, I find myself in a place where I have enough experience that I feel obligated to, if not be a leader, at least not leave the baby birds to the wolves (which in this case, I guess the wolves are their own bad, ignorant decisions?), or whatever wild creature hunts baby birds (idk this analogy has gotten away from me). Additionally, I sort of inherited some.. idk, proximal leadership?.. by dating Richo when I showed up at the DZ. He already had been doing canopy coaching at Skydive California for a while and, thus, he is somewhat of an authority figure in terms of canopy safety, etc. So, I received a bit of ricochet effect from that respect.
Okay, but here we are. I’m sticking my nose all up in the business of Safety Day. Why am I talking about this here? I don’t know. I guess I hope maybe hearing what we’re doing will be helpful to someone else out there. And if anyone gets good ideas from this or has good ideas to give me after they read this, I think that’s a good step for safety in the sport. So that’s why. In hopes we can all be a little more safe.
So what’s our plan?
We’re essentially planning to have 3 sort of “sections” that day: Before load 1, we’re going to have an introduction, then we’ll have sessions throughout the day, followed by a larger presentation and discussions at the end of jumping, followed by some fun!
Intro
This will be brief, probably starting right at 9, when the DZ opens. We’ll do a little welcome, introduce the basics (S&TA, pilot, lead instructor, DZO, etc), and say “Hey! It’s Safety Day! Plan on sticking around until end of day for more Safety activities!” Also, we’ll be announcing the structure of the day: We’re going to try having 15-20 minute sessions throughout the day, during predetermined loads.
Sessions
So, with this session structure (where we announce that we’re covering Malfunctions on Load 3 and Angles on Load 6, or whatever), we’re hoping people can plan which loads to get on, based on what sessions they’d like to attend. Right now, the list includes: Skydiving 101, Gear Safety & Gear Checks, Malfunctions, Basic First Aid (what to do if someone gets hurt), Canopy, Angles, Freeflying, and Plane Safety. We’re definitely going to start the day, Load 1, with Skydiving 101. This will be aimed at students, and fresh A Licensees, anywhere from 26 to 150 jumps is the target. In this session, we’re want to cover the basics again. We hope skydivers get this spiel when they graduate with their A license, but repetition never hurts. How to load the plane. What order to load the plane. Exit separation. Canopy traffic. The very basics. The other sessions are fairly self-explanatory, but will again be targeted at people with 26-500 jumps. These are people who may have not traveled to a lot of events to learn, or have not had much outside coaching. Overall, we want to emphasize safety, conscientiousness, and a heads-up, aware mindset in our baby birds. And it seems like Skydive California has a lot of new babies right now. But maybe that’s just my perception as I get a little older and more experienced each year.
End of Day
So right now, we have a presentation/discussion planned that will, at this point, probably be 1) reviewing the fatality stats, and discussing those 2) discussing safety considerations specific to Skydive California 3) malfunction bingo.
When I was a much newer skydiver, I went to Safety Day at Lake Elsinore once where they reviewed the Fatality Report. I remember the impact it had on me. This is serious. Skydiving is seriously fun, but people seriously die. And often, I learned from that discussion, in preventable ways. It impressed upon me how important knowing your EPs, knowing your mals, and having a clear plan for the common issues in skydiving can save your life. I have always been a fairly conservative skydiver, but really reading the fatality reports and discussing them does serve as a wake up call for us. So, I suggested that as an activity we do during our Safety Day.
Next, I want to talk about Skydive California specific things. Every dropzone is a little different. Every dropzone has varying norms and safety tolerances. I think it’s smart to talk to our baby birds to first, remind them of what safety standards we want to see at SDCA, and second, talk about how things may differ if they go elsewhere. And how to keep themselves safe at places with different safety cultures.
Finally, what I’m most excited about: Malfunction Bingo. We’ll have bingo cards with different malfunctions in every square. To check off a square, you need to find a skydiver who has had that malfunction to sign that square. While they’re doing that, they hopefully have a chat about what happened and how it could have been prevented. I’m hoping that the mingling and socializing involved will lighten the mood for the last activity. As an incentive to stay through the presentation and the bingo, I’m going to offer a day of coaching with me and Richo is offering a free slot in his canopy coaching course as prizes to the first and second complete bingo winner. Oh! If you have a fun malfunction that you (or an actor cosplaying as you for the evening) would like to tell me about for Malfunction Bingo, fill out my form! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdhOC-YtJ3kHqaOR5O2jkBH34pu6e9DWn_ukN10K32z-eeTAg/viewform?usp=sf_link
So that’s the plan.
Skydive California is a small and exceptionally lovely dropzone. I am so happy and proud to call it my home DZ, and that’s not always been the case for me at different drop zones. I don’t always give back the way I want to. So putting in this effort to organize Safety Day is important to me. I would feel at least a little guilty if I didn’t try to help out. I do want it to be a safe, happy place, where people generally try to at least be nice, even if we’re not all besties. I really appreciated more experienced flyers helping me along in my skydiving progression, so I just feel like I should pass that on, and I certainly have the energy for it.
So if you’re planning Safety Day and want to chat, or you think I’m missing something, or you have other suggestions, please reach out! Or if you’ve been considering planning Safety Day for your DZ, do it! Happy Safety Day, y’all and safe, blue skies.