Skydiving Fatalities Query Engine (or My New Website)
Craig Poxon
Some time ago, I discovered, through the magic of the internet, that I
had a distant 'relative' (http://www.michigansown.org/robertpoxon.htm)
who had given his life for his country and earned the Congressional
Medal of Honour (http://www.sirius.com/~neilm/Poxon.html). This led me
to the Vietnam Veteran's Wall On The Web
(http://www.vietvet.org/thewall/thewallm.html) which in turn led me to
the VietNam Casualty Search Page (VietNam Casualty Search Page). The
fact that so many die in war, requiring the creation of the Combat
Area Current Casualty File format
(http://www.no-quarter.org/data/cacfcode.txt), in this case for
SouthEast Asia, seems to affect me as much as any modern image.
So, it is with some trepidation that I announce the Skydiving
Fatalities Query Engine:
http://www.poxon.org/Craig/Skydive/Fatalities/
We all know how useful, not to mention popular, Barry's Skydiving
Fatalities page is, but reducing so many incidents to a database
somehow demeans their memories. Yet I believe this is a powerful tool
that will benefit all skydivers. Let me know.
My curious mind is the mother of this tool. Recently I wondered
several things:
- Gloves seem to have played a part recently; have they in the past?
- The recent incident at Z-Hills was only the second in a long time;
what was the other?
- How many accidents have occured in my own country?
These questions were enough to get my simple brain thinking there must
be an easier way to find out the answers without trawling through the
(currently 10) pages of HTML. Since I am currently working with
Microsoft Dynamic Web technologies I decided to put it into practice
for something useful.
I won't give any instructions at the moment (too tired); I hope it is
fairly intuitive. Then again, I'm a programmer and sometimes forget
about real people. Please feel free to make any suggestions as to how
I can improve it.
I did email Barry to ask him what he thought about the Query Engine
but I haven't received a reply from him. Anyone seen him around
recently?
It seems inappropriate to mention it here, but you've read this far
and I'm not going to waste another post: I'll point out the obvious
that my whole website has moved as well. The skydiving bit is now at
http://www.poxon.org/Craig/Skydive/ although it looks pretty much the
same. I've also used ASP to make my on-line logbook a bit easier to
use: http://www.poxon.org/Craig/Skydive/Logbook/ Again, any comments
welcome.
TNelson1
The only criticism is: The white letters on the home page are hard to read
with the white clouds in the background.
I played around with the database a little and noticed some surprising things.
For eg., a busy dropzone like Sebastian has not had a single fatality since
12/14/95, but another similarly busy DZ like Eloy has had 8. I wonder if there
is any significance to this other than maybe one is busier than the other?
I think there might be a problem in the db with the number of jumps for each
fatality victim. I did queries on the various levels of experience and found
this result:
#jumps #fatalities
1-10 51
11-100 58
101-500 69
501-1000 49
1001-14000 67
This would be interesting but they add up to 249, but there were only 174
fatalities? Maybe the reason is that the one's with an unknown number of jumps
are counted for each query? If that is the problem, then you would just
subtract a constant from each number, so the ratios would remain the same.
Therefore it would seem experience level has not much to do with safety? I
know there are way more jumpers in the lower jump # catagories, so it might
even imply that the low timers are less likely to die??? Or are most
fatalities just freak incidents???
Just wondering aloud...
Tom
A-28034
NCB#111
Martin Evans
TNelson1 wrote in message
<19990129182627...@ng-ce1.aol.com>...
>For eg., a busy dropzone like Sebastian has not had a single fatality
since
>12/14/95, but another similarly busy DZ like Eloy has had 8. I wonder
if there
>is any significance to this other than maybe one is busier than the
other?
Skydive Sebastian has never had a fatality since it opened in mid 1993,
while as you say other similarly busy DZ's have suffered a number of
them. Skydive Sebastian is run with safety as a primary concern as are a
great many other dropzones, we pride ourselves on our safety record but
are aware of course, that accidents and fatalities can befall any
dropzone operation however careful one is in implementing their
operational plan. The incidences that have occurred at other locations
in this same timeframe are very unfortunate but have very likely
occurred through no other reason than as 'a risk of the business they
are in'!
We are grateful for our time without having to confront a similar
situation but are aware that we may have to at some point in the future.
In the meantime we will continue to implement any justifiable measures
we are able to in order to continue as a fatality free and fun filled
dropzone!
Blue ones,
Stay Safe.
Martin Evans.
For information about Sky-Eye Skydiving Services please visit our
website at:
http://www.skyeyeskydiving.com
after browsing please follow the link to Skydive Sebastian.
"Never confuse movement with action". Ernest Hemingway
Craig Poxon
>I really like the database engine. I find it interesting if not useful.
Thanks for the feedback Tom. Out of the couple of hundred people who
have accessed the website you are one of only a few who has
followed-up.
>The only criticism is: The white letters on the home page are hard to read
>with the white clouds in the background.
Hmm, yeah. How many colours do you have on your system? The trouble
is, there is quite a range of shades on the background and any sort of
black/white/grey is going to be hard. I can't seem to decided what
other colour might work.
>
>I played around with the database a little and noticed some surprising things.
>
>
>For eg., a busy dropzone like Sebastian has not had a single fatality since
>12/14/95, but another similarly busy DZ like Eloy has had 8. I wonder if there
>is any significance to this other than maybe one is busier than the other?
I don't think so. Just luck of the draw. I certainly don't want people
to use my tool to jump to the conclusion that one DZ is safer than
another.
>
>I think there might be a problem in the db with the number of jumps for each
>fatality victim. I did queries on the various levels of experience and found
>this result:
>
>#jumps #fatalities
>1-10 51
>11-100 58
>101-500 69
>501-1000 49
>1001-14000 67
>
>This would be interesting but they add up to 249, but there were only 174
>fatalities? Maybe the reason is that the one's with an unknown number of jumps
>are counted for each query?
Yes, you are right.
>If that is the problem, then you would just
>subtract a constant from each number, so the ratios would remain the same.
Actually, I've added two check boxes to the query form so that you can
choose whether to include unknown jumps/age. Ignoring unknowns, the
numbers now look like:
#jumps #fatalities
1-10 18
11-100 24
101-500 35
501-1000 15
1001-14000 32
Total 124
There are 30 with unknown jumps, 33 with unknown age, 13 with unknown
jumps AND unknown age, and 50 with unknown jumps OR unknown age.
>Therefore it would seem experience level has not much to do with safety? I
>know there are way more jumpers in the lower jump # catagories, so it might
>even imply that the low timers are less likely to die??? Or are most
>fatalities just freak incidents???
The new figures suggest, as is commonly mooted, that the
couple-of-hundred-jumps jumper is the most dangerous. The 1000-14000
range is too wide with too few jumpers, with those numbers of jumps,
to speculate? Is it Thomas that usually informs us about this sort of
thing?
>Just wondering aloud...
>
>Tom
>A-28034
>NCB#111
--
Craig
http://www.pxoon.org/Craig/Skydive/