For tandem instructors, a periodic visit to their aviation medical examiners (AMEs) to renew their Federal Aviation Administration Third-Class Medical Certificates is a ritual that goes hand and hand with the privilege of taking tandem students on skydives.

During the 2019 summer board meeting, USPA adopted and implemented an updated PRO-rating program with new jump requirements, qualifying areas and distances (the old standard of 10 accuracy jumps into a 32-foot circle no longer applies) and types of qualifying canopies.

Tandem instructors began using hand-mounted video cameras (aka handcams or handicams) in the last 20 years or so, and in the last decade, their use has become commonplace.

There can never be a blanket definition of where that thin gray line is, since we all have different ideas of what is and is not offensive.

The USPA Instructor Rating Manual states in T3—Tandem Method, Section 3-4, F—Tandem Emergencies: “In the event of a main canopy malfunction, decide and act by 3,000 feet to cut away and deploy reserve.”