Do you remember your first landing?

[hooked 0]

Do you remember your first landing and what thoughts were 'running' through your head?

J

"Suppose you're in a hypothetical sintuation"--Steve Wechsler

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Sometimes we're just being Humans.....But we're always Human Beings.

[prepheckt 0]

"Wow, the ground is really coming up FAST" Ready....quick prayer...FLARE!!!!!

"Dancing Argentine Tango is like doing calculus with your feet."
-9 toes

[n2skdvn 0]

yep no radio (went out) flared on my own landed. got up(weak in the knees) and said that was f#$%ing cool!!!!!

if my calculations are correct SLINKY + ESCULATOR = EVERLASTING FUN
my site

[AggieDave 6]

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Do you remember your first landing and what thoughts were 'running' through your head?

Yeah, it was "Jesus, I'm hung over..." as it had been for the entire day. Sometime I'll write up my first jump story since its funny, I kept having to excuse myself from the FJC because I was so hung over I had to go to the head.

Well, that and the thought that I wanted to do this again, NOW!

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Viking 0]

First(only) Tandem Landing I couldn't get my legs up so i just folded them under me and we skid in me on my shins and the tm on his ass the camera guy busted out in laughter.

First solo landing i was flying a manta 288 on my lvl 1 with radio assistance from my best friend Steve Barker. I stood up the landing with a huge grin on my face.

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[Michele 1]

Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do......it went something like this.

Well, there's the airport, I have to turn this thing around (tinks the toggle) ok a little more (tink) a little more (tink) hmmmm, I'm not supposed to cross the runway at less than 500 feet, so now where do I go there are buildings and the school and the pool below me but hey, the plane's already landed and the other one is somewhere else I am just gonna go there anyway "HI DAD!!!!" o.k., Ed, I hear you don't you see my legs waving at you "HI DAAAAAAAAAAAAD" damn he's deaf o,k, o,k, Ed, yeah I'm listening turn right, ok (tink) turn more (tink) turn more (tink) whaddya mean more o.k (tink) ok now there's the flag thing ok now what flare I remember that oh he said not yet ok let them up ok now flare damn this is hard I should start working out again shit there's the ground aaaagggghhhh thunk (PLF sideways) ouch good job both legs are intact but my face is dirty now but that was scary and fun.....

My first comment after? "Don't do this with a cardiac condition..."

Ceils and Pinks-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[drenaline 0]

I was flying my canopy all by myself cause I never did understand what I was been told in the radio, then I was looking at the windsock (the pole of the windsock is 10 feets high, flarin altitude), against the wind check! feets together Check! ok 10 feet flare... mmm... am passing the wind sock, wind sock is by my side... Oh SHIT! wind sock is behind me, what do I do? what do I do? floor comming fast, I start the flare then heard the radio yell "Don't Flare yet!" to late already flared very high, I raised my legs in horizontal position and landed on my butt.

first words after the WOOHOO! was "BEER!"

HISPA 21
www.panamafreefall.com

[bluefingers 0]

THought I was just oh so good until I did my second jump - no batons, no alti (static line jump) ... time to do it on my own ... Flared way too early, lifted my legs and landed on my butt - OW!!!! haven't done that again! ....

Kerry

[ernokaikkonen 0]

> no alti (static line jump)

Wha?? Effectively meaning "No way to know if your below your hard-deck trying to get your canopy to fly"? And don't you use your alti to decide where to start your landing pattern?

Here in Finland a visual alti is mandatory equipment on everyone on every jump... except I think hop'n'pop water-jumps.

Erno

[bluefingers 0]

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Wha?? Effectively meaning "No way to know if your below your hard-deck trying to get your canopy to fly"? And don't you use your alti to decide where to start your landing pattern?

NOpe, we get them on jump nr1, then nothing until we do our 10/15sec delay (not sure) .... not sure of the reasoning behind it, but that's the way it works at our DZ ...

as far as the canopy flying goes ... try once to fix it, if it still doesn't fly, perform full reserve drill procedure. Also use the 5 sec rule with things like line twists ... no improvement in 5 seconds, full reserve drills ...

landing pattern ... learn to judge with your eyes .... I still initiate it too early, and end up doing slow S-turns ... but I'm getting better at it - landed right next to the pit on Saturday (yay!)

SA guys - do you have the same thing at your DZ's? (no alti's on SL jumps?) ... now I'm curious

Kerry

[skreamer 1]

I didn't wear an alti for my 8 SL jumps at Citrusdal. (admittedly this was in 1993, so maybe things have changed since then). I don't really see the point (although I'm sure Erno will see a couple...) - if the main mals you execute EPs immediately. We don't have to wear altis for hop n pop freefall jumps in the UK either (if you are Cat. 10).

Will

[bluefingers 0]

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nothing until we do our 10/15sec delay

Ok, I asked someone ....

The break of no alti till 15 sec is to instill a discipline of time awarness which is very important. It is also not that long delay that it poses a great threat. Its all time awarness and knowing to "eyeball" it with the horizon.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this no alti thing ..
k

Kerry

[fudd 0]

I think I would have had some troubble hitting the landing area the first times without my alti. We don't use radios.
However I can see the advantage in jumping the staticlines without. You have to learn to judge the ground by your eyes, not by your alti. I Used the alti way to long before I found out it wasn't neccesary.
(1500', I'm over the landing area, 1000' I'm over the pit, check wind and fly downwind, 500' and I'm over the control point, fly in for landing.) I did that for my first 50 jumps or so, until I for some reason forgot and just landed. I remember landing and thinking: Hey, I didn't look at my alti once!
However, my first landing went by the book. Flared and stood up just fine. I did head for the windsock, trying to adjust to the right all the way. Thought for a while I were going to hit it. Adjusting to the right, slight crosswind blew me to the left

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[ernokaikkonen 0]

>I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this no alti thing ..

Mine? Ok.

I find the concept kind of interesting. To me it seems like you're doing things down there in an "old skool"-darwin-sort-of way. Reminds me of a new student training-program that was planned on some bad-weather-day: The Accelerated Natural Selection-program...

But seriously:
Sounds like a good idea to me to get used to judging the altitude by eyes only. This should produce much less device-dependent jumpers. The fact that a lot of people rely only on an audible is asking for trouble...

That being said, there is no way the mandatory alti will ever be dropped from our aviation regulations. The people in charge would be seeing students trying to clear mals until impact if someone proposed this. This would require changing some fundamental things in our student training; now, students are taught that they should try to kick out of line-twists and get end cells open till their hard-deck of 600m(AFAIK, I'm not an instructor).

I actually saw a guy with spinning line-twists on a Navigator who calmly tried to get his canopy flying, until he saw 600m on his alti and chopped. It was his 5th jump as I recall.

Do you have AAD's on student rigs? Do they fire a lot?

Erno

[bluefingers 0]

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Do you have AAD's on student rigs? Do they fire a lot?

Yup, they do, but we all know it's a back-up only. Do your drills over and over and over and over on the ground before you get in the plane ....
and no, none have fired since I've been there, or that I've heard of ...

BTW - we do have AFF as well, but I can't afford it ...

Kerry

[ernokaikkonen 0]

>none have fired since I've been there, or that I've heard of ...

Ok, your way must be working at least as well as ours.

>BTW - we do have AFF as well, but I can't afford it ...

Good for you. I'm a firm believer in that S/L-progression makes better skydivers: More canopy time as a student --> better awareness under canopy when you get your licence.

There are people who will say that AFF is by far the superior training method, but the opinion seems to be mostly affected by which method the person him/herself learned... (yes, I went S/L
Erno

[bluefingers 0]

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Good for you. I'm a firm believer in that S/L-progression makes better skydivers: More canopy time as a student --> better awareness under canopy when you get your licence.

Was put back to drcp - did my last one on saturday - it went so well, and I was manifested to do my 3sec (for the 5th time!). SO KEEN TO Jump, and knew I'd pass it this time, when the @(*%&@)(%& weather closed in. *sigh* ... oh well, tomorrow is a public holiday so hold thumbs that these clouds will go away.

Kerry

[ernokaikkonen 0]

>yeah and it teaches you perseverance!!!!!! Jump nr 22, getting lots of canopy
>practice, but still not past 3sec

Yeah, don't I know it: jump #19 was my first 3 sec freefall...

>oh well, tomorrow is a public holiday so hold thumbs that these clouds will
>go away

*holding thumbs up*
Erno

[skygal3 0]

LOL! I am sooo glad that I was not the only filthy one after the landing! Yes, my first landing went something like this...

ok, why is he directing me west??? ok, the ground is coming up awfully quickly...kkkkkkkkk (radio goes static when he says flare),
thunk, huge! dirt storm...at least she mastered the PlF! I'm ok, I'm ok!!! I'm up...boy, that was embarassing...I hope noone saw that. Boy this dirt is dirty...

and from the beer line it went something like this

"flare, flare, FLARE! ooooooohhhgg...she's up!!!

[ECVZZ 0]

S/L jump, no alti, no radio. Got into the wind, ground's coming up really fast. Boy...this is gonna hurt. It did.

G. Jones

"I've never been quarantined. But the more I look around, the more I think it might not be a bad idea."

[Stacy 0]

all i could remember was the JM telling me that most people flare too early on a first jump. i didn't want to be "droped out of the sky" because of an early flare. teh ground was coming, i kept smiling, thinking taht i wasn't going to be that idiot flaring at 25 feet.

i ended up being the idiot that flared at 2 feet. oops. all you see is my PD 230 or so fly in behind some tall grass, i obviously got dirty, but then i stand up laughing hysterically. yes i have video of this.

[wmw999 2,587]

My first landing was under a 28' blue and yellow lopo. No altimeter or radio, but that was par for the course in those days. I was backing up, because I remember my PLF went something like feet-ass-head (hard). My mom was watching, so I had to get up real quick and look like it had been a breeze. I went back the next weekend I could.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Snowbird 0]

It was pretty uneventful. Followed instructions, almost stood it up, lost my balance and went to my knees.
Now, my first landing on my own gear... the thought that stands out in my memory is 'Damn this is fast!' Couldn't believe the difference in speed and misjudged my height and the responsiveness of my 175 compared to the student gear.

About altimeters... did IAD. No alti until 10 second delays. And I admit that I didn't so much as glance at it the first time I wore one.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein

[mujie96 0]

Something like this:
HOLY $HIT, I ACTUALLY MADE IT BACK!
Flare. Land, fall over, stand up, grin Its not actually that different from my other 25 landings....
Jess

Just keep swimming...just keep swimming....

[billvon 3,111]

>what thoughts were 'running' through your head?

Something along the lines of "I'm going 60 miles an hour 2 feet above the concrete and I'm about to stall! What the heck am I doing?" By far the most nervous was during my first solo landing when I was learning to fly - not only did I have no backup but the plane did _not_ want to quit flying without my 230 lb instructor in the right seat.

My first landing under a parachute was sort of anticlimactic. A 300 foot super porous 5 cell parachute - it might have well been a round. Flaring actually increased the descent rate so I learned not to do that if there was any wind.