dthames

I have never been bruised by an opening. I have packed for myself since jump 20. I have had two opening that got my attention and both happened when I had been tracking really hard and fast....as I recall. I have learned to slow down a big before deployment and also some tricks on my pack job to keep it from popping open. Most packers that pack student rigs are pretty good to not mess you up. But mistakes can happen. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Consider IAD or SL. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

The liner/padding in the Benny is replaceable and is what is used to size the helmet. This works out well as your skills increase and your head gets bigger. Just get a new liner the next size up, and you are good to go. I have a Benny and it works well for me. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

This might help you understand what DSE is talking about. Reference:http://www.dropzone.com/safety/Disciplines/Wingsuiting/Wingsuit_Flight_-_A_Reference_Guide_779.html Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Glad you are jumping again. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

It was suggested to me that while I was cleared to jump and to practice on my own, doing so a lot without a coach might allow you to learn some bad habits. A skydiver without a license is a very restricted jumper. Many new doors open with that "A" license. I think about 3 out of 4 of my jumps in that time frame were coached jumps. Only after I was almost 100% complete with my progression card did I pick up more solo practice jumps, practicing for my "A" check dive. You might also be able to work on some B license canopy requirements during this phase once you have all of your A license canopy work complete. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I got my first rig fairly early with the plan to stay with what I bought and not downsize. I am loaded at 0.93 on a ZP. While not an expert opinion, I can tell you my experience. If it is very windy, I must only go on jumps where I know I can exit well upwind of the DZ. Good or bad, I am normally the last person to land. I can get back from a really long spot or long deployment location. I can't dive it and hold it with dual front riser inputs. Landings are low impact even when I am not perfect. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Nothing wrong or unusual about taking 25 to get your license. Getting it "right" is the main goal. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Just curious - how can someone be serious about skydiving if they have never done it? wants to become a licensed and eventually very experienced skydiver-- or astronaut or racecar driver... First, you have to get old enough to know that, "I do it now or never". Then you grit your teeth, stiffen your neck, put your thinking/student hat on, collect your liquid assists, and commit to it like there is no way to not do it. I wanted to be an astronaut or fighter pilot but that didn't pan out. So, when I decided I wanted to be a skydiver/wingsuit pilot it was to sort of "fill in" for my life long dream that never happened. My level of "serious" is the only thing that pushed me to meet my primary skydiving objective. Honestly, if you ask me today, "Do you really enjoy it?", I might say, "I am not sure, I am still trying to decide". If you ask me if I am serious about skydiving, the answer would be a for sure "Yes". I put my other main hobby on hold. I took money out of long term savings. I have spent most of my vacation time and most Saturdays jumping since I started. I am not happy with weather keeps me home on Saturday. I spend time reading on DZ.com trying to pick up one more little tip that I might use, in the mountain of blah, blah, blah........ Does that clear it up any? Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

What Lurch said is pretty much my practice. I guess if the flapping slider sound bothers someone, you can do it sooner, or having it collapsed might give better traffic visibility, that might be a plus. edited to add: I get all of that done in about 20-30 seconds normally. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I have some very specific examples based on GPS recordings and video. But it is specific, not average, and maybe not typical. I weigh 170 and fly a Pilot 210. If you want a couple of examples let me know. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Annoyingly loud to me. I wear earplugs. Shorts and a T-shirt at 13,000 in the south US, in the summer is still plenty warm. I have jumped with a small wet towel around the back of my neck with the ends tucked into my suit because it was so hot on the ground. Jumping out with that wet towel and wingsuit flying, the towel does get cold enough that I notice the chill, but it feels great. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I don't want anyone messing with me (phyically) during the jump. Lie to me, fly one way and leave me by myself with a different plan, or whatever to alter the dive flow. But don't mess with me. Maybe I am a stick in the mud. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Most of my first 25 jumps I never looked at the ground until under canopy. I know you need to know what the ground looks like at pull time but early on, looking at the ground was not part of the dive flow. So, i didn't do it. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I don't know if this will help you or not, but I don't think it would hurt to try. Recall that from 5000 to 4000 you will have about 10 seconds. Have a friend time you for 10 seconds while you dirt dive at home. Imagine going out the door and having some stability issues. Play the part and fix the problem. How long did that take? Acting this out, odds are you would feel like you could whip it in just a few seconds, way less than 10. Do this several times and convince yourself that you have plenty of time and there is no reason to rush it. When you exit if you know you can do it, just relax and do it. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

The original post is gone, so I am only replying to the question of following blindly. It depends. If the instructor told me, if you see me give you the Pull signal then you pull no matter what, I would follow that instruction IF I did not see clear, confirmed, reason to think it was a bad thing. If I didn't understand why, I would pull. If I understood why, I would pull. If someone had a horseshoe and I had their lines around my neck, I don't think I would follow the Pull signal. Remember the waiver that you signed? If anything happens to you, who's fault is it? Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

FlyingRhenquest said a lot that I would agree with. Others also mentioned packing as a job. I know of several that are about your age that pack and make good money at it. One thing you might have to face is the question, "Is skydiving going to be part of my life, or is skydiving going to BE my life?" Like FlyingRhenquest, I started to jump so that I could fly a wingsuit. I am not a young man but I can remember wanting to fly most of my life. You might find that after college or after having a family would be better for you. It all depends on the person and the goals. It is sort of funny but I started skydiving thinking that when I was good enough that I could fly a wingsuit. Only after I started did I learn that 200 was the "good enough" lower boundry. I respected the idea of that but it was really hard to have the belief that 200 was really needed. At 100 jumps I felt like that with some good and careful training I would be able to fly one. But 200 is the rule, so I kept jumping, working toward that magic number. After maybe 15 or 20 wingsuit jumps, on one jump I had a little problem with my parachute deployment. It was not a big problem, but it could have been. I reacted well, resolved the problem, and it was really nothing. Then the thought came to my mind...."That is what the 200 jumps are for". I don't think I managed any new specific skill between 100 and 200 jumps that would help me. But the way I approached resolving a small problem was most likely different because of my comfort level and attitude. So, when you don't agree with the requirements, just think, "They must be there for good reason" and agree to not understend just yet. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Welcome to the forums and to skydiving. Everyone will tell you to relax and give it a little time.....time to learn. You have to get the feel of the air. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

***I would also add an R-Bird to that list of suits to try. *** I was not the most stable in my early wingsuit flights with the I-bird. But after settling down in it, I got an R-bird and I agree it is worth a look. I have found it very stable, forgiving, easy to recover, and is good in a flock. My experience is largely limited to those two suits, but I really like it. I am not stocky. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Lat/long is measured in degrees, and the distance one degree represents changes along the spheroid (One degree is less distance at the poles than the equator.) So it's very hard to get a linear distance between two points using the lat/long coordinate system. Since points in ecef are measured in meters, converting to ECEF makes is very easy to measure the distance between two points. Once I do that, I can compute your velocity between any two points in your jump (The points also have a time stamp.) It's also a lot easier to interpolate points in a linear coordinate system like that. That lets me put five samples per second down in the data file, despite only getting one sample per second from my phone's GPS. The conversion doesn't seem to introduce any inaccuracy. One of my unit tests does the conversion from latlong to ECEF and back to latlong to confirm that the numbers I started with is the same as the numbers I got back from the two conversions. Funnily enough, I seem to recall that GPS hardware actually calculates coordinates in ECEF and converts them to latlongs for display. I imagine its a lot easier to triangulate your location in a linear coordinate system. Sadly there doesn't seem to be a way to tell the GPS unit to just give you the ECEF coordinates, since this would save me the initial conversion. See attached. You can apply this formula to sequential data points and sum all of the differences to come up with distance over the ground. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

If it is windy and I wonder if I should jump or not, one thing I like to do is to get outside, away from the building, and stand in the wind. I will stand there for 5 minutes or so. While standing there feeling the wind, when it is strongest I think, "Would I want to be landing right now"? Very often the answer is No. Also I watch others with many years of experience. When they start standing down, even if I think it is okay, I will follow their lead. If you are jumping for fun you might ask yourself is it critical to have fun now, or can the fun wait until later. As you increase the risk of getting hurt today, you increase the risk of not having fun tomorrow, maybe for a long time, not being able to jump. Continued jumping is very high on my list so waiting for a better day is attractive. All that said, I often drive 4 hours to the DZ to jump for 1 day and 4 hours back, that same day. A few months ago I got one jump in the morning and then it was windy all day. The wind started coming down a bit about the time I was thinking I need to head home. I carefully considered all factors and decided I would jump with some increased risk. I feel like it is important to step back and be honest with yourself. I am doing this for these reasons with these gains and these costs as possible outcomes. Most of the time I just say to myself, "If you want to keep jumping, be super careful". Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I did a jump from 22,000 and in the 19,000-16,000 range we were drifting over 60 MPH, peaking at 80 MPH. It felt fine. I have noticed tracking or flying a wingsuit that if you hit a layer of air moving fast in a different direction, you can feel it. It will suddenly change your heading, under some conditions. It's a buffeting, sort of feeling. [inline drift.jpg] Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

That has to hurt. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I use a Flysight. They cost about $250. It functions as a recorder and also provides real time feedback for one of three preset flight indicators, horz speed, vert speed, or glide ratio. The Flysight produces a text file that you can use in Excel. Flysight has a free viewer. Also, Hellis (DZ.com user) has developed an Excel addin that will make graphs in Excel and also put out a Google Earth type KML file. The graphs that I included are from the Google Earth display of that data. There are some other related threads on this forum and also the wingsuit forum. Search Flysight and you should be able to find them. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Here are a some things that helped me, overall. Before I wave off, I flare from my track, getting large, and slow down. I slow down both my flight and my pull sequence. I don't mean sloooow, I mean relaxed, in control, and precise. Keep flying stable until the canopy starts standing you up. I recall several early jumps where I went a bit head down, over on my side, or otherwise less than ideal. Most were caused by lack of attention to detail, poor preparation/setup for the pull, or what I as wearing was "slicker" than what I was use to. Taking an extra second to make sure I was ready, then a clean pull, followed by continued stable flying, helped me. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”