Deimian

Radios are backup devices, you should be prepared for not using them. Being said that, I am not sure how well I would have performed without one back in my AFF. However, you might still get assistance without radio. In some dropzones (at least one that I know of), have a movable arrow to help students (but even them are using radios now, I think). Think of a "T" to indicate wind direction, but manually steered and used just for students. They just had 1 student per load, and an instructor was steering the arrow indicating which direction the student should be facing. You can have that way a visual help of when to turn.

That information is not in any particular document, as far as I know. But you can try to contact the Real Federación Aeronáutica Española. If they don't know you can just ask individually all the DZs in Spain. There are not many, 5 or 6 as far as I know.

That's not true anymore. There is a new version where you can use the housing.

I think that by the time you are ready for BASE you'll be tired of that canopy. You won't be doing BASE jumps before you have a few hundred skydiving jumps. These few hundred skydives are needed to learn how to move in freefall and how to control your canopy. Regarding the first point: It is not the same flying with a big container (needed for big canopies) than with a tiny BASE container. Probably the impact of this is not too big for standard BASE (belly to earth). Regarding the second point: While having a canopy as similar as possible for skydiving and BASE will make you proficient at using it, I think that you'll get bored, and not necessarily better. Smaller and faster canopies will teach you how to react better. Very careful with this last sentence, I am not meaning downsizing too fast for your skill level, I am meaning that a canopy with a WL 1.1 will be faster, than a canopy with a WL of 0.75, and your mental process of looking for outs, adjusting descent rate, glide, flat turns, etc, will improve more than with a canopy whose descent rate is constantly too slow and that always give you much more time than what you will have in a BASE environment. Being said that: I don't BASE jump, and I am far from being an expert skydiver, so take my advise for what is worth. This was just my reasoning, I might be wrong.

Don't buy it orange if you don't want it to fade. Neon colors (orange, light green, hot pink, light yellow) always fade quite fast. Take a look at this presentation: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3131726;search_string=color%20pia;#3131726 It studies the effect of UV light on canopies depending on their colors. I don't think the effects on containers are very different. A friend of mine bought a vector 3, neon orange. It was in pretty good condition, but the orange was almost completely faded away. It was particularly noticeable when you compared it with areas that were not normally exposed to UV, like the inside part of the riser covers.

A couple sources are the Irvin Recovery Systems Design Guide AFFDL-TR-78-151, and the Parachute Recovery Systems Design Manual by Theo Knacke for the US military. Both are online... somewhere, and have been mentioned on dz. Attached is a pdf I made of the Altitude effect section of the more recent Knacke manual. It isn't ideal for our purposes but gives some idea of altitude issues. The rate of increase of opening force with altitude does depend on the design of the parachute, and whether the load is light (like a person) or heavy (like a bomb) relative to the size of the parachute. The research shown only applies to unreefed round canopies. I would imagine that the reefing of ram air parachutes would decrease the sensitivity to altitude, but would not change the basic principles (like higher true speed and energy when up high) or that higher altitude openings get harder. That's an awesome reference, thank you! Now, if you pay attention to figures 5-59 and 5-60, it looks like the opening force indeed does increase with the altitude, but no linearly. For instance, in figure 5-59, 28-FT, nylon: At 7000 feet the opening force is around 1600 pounds. At 40000 feet (~5.71x 7000 feet), the opening force is somewhere around 5200 pounds (~3.25x). The 28-FT silk chute opening force is somewhere around 4.1x. I was just curious, now my curiosity has been satisfied, thank you!

Do we know if the stated values in that post are true? In physics many many times things do not change linearly. So I am wondering if is true that if freefall is X times faster at altitude Y, then canopy descend rate is also X times faster. I guess it is. I am also wondering if opening times will be the same, since air density is much lower, and fill the canopy cells with enough molecules might require more time. My assumption is that the extra time needed (at a constant speed) to inflate a canopy at a high altitude is compensated by the fact that the fall speed is not the same. To summarize, I think the post is correct, but I am not an expert in fluid dynamics, and I would like to know if there have been experiments about that, or if an expert in fluid dynamics can confirm these assumptions.

Others: Let L-410 Antonov AN-2 Do 28 G.92 Comp Air 8

Thank you for the willingness to help, but I already had something similar :-). In my case the loop was too low. I asked my rigger a couple of months ago to sew it on the binding tape instead of where it was, but without removing the reserve it was complicated, and he didn't like the risk of perforating the free bag. So we agreed on doing it on the next repack.

I do. It doesn't flap but is still at your eye level, so if you want to look behind it gets tricky. At least on my rig.

It is not the same. The slocks keep the slider down, but they do not prevent it from being flapping behind your head, at its same level. If you want to look around the slider might interfere with your vision. With a skytie this does not happen, as it is hold lower, around your neck, not your head.

Certainly did hahaha, thanks for posting it, sometimes this forum gets too serious (rightfully so), this is a good reminder that we skydive to have fun.

You have to jump "sideways", with the belly towards the front of the aircraft, not towards the ground. Looks like an Antonov AN-2

You are right, Cerfontaine does not operate during the week. Namur is not operating right now, as far as I know, right?

Skydive Spa opens every day of the week now, except Tuesday. They have a Supervan and a Caravan, so when there is lots of people they are able to put quite a few loads per day. Cerfontaine is closer, like 30 km or so. It is from the same owners as Spa, but smaller. They have a Caravan. Being in Charleroi I think these two are your best options.

Ignore the "take up golf or bowling" comment. It is just another smartass with quick judgement. I have no clue about when can you get back in the sky. But most probably you'll be scared when you do it. Don't let it win. Another thing you might consider is the conditions to jump. If you were landing backwards the winds were probably too high for you to jump (unless they picked up during climbing). You might look for more conservative instruction. Flaring too soon is a common mistake. Normally, if you hold it and the winds are not too high you wouldn't have any problem. Come back soon, have fun, be safe and welcome to skydiving.

I don't know if you tried it, but the reverse S folding method did wonders for me. Much easier to pack now. It still takes more time than others, but it is not like wrestling anymore.

Nope. I am as narcissistic as many others, I am part of the majority. I am just less narcissistic than you. For me (and for the majority) it is enough to share one video from time to time on Facebook or similar. I don't need to call somebody midflight to make sure that they are aware that I am the coolest kid on the block. Among many other things (like considering more important taking care of that planet coming at me than a phone call) because I am not. And neither are you.

I was hoping someone would bring that up I do have a question: when did skydiving become so boring (especially at 80 jumps???) that we have to look for other things to do while doing it?? I guess it was when narcissism became the main reason behind becoming skydiver.

Definitely do not buy a rig just yet. At this point you don't know which features you might want, which canopies size and model you need (as opposed to what you want), which kind of jumps you'll made (that will determine which kind of gear you might need or not). I bought my rig at about 30 jumps and started jumping it at about 40. No regrets, but I've spent my good share of time reading and informing myself. It was after 6 months or so of starting jumping. Those 6 months of being in contact with the sport, and reading a lot, were quite important I think. Buying before making a single jump does not make any sense in my opinion.

I guess it was one of the back risers. The canopy kept inflated that way, with the front side correctly set up, and the backside pressurized enough to keep the canopy shape (and hold "in place" by the brakes).

I am pretty sure at some point you will want an audible. The bast majority of jumpers that I know use one. A cutaway for the whole helmet, not for the gopro: http://www.chutingstar.com/skydive/bonehead-cutaway-chincup-kit http://www.chutingstar.com/skydive/cookie-chincup-cutaway http://www.ramairskysport.com/en/shop/details/107/13/skydiving%3Bspare%20parts/cut%20away%20assembly It releases the chin strap/cup in case a line entangles with the camera or the mount of the camera.

In my opinion they look good but you might check for 2 things: -In the near future you might want to add an audible. Most probably you won't be able to do it out of the box with those helmets. But cutting a hole and sewing a small pocket for the audible is probably possible. -In the not so near future you might want to add a camera. In that case you probably will need a cutaway system. It looks like the first model won't accept it easily. For the second one it is not clear either.

In my opinion you should just move on. For four reasons: -Days with shitty weather, things go pretty slow in any DZ, at least according to my experience. Better fill your bucket of patience if you keep on skydiving, sometimes it can be unnerving, particularly as a very beginner. -It looks like the major problem was the instructor. It looks like he might not be there working anymore so no point in badmouthing the whole DZ. -A tandem DZ can very easily suck as an instruction DZ, but be good for tandems. Again, no point in badmouthing the DZ, it was just not the right place to look for instruction. -The owner apologized for any inconvenience and offered you money for gas. They clearly have good intentions and they didn't want to mess with you. Why stab them with a bad review just for a couple of drives and an unprofessional service by an instructor that no longer works there? I understand your frustration, but again, patience is a virtue, particularly in skydiving. Disclaimer: Even though my profile says I live in Germany, the only jump that I made in Germany was yesterday (I normally cross the Belgium border), a balloon jump and I barely interacted with anybody, so I have no dog in this fight, I am not defending the DZ because I think I might know them or anything like that. And welcome to skydiving!

What I meant is that typically you put the bag in the container with the stows/magnets facing the ground, and then you rotate the bag to put it in the final position. While you "drop" the bag into its slot, previous to rotating it to its final position, the magnets will be closer to the bottom of the reserve tray than when it is already packed. Besides that, the bag is a mobile part with respect to the reserve tray, so if you want you can really put the magnets against the bottom of the reserve tray. If you can do it, you might do it accidentally. You can't do that with the magnets in the riser covers, as they are in a fixed position with respect to the reserve tray. I believe it too. But I don't know it for sure.