FlyingRhenquest

Not so tough no. You just have to face the relative wind (coming from the front of the plane.) In that case I just didn't spread out enough to catch it. Up until that point I'd exited with an AFF instructor holding me. Retrospectively, you don't realize how much stability they add until they're not there anymore. A few jumps later stable exits just clicked for me and I haven't had a problem with them since then. Still, if I turn away from the relative wind before I get off the "hill," I have more trouble staying stable than I do if I keep facing it. I was watching some students on a canopy course a while back and about half of them dove out toward the rear of the plane. As I watched them flip over I made a mental note to mention to them that if you dive out in the other direction it kind of works better. It depends on what you're trying to do with the relative wind though. If you want to end up on your back, you want to face that end to the wind. I still back-fly a little torso heavy so I had to flip over pretty quickly. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Nah! Sorry! Oskar blues beer got the better of me. If you jump up when you exit the plane it could happen. If you dive out with your ass pointing toward the front, the wind will catch your ass and flip you over. It's not really that big a deal. If you want to be stable when you exit, put your face toward the front. And never jump UP. You can dive out, you can step out, you can take a bow and do a flip. That's fine. Face the wind. Then you'll be falling the same way the plane is going and your exit will be stable. If you dive out facing the tail and wonder why you're flipping over a couple times on exit, that's why. Face the prop. Problems solved. If you jump up (depending on the plane) you could very well hit the tail. Don't jump up. I like the concept of taking a bow. If you do it all the way (And you bow with your right hand) your head should go over your right shoulder. If you keep going like that your heels will follow your head. Arch at that point and you should end up pretty stable. If you're a wingsuiter you've probably received some instruction on how not to hit the tail. If the pilot stalls there's not a lot you can do really. But really, that almost never happens and even if it does it's still bad luck if the tail hits you. It's not a "you hit the tail" at that point, it's "The tail hit you." The pilot can die if he stalls, which is very good incentive not to. You have to make a concerted effort to jump up. It's really not easy at at the door. In the first couple of AFF classes, they drag you out of the door and you don't even have to worry about it. If you just step off into the arch, that's fine too. If you dive forward (toward the prop) you'll probably be pretty stable on exit. If you dive backwards (toward the tail) you'll probably flip over a couple times. It's really _really_ hard to screw up an exit to the point where you have to worry about a tail strike. And now for your amusement, my first solo exit. I was in a hurry to get the hell off that plane! It was hot that day and we were all crammed in there. I didn't spread out enough to catch the relative wind and kind of plunged. This jump makes me laugh every time I watch it. At at around 15 seconds I was screaming at mysself "ARCH M---F ARCH!" Turned out OK in the end. Once you get to AFF 4 or so, you KNOW how to get stable. It doesn't matter HOW ugly your exit it as long as you've gotten stable in a thousand feet or so. It's pretty difficult to get hit by the tail in most cases so for the most part you ought not to worry about that. If you're still worried about that, talk to your instructor. He'll probably be less drunk when he tries to explain it. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

You just jump out of the plane and fall down real fast! Ok, so here's the deal. The plane's going forward! Real fast! Like maybe 80 mph forward real fast, maybe 120 mph forward real fast. So the wind's blowing at you from the front of the plane. So you aim that way (toward the propeller) and... stuff. Aim the other way, you're gonna have a bad time. Not like hitting the tail bad time though, more like flipping over a few times bad time. Tail strike can happen a couple ways. You could jump up when you leave the plane. It's not hard not to do that. You could be in a wingsuit and open your wings too soon. It's not hard not to do that either. The pilot could stall the plane. That doesn't happen very often. If you whang into the tail when that happens, you can at least take solace in the fact that he's probably going to get fired for stalling the plane. That's an "OMG you could have killed a skydiver" kind of error. Assuming they didn't kill a skydiver. They really don't want to make those. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I seem to recall that there have already been lawsuits over cloud seeding and I don't know if we're even certain how much that affects the weather yet! Absolute control over it would be too much lawsuit fodder for any entity capable of controlling the weather. Weather is also an inherently chaotic system. We'd be tinkering with the global climate. I doubt anything good would come of that. That being said, I'd pick one guy at random and make it rain on him, constantly I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

The North one is a Static Line course, the South one is AFF. The static line courses you jump out of the plane and a line deploys your canopy for you. You start out at low altitudes and go higher with longer freefalls as your skills progress. In AFF you start at full altitude with two instructors holding on to you (but otherwise not attached) and each jump has objectives that you work on to build your skills. AFAIK they both work reasonably well, so it kind of depends on personal preference. The DZ where I did my training offered AFF so that's what I did, and I liked it. I did have to repeat several jumps for a variety of (occasionally comical) reasons. I'm pretty sure you can potentially have repeats in an SL course too, if you don't accomplish the objectives of your jump or are not comfortable moving on to the next level. If I had a do-over I'd do AFF again, but I'd start the whole thing off with about half an hour of wind tunnel time. That's a good deal less expensive per minute than AFF and probably would have saved me a couple of repeats along the way. Ooh and I'd buy my own helmet, clear goggles and jumpsuit for the tunnel. Rental jumpsuits always make me feel gross. You're kind of stuck with them for AFF, but your instructors might let you wear your own helmet and goggles if the goggles are clear and the helmet's not full-faced (They need to be able to see your eyes and expression during the jump.) I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I've posted similar recipes in the past. My red chili is just beef, tomatoes, jalepino peppers, chipotle peppers, a couple kinds of dried beans. cumin and beer in the crock pot for a few hours. Recently I switched the beef out for goat ribs, which worked better than I expected it to. My green chili is pork, tomatoes, peeled roasted peppers, quartered tomatillos and cumin in a crock pot for a few hours. If you look at my pot roast recipe, which is essentially Alton Brown's Chuck Roast Recipe you might accuse me of being a one-trick pony -- Braising is my favorite trick to be sure. Alton brown pretty much taught me how to cook. His quiche is pretty good too. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Wow! Congratulations! I just crossed my first. Probably won't make it to 40 (Given that I'm 43 now) but that's pretty impressive! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Eeh, I'll probably throw a steak, some pizza or an artichoke sub from Snarfs at some point during the week. I could just get by on Lentil soup for most of the week though. OOh and the Flight Deck will be back later this week. Their breakfast burritos and hamburgers are pretty good too! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Sure! Note that tonight's lentil soup was paired with Oskar Blues' Imperial stout, so there may be some misspellings and/or omissions. Lentil Soup Recipe: 1 pound pork or chicken thighs (Skin on for great justice!) 1 Onion 2-3 cloves of garlic 1 16 oz bag of lentils 2 cans of diced tomatoes 3-4 New/Red potatoes 1 small bag of peeled baby carrots Salt/Pepper to taste Enough water to cover everything optional (Any or all of these ingredients may be skipped.) 1/2 pound of bacon (If you really want to bam it up a notch!) 1 tsp cumin (grind your own for great justice! And actually cumin really isn't optional...) 10-15 ground cloves 5-6 cardamon seeds (ground) 1 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes, ground 2 anise pods, ground 1 tsp of freshly ground nutmeg 1/2 stick of freshly ground cinnamon Preparation: Chuck everything in a crock pot on "high" for 4 hours. You can brown your meat if you want to (Makes somewhat "darker" flavors) but this really isn't necessary. I use a 2-blade coffee grinder to grind all my spices. Purists will insist that your spices should be toasted before ground, but I don't notice a difference, personally. You could probably swap out the lentils for split peas or red beans. It might be nice over rice that way. You want to use new potatoes instead of russets because new potatoes hold their shape better when you braise them (this is effectively a braising recipe.) I like to use chicken thighs when I'm using chicken because the bones and connective tissue produce more gelatin in your braise. This makes your braise lip-smackin' good -- much the same reason "boneless chicken wings" are an ABOMINATION! You need the bones for the gelatin! Note that this is both fantastically good and incredibly cheap. My red and green chili follow similar methodologies; they're just meat braises with tomatoes and spices. Master the braise and you need never be hungry! They're never hard-and-fast recipes, either. Forget something and you're not in bad shape. Substituting ingredients is fine. As long as you're happy (or learned something) from the outcome, it's not a failure! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I never had that many. I think two, maybe three times in 140-ish jumps on rental gear. And all those times they were pretty easy to deal with. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Last week I went to make my lentil soup. I usually use chicken thighs for this (It's chicken lentil soup...) but last week Safeway only had 16 thigh packages of chicken thighs. They did have a nice pork roast for 4 bucks though, so I bought that instead. Well that turned out really well, so I decided to try to replicate my success this week. And it turned out really well again! I think pork lentil soup may end up being my MO for lentil soup from now on! I can feed myself for a week on less than $15 worth of ingredients (I add new potatoes and carrots to my lentil soup, that bumps the price up a little.) I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I don't know how much it assists in stability. The only time I'm spending a lot of time near TIs is when I'm on a load with them, and they don't usually go over that bit with their students. You do learn rather a lot by osmosis though! I'm listening to the lecture a lot more since they banished trackers to the front of the plane. They'll jump tandems up here up to 20 knots. Those guys seem to be able to land on a dime in any wind conditions I've seen them jump in. There's a cafe right across from the tandem landing area and I'll go there for lunch on work days and just watch 'em land one after another. In general my own preference is any steady wind. It's a huge pain in the ass when it's shifting all over the place. The days when it's straight down the runway all day long, those are nice. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

The drogue? That slows you down just a bit so you fall closer normal human falling speeds. Remember that bit about Galileo and things falling at the same speed? Turns out yeah, not so much. Two guys stuck together fall faster than two guys separately, thanks to wind resistance. (On the moon you'd fall at the same speed, probably. Not much wind resistance there.) There are a lot of benefits to falling a little more slowly. Freefall lasts a few seconds longer, obviously. It's also less stress on the gear at opening time. Falling faster actually makes you more stable. When I started slowing down to normal fall rates, it felt unstable as hell until I got used to it. Typically you don't need a drogue as a solo skydiver unless you're jumping from 25 miles AGL and want to set a record for longest freefall ever. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Bwahahaha interesting Freudian slip on my part eh? You found someone who would let you do that? I'd think it'd be some nasty liability for the pilot if something happened. I suppose I could ask around, but I don't think I'm quite ready for the crazy stunts portion of my skydiving career just yet heh heh heh. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I did an awful lot of flips on my early jumps

I've seen THAT stunt done a couple times. Honestly doesn't look a lot more difficult than a swoop and dock. A VERY high stakes swoop and dock. Not something I'd want to attempt at 150 jumps. Ask me again at 1500. I like to say that I was introduced to the door mockup as a student and didn't believe them when they told me getting out on the ground was just the same as getting out at altitude. Then I found myself repeating that line to a student. Which naturally got me thinking, well if that's true, then hypothetically, I should be completely fine with climbing out the door at altitude with a parachute and then climbing back in. Right? I doubt anyone's going to give me the opportunity to test this theory, so I'll just play my cards close to the vest on how I think the results of that little test would turn out. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Ooh, and if you didn't, would the grim reaper kill all your friends in horrific ways like that one movie? In general if I was absolutely certain of the information source, probably not. Skydiving is a risk/reward thing for me. I go up on every jump knowing it could be my last but that the odds of it actually being my last are pretty low. If I was absolutely certain it was going to be my last, 100% risk really isn't worth the reward. If I had a choice between that and ass cancer in the same timeframe, I'd go for the one that involves less things going up or coming out of my ass. But then, most of my decisions are made based on which one involves the least number of things going up or coming out of my ass. If some crazy old gypsy lady told me my next jump was absolutely going to kill me, I'd do it anyway. I don't take skydiving advice or stock tips from crazy old gypsy ladies. Or my mother (Who usually thinks my next jump is going to be my last one.) If that was the only way I could die, that would be a lot more fun! I'd go into the "illusion" business, make a mint on submersion-style tricks, merrily outlive friends and enemies alike, reminisce about the "good old days" and have a painting of a "depraved me" done so I could hang it in my basement, right next to my rig! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Pretty damn close to new moon - must've been dark! I was pretty surprised at how much I was actually able to see. Everyone told me I'd see my shadow and mistake it for another skydiver, but I didn't. Perhaps that's why. They're doing some more on the 23rd and I'm already signed up for those too. Flying the pattern was easy. The runway and big tent on the far side of the landing area are the only two obstructions I was worried about, and both were well lit. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I know a manager at my work who had a similar reaction to her tandem jump. She did it, said she could take it or leave it and didn't pursue any other training. Flying solo is a dramatically different experience than going along for the ride and it's hard to say how any individual will react to it. You don't get the massive adrenaline after you get used to jumping and a lot of people who start the sport for that move on to other things at that point. It's a pretty expensive sport to take up if you don't love it, but if it's something you can enjoy and can do with your boyfriend, it might be worthwhile. If you have a vertical wind tunnel nearby you could try that too. That's a good way to find out if you'd enjoy just flying around. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I don't know that one is necessarily more dangerous than the other. At least not without seeing the numbers. A lot of tandem jumps get done each year and a lot of solo jumps get done each year. I don't know the per-capitas on them individually and haven't ever seen it broken down that way. If something happens to your main, the TI will cut it (not you) away and deploy the reserve. If something goes wrong with that, you're BOTH gonna have a bad time. One way or another you're in it together. Malfunctions that lead to fatalities like that are very rare, but they do happen. If cash is tight and you have a wind tunnel nearby, you maybe could just be a tunnel rat for a few years until you're in a better financial situation? The cost is usually less than half what freefall is, you don't have the huge pricetag for gear (jumpsuit, helmet, goggles, all you need!) and you can learn to fly your ass off in there. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Yeah, I tend to use "Breathe" and "Smile", usually in conjunction, to try to get the AFF and Tandem students to relax. I assume that works as well as anything else. I think in general making as many decisions as possible in advance is helpful. Then hopefully you don't have to reason out what to do and maybe make the wrong decision as a snap judgement. There are a lot of situations where you could make an argument for any number of things, but any action would be better than freezing up and not acting at all. Talking about these with other skydivers also helps. Maybe you've come up with something they hadn't thought of. I tend to come up with some pretty off the wall stuff, like "You wake up in freefall. Do you take a couple seconds to look at your altimeter or go right for your reserve?" It's something that could happen and you just want to react if it does. How you react is entirely a matter of preference. That preference could change pretty radically if you're jumping without an AAD. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I'm not sure I can tell you how to be altitude aware if you don't already know, despite my AFF instructor calling me "the most altitude-aware, fastest falling student I've ever had." I lost it once, though, well out of student status. I was doing a fun jump with one of the instructors and he suggested we play a few rounds of scissors-paper-stone on the way down, with a planned break-off altitude of 5.5K. He broke off a bit high but I looked at my altimeter and was genuinely surprised to find I was at 5.8K already. If he hadn't broken off when he did, I'd probably could have gone another thousand feet or so before I'd have checked my altimeter. Still plenty high, but way outside my comfort zone for how much attention I'm paying to the stuff that really matters on a jump. We know you're not going to relax when well tell you to relax. I think repeating it does make you eventually decide to relax a little sooner than you would otherwise. It really DOES make a world of difference in your flying. Maybe one day we'll actually get a student who can actually relax when we tell him to relax. My Tai Chi instructor was always going on about how you should hold your wrists, but could never really convey exactly how that should be exactly. I think she just wanted us to relax. I don't think there are hard or fast answers in this sport. It can change depending on your comfort zone. Not comfortable with emergency procedures? Drill them. Not comfortable with PLFs? Practice. Not comfortable with big ways? Don't do them. You're putting your life on the line on every jump and should treat them with the seriousness they deserve. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I kind of liked this wingsuit video, but the music is Celtic-ish, not rock and roll. Bagpipes and stringed instruments get me hot, as long as they're not overly pretentious. I think Tub Ring's Promise Keeper would make a great skydiving video sound track. You need to get through the 30 second classical lead-in on that particular video though. "We Are The Righteous" by the same group would be pretty good too. A little screamy, though. The Beyond Good and Evil sound track is freely available on teh internets, and a couple of their racing mini game tracks would probably work pretty well too. I actually have Fun and Mini Games burned to CD in my car. Slaughterhouse Scramble is another good one, but again a little screamy. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I've now done the most amazing thing I've ever done in my life. I think if I added up all the other amazing things, skydiving in the dark over Longmont would outweigh them all. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Don't forget: 4) Some jackhole decides to poke an elk with a stick and gets gored by a pissed-off elk. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?