spidermonky

I uploaded the video of my first balloon jump. It's at skydivingmovies.com under dropzone.com This link should work

So are they asking you for a settlement of $40K? If so, I'd rather a lawyer get some of that money and fight them in court.

No way! Coin collecting is too dangerous for me!

You guys beat me to it! Yep, it's called flashing. It can happen microwaving a really clean cup filled with pure water. Usually jarring the cup will cause it to vaporize some of the water, resulting in the hot liquid water around it to go flying. Do you have a rotating bottom on the microwave? It probably triggered it when it stopped, you're lucky it didn't do it when you picked it up.

Oh! Well, that's cool, if that's his thing, not my thing, but you know, what ever makes him happy. You bastards! I knew I shouldn't leave a post and then go to bed. The guy on the far right is my dad. My mom got to ride with us in the balloon. First time either had seen me skydive. BTW: I'm a horrible skydiver, I forgot my case of beer. But I had plenty of people reminding me. Oh, and now I know first hand about Farmer McNastys. I was on the second load and the balloon landed on someone's farm. The people who owned the place said we couldn't get to them from the house. We drove down the road and climbed UNDER THE BARBED WIRE AND ELECTRIC FENCE to get to the balloon! Just as we do, the farmer comes driving down from his house (the way that noone could go ) waving his arms, acting pissed about something. We hopped in and got out of there. When we chased the balloon after our jump, there were a bunch of police there. The cop said his dispatcher told him "there is a balloon stuck in a tree with someone hanging out bleeding." Needless to say, it was a beautiful landing in an open field. These redneck farmers really need to find something better to do. We had 2 balloons and one of them made 2 loads. About 10 skydivers and a few observers.

Uhhh, that's like a 40 year old woman who was with the balloon crew.

Great! Got a little above 5,000 ft, probably 10-15 second delay. Longest snivel I've ever had on my Sabre! I really thought the exit feeling would be terrifying but I noticed more weightlessness than the rollercoaster feeling. I did a nice slow backflip while someone exited the opposite side. The jump was filmed by two people so I'm sure I'll post a video as soon as I get a copy.

Here's what I jumped tonight!!

...and when you got home, there on the car door was the claw!!

Woohoo, a nerdy discussion! I actually think about this stuff on the way to altitude. I have to stand by my first answer on this one. I'm still not sure why it is not noticed. Why aren't belly fliers faces red in freefall from being wind-blown with cold air? Maybe adrenaline has something to do with it, maybe we just don't notice it. Again, I'm just learning to skydive and am no expert, but I am an engineering student and have had my share of physics classes. The "Vomit Comet" is actually a good example of gravity's acceleration. Let's ignore horizontal movement since gravity only works vertically. Before the plane can experience zero g's for an extended amount of time, it must climb as fast as possible. Then the plane flies in an arc and everyone floats. Why? Imagine throwing a ball straight into the air. You apply a force that gives the ball an initial velocity as it leaves your hand. The instant your hand is no longer supporting the ball, gravity applies a force to accelerate it towards the earth. You can see this acceleration as a decrease in speed up and then an increase in speed back down. Now back to the airplane. The high climb rate is like the ball's initial velocity. The pilot flies the plane in the same arc that gravity would pull an object in, so the plane's climb rate decreases until it is descending rapidly. The people inside the plane experience this acceleration towards the earth just as if they were shot straight up into the air like the ball, the only difference is the wind is blocked by the airplane. (I hope this makes sense, if not I'm sure you can find more info online) Now think of the people in the airplane as blood cells. When the plane is not accelerating in any direction, where are the people? They are standing on the floor because they still feel the force of gravity but it is counteracted by the floor. When the plane is accelerating due to gravity, so is everything inside and everything will "float." Or how about this, stand on a scale in an elevator. Your weight will only change as the elevator's speed changes. When you're falling or rising at the same rate your weight will be the same as it normally would be. So being in a moving vessel doesn't necessarily mean the forces on your body will be any different than standing on the ground. We've also discussed the following scenario in one of my classes. If you drop a hollow sphere that is half full of water, the water will settle at the bottom of the sphere once the sphere reaches terminal velocity. Gravity is a force that acts on anything with mass (every single atom), not just the outside of the sphere. But at TV your body as a whole is not accelerating. There is no force preventing the blood from gathering towards the earth. At least no force besides what is experienced on solid ground (i.e. veins and blood pressure). Exactly. The toy cars and track and people are being supported by the floor of the car just like the car wasn't moving. The horizontal velocity has nothing to do with gravity, but rather momentum, which is =m*v If you put wheels on the top of the car everything inside would fall onto the roof since the car is not accelerating perpindicular to the earth (TV). Phew, class dismissed. Just kidding! I'm pretty sure I understand this right, but I'm no expert.

Thanks for all the advice. I'm getting better, or at least I'm spending more of my skydives being stable. The cameraman did do a great job. He was on his back, then standing, then sitting, all while chasing me across the sky. I'll try the reclined position on my next couple of jumps. I'm getting an audible in the next week or so. You're right about not looking at my altimeter, but that was because we broke off at 7k so the cameraman could get some time under a canopy he was unfamiliar with. I got lucky checking my alti right at our planned break off, but I knew the entire jump I wasn't about to go low anytime soon.

I've wondered about this too and have yet to hold headdown long enough to expect any head rush if there is any. I don't know the answer but I do have a physics point to bring up. Gravity is an acceleration. When you're at terminal velocity your body is no longer accelerating due to air resistance (drag) balancing the acceleration of gravity. Your blood doesn't have this drag and is still being affected by gravity. Therefore my spider-senses tell me that your blood would rush to your head in freefall just like the ground. But what do I know. Maybe the increased heart rate keeps anyone from noticing any blood rush.

I also failed my B by one question. I was at a DZ and the S&TA told me he was proctoring other tests and I could take my B if I wanted. I didn't study at all and I remember alot of them being pretty hard questions. I was expecting more AFF type questions, not horizontal cloud separation and altitude/times for hypoxia. I understood the concepts but just didn't have the numbers memorized. I need to retake that thing one day...

I just found out I get to do my first balloon jump next week!!! WOOHOOO!! I've been looking forward to this for a long time! And yes, I'm pretty sure I'll be buying beer for this one!

I did my 6th sitfly jump this weekend and had someone video it. Ended up being my worst sitflying jump yet. I think I just need to keep at it. The thing that surprised me most was how sensitive every movement is at freefly speeds. The guy filming suggested I try to ball up more when I go unstable to maintain my speed. So here's the video, feel free to give pointers or just point and laugh. Enjoy: http://web.utk.edu/~dmain/cork.wmv Soundtrack chosen for obvious reasons.

Have you seen the headline pic for CNN.com during most of today? Hopefully this won't create a debate, but jeez I don't think they could have found a worse picture. After I remembered that looks really can't kill, it made me laugh.

Sounds like one desperate pool boy.

ME ME ME ME!!

I think there are amazing sights every jump, but last week the clouds were soo nice.

I had nothing to do with that picture and I don't even know the story behind it. I'm pretty sure I saved it from an old post on here. I've heard of DZs dropping cats but never heard anything about dog solos.

I've lived in CA, TN, GA, NC, WI. I got 50 with plenty of time left.

no Jumps but she had a busy day hiking, and chasing balls and other dogs at the dog park. I have actually herd of dogs parachuting.... but I don't know how much of it was BS.... It was an old guy with 100 or so jumps (that is not bs) that told be that Is this what you're referring to?

That is either a tiny rig or a huge dog!

Happy B-day Sharon! When is yours?? Mine is tomorrow (29th)! I don't know about you, but I'm get'n old!

I had 2000 feet of horizontal seperation, I measured.