MikeBIBOM

Good point

Homeowners/renters/property insurance should cover it even if you're using it, so long as you're not using it professionally. Ask your insurance company. Mine does. .... and it just occurred to me I might have been able to claim my lost freebag/reserve pilot chute last month...

This is only because of the VAT mark-up. If you are eligible for VAT exemption in Germany (i.e. have the appropriate forms), contact the DZ and ask if they accept them, many do. The price difference will even out in the end. AFF to license is about $3000 USD. 25-2800 EUR isn't bad in comparison if you get the tax exemption.

For most of the last 14 years, the military has only accepted PRK surgery for aviators because of concerns about the "flap" caused by the Lasik procedure not holding up to the G forces involved in flying. Some ten years after making this decision, it was discovered that the scar tissue that grew on the incision site in Lasik was actually stronger than normal eye tissue. (I don't think they've revised their standards yet, but at the very least they're re-looking them.) So PRK pros: They don't actually cut your eyeball open, they just burn off microscopic layers of the cornea. PRK Cons: They burn layers of skin off of your eyeball, leaving it thinner than it was before. Lasik Cons: They cut open your eyeball around your iris in order to do the procedure. Lasik Pros: They put that layer back, it grows scar tissue, the skin around your iris is stronger than it was and they didn't burn anything off of your cornea. Aside from that, I think they're pretty much the same, with the same risks, side-effects, success and failure rates. But I am not an expert/doctor/etc.

I realize it's not quite what you asked as he was conscious on exit, but isn't the video from last year of that guy getting knocked out on exit and his friends pulling his main for him all over the news like last week? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10606334/Dramatic-moment-unconscious-skydiver-rescued-mid-air-captured-on-helmet-camera.html

If there was an AAD, it wouldn't have activated if she didn't cut away till 200 feet anyway. What's baffling to me is that four people were arrested over it.

Relax, arch, you're not relaxing or arching enough! Think about where you're looking. When you're on the step, you're probably looking straight ahead. When you let go, don't keep looking at the horizon. Looking up at the plane as you fall away from it will help you relax more and slip into a better arch and you'll go stable almost instantly. edit: Haha, I wrote this just based on your own description, before I watched your videos. Now that I've watched your videos, try standing outside of the door when you poise for exit. Look at the pair of guys who went out first in your first video, see how the one did the count with his leading leg? Stand outside the door, holding the bar, present your chest to the prop and do that with your leading leg, because it presents your body to the relative wind at the moment you're letting go, flex but don't bend your legs and keep your arms short, look up at the plane as you fall away. And when I say look up at the plane, I mean actually crane your neck. You might also try putting your hands at your side like you're tracking and bring them up to box position as you count to three. You might also try a diving exit facing the tail (from altitude, don't do a diving H&P until you can dive out stable).

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Joshua-Teen-in-ICU-After-Skydiving-Accident-242321911.html How about listening to the family describe it? Keeping in mind this is static line training: Dad apparently was on his first jump too. Not sure what he expected the instructor to do when she was under canopy.

Throwing in my two cents for the Pulse. I have a Pulse 190 loaded at 1.1 and I've put between 50 and 60 jumps on it. I read somewhere that the Pulse was supposed to replace the Silhouette, but I'm not sure about that. The Pulse and Silhouette are very similar and have the same target audience at the very least. The Pulse allows for a higher wingload and downsizes further than the Silhouette. Having said that, I did about 15 jumps on a Safire2 190 and although it has a steeper descent than the Pulse, it was amazing to fly. I had one landing where I got distracted and flared about 2 feet off the ground and although I ended up on my hands and knees, it was still a really soft landing. The Safire2 is comparable to the Sabre2, but I've heard it's more forgiving and less likely to open off heading.

I don’t really have a stake in this one way or the other, and I certainly don’t think I’m a special snowflake with all the skillz at ~100 jumps, but I wanted to comment. There seems to be this idea that Time is the answer for everything, that experience counts more than anything else. What about education? Is a guy with 1000 jumps and 5 years in the sport automatically better than a guy with 500 jumps in two 2 years but 200 Pro-coached jumps? I understand and can fly my canopy a lot better after an 8 jump canopy course than some of my friends with two and three times my jump numbers and time in the sport, but no canopy course. But Andretti is more qualified than you or I to join NASCAR. There are 20 year old drivers who are more qualified than you or I to join NASCAR (Or Formula 1), and some of them can beat the pants off of Andretti. Your opinion. My opinion is that time gives you more knowledge than pure jumps alone. I had an AFF I that got his AFF ticket at just over 6 hours of FF. He was all excited because he just got what he thought was a SMOKING deal on a new canopy. He asked me about it. When he told me the name, I told him to walk away from it as fast as he could. Ever hear of a NOVA? No amount of jumps will give you the knowledge to know that name. Not to be a douche, but then why bring it up? The NOVA was grounded in 1994, there's a really really good chance that unless you've been around for 20 years, you've never heard of it. If a guy with 8000 jumps in 10 years has never heard of a NOVA, does that mean he lacks the experience to be a TI? (Do NOVAs fit in Sigmas?) Since he’s not a rigger himself, didn’t he do the right thing in asking you about it in the first place? Knowing or not knowing something isn’t as important as realizing you don’t know it and doing research to learn about it. This could be applied to anything and is such a ridiculous standard you might as well say nobody should do anything ever. When I had 100 jumps, I realized how much more I knew than when I had 90, or 80, or 50, or 30, or 7. When I have 200 I’ll look back at where I am now and realize all that I didn’t know. As long as I don't sit here thinking I know everything, what does that prove? I disagree. TIME has given me more experience to more weapon systems. Here is part of the problem... You think it is JUST about putting lead on target. But it is more than that. But the fact is that if I needed to select a guy to go clear a room with me..... I'd choose the guy with more experience over the guy with less experience every single time. Gonna stop you here. Would you rather have a regular Infantry-dude with 15 years in who’s deployed 5 times over the last 10 years, kicked in plenty of doors and cleared plenty of rooms with you, or the guy who has only been in 3 years, but has been through the REDACTED Operator’s course and spent six months training specifically to clear rooms in REDACTED? I’ve seen way too many people in the former category who did really stupid or wrong things just because ‘it always worked for me and I never had any problems with it’. I had a platoon sergeant with 4 deployments and 19 years in tell the firers on a SAW range to prepare to fire by riding their bolts forward with a round on the feed tray. I don’t care how many deployments he’s had or doors he’s kicked in, I’d go with the junior-but-Operator’s-course-grad every time. I once met a guy who had been riding motorcycles for 30 years, was in a bike club, lived the lifestyle, the whole nine yards. I’d only been riding for 2 years at this point. I saw that he had a massive recent road-rash scar on his back and asked him about it. He’d had a car stop suddenly in front of him and hit the brakes, but decided he had to put his bike down to avoid crashing into it. What he didn't do, was use his front brake at all. His experienced friends all agreed with his decision. Now, these guys had not been through any kind of basic motorcycle rider’s course or experienced riders course, or really any formal education besides taking the written test and rider’s test when they started out, they just had 20-30 years of experience riding. Somehow, they didn’t know that 66% of a bike’s stopping power comes from the front brake and that equal application of both brakes stops you in less than half the distance of rear-brake alone without risk of flipping, something that might have stopped his bike in time without having to put it down, and something I learned 2 days into taking the class (then trained on for two weeks during the practical). You underestimate the number of people who skate by on luck and time. It's way higher than 3/10. It seems to me that there ought to be pre-TI courses, and not just tests, but actual sit-down in the classroom ground-school and practical exercise courses that should be required before even considering taking an AFF-I or TI course, and that would go a lot further than just time and/or jump numbers.

Maybe I need to do some research, but I didn't find their prices too much different than the few other DZs I've been to. Then again, I've only been to four and I've been renting gear until now.

Different experiences at different places. At my home DZ, I had an Altimeter malfunction on the ride up and decided not to jump (I didn't know the pilot had a spare), so I landed with the a/c. They still charged me for the lift, but not for the gear rental for that jump. At the IPC, we circled a few times looking for a hole in the clouds, but if we had landed, we would have had to pay for the ticket. At Empuriabrava, if the winds get too strong and they put a jump limit on while you're climbing to altitude, you get to ride the plane back down, but I'm pretty sure they don't charge you for the lift if your failure to leave the plane isn't your fault.

I know many people at the IPC regularly go to Skydive Empuriabrava, and I know several who did their AFF there. EB has many English speaking instructors and they work across several different systems (Spanish, BPA, USPA, DFV, French), and the PAI will recognize them. Plus, if the weather cooperates, you can easily finish AFF in a few days, and get some consolidation jumps as well.

It is a good idea, but are you really reading all of the info?

Actually, yes I have (although that picture is just me exiting from a helicopter, not actually sit-flying, I've done 5 vertical jumps, and none in lederhosen!). I've been reading up and paying attention to the guys at the DZ who do it, and the fact that you can quickly fly backwards without realizing it is one of the things they harp on for vertical flying. The few times I've done anything vertical, I've made a point to go perpendicular to the run. My point of using shouldn't instead of isn't was meant to underline that I'm not actually sure, but irony doesn't translate well in text. I was only thinking in terms of belly flyers backsliding, not sitflyers. Well, in terms of slipping backwards because your legs are bent too much during belly-flight, I didn't.

Clearly I'm sure, that's why I said shouldn't instead of isn't!

Actually, I'm not sure what the data says, it's not labeled sufficiently. 3 collisions in the last ten years? There have been more than that. 3 that resulted in fatalities, that makes more sense. If a jumper isn't tracking along the run, then simply backsliding or side sliding shouldn't be enough to get them close to the jumper ahead of them without wind drift.

That's deaths by collision, no doubt buffered by all those "cypres saves unconscious jumper" notices I always see. What about maimings? Not everybody on the load is a formation master and can keep tight in-place formations. We were no doubt moving all over the place too, but unless he tracked up the jump run (which is also possible), that's part of what drift is.

I don't know about canopy collisions, but I did one two-way FF jump at a place that puts FF out first, and after break-off and opening, one of the solo belly-flyers that came after us opened smack in between myself and my friend. Good thing neither of us decided to open in place.

About the same, but because I know I can lose that altitude quickly while getting into position/deciding which way to go/applying the brakes to my track, I give myself 50m to react to the alarm. Except for my decision altitude, which I give 100m. Breakoff: 1550m (5085') Pull: 1150m (3775') Hard-deck/Decision altitude: 800m (2625') I don't want my automatic reaction to the last alarm to be to cut, I want time to assess and make my decision by 700m, rather than blindly cutting away without knowing what's going on.

When I did my early solos, I always got really anxious on the plane-ride. I would start shaking the moment the plane slowed and leveled off at altitude, and the door opening only made things worse. I was very cautious about everything I did and would crawl to the door, very slowly and deliberately. I was very obsessed with where I put my hands and feet so I could be sure to get my exit right. I didn't want to just fall out. Somewhere between jump 20 and 30, somebody told me that's what you're going up to do anyway, so who cares if you slip and fall? Then I hit my foot on the door during an exit and got thrown out of control for the first 3-5 seconds of the dive and it clicked. Trust your equipment, trust your arch and your ability to get stable, trust your training and trust your EPs: just smile and relax and go. And no, even after packing my own chute 50+ times, I still think about what I might have done wrong, or what could go wrong on opening and what I will do in response. (I practice my EPs 3-4 times per jump) I don't think that will ever go away.

It's definitely feasible. When I was in Empuria, it was difficult to get more than one jump in per day just because of the weather conditions, but when I returned to Empuria recently for my 50th jump the weather was more cooperative and there were more AFF students going through the course, many of whom were getting it done in a couple of days, rather than a week. I would definitely recommend it. It's really intense when you're starting out to learn so much new information. Being able to remember exactly what you did right and wrong on a jump yesterday is much easier than trying to remember weeks or months ago. I don't know that I'd have prepared differently than I did, other than learning the patience that comes with sitting around a DZ a lot sooner. Maybe I would have spent more of my downtime in the hangar watching the packers work.

Hello there, I recently took a trip to Empuriabrava where I spent a week getting my AFF done. Including my tandem, I'm eight jumps in. Met a lot of great people there from the U.S., The U.K., Ireland, France, Spain and Germany, and they all said this was the place to go for everything skydiving. I'm here to soak it all in and learn from everyone, because seriously, I can't get enough!