Peke

Doing a bit of pre-course reading in preparation for the AFF & 'A' Licence and coming across some useful quotes. Although a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing and there is no substitute for instructor led face to face learning - it seems to be very sensible advice for a newbie: 'The most important skill a skydiver must develop is the ability to cope with and respond to emergency situations' 'Skydivers freefall about 1000ft in the first 10 secs and 1000ft every 5.5 secs after...altitude awareness is the skydivers most important task until the parachute opens' USPA SIM 2012 'Skydiving is a series of intense little moments. Every jump lasts only a few minutes...so you must learn to think faster. ironically, this is actually a result of relaxation and slowing your thoughts down...if you have a problem during your jump, every fraction of every second counts' C Hill 'Visualizing is a huge part of skydiving. Close your eyes and visualize your jump. Go over the whole dive in your head from start to finish. Do so while doing breathing exercises. This will not only help you to perform better during your jump, it will help you to relax' C Lehne

Cheers Ken, Will look into STA insurance as well. Enjoy Ocana! Let us know how you get on, Good luck, Peke

Thanks for all the advice above - it's really appreciated. I'm pretty used to flying aeroplanes ( did my FAA Commercial at Naples, FL a few years ago) but not jumping out of them - so its great to hear about the different aspects of AFF from people with experience. I definately will book more tunnel time - it seems being relaxed and stable is key ( I've seen on YouTube when this is not the case..) and this will hopefully help enormously. Thanks for the links and I'll research the insurance. You're right about not putting pressure on though - I'm doing this for fun! Should have done this ages ago though, as some clever bugger once said 'The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it'

Thanks for your reply Shorehambeach, I'm looking at Airkix wind tunnel, Manchester - even though I'm now based in Scotland. They cater for AFF students with initially 6 x 2 min sessions with coaching. Not sure how many I'll need... On the USPA website - it's the online ground school I've downloaded ( same thing?) For the skydiving /travel insurance: Skycover : £80 for annual multi-jump ( 100 grand if I smoke in..) seems reasonable. How did you get on last year? Looks like you're still jumping. Did you buy any equipment before you went? Thinking about helmet and goggles

Hi, after doing a tandem a number of years ago in Australia I've finally decided to do the AFF course and A Licence and have booked a place at Skydive Sebastian, FL at the end of May. Can't Wait! I don't have much time there before my wife and daughter join me for a vacation so I want to be as prepared as possible. I'm going to do a number of sessions at a wind tunnel in the UK and I'm studying various docs eg on USPA.org Any other suggestions before I go? Cheers, Peke