kimemerson

Generally: No. Specifiocally: Maybe. Does that help?

Come on over and introduce yourself

First, do not hold your nose & blow. That's potentially dangerous. Or do so gently. Otherwise I'd see a doctor. This pain isn't normal or common and could be a sign of something else which could be damaging and permanent. It is not somethong that your ears get used to and that disappears as you get experience. Ears and skydiving are a particular concern and as far as I'm concerned you shouldn't do much more untill you get that checked out. Second. it's often best to wait till you have all the money saved up so you can get your AFF in a concetrated form and not strung out.

Big fat wet kisses with tongue! Happy bidet, Scottsman!

AMY!! If a positive attitude and beautiful disposition can heal, then Amy's on her way home already! Get well damn soon, sweets, then come visit. Love you!

As long as you can pull at the proper altitude, and preferably on your belly -but only because that's how our equipment is designed - and if you can get away from others when you deploy, pull stable, then how you spend the time between exit & pull is strictly up to you. If you did AFF and did it in seven jumps, then start sitting at jump # 8 if you can pull on your belly everytime, pull at the right altitude and be clear of others and be stable when you do. As a former AFF Instructor, and S&TA, I say go for it. If you can't handle yourself safely while on your belly, or if you can't even get to your belly, you shouldn't even be off student supervisoin anyway. So in an ideal situation, the whole question is moot. There's no sound reason we can't actually take a complete novice and teach them to skydive in a sit position from the start. There would be several considerations in the design of the teaching method, but it's not as though it couldn't be done.

the 'drop' feeling you get on rollercoasters is the drop feeling you get on rollercoasters. We don't really get it in skydiving. With skydiving what you're feeling is actually the cash leaving your account in a sudden vacuum. Not the same, I know, but it is a drop neverthless.

This is what I thought you meant by the birth of an otter.

You don't need any license for a night jump. It isn't a BSR. It is only recommended that you have a B. Legally, you can make your first skydive on a 300 way night jump on a moonless night, with no training, jumping your own rig that you packed yourself - also with no instruction. The BSRs are two pages long out of the whole of the SIM. The BSRs are what will get you booted from the USPA if you violate them enough - or once. It depends. But for the rest of the SIM, you can violate that to your heart's content and you may get a good talking to or a grounding or something. But there's nothing outside the BSRs to be enforced.

"For some reason I just counted America as one, and the Arctic as another....I have no idea where I got that from! Didn't realise Greenland was part of North America." Ok, first, plan better than you post. Other than that, getting current and then maybe seeking the further advice of the DZs you jump at. You're only talking five conventional jumps like the ones you already have, just new scenery. Do what you would do at any visit to another DZ. Look at aerial photos. Familiarize yourself with the area. Maybe - if feasible for your project - make a couple of jumps at each DZ before doing the charity jumps.

The Skydiver's Survival Guide by Kim Emerson & Marcus Antebi.

The emphasis should have been on the word "drive" in that line, to imply that that's where the focus might be, as opposed to safety being solely a matter of our own behavior and sense of responsibility. There are whole industries devoted to keeping the idiot alive, to save the idiot from not only himself, but from the likelihood of ever learning how to do the job himself without external aid. Because we know we can survive skydive after skydive without all the babysitting devices, it makes one wonder what's left to the thrill when you can put a dollar amount on the extent of responsilbity you'll take for yourself. The fact that there are so many 'saves' nowadays that not that long ago would have been deaths is not really a dilution but it sure as hell is a change. And considering the sports beginnings and the people who pioneered it, there is arguement enough for the current generation being viewed as pussies in comparrison. We are at the point where fewer whuffos think we're all idiots, and more of them have a sometimes accurate enough image of the sport just because we're getting into their newspapers and TVs and movies a lot more. We're more accesible and acceptible which in itself is a sign of being safer all around. That change right there is what is seen as the place where the differences between "them" and "us" is being blurred. And for those of us who might have gotten into the sport in part because we definitely already felt out of the mainstream and we wanted to keep it that way, this is overcrowding and it it's homogenity and it's going from silly & amusing to dominant & controlling in a generation or two. I agree, essentially, with what you say. I don't think it's a good idea to let people get hurt. Educating people sometimes must include teaching survival and it's opposite, as realities of the sport, rather than allow people to think and act as though it's all tiddly-winks. You don't see as many 'BSBD' scribblings anymore. Skull & crossbones don't show up as much. These were reminders that it ain't tiddly-winks. It appears some people think that's where it's headed though. And while tiddly-winks isn't a bad thing, it isn't skydiving either and it shouldn't be called skydiving. (Did I just date myself with the tiddly-winks thing?)

We haven't always had reliable AAD's, audible altimeters, RSL's, the Skyhook, square canopies, GPS, coaches, canopy control/flight schools, instructional videoes. And they are still optional. No need to own any of the ones you have a choice about. (GPS isn't really your choice). And as these things came along, people who came into the sport afterward assumed they had been around all along and were somehow indespensible. I've known jumpers to scratch because the battery on the audible was dead. I know a jumper who didn't pull because the audible didn't sound and so the Cypres did the work for him. I don't mean just brain locking, I mean getting on the plane thinking the audible was the signal to pull and thinking that's what to wait for - no pulling without that beep, beep, beep. So the availability of the advanced equipment sort of creates the skydiver who cannot conceive of jumping with anything less. For some reason there seems to be a drive to save the weakest from themselves, to make as much of the sport idiot proof as possible. I could forsee a future in which the sport splits in much the same way it is now related to but different from BASE jumping. When Association skydivers are Cypress'd up to their eyeballs and safe to a fault. When renegades are outlawed by USPA beause thet won't wear anything more than maybe an one Altimaster, three handles and two eyes.

I don't understand the question.

Like the advice in your post about shopping around. I take that as bad. Shopping for good instruction is not actually bad. Common sense doesn't live in a persons head yet when they have 0 jumps. Sure they can have common sense. Knowledge is what they'd be missing. Common sense does not require experience just to reside in a person's head. What you're suggesting is, if you don't like the answer you receive, keep asking around untill you hear the answer you want. No, what I'm saying is that you don't have to listen to just anyone. And you don't have to take the first volunteer who comes along and says they'll take you on a BASE jump. ]

No. It's (mostly) illegal. The only "need", "must" or "have to" as far as any rule is concerned is, you can't, you shouldn't & you had better not. After that it's a matter of common sense and good vs. bad advice and how to tell the difference. There's nothing that says you couldn't get good heads up instruction on BASE jumping without having skydived. Just as there's nothing stopping you from doing as you damn well please because it is illegal. So shop around, See Marta & Jimmy. Bridge Day? Good luck.

all you did was lick it? So you're a "spitter"?

I'm just surprised anyone bothered to call out the warning, not that anyone was serious about it. Those fires are usually surrounded by beer and whatever else turns up so announcing a warning seems a bit conscientous, clear headed and downright admirable and friendly. Might have been a visitor who called that out. Most members would have preferred to watch the surprised look on an unsuspecting visitor's face than warn anyone. Partly because when we look around the fire, we have a good idea of who migt be tossing something in. So in general we know to back off when they do. It's just that anyone said anything that surprises me. And please, just because Billy emasculated us doesn't mean we can't still be friendly in a Ranch soprt of way. If you liked us once, we're still likeable - to a point.

Of course when some yahoo yelled "Fire in the hole!" We all found out how fast we could move too! QuoteProbably wasn't really a yahoo, but a prized, cherished club member. We avoided yahoos. Kept them out at the door first thing. Could have been the club president. Are you absolutely certain someone yelled "Fire in the hole"? Doesn't seem like any of us to actually yell out a warning that was meant to be taken seriously. False warnings or none, that's more like it. Back when we were a club. Ah, the old days... Now I suppose we're a business. Or, they are the business. We're the cash cows. Moowanga!

Actually, currency is not a requirement. It's a recommendation. You can go twenty years between jumps and as long as you're a current USPA member you can jump at USPA GM DZs. Even without USPA membership you can still jump at many USPA GM DZs if you're a foreign visitor.Your first jump back after twenty years can be a 40 way night freefly skydive while jumping a main you packed yourself twenty years ago. As for licences, they're forever. You can have a licence and stop jumping and still have that same licence for life. There are no time limits or curency limitations on licences. So as gar as what's required and what's not, check the BSR's for what's required, the things that if you don't do you could get booted from the USPA. And know the recommendations, the things that if you don't do you might be seen as a hero by some, death in waiting by others, stupid, dangerous, but not in violation. There are rules and then there are good ideas.

You're doomed as long as you consider that an option.How many times are you going to ask yourself this question? Time to pack it in and do what you're aching to do anyway. Fuck the check, fuck the security, the famiiarity, the everyday-common-tired-blah experience you and a million others share living the same life. Go for a life shared by a precious, beautiful few. Step out of the mundane. Shake up your life. Ask fewer questions before taking action. You know you want this. You found us. You've taken a step. Your friends either don't know you're looking into this or they think you're out of your fucking skull. They would prefer that you stay happy with the doomed life. Time for new friends. No one here thinks your out of your fucking skull. Not for wanting to skydive and work in it and travel... There are other ways we'll think you're out of your fucking skull but that wouldn't be it. So, give notice, get the severence pay - or don't - get to a dz, pony up the cash, get going, learn, learn, learn, stay focused & determined. And we'll see you on the circuit in a year or so. Stop by & say hello. Now get going. You've got work to do.

When I'm dead. And maybe not even then.

"...I don't intend on doing this often, so I figure I'll be safe if I try it once or twice." Now that's an epitaph waiting to be chiseled. Are those famous last words or what? The amazing thing about odds and probabilities and skydiving is that often all you need is once.

Tom Piras Gus Wing Lukas Knuttson Phillipe Vallout Patrick DeGuayardon Scotty Carbone Billy Weber Sally Wenner Roz Tomkins Mike "Maddog" Maguire Amy Chemeleki Jacques Istel Lew Sanborn Leonardo DaVinci Steve Snyder Domina Jalbert Jack Jeffries Norman Kent Deanna Kent Mike "Michigan" Sandberg and a ton I'm snoozing on right now

Much as I love this sport I have to say that it has become in the last 10-15 years or so a fairly consumerist sport. People pay for what they would rather not do themselves and so style, fashion & image are allowed to dictate far more than common sense and safety are. In that mental state one tends to feel as though they have a right to be served and serviced. Which can lead to expecting even your equipment to do your dirty work, i.e. Cypres covering your ass at pull time, audible altimeters covering your ass at pull time, RSL & Skyhook covering your ass at pull time. Basically, there's no excuse for not knowing your gear. You don't need to be a rigger to justify knowledge. And frankly, anyone who is so god damn cavalier as to expect others to know for them, so god damn lax about taking this sport full on by the horns and loving it and knowing all it offers, is just a pile of trouble waiting to hurt someone else. I have no problem with first trying to educate these people and if that fails then asking them to leave, or jump when I'm not around. You know, if this was tiddly-winks I suppose it would be ok to not have a clue as to how the little plastic discs are made. Fascinating, maybe, but not really appropriate to the game at hand. It just occurs to me that this, friends, ain't tiddly-winks.