freakflyer9999

I've been involved with aviation in one form or another all of my life. My dad was a military/commercial helicopter pilot and then later an airplane pilot. I received my skydiving license first, then my private pilot. Each has its own rewards, but skydiving gives me a greater sense of freedom and helps me to clear my mind better. For Most the Sky is the Limit, For a Few the Sky is Home.

Sixteen years ago, I quit cold turkey. I threw a whole carton in the trash and haven't touched one since. I wish I could say that the cravings have gone away, but they haven't. I only occasionally have cravings now, but I still have them a couple of times a month. Good Luck

February 27, 1994. Ground Temperature 34 degrees. Static line from 3500 feet.

I had a similar experience several years ago. I made 5 jumps that day with a mild head cold. On the first two jumps my ears stopped up, but cleared when I got to the ground. On the third jump the right ear didn't clear. For the next two weeks I had almost total hearing loss in my right ear. Then some of the hearing returned, but as confirmed by a hearing test, I now had only 65% hearing in my right ear. This continued for about two years, when I decided to schedule an appointment with an ear doctor. About two weeks before the appointment I heard a loud pop and my hearing returned. The doctor confirmed that I now had normal hearing in all the normal ranges, but still had a total loss in the high frequency ranges. I learned an invaluable lesson. Do Not Jump With A Head Cold.

They haven't deleted it. http://www.relativeworkshop.com/pdf_files/09101.pdf

You think that it was just an accident that that is their initials????

I'll second this. Skydive Temple is one of the friendliest small dropzones I've been to. On three different occasions I have visited Skydive Temple. I was by myself on two of those visits and I took a friend on one trip. Every time I've been there the DZO has made it a point to introduce me to other jumpers with similar skill levels to jump with. The first time I showed up, I had a brand new "A" license and no gear. He introduced me to another jumper with a spare rig and got me into the air. Great place to jump.

I found that when I had all of my teeth pulled and starting wearing dentures that my nail biting went away. With dentures it is very difficult to have the control needed to bite your nails. So just have all of your teeth pulled.

Congratulations. I know how hard it can be. I quit a 3 pack a day habit over 16 years ago. Unfortunately that was about 16 inches and 120 lbs. ago as well. Blue Skies

I used to have software that would take a picture and convert it to a stereogram. I have no idea where I got it from. Does anyone know where I can find a freeware program that does this?

Don't do it. If you are that unsure of yourself don't jump without the radio until you are confident that you can handle it. The instructor on the radio shouldn't give you any directions unless you appear to be doing something unsafe, but wear the radio until you have experienced landings with winds from various directions and speeds. There is no rush to get rid of the radio. Review your landing procedures with your instructor before each jump. Have fun. Blue Skies.

There were three of us in my packing class. The instructor had assisted us with a couple of student rig pack jobs when he pulled out his personal rig for us to practice on. He then went up stairs to work with an AFF student. The three of us packed it together, but we weren't exactly sure about a few things. When the instructor came down stairs, we were expecting him to dissect the pack job and to tell us what we did wrong. Instead he asked us a couple of questions which we answered affirmatively, then he put the rig on and headed to the plane. All three of us running behind, begging him not to jump our pack job. We watched and prayed as he jumped. It opened without a hitch. His confidence in his ability to train us and to pack his reserve, lead to our confidence in our ability to pack. KG

Is there a FAR that says it has to be sealed? The FAR says it has to be repacked. When a mechanic performs maintenance on an airplane, he doesn't seal the engine shut. Why would this be any different? The mechanic makes the appropriate entries in the aircraft's logbooks, the same as a rigger makes the appropriate entry on your reserve data card and in his logbook.

When I was your age I would have forged their signature or used a fake ID. Of course that would be wrong and you shouldn't do either.

He made a decision??? After "attempting"..? 105 states you will make contact before jumping. Attempt wasn't in the reg..... And I would hope he was broadcasting over CTAF, although that's another issue. As you might surmise, I agree with DiverDriver on this issue. I appreciate your response. Buck Situations aren't always black and white. If I had to pick sides I would side with Chris. If you will read my earlier post in this thread that describes a near miss I had with an American Eagle flight, there are circumstances that aren't entirely black and white. The individual controller involved had taken it upon himself to shutdown our skydiving by not responding to our pilot's attempts to contact him. As a jumper I wasn't aware that ATC contact had not been made until later, but should one individual be able to shutdown an operation? The load Chris described was already at altitude and he used his best effort under the circumstances to contact ATC. He obviously felt that he had let them know that he was there and intended to release jumpers. ATC did broadcast communications directed at the pilot, so communications were established. His decision to drop the jumpers may not have been by the book, nor was it in the best interest of safety, but he made a decision as PIC. This is what every pilot is charged by the FAA to do.

I had a little over 200 jumps and my D license when I quit jumping in 1999. In 2000 I made a memorial jump on the anniversary of my best friend's bounce. This year I've made 5 jumps and I'm in the process of buying gear to get back in the air. In those 5 years there wasn't a day went by that I didn't think about skydiving. I kept in touch with a lot of my friends at the dropzone. I read dropzone.com on a regular basis. I stayed current in my mind at least if not in my muscles. A couple of months ago I sat through a modified first jump course, that was primarily an oral quiz of what I knew and a little discussion on a few techniques/issues. All 5 of my jumps have been controlled stable exits with solid control during freefall. At least as good as when I was jumping regularly. Was I a skydiver during those 5 years? YES!

We all have responsibility to see and avoid, but IFR traffic is under the control of ATC who has the responsibility to keep the aircraft in its charge clear of non-IFR traffic. Had this aircraft not released a jumper, there wouldn't be any potential FAR violations. Since he did release a jumper, he had the requirement to establish communications with ATC, which he did not do successfully.

As a VFR pilot I have only a basic knowledge of holding patterns and where they are located. With only my VFR charts I have no way of knowing where you are holding. As a beginning IFR student, I do know how to find this info, but do you really expect VFR pilots to look up this info? Obviously this is a special case of a jump pilot operating in a fixed area. The DZ should have knowledge of the airspace and make sure that all of their pilots are aware of this information.

Several years ago I had a similar incident but with an American Eagle flight. Our 3 way fell past the American Eagle aircraft at a distance of 1-200 feet. We had seen him in enough time to turn and wave as we went by. This situation was caused by several factors. 1st - Our DZ had been arguing with the local ATC over airspace issues which apparently had made the particular controller involved think it was ok to ignore our pilot's attempts to contact ATC. 2nd - The American Eagle flight was approaching from an angle (our 10 o'clock) and altitude (6000') which limited my (spotter) ability to see it from the door. I wasn't aware at exit time that the pilot had been unable to contact ATC. I'm not sure that at the time it would have prevented me from jumping.

Who says that he didn't check NOTAMs? NOTAMs don't prohibit a pilot from flying through or into the area and us skydivers are extremely difficult to see. I know where every dropzone in my part of the country is. I still fly into and out of those areas. Many times I've been approaching my home DZ and heard the jump plane call jumpers away. I know what I'm looking for and where and still I rarely actually see the jumpers. As for the pilot involved in the original post, he definitely should have made the appropriate announcements and contact with ATC. Not doing so is inexcusable.

Ok. I left before the last load Sunday. What happened????????? Kenny G.

[reply IMHO it is extremely poor judgement for anyone to routinely jump without an altimeter other than one's own visual sense. I just recently returned to skydiving after a long layoff. I'm still putting together my gear and only a week or so ago purchased an altimeter. I have made 5 jumps since I started back and 3 of those have been without an altimeter. I borrowed an altimeter from the DZO for my recurrency jump, primarily because he said I had to. The next 3 jumps were from 5-6000 feet with openings around 4000. I didn't use an altimeter, nor did I need one. I simply counted while I held a steady heading. My most recent jump was from 10500 and I did wear a recently purchased altimeter on this jump. I would not have personally considered jumping from full altitude without an altimeter. In the past I wore two altimeters plus an audible. I primarily referred to my wrist mount, but I also wore a chest mount which was oriented so that it was easily readable by others that I was jumping with. The audible was set below my intended opening altitude as a final warning until I started freeflying, then I started setting it for break-off altitude. I have jumped without an altimeter on other jumps where I had to rely on the other jumper to be altitude aware for me. I informed the other jumper that I did not have an altimeter and that I was relying on them. Obviously, I only did this with people that I trusted explicitly. I have also jumped with one individual who never wears an altimeter. He has 12000+ jumps and simply doesn't need one. His eyes are his altimeter. I've even made a night jump with him when he didn't wear his own altimeter. Personally I wouldn't have done this, but it was his call. He did keep his eyes within inches of my wrist mount that entire jump though. I think that each individual needs to assess the type of jumping that he does and make an informed decision. I don't jump CRW nor do I know many CRW jumpers, but I don't see much reason for them to use an altimeter either. Obviously there are emergency situations that an altimeter would be useful, but still I think each jumper should make an informed decision. KG.

I've jumped one here in the US. The airworthiness certificate was restricted to "Exhibition" or something like that, so we made practice jumps in preparation for "Exhibitions". They even shot an episode of "Walker Texas Ranger" with a skydiving scene out of the plane. I got to meet Chuck Norris's stunt double, Kenny Gibson. I'll tell you this much though, it was slow. We didn't even have a full load and I don't think we were able to get 300 FPM climb out of it. The first time I jumped it, the pilot threw all of the fun jumpers out at 4K so that he could get the stunt double up before sunset. KG

I've been on both sides of the lending/borrowing situation. I once loaned my rig to a rigger who wanted to jump it for a demo. He returned it packed with a spinning malfunction. Obviously I didn't trust him to then repack my reserve, but of course neither did he offer. I was due for a repack within a week anyway, so no big deal. My regular rigger had it repacked within an hour and had me back to jumping. Within the past few weeks I asked someone I had met through an internet classified if I could test jump a rig he was selling. Turns out that we both work at the same place, but had never met before. He let me borrow the rig while I get recurrent after a long layoff. Due to weather it took several weeks for me to even get a jump on it, then the reserve was due so I paid to have it repacked and asked if I could keep it for a few more weeks. I have decided not to buy the rig, so yesterday while putting the last jump I intended to on the rig I damaged (dime sized hole) the reserve pin flap. I immediately called the owner and I've already made arrangements to have it repaired to the owners satisfaction. I wouldn't hesitate to loan my gear to someone that I know would make things right, but it is hard to tell who that may be nowadays. KG

I don't know why video would be a bad idea. Of course, just asking your JM to follow you out would work as well. I found that the best solution for me when I was a student was to ARCH. This solved virtually every stability problem I could come up with. I'm just getting back into the sport after a long layoff and yesterday I had to rediscover this simple plan. I have made 3 stable exits in the past few weeks, but yesterday, I purposely exited unstable. Since I'm a rather large guy with a built-in arch (50 in. waist) I am usually rock solid, but I guess that I had de-arched some and was tumbling and spinning at the same time. I had to intentionally arch hard, which resulted in my immediately stabilizing on a constant heading. If a hard arch doesn't fix the bill, then make sure that you look at the position of your hands and do a toe tap to make sure everything else is symmetrical. If all else fails, have someone exit with you, with or without video and tell you what looks wrong. KG