skybytch

Enjoy every minute, Dave. They grow up way too fast.

Well, yeah, you can't do stuff like that anymore. You have kids and a real job and shit. Sucka.

Used to be that people answered their fucking phones when I drunk dialed them. It's the middle of the day on a Saturday, people! You can't all be at the dropzone. Or is this not dorkzone anymore?

Perhaps it's just me, but that seems to be a strange thing to be proud of...

You broke. You got metal. It's gonna randomly hurt for the rest of your life. You could have been smart like me and not had insurance when you broke. That way you wouldn't have metal in your leg. Dumb ass. (smiley indicates that this is not a personal attack. Even if it is.)

Ask USPA that question. They require that jumpers practice several things that can hurt them if they want a license. Water training, night jumps, landing from half brakes, landing crosswind...

So glad we did. It was perfect, and the people who jump there are part of why.

I love that dropzone.

Hopefully, yes. My intent is to practice it up high and then try it under controlled conditions - ie with a steady 5-ish wind and into the pea gravel, probably on a hop and pop. The breeze will reduce my forward speed (making me more confident), the peas will reduce potential impact (making me more confident should I stall it) and having no one else in the air will allow me to focus on what I'm doing. The only one of these variables that I can control in a situation where I HAVE to land with rears is where I land. The first time I HAVE to land with rears, I'd much rather have the confidence that comes with having done it before as I'm coming in on final. USPA's B license canopy course requires that jumpers plan and execute a deliberate crosswind approach and landing. Done incorrectly, a crosswind landing could cause injury. They also want jumpers to land from half brakes - ie a controlled crash that can easily result in injury. Apparently the risks involved in doing those things under controlled conditions are outweighed by the value of having done them under controlled conditions prior to HAVING to do them on a "fun" jump. Since it's not required that anybody ever land on rears (you could choose to not flare should you lose a steering line), I think the risk/reward decision is a personal one on this.

Here's a summing up of the risks - you can do everything right and still die. You can control many of the variables and skydive "conservatively", but you cannot remove all the risks. If you're okay with that - if you've got things handled so that your son will still have a good childhood should you die tomorrow - go skydive. If you aren't, don't skydive. Packing errors can cause malfunctions. Your body position on deployment can cause malfunctions. The position of the stars in relation to the planet can cause a malfunction (okay, maybe not, but that's as good an explanation as any for some of them). Malfunctions happen to even the most anal safety nazis, and it's possible that some of them could put even someone on a lightly loaded, "entry level" canopy into a fast spin.

I'm not sure that landing on rears is a dumb thing to do. I've never done it... and it is something that I need to add to my canopy skills tool box. I'm not a swooper and never will be. So why do I need to do this? My current plan for a broken steering line is to cut away, assuming I'm above my decision altitude when I discover that it is broken. What if I'm at 500 feet when it breaks? Practicing it up high and then doing it under controlled conditions isn't dumb. Risky, perhaps, but not dumb. Dumb is what I and many others are already doing - hoping that we never find ourselves in a situation where we have to flare using only our rears.

The answers to these questions are in the SIM. You do have one, don't you? You have read it, haven't you?

You're posting in a topical forum. Attempts to be humorous are frowned upon in a topical forum. Was a time when a post like yours would have disappeared within minutes... it really sucks that that time is long past.

A noob should take a canopy control course.

If you are hoping to find used gear that will allow you to skydive like you bought new, look for date of manufactures no older than the mid-90's. Containers built prior to 1993 may not be AAD ready. Containers built prior to about 1996 are generally not freefly safe. Both can be perfectly airworthy but jumping them can mean spending a bit more to make it AAD ready and not freeflying with it. Main canopies built prior to about 1990 are not made of zero porosity fabric and are older designs - they're safe to jump but you don't want to load them over 1.0. Most reserve canopies built prior to the mid-90's are also of older design; again, they are safe to jump but shouldn't be loaded over 1.0. And you definitely don't want any AAD built prior to about 2000 - a Cypres built prior to 2000 is a door stop, and the only modern AAD design available in the 1990's that you'd want to jump today was the Cypres.

In some cases (ie at some boogies), the experience requirements are due to the increased possibility of an off-field landing.

Electronic music - techno, trance, dubstep. If you don't listen to electronic music, you aren't a skydiver.

A very good point. What are the consequences for violating a BSR? A verbal slap on the wrist - maybe. While that may have worked fine 20 years ago, it doesn't work so well today. I know this is a slippery slope, but I'm betting this is just the beginning of much, much more FAA oversight of skydiving.

Perhaps because there is no one there who does canopy coaching?

Your instructor should be able to answer that question...

Canopy instruction is great. More importantly, plan to actually PRACTICE what you learn after you learn it. It doesn't become muscle memory after doing it once in the course and never practicing it again. If you want to stay safe, don't fly a wingloading over 1:1 regardless of how many jumps you have, and don't let others pressure you into downsizing if you have no desire to go faster. At 1200 jumps, I fly at about a 1:1 wingloading. It only limits me from jumping in windy conditions, which I choose not to jump in regardless of what size canopy I fly. So far, choosing a conservative canopy and wingloading has helped keep me from breaking bones in the landing area.

Thank you. Anything over medium is a waste of good meat. Heh. I said good meat.

While you'll likely get some answers here, you should know that you can call or email Bev and get answers directly from the source. After all, she knows her suit options better than anyone else. And I'm not being an asshole, really... there is a Bev at Bev Suits and she really will answer your questions about the suits they make.

Edibles aren't recommended for cookouts. It's hard to know how strong they are and if you eat too much, you go to sleep and miss all the fun. Oh, wait, you weren't referring to that type of edibles, were you?

Absolutely. Why? Cuz that's when shit starts gettin' real. "Swimming" is common enough that the word is often followed with "like a first jump student". Jump with as many different instructors as you can. Why? A number of reasons. If you hope to do more in skydiving than solos, you need to become comfortable jumping with pretty much anybody. Start building that comfort level now by not limiting yourself to jumping with one particular person. By insisting on only jumping with one particular instructor, you are limiting when you can jump to the times that person is available. You may be limiting yourself to one jump a day if that instructor is super busy doing tandems - or no jumps that day if your favorite instructor happens to be off doing other things (some do have lives outside the dz). Be open to learning from a variety of people. That other instructor you don't even know might be the one who has the little pearl of wisdom that you need, the little bit of information that your preferred instructor doesn't know or isn't able to get across to you. And the biggest reason to jump with more than one instructor through your student jumps? The more people you've jumped with, the more people on the dz that know your name and who might be happy to jump with you later. That's important in a highly social sport like skydiving.