skytash

Alan Hewitt used to do some of the co-ordination of arial stunts for the Bond movies. Don't know whether he still does or where he is these days, but the name may help you find out more! tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

when I had less than 100 jumps, Adrian gave me that lecture about not having to turn into wind to land if that meant a low turn and taught me braked turns after having seen me land just once. I know he didn't just teach me things that have since saved my life, but others too. It is just really sad that he won't be around to teach even more people. It makes me more determined to so in his memory. tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

the road thing also has a reason. It comes from the days before cars, when people rode horses. A higher proportion of people are right handed, and wore their swords on the left side to be able to extract it from the holster (prob not right word) with their right hand. By riding on the left side of the roadways, the ends of the swords didn't hit each other when someone came in the opposite direction. Napoleon decided he wanted things different from the English for the French and changed things over. The French could convince the rest of the continent to do things their way which was harder for the English to enforce... tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

Do you live in London or Kent for saying Headcorn is your closest? One of the things you may want to keep an eye on is whether the planes have heaters and doors...(don't know about the Headcorn planes) tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

it's cognitive dissonance. Your sister is bound to learn about it during her Psych classes. I suffer from cognitive dissonance when it comes to smoking. I know it's bad for me, I could get certain lung cancers, most likely will get emphasyma (?sp) as well, but I still do it. It's an interesting feature of human psychology, unfortunately not much by-standers can do about it, either when it comes to smokers or to those choosing the tiny canopy. tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

Rusty is coming over for some FF camps.... tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

echo that tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

A friend of mine who had problems breathing in freefall was told to chew gum as the chewing would stop her from thinking about breathing... guess the choking thing never occured to either of them and she had no problems breathing in freefall after that! tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

the parachute is packed so that it opens relatively slowly, so the overall time it takes to decelarate you from your freefall speed to your under-canopy speed isn't too fast. Sometimes it can be fast and the sudden stop you come to can give whiplash (how the neck was broken) or other sudden movements of your body against the harness. Hence people often preferring 'snively' canopies that take a little longer to open than others. tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

I know someone who broke her neck on a hard opening. Mind you this was many years ago under a round. She stopped jumping after that, both her kids jump and I'm friends with her daughter. She had no spinal cord damage, so limited long term effects. It did freak her out a bit! Another friend of mine broke her sternum on opening... tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

I sort of agree with you, it would be good if every eventuality had been covered in the FJC. However, I wonder whether it could lead to information overload? I often wonder how much of the stuff people are taught in their FJC actually is in a 'readily accessible' place in their mind when they actually jump. I had a malfunction as a student I had never heard about, went back to basics 'is it big, square and controllable', did control checks and decided to cut away. I think we should put more stress on this element than try to talk about all possible eventualities. Doing a 'big square controllable' check should help identify why the main is diving and positioned further forward. tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

Why do you say this. i rely on being able to do this everytime i do a tracking dive. everytime i have relyed on this for tracking purposes i have ended up a long way from everyone else. It's a lot easier to get yourself perpendicular to the jump run when you are doing so straight out of the plane. If you are in a formation, although the organiser will try their hardest to remain on heading along flight-line, but formations can turn, so you may not know what perpendicular to jump run is anymore if you have gone low. tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

there has not been a video pool since I think 98. Each team must bring their own videiot as the video person is now a member of the team. We still use video pools in the UK. tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

and in places like the UK which often has clouds, frequently the only way you can get a jump in, 'cos we don't bust clouds. tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

This is from the WFFC fatality thread in incidents, but I felt it was more appropriate to have this conversation here: Ron had posted: Part of the AFF programme in the UK is a single hop n pop for that very reason (not the spotting actually but the low door fear) mainly to prepare people for the event of a low exit in an aircraft emergency. It is such an integral part of the AFF that I had to do one at the end of my AFF although I moved from the SL system to AFF and already had around 10 jumps from a low altitude on 3, 5 and 10 second delays. The AFF requirement isn't quite the 5 hop n pops Ron is suggesting, but a step in that direction. Is the UK the only place that requires a hop n pop as a final stage of AFF? tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

I did my training at Nethers, so could be considered as biased... I then went to some large US dropzones and was amazed at how professionally things could be run! I moved around the world a little for work, so hadn't been jumping in the UK for a couple of years. Now that I'm back, I thought I'd check out Nethers and Langar, both being dropzones with sensibly sized planes (Caravans) all year round. I have to say, not only did I learn how well organised a dropzone can be run, but so did Nethers. Robin, who runs the show at week-ends, has invested in a computerised manifest system with screens around the DZ (so you don't need to bother the manifesters as much), wireless internet access from your own laptop (for those who have to post between jumps!) and soap in the Ladies (sorry - a bit of an in-joke), so the overall facilities (including hot showers and indoor packing area) are very good. He has also arranged for load organising of all skill levels, with free camera slots for bigger groups, there is free-fly coaching, FS coaching (not just for your FS1), there is a canopy school and if you really want it, we have got a resident style coach if you want to learn more about the classics. Most importantaly it has a cheap bar and good bunkhouse (for those like me too lazy to put up a tent). I found that there is less politics here than at some other DZs in the UK, mainly because a lot of the jobs are done by the military, so the rivalry for who does (or doesn't!) do the necessary things (re-fuelling planes) just gets sorted out behind the scenes. Not all dropzones can be all things to all people, so if it's not for you, we don't mind and hope you are happy and safe somewhere else. If you do like it, we want to see you again and again to be able to watch you learn more about your chosen (or changed to) discipline and improve yourself the same way us regulars on the DZ do.

Update on the Milton Keynes Tunnel here: http://www.skyventure.co.uk/skyventure.html?/latest_information.html and here: http://www.airkix.com/ tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

the whole point of me accepting the invitation I got for a wedding this week-end, and therefore not being able to join a scratch team was to ensure the good weather was up north and the bad weather down south at this wedding! I don't understand tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

btw you don't HAVE to do warp to get your FS1. Some people do Skydive University, others follow other programmes. Warp is one of the systems put together detailing all the bits you would need to learn to confidently do a 4 pt 4 way and dive to pin for your FS1. Saying that, people getting a FS Coach rating tend to refer to themselves as warp instructors (which was the old name for the same rating) whether they follow the warp system strictly or not. tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

Even though I'm a pom? I feel honoured and I think my cousin will be very happy as not many of her folks from the old country are likely to come over. I'll start looking at airfares now! tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

One of my cousins is getting married in Melbourne in February 2006. Are there any boogies/events likely to be happening around that time anywhere is Oz? I'm trying to work out whether there is anything to make trip to Oz a bit more worthwhile than just a week-end of a wedding! tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

I know that only because someone is from a place which so far hasn't been attacked by terrorists doesn't mean they aren't affected. I was amazed by the different places in the world I was contacted to confirm I was ok, and those who have died and were injured are bound to have friends all over the world who were worried about them, and plenty of people were visiting London at the time like you were. What I was trying to say, using a different example, is that it is very easy for me to comment on how terrible the deaths in Iraq are (which they are), but I will never know how the friends and family of a serviceman feel everytime there is a report on the news that someone was killed there and therefore feel I'm not in a position to be much support or comfort to them. tash edited to add: Perhaps I'm just too cynical to believe that all of the people on that website understand what people travelling in London are dealing with, doesn't mean I don't appreciate that people are still coming to visit and just getting on with life. Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

Another thing may be the extending the risk business that Bill Booth often mentions when talking about mini-rings or collapsible pilot chutes. As soon as he designs something to make things safer, someone designs a modification which is 'cooler' but unfortunately not as safe. For some reason the cooler one is what you see most of on the DZ! tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

Being a non-afraid Londoner who still uses the tube every morning to get to work, I have to say I can't make up my mind on this one. On the one hand, it is good to see that lots of people are supporting us, on the other hand, messages from some places have more value than others. Spaniards from Madrid (Madridians?), New Yorkers, people who had been targets of the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion, not the airforce!) and ETA are more powerful voices of support to me, as these are people who have also just got up in the morning and carried on getting things done like most Londonders. Messages from New Zealand feel hollow, no matter how well meaning they are. I doubt that people in Aukland sit looking at the plastic bag the person next to them on the bus put on the floor hoping for their own life that the person picks it up again when getting off the bus. However those Madridians, New Yorkers, Basques and Germans do make me feel that I'm not the only person unable to ignore sirens while sitting on the bus or walking on the pavement the way I used to, hence make me feel more normal and more determined to keep getting on with life. tash and some pretty good artwork on some of them... Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

Just wanted to say thanks to people at Nethers, I haven't done a full count yet, but I sold approximately £200 worth this week-end and I know that C. sold a whole bunch too! tash Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe