Joyner

Are the rings on the to of your hip with the leg straps tight or loose? I think I am 5'10" (178 cm, you do the math!), and weigh 156 lbs and I jump a C-17. With my leg straps completely loose, the rig sort of slides down my back a little and pull the hip rings up to the point you are describing. I generaly thighten my leg straps fairly loose. When everything is on comfortably, the rings are close to the "center" of my hip bone, and the laterals perfectly horisontaly from the rig around my waist. But really the only thing that matters is that is feels good. As we are all built differently a C-17 might fit me perfectly and not you, even if we are the same height. I'm sure that there is a C-17 and a C-19 around your DZ somewere. Ask around and see if you can try one on.

The reason they are saying that you should always cut away, is because they are keeping it simple. Saying that you should always cutaway is a way to save precious time lost in desiding back or forth weather to cutaway or not. BUT! If you never deploy your main for some reason, there is really no need or reason to cutaway. But until you feel confident enough in your own ability to handle a high speed malfunction, I would stick to what ever your instructors tell you. Running out of alti? Go straight for silver EVERY time! Funny this question should arise the day after I ALMOST did a reservdeployment without cutting away. I was tracking away from a 6 way, waved off, reached, pulled, but with the PC half way out of the pocket it snagged and my hand slipped. I reached back for it, and of course with half the PC out of the pocket it was flapping in the wind. Had a hard time getting a good grip. All through that 2 second experience my eyes never left my alti, and I made the plan, I keep grabbing for it until 2000 feet and then I go straight to the silver. I got the PC out at about 2500, had a good deployment after that. This plan didn't just come to me in mid emergency. I made that plan up years ago (the plan was about a completely stuck PC, but it still worked well). Morale of the story: Make a plan, repeat and drill that plan over and over. I don't go over every posible type of malfunction every jump, but I do at least one in my head every jump. And I ALWAYS do a few dummy procedures every time. Be prepared in other words. Then it is of course important to reevaluate your plans every no and then, by talking to other jumpers and instructors. If you do change your plan. Make DARN sure that you repeat and drill the new plan.....

So basically we aggree on the same point. People on drugs or people refusing to be tested has no business in taking other peoples lives in their hands!?

This sound to me like you think the line "You either have to be crazy or on drugs to jump out of a perfectly good airplane" is the way the non skydiving population actually thinks of us. It might be so. But why then is it so wrong to try to root out the ones that actually are on drugs, and to show that we as skydivers don't accept that stereotype and try to do something about it? The post regarding that there are ways to beat the system. If the system is not 100% is that reason not do it? Deploying the main does't save 100% of the skydivers. So don't deploy the main! Bad analogy but perhaps still valid in some sense! Reasons for testing being stereotypes, covering your ass as DZO, being a hard ass or whatever, the fact still remains: When you skydive you assume responsability not only for your own life. One argument I've often enough heard from addicts "Why should you tell me what to do with my own life" doesn't apply here! There are others involved!!!

Moreover, I'd say somebody who makes that claim is kidding themselves about what people are really like. If there wasn't a problem (perceived or otherwise) in this area,. and therefore no need fro drug tests, this argument wouldn't even be happening. A person who promotes safety has plenty of integrity if you ask me. I agree a person that promotes safety does have a lot of integrety! I don't know if this i a problem about my english not coming through right. At least in Swedish the word integrity can be used in the sense "I have certain ideals and standards and I stick to them", and integrity in the sense "I shouldn't have to pee in a cup because that is an invasion on my privacy" I was trying to make the point that if integrity in the sense "Invasion of privacy" is more important than safety does have something to hide. The other point was that I am more than ready to sacrifice some of my "privacy" if that promotes safety. I guess a better word than integrity would have been privacy!? Did I come across better now or did I just make my point even more dim?

I'd prefer jumping with a hard ass than with a drug addict any day! If it boils down to safety compared to personal integrity, I'd choose safety any day! I'd say anyone who claims integrity more important than safety, has something to hide! When it comes to safety involving others than yourself, I feel it is up to you to prove that you are fit to perform the task (may it be skydiving, driving, flying or whatever). It isn't (or shouldn't be) up to someone else to prove that you aren't!

I went through S/L as a student. I went through the SL jumps just fine, but when I started to get to the "Short delay" manual jumps I got scared. I deployed just as soon as I was out the door and I knew what was going on. I was scared!! I got stuck around 4000 feet never getting the delay right. The scary feeling never went away, but I didn't give up. After doing about 5 or 6 failed jumps at 4000 with too short delay, I FINALLY got a Jumpmaster who could analyse my problem. He had a look in my logg book and said. "Boy you are faster than a Sherriff in the old west". "Tell you what, why don't you come with us up to 7000 ft?". He took me up there and I kept thinking all the way up "7000 ft I can freefall forever!!! Just cool it with deploying for a while". I got out, made a good exit, leveled out for the first time in freefall. And all of a sudden, it just hit me "I'm freefalling, this is GREAT!!!". Made a nice stable freefall down to 3000ft, deployed. After that there was just no stopping me. I had my A within 3 weeks of that jump. My point beeing. TALK to your instructors, let them know you have a problem. After my experience and after becoming a Jumpmaster I often enough take my 4000ft students up to 5 or 6k, if I see they have a problem with pulling to fast, or deploying in a "de-arched" position still in the relative wind. I feel that taking it just a bit higher allows my students to relax some more and allow themself some time to stabilze if they do a bad exit. Of course I still make them do the 3 sec delay jump, I just go higher as sort of a relaxer, and confidence builder.