champu

ah! yet another thing I didn't think about. How many people who learned via aff can say with a straight face that they know how to spot?

I learned via static line and I feel good about the program, either way you end up doing a number of coached jumps to get through your freefall proficiency requirements. With static line you do get more time under canopy while being pretty closely monitored by an instructor, and as someone mentioned earlier, most people hurt themselves under canopy, not in free fall. I'd say quality is pretty much a wash as long as you have good instructors and a dropzone that actually takes pride in the "A" stamps they give out. oh right, and (at least at my dropzone) the total cost of the static line program is about half as much as AFF /edit: and static line jumps definitely teach you about line twists.

yeah, the first thousand feet are sometimes a little edgy. But I have quite a bit of faith in our pilot. Usually I kinda zone out thinking about my jump once we start our taxi. when I snap out of it we're at 6000' that or I like it when one of the tandom videographers passes me their helmet if I'm by the door to get a shot of the take off

Archway Skydiving Center - Vandalia, IL Skydive Palmbeach - Pahokee, FL Yeah, so the views in south florida are a little bit more interesting than south-central illinois /edit: I can't spell

I dunno with the reserve cable cut, maybe if I had a reserve handle and I set the cypres for some extra altitude. I know this defeats the psychological experiment so (admittedly, without the actual offer on the table) I'm going to say no.

this happened when I was actually a student, not to me though but I was on the load. I was on static line progression getting set for my first clear and pull, I was going to be the second one out of the 182 so I was sitting behind the pilot, a great view for all this. Jumper #1 goes to climb out, looses his footing and almost falls off the plane, but is still holding the strut with one hand. He muscles his other arm back up to the strut and pulled himself back up onto the step. Then he proceedes to maneuver his way to the edge of the strut and get into a hanging position, then looks back at the instructor to get the go signal like nothing had happened. At this point I forget I'm about to do my first freefall and just start laughing hysterically. After getting the signal and letting go of the strut, the student dearched and dumped on his back. one of his line sets wrapped around his shoe and his parachute deployed in a slight turn with him hanging upside down underneath it. He kicked out of his shoe and got flipped right side up, and had an otherwise uneventful canopy ride. After his exit the jumpmaster signaled to the pilot to circle around so she could watch and make sure he get his foot unstuck. At this point I suddenly remember I'm doing my first freefall and start worrying, asking everyone frantically if the guy was okay. I was assured he was and I was able to make my first freefall just fine.

I would definitely suggest you have some experienced packers show you in a more hands on way tips for doing this. I'm not sure it's a good idea to grab a sentence or two from a bunch of different people on a forum and try to run with it. Then again I'm kinda a visual type of person when I learn things so ymmv.

yeah same here. What personality do you have if you always seem to fall asleep on one arm and it goes numb?

that was brutal the bear needs to practice his TLFs better

well you could always whor- oh, right... sorry.

well the way I see it, to not go skydiving tomorrow would be a slap in the face to those of us going to class/work tomorrow. you don't want to slap us all in the face do you?

Yeah, he has a psych degree specializing in thrill-seeking, I thought that was kinda funny for someone who test-jumps canopies My understanding of the risks involved changed quite a bit before and after I started jumping. I knew about what the fatality/injury rate was, but I didn't really know the main causes. Between the FJC and reading incident reports though, I think I got a better feel about the things that really made the sport dangerous.

"So what is it you do for a living?" "Well, you see, I look for products that don't explicitly suggest against putting them in your ass, and then I go ahead and do it. Then I sue the company that made the product for damages." "I see, so what kinds of products do you target?" "Explosives mainly, they generally have the best payout. But I also use office supplies, baked goods, and really any number of things from the local hardware store."

But the firecracker warning said "do not hold in hand" it didn't mention anything about not sticking it in my ass!

I smoke occasionally, but not at the dropzone, in anyone's house (including my own), or at restaurants. I don't smoke when I'm driving. On a long road trip I'll stop maybe every other rest stop I get to and have a soda and a cigarette, that and walking about every so often helps keep me awake. this photo was taken outside my neighbor's apartment a year or two ago. /edit: I also don't take smoke breaks at work... Although it matters less with a desk job where you have x amount of work to do regardless of how long you're there, I remember working retail with people that would go have a smoke break what seemed like every 15 minutes leaving me with all the customers. That really annoyed me.

I remember doing poised exits was goofy for me, and I tended to "run" for a second on the hill apparently to try and get back on the plane, hilarious to watch if your coach has video. Diving came easier to me for some reason... something about it felt more natural, I don't know if that makes sense. Most people still learn something on every exit they make.

oh no, I take no offense, as I said I'm still a newbie. I've not jumped a pullout but I saw someone in florida using one and inquired about it since throw out and ripcord were all I'd seen before. It was on a javelin so it had velcro. if someone has made a secure tuck-in pud that's great. It just seemed to me it's main advantages were preventing mals that were generally caused by not paying attention to things like closing loop size/wear. and could be avoided. But I guess at the end of the day, if your rig has one less thing to go wrong regardless of how careful you are that's a good thing right?

my mom (who is paranoid about thievery as she's had her car broken into for some of the stupidest things) was critical of me getting an iPass (automatic toll payment thing in Illinois) because it wasn't good to have anything worth stealing mounted on your windshield at all times. I told her that if someone stole my car the first thing they'd do is take the iPass out and throw it in the street to avoid accidentally being tracked by it. maybe some criminals aren't that bright...

I got stuff in this order 1 - goggles 2 - helmet 3 - real logbook after student one was full 4 - alti 5 - rig 6 - prolly going to pick up a suit very soon 7 - may get an audible later At my dropzone there is an instructor about my size who has a bunch of various old suits he lets me borrow, so I've been trying a few things to get a good feel for how I fall first, and jumping with people to get feedback. Then I can get a suit that gives me the best control, range of speed, etc.

I'm still a newbie so take what I have to say about more advanced deployment methods with a grain of salt, but here's my thinking. lower profile, avoiding snag, horseshoe, and PCIT mals seem to be the main reasons for using a pull-out over throw-out, but at the expense of adding a floating handle mal, a more confusing pack-job, and re-introducing velcro when container manufacturers have gone through all the trouble they have to get rid of it, seems to me like you're just shuffling problems around. To me the problems it aims to fix can be solved just as easily by performing the final stages of your pack job with care, something people should be doing anyway.

I made this one sometime back...

yes. do mention it to them. but be sure to bring it up before they order the invitations

Good: Was at the dropzone all weekend Bad: it was raining most of the time so jumps were limited Good: being back at college Bad: going to pesky classes Good: college girls Bad: ... sorry, still thinking about college girls, give me a minute

mirage G3 + sabre135 + dash-mz135 + cypres = 19 pounds I have a hackey handle, hook knife and rsl if you want to get picky

I've only been around him a few times, the last of which was sometime in june at skydive palm beach (which is still around dispite rumors, it was skydive america that closed down, and from what I hear, rightfully so) he took off for europe sometime around then and I saw stefania last a couple weeks after that. My personal experience is that he was very approachable. He was just hanging out with the rest of us chatting with the family members of tandom students. watching the videos of people taking the AD tests is fun too.