vskydiver

Well, that depends on how you look at it I guess. Some days he might feel otherwise. He does get free jumpsuits! Hopefully that makes up for it a little bit.

That scale looks a little on the high side if not correct. Speaking from the wife's point of view on the pay scale... They don't pay him enough for what he does. He has awards hanging on the wall for saving lives in extremely sticky situations while at the scope. John takes a great deal of pride for doing a good job and doing it right and making it as easy as possible for the pilots that he serves. He enjoys his job. He looks forward to going into work every day. The big stress however is the FAA. He doesn't enjoy the FAA. That's been getting harder and harder to deal with over the years. He can't get time off a lot of the time. He has to work a rotating schedule. He sometimes has to work grave yard shifts and then turn around and go back to work 8 hours later. They took away all their incentives and perks. They cut their pay scales. The FAA states that controllers don't have to work when tired. However, in reality, the controllers are told that being tired is not justification for missing a shift. John has even had to work when he's sick occasionally. If he does call in sick they give him the third degree, they want to know the nature of his illness and if he's seeking a Dr. and what medicine he's taking etc. They determine if he is actually sick enough to stay home. Pretty soon it's going to be mandatory over time to make up for those lost positions. Again, it won't matter if you are tired, you have to be there. Recently they even had a trainee working the planes that had a speech impediment. How desperate is the FAA that they are hiring people like that? How comfortable does that make you feel knowing that? No they don't pay these guys enough. They start them out making next to nothing doing highly skilled, stressful jobs keeping everyone out there that flies safe. And they get hardly anything at all for doing the job they do. It's a good thing John likes his job.

Answering for JohnMitchell since he's standing right here.... Way back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, skydiving wasn't as expensive as it is now. There wasn't anything called "Tandem" or "AFF". It was all static line. And we liked it! First jump course was $30 and his first rig was $125. Started working as a jumpmaster when he had 47 jumps and has been working in the sport ever since. Skydiving is a break even sport now. Work to jump. I (vskydiver) on the other hand, took my first jump course (static line) when I was 16. Met the afore mentioned JohnMitchell who was my instructor and he paid for everything after that. 25 years and 4 kids later we are still jumping.

OMG! If I just had a quarter for every time I've heard someone say that about me. OK, you can cremate me too and whoever is left can mix our ashes together.

Is #14 Broke?

Why couldn't you call Reflex and give them the serial numbers and everything ask them who purchased the rig. I'm sure they would still have all that information wouldn't they?

[reply My grave tombstone will say... "I told you I didn't feel well." I love that! Good one.

That boy lost his undies! Is #11 RevJim? He was talking about going camando a while ago...

I hope he stows the reserve handle back in it's pocket before it gets snagged on something.

Yeah, I can imagine that it might be really dangerous, but that video makes it look pretty fun. I guess that is what humor is all about huh? I still want to get up to that DZ sometime and jump there. The people look like they'd be a lot of fun.

I almost wish I could go back to being a student again jumping out of the 182 and see how fast the pilot would shoved me out the door. I was always so careful with that switch. Now it looks like fun! (just kidding of course!)

Ouch! I hope you feel better soon!

up and down, up and down....

Goober actually made that video and sent it to me. I love it. He's very talented. Kinda makes me want to go to his DZ and jump out of his really cool jumpship huh? I'm totally going to have to make it up there one of these first days.

What I liked about this film is that he actually had good body position for flying. I remember when Superman first came out in the theaters and seeing Superman stick his arms straight out and fly like that and saying, "that's not how you fly!" At least Iron man put his arms back as if he could actually fly.

The pictures are there. What are you talking about?

Yipee Derick! Way to go buddy! When and where was this? You should have told us and we would have totally gone and cheered and clapped! That would have been a blast. That is so awesome! Give Derick a big hug for me!

Thanks! People are always asking me how I can skydive if I'm afraid of heights. I've figured out how to describe what skydiving is like so they will understand that heights don't really factor into it. I usually start off with: "You've been up in a commercial airliner and looked down haven't you? Were you afraid up there? No. It's because you are so high up that heights are no longer an issue." Then I go into what it feels like to skydive and how I can do that, but I'm not able to climb a ladder.

Have you ever rolled down your car window when you are going 80 mph on the freeway and stuck your hand out the window? Hear that wind? Feel all that wind pressure against your hand blowing it back? Now imagine sticking your whole body out there. When you jump that wind feels like it's holding you up and it feels like you're floating. The ground does NOT rush up at you. Your stomach does NOT feel like it's sinking. It doesn't feel like you are falling at all. You are floating up there with the best view in the world and you are flying above it. That is what skydiving feels like.

I used to have to hike my leg straps back up before I pulled all the time. (wave off, reach with both hands and yank leg straps back into place, then pull.) I wear slick suits and even when the leg straps are tight they still fell down. I always wondered if it would break your leg if they didn't get pulled back up. Yikes! A couple years ago I sewed a strap between them so they don't slip anymore. I did that when I almost fell out of the harness on opening one time. I'm pretty sure my legs would get broken if I fell out of the harness. I really recommend everyone sewing or tying your leg straps together.

I do have my own crab net ya know.

I can tell you from my experience, if the suit is loose it's slower. The tighter the suit the faster it is. I have several suits and a few of them are made out of the same fabric. Stretch vinyl for instance... You would think they would be fast no matter what, but one of my stretch vinyl suits is a little looser than the others and it's noticeably slower. I've compared this with my suits made out of pack cloth and also slick nylon taffeta material. I get the same results. The suit isn't fast unless it's tight. So the answer to your question would be, yes. To slow yourself down, put a little bagginess in the suit. Depending on how much you wanted to slow down is how much bag to put in it. You might have to jump the suit a few times to see where and how much bag and adjust it afterwards. I'd recommend putting more bag in it than you think because it's easy to take out and hard to put back in.

Took the kids to see this tonight. It was very entertaining. The kids loved it.

SO when are we going fishing and crabbing??? Fishing and crabbing?

Congrats Pat! Let me know if you'll be up in my neck of the woods. Kapowsin Air Sports has free coach jumps on Thursdays. (you have to pay for your jump, not the coaching) If you ever want to do that I can meet you out there and we can get a bit of coaching in. We could have you all ready for LP in no time. Kapowsin also has a very nice Turbine Otter we jump out of. If you haven't jumped from one yet you really should give it a try.