peacefuljeffrey

I don't find that I care one way or the other. People who want to jump, jump. I don't understand "wanting" to see more of any "racial group" jump. For one thing, I would prefer a world in which we all just see each other as other-freakin'-human-beings. Why bother paying attention to the ethnic or racial breakdown of who does what? On the one hand, we're supposed to treat each other without distinction based on race, and on the other hand, we're focusing on it? What's the deal with that?! I would go as far as saying that I disagree with a policy that seeks to artificially induce those of any race, ethnicity or culture to do things that they are not naturally just deciding to do on their own. If whites don't want to do this, so be it. If blacks don't want to do this, so be it. It's not legitimate to say that such and such race is "underrepresented" in a given field. "There aren't a lot of black architects. They're 15% of the population but only 1.7% of the architects..." SO? What drives a so-called "need" for the number of people in any given field or activity to be matched to their percentage of the overall population? YES, I have noticed a dearth of blacks in skydiving. But there's no mandate to go out and recruit blacks to skydiving. They know it exists. If they want to, they can come and try it. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I work with a black girl (she's about the "whitest" black girl you could meet, though, and a lesbian on top of that!) and she said essentially the same thing, and so did a black guy I work with. They like to make a sort-of joke about it, but they insist that black people don't do stuff they could get killed at. Yeah, so that's why she bought herself a NINJA 650! (Well, it was stolen after just a month, so she's back to where the most death-defying thing she does is drive on freakin' I-95...) That said, I saw some black people out at Clewiston last Sunday, and I think one or several of them had just done tandems, not sure. (At that airport, there's really nothing else that they could have been doing out there...) Blue skies, -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

It was 1991, I was 19 and in college, home on break. I looked up Skydive Long Island (then located at Spadaro Airport, not Calverton as it is now), and made plans for taking the static line course. I knew I could not afford to go all the way through license training, that was for sure, but I really wanted to see what skydiving felt like. I LOVED it! I did another static line in Duanesburg, NY, as well as AFF 1, and then two more static lines in 1996 back on L.I. I didn't get to jump again until August 2003, when I went through AFP, and then got my A license. I wish I had been able to be jumping all this time, but anyway it was worth waiting for.

Hehheh...heh...heh... He said, "get off"! Hehheh...heh! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Heehee! Well... considering I got my first KissPass on Sunday, we missed that one... Woulda been nice to get that KissPass on a nude skydive! Hell no, honey, you ain't gonna spectate unless by spectate you mean participate!! LOL! Okay, maaaan, someone's got to let me know when there's a planned naked jump around me in Florida. I wanna get in on this riiiiide! Z-Hills? Sebastian? Clewiston? Blue skies, -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I've never been on a naked skydive, but I think I really want to try it. Just curious who has and who has not, and what your feelings are, about it. Post pics if you have 'em, and please, if you have jumped naked, tell us the story (stories) of it.

Really? Likewise my first naked jump. I want to do that really bad. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Get yourself a glow altimeter, like the Aliti-2 Galaxy, which has a glow face that is really good at night, very readable. (Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to have an audible, too.) On my one night jump, I had a small glowstick taped to my regular altimeter, and it was not very good at all. A glow-face altimeter is worth the investment. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Good advice. My one night jump so far is still one of my favorites. It went SUPER well, and was a LOT of fun!

Kinda reminds me of the one time I forgot to arm my CYPRES and realized it half-way up the climb. I was like, "Uh oh... Let's be careful on this jump! Nothing like not having it on to invite a bump on the head that would necessitate it..." It also reminds me of the confidence that I gained when I had my one cutaway. I had long before decided to not have my RSL connected (the guy who sold me the rig gave me the option before I took delivery of it). I decided against the RSL because of two things: I felt confident that I would not forget to pull, and I had heard some stories where a jumper very close to me would have died (to hear everyone recount it) if he had had an RSL. That turned me. It was hard to have full confidence in not having an RSL until I actually did my job in place of it when it was a life-saving action. As far as AADs go, the only problem is, like someone said, people never plan for the time they're going to have need of it. So it's not like you can get on the plane and say that there is something positive you are doing on this jump that will keep you from needing an AAD for certain. There could be that bozo who slams into you while diving to the formation... The guy who comes careening through the tracking flock... (Shit, I've had that kind of thing almost blast me twice now recently!) "It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it."

I just want to offer you reassurance, because I think what you are feeling is probably very common. I went through exactly that. I'm a pilot, and I've been flying with my dad since I was about 11 -- I'm 33 now. I am no stranger to airplanes and flight, but even still, when I began AFP training in 2003, for the first bunch of jumps, I was thinking to myself during the climb, "What the hell am I doing? I don't have to do this! I'm nervous, and I alone have to power to avoid doing the thing that is making me have these anxiety feelings!" But I didn't stop. I didn't have any loads where I decided to ride the plane down. I made sure to remind myself that anxiety in the beginning is sure to be a normal occurrence, and that the more I did it, the more I would get used to it. Now I love everything about it. I used to be afraid of the door, moderately, and now it's my preference to ride up right near the door.

I don't really let myself get the fear. I'm a pilot and I know that Kro (Tristan) here at Sebastian and anyone else who's allowed to fly these Otters and Caravans and Skyvans is more experienced and more trained than I am, and they know how to handle emergencies as best they can be handled. I sometimes give a thought to the fact that we're too low for bailing out, but I don't let it bug me. I guess I have made a sort of peace about the possibility of getting killed doing what I love. I avoid it as much as humanly possible, but I accept it and continue. If we don't have enough power for takeoff, the pilot will usually know this as we're on the roll. If we have enough for takeoff, and gauges look good and in the green, I just put faith in the notion that we'll at least get to a safe exit altitude before anything serious might happen. OMG I'm an atheist who puts faith in stuff. What the heck's going on?! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Ummm... Would this be a cable program? I see potential... -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I had been thinking, as I looked at the picture of the airplane, how much I feel for the pilot. I hope that the problems this causes him can be kept to a minimum. I don't think it's fair that of all the professions, pilots are treated with like zero tolerance when they have an accident, even one that does not result in injury. A great record, a flawless record, and then you bop a hangar and they'll freakin' crucify you, pull your ticket, etc. Doctors can leave sponges inside of people, remove the wrong leg, etc. You find they're still practicing medicine, and their insurance took the lumps for them. How about commercial truck drivers? Do they lose their license to make a living for banging into the side of a loading dock? This begs the question: what the hell is a hangar doing anywhere close enough to a runway OR taxiway that any aircraft capable of landing there could hit it? Was the pilot way off the yellow centerline?) I guess we need to know more about how this happened. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Yeah, but I meant has it happened that a Skyvan/Casa has plowed through a field of skydivers in freefall after stalling and dumping them out? That's a horrifying thought. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Can you say, "Shameless fuckin' money grab," boys and girls? Kelpie, you're absolutely right. What the hell difference does it make how you got yourself injured? Should they charge more to treat a heart attack victim because he ate too much McDonald's and his fat ass got him ill, than they do some jogger who had some hidden heart disease but was in good shape? Even if they give the two patients the same care? This is what something of this nature opens the door to. Why can't people see it? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I have to love a news article that doesn't seek comment from all parties involved in an issue -- or at least one person from each side! Was no one from the skydiving groups available or willing to comment? Usually a news story would say that they were contacted and had nothing to say. When there is no such disclaimer, I have to wonder if the reporters did their goddamned jobs. I was a journalism minor: this is crap journalism. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Or get pinned to the ceiling/walls... Stalls are not your friends.... No, but in a Cessna 152, they are fun as anything!! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Has this actually occurred?? I would have imagined that the airplane would still have some momentum to get it at least a little bit ahead of the jumpers... I fly and I understand stalls, but I have not heard of any that actually caused a plane to do a sort of retrograde slide... However, one thing I can imagine would be a spin, not just a stall, which might send the airplane into its stall/spin recovery back toward, or under, or on top of the jumpers. I don't fly Skyvans (I should be so blessed) but I would think there's no guarantee that the stall will not break to one side or the other, causing this sort of situation. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

As long as you keep jumping, sooner or later you too will need to land off. It happens to almost everyone. Being the last out at the WFFC or the Eloy Holiday boogie helps increase your odds of landing off (I love to quote Bryan Burke right about now "If you don't like the spot, it's not getting any better"). Plus make a balloon jump, you're almost guaranteed to land off on one of those. I also believe that you jump a fair amount at Sebastian right? Dang now there's a DZ that you really need to be careful at in terms of landing off. Outside of landing on a road (and avoiding power lines) there really doesn't seem to be too many easy places to land off at that DZ (tons of trees surrounding the DZ). Either way, know where you're going to land by the time you hit 1000 feet AGL on each and every jump you make. Thanks for that quote -- I laughed out loud! Such simple sarcastic wisdom...

I said, "When it's ripe." Ain't it the truth?! I haven't really stained it at all -- have not missed a stand-up landing in a while now, and definitely not since I got the jumpsuit. The problem is the sweaty Florida weather. It's starting to get really cookin' here, and will be hot as hell real soon. I'm gonna have to be washing the ol' suit a lot more than I've been. (I do it by hand. I want it to last.) -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I looooove a tailgate. The only one I've jumped is the Crosskeys Skyvan, when it was down at SoBe in '04 and then afterward when I've been regular at Sebastian. But it's in NJ now... That's not to say I don't really enjoy a side door. Otters and Caravans are the other planes I've jumped (and some long-ago 182s), and I love them too. There's something really really cool about hanging outside alongside an airplane like that with the wind massaging you before you freefall...

I have always jumped with a pair of Solaris goggles (not expensive, about $20 or so?) with my contact lenses in. I also wear glasses but I don't prefer them, so I have never jumped with them. I did buy a pair of over-glasses goggles at the Sunshine Factory at Z-Hills for $13. They're just flexible plastic with an elastic cord knotted into each side. Very basic. I keep them in my gear bag in case some day I either lose a contact or maybe my eyes get too irritated and I have to resort to the glasses. The goggles'll keep them on. I used to have, like, amazing vision until I was around 25 or 26. Then I realized stuff was fuzzy, and I got an exam and needed -1.00 glasses. Not much, but enough to make a differense. Now I'm up to -2.00 in each eye, 8 years later. It's not the end of the world. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I also love sitting by the door and being part of the first group going out the door.

More than the amount of altitude lost, I would be concerned with the change in vertical speed... This sounds a LOT like putting an airplane into a slip: hard aileron in one direction, hard rudder in the opposite direction. In a Cessna, it's a FREAKY-DEAKY feeling! but it's very effective at dropping altitude quickly without an increase in airspeed. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"