msmithd8769

Sounds like a productive weekend Nightingale. Keep at it. My wife is having some difficulties in landing too; she has just recently gotten back into the sport after 17 years and this is her first experience with ZP canopies; she's jumping a Spectre 190 and has about 85 jumps. It just takes getting the timing down and becoming comfortable with how the canopy flies. ZPs handle and land differently than F111 which is what her experience was with. Take care and have fun in Utah..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Hey Rob, welcome. Yeah, great picture but I was wondering - does that hair cause you any stability problems in freefall.....? _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Yes, currency will be your best ally in gaining control of your fear. The more active you are and the more frequently your are around something, the more comfortable you will become with it. I would often be asked similar questions by my students and I would stress that and also explain that as a side-benefit of currency comes confidence in your training and confidence in your abilities as you begin to realize that you are able to handle yourself in the skydiving environment. But that said, there will be (or I should say, there SHOULD be) always a bit of apprehension on every jump for everyone. And it's that apprehension that helps keep us sharp and focused, helps keep us thinking, and helps keep us safe. Welcome back and best of luck to you..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Well glad you have seen fit to upgrade your status from "Lurker" to "Active Participant." We're going to be shut down till the spring here in DE as well after tomorrow. But it's supposed to be a nice day so we're hoping to get a few last loads up before that happens and then we'll have our winter layoff as well. Welcome Amanda..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Oh, Texas eh? Whereabouts? I did a lot of jumping in Texas and Oklahoma back in '82-'87 when I was stationed there with the Air Force. I was stationed at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls but jumped in Grandfield, OK. I think that DZ is closed down now but we had some great times there. And we did get some cold weather there and some snow occasionally but we also pretty much jumped year round. I also jumped quite a bit with the Dallas crowd; me and a couple of my close friends would travel to the boogies down that way pretty frequently. Well, take care and good luck on your AFF..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

I would go along with what murps advised in the previous post. Yes, if you are still a student or not yet in possession of your "A" license, those should be your first priorities. And your instructors at that time will be your best source of assistance for your first rig. I would also advise to be very careful and not get too small a canopy too soon. Probably the biggest and most common problem currently these days with the new wave of high-tech, ZP canopies is folks getting one too small for their size and experience level and/or trying to downsize too quickly. But welcome back to the world of skydiving and the best of luck to you. Blue skies..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

***[/in reply to] A change on this site? Status on the "formal" forums should be on a jump numbers/years in the sport/disipline experience formula, and should be clearly displayed for all to see. My thoughts exactly although I don't know that a status level reflecting experience could be enforced without a lot of hassle so that it was insured to be true and accurate information. But I agree with the premise and what occurs to me here regarding advice is that one cannot tell here what the experience level or qualifications are of the person giving the advice. On the DZ usually you're going to know who's who and who are the less experienced folks and what their jump numbers are and what discipline(s) they are proficient in etc etc and you will filter any advice given accordingly. But here we don't know that for sure and that can lead to the problems that have been being discussed of someone unknowingly taking and acting on some advice that the adviser was not qualified to give....... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

I agree with you 100%. When I was an AFF student many, many years ago AFF was still the seven level progression it is now but there was also what was known as Level 8 which was "Continuing Education." I remember my instructor telling me many times during my student days "We're ALL always on Level 8, no matter how much experience or how many jumps we have, we all should always be learning." I've never forgotten that and I think it is excellent advice that everyone can benefit from. Point well taken Kaerock..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Yo, glad to have ya' here. Where have you been jumping? My 16 year old son is very eager to jump but I've been trying to find a DZ that will allow him to since pretty much all DZs now have a minimum age of 18 due to liability concerns.... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Thanks for stopping by GH and congrats on your AFF jumps. Do you jump somewhere in the warmer south so you'll be able to finish up your AFF right away? _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

You are correct. The same argument was made many times by pilots in WWII who would become more and more afraid that their "number was up" the more missions they flew. They figured the odds were going to catch up with them and that they had more of chance being killed the more missions they flew. In actuality their risk factor is the same on every mission and they had no higher a chance of being killed whether it was their first or 50th mission. Holding all other factors the same, the number of missions made no difference..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

I guess it was about 1900-2000 feet; low ceiling; went out on my main..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

We'll in the past I have tried many different things. Motorcycles, cave exploring, a little bit of parasailing, and rock climbing. Right now though, in addition to skydiving, I do push the envelope and drive without wearing a seatbelt! _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

About 600 feet; opened and had about a 10 second canopy ride. The ground rush was unbelievable and no, there was no AAD of course. I still shudder when I think about that jump _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Went to my 20 year reunion in 1994 and I won't go to another one. It was truly amazing how all the same cliques just naturally gravitated towards each other after all that time..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

I just did mine today. Yes, you can crop the image to just the essential size you need (since they cannot be more than 10 k in size), then change the pixel count (your software should allow you to do that) and then save it and insert the file in your EDIT PROFILE..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

That was great AKA!! But I do think you may need some counseling.... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Farfel or Frap or Ground Rush..... Does the person whose name you choose win any sort of prize?? _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

You make a good point Benny. And there are a good deal of good books, publications, videos etc (some of you might remember for example the three volume Skies Call hardcover book set; page after page after page of beautiful photgraphs; Norm Kent's great video work is another example). But the problem is that pretty much everything that IS available is marketed back to ourselves, to the skydiving crowd through the channels where we get our gear etc. There is no marketing and publicity for these items to the general public. Therefore we remain essentially an "unknown entity." _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Welcome Leigh. And now that skydiving is your top priority we expect to hear back from you soon on how that first jump went ok? _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Welcome Jennifer. Keep at it; only a couple more jumps on AFF to go..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

I've definitely wiped out in the peas before. But it was after I landed. I cought my foot on the hoop in the middle and tripped and fell over. For those not familiar with booth's laws I believe they are "the lower you pull, the longer the snivel you will have, and the higher the chance of a malfunction", and "everytime technology improves, skydivers will do dumber things with it to keep fatalities constant" Hmmm, I like those Champu and I think unfortunately they are true to a great extent..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Started when I was 25; am now 47..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

A pig farm in North Texas. It was an end-of-day jump into a restaurant where we frequently ate and one of the other guys on the load (a 182) had a bunch of family waiting there to watch. Bad spot (obviously) and we ended landing in this pig farm about a quarter mile from the restaurant on the other side of a major highway. I'll tell ya', you haven't lived until you're looking down under canopy as you head into a filthy, stinking pig farm with all these several hundred pound porkers running around and as you get closer the oinking and grunting just keeps getting louder. And oh, the smell. Yes it was a wonderful experience. But I know what you're thinking, why didn't we just turn off and land somewhere else? Ahhh, a bit of inexperience I guess. It was a big pig farm and we just pushed it to try to get back as close to the restaurant as we could, probably because we were hungry and didn't want to have to walk any farther than we had to. So we found ourselves finally in a position where the pig farm was the only place we could land. We did manage fortunately to land in some small clear walkway areas between the actual pens which saved us from landing in some pretty vile stuff (and also permitted us to still be allowed into the restaurant to eat). But we never let Curtis (whoops, did I let that name slip?) live down that evening that he spotted us into the pig farm..... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

I don't think Denzel Washington was in any skydiving flicks. Are you maybe referring to Wesley Snipes? I think he was in Dropzone.... _____________________________ "And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."