Unparagoned

I've been thinking up ways I can make enough money to start skydiving again, and for the last 9 months have been working on an iphone game. It's finally finished. So I'm giving away a copy to the first person(USA only) who can successfully answer the question: "What is best in life?". Barbarians: The fall. Game Overview: It's a turn based strategy game. A 4X game, eXplore, eXpand, eXploit & eXterminate. Similar to Civilization or Masters of Orion. The game is based in a 3D environment, with 3D stickmen as the units. All the interaction conform to the standard iphone gestures, drag, pinch zoom and two finger rotation. The world is generated by a map generator and is an earth based world with a few alien monoliths scattered about. Researching these monoliths allow you build unique units such as, witches, wizards and super heroes. There are two main methods to complete the game, research and study the alien monoliths to ascend to the next level of human development. Or simply kill everyone else. You can adjust the amount you tax people, and decide how much to spend on research or military spending. There are various strategies you can use to play the game, you can go the military route, either massive number of troops, or research stronger troops. You could go the financial route and use spies to bribe enemy units. Here is a quick gameplay video someone did for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1wdByqx8lc If you can afford $2 buy the game and give it a decent review. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/barbarians-the-fall/id324723188?mt=8&uo=6

Selwyn is great. Dalton and Pun are good as well.

AFF is better in almost every single way. RAPS is simply a cheap way to learn to skydive. If you can afford AFF do that.

HUH ??? I think the time to open may be more but the altitude to open may be less from H&P.

Quote to another responder: Despite my low numbers, I can track. I have been on a number of tracking dives and can keep up with some very experienced folks. I know I can fly flat and can outdistance most (probably due to experience in aerodynamics). Not really sure what was meant by tunnel time helping in tracking. Last time I looked, it would be pretty hard to track in a tunnel. Quote I think your extreme overestimation of your tracking ability is also part of your problem. You need to realise that at your tracking ability you need to track as long and as hard as possible from breakoff. Check your altimeter while tracking next time instead of stopping. Tracking dives are rarely a good measure of how well you can track away from a formation.

You'll probably end up spending far more than you imagined. So try and structure your spending the best way you can. Join a rookies team and do allot of training jumps and tunnel time. Then you can do what you want, more flat or freeflying. Try and get as much coaching as you can. Try and do productive jumps.

1. You're not a very good tracker with only 165 jumps. That amount you tracked away from everyone else wasn't anywhere near enough. Well I guess if you have a few hundred/thousand hours in the tunnel I may be wrong. 2. 10 seconds wasn't long enough. 3. Doing a 180 while tracking or with others who are tracking is very dangerous. 4. You shouldn't be stopping halfway through a track and turning and looking around to find people. You should be looking while tracking. 4,5.... There are soooo many things that seemed dangerous and very confusing in your post I would suggest sitting down and talking properly with an instructor who has some big way experience. Your choice of staying near the formation and tracking off 500ft higher sounds reasnable to me. Although that really depends on how far below you are. The main problem was at breakoff you need to track properly not this start stop start stuff.

The instructors at paraclete xp usually like getting beer as a tip. Buy them a few of crates of beer. Yuengling seems to a brand most of them would drink.

www.paracletexp.com FIRST TIME FLYER - XP Flight School - Price from $225.00 Looks good. Doing it first will also mean you have more comfidence when you actually jump and reduces the chance you will need to repeat a level. 10 min is a good amount of time to get used to flying and being able to do stuff.

Often, never been hit hard. I have my chest strap really tight, so that may play a part in why I keep on feeling the risers hit the helmet. It's a bit more anoying than I expected but it doesn't seem like a serious problem.

Think it's the rig. I've read in a magazine how some of the movements are oposite due to the effect of the rig.

In the tunnel two things I can do to make it easier are to have my hands in pretty much a mantis position, so my hands are just a few inches from my chest and are out of the wind. So the standard position is suppose to be 90 degrees angle at the elbow(although most people fly with their arms straight out, 180 degrees). This position is even more extreme at like 35 degrees. (angles from top down view) Terrible ASCII art but from a top down view, the o is the head and the > is the arm with the bend at the elbow The other is to have your forearm facing straight up, so there is a 90 degree bend in your arm at the elbow. Your palms are facing the way you are looking. So your upper arms are in a standard sit position and give you some stability but the rest of them are not providing any lift. From a front view |_o_| In terms of leg position, I've used the one leg down quite a bit and but I only use it now when I want farward drive. A few coaches have said it's a good position to use to fall faster, so it may be worth working on that. I would reccomend staying in a sit position but pushing down with your legs a bit more, so halfway between a sit and a stand, the position is likely to mean you have to be more strong. from a side view O | . \ .. |

I have a FF3 with HC3. The quality is great, but any lens will stick out of the housing/case. I do get riser stikes very often, which are a little anoying.

In the tunnel or in the sky.

I would reccomend the wind tunnel as well. I was in a similar situation and wind tunnels stoped me sucking.

New break lines.

You should go from the canopy, where the breakes are attatched and then run the line down through your fingers to take out the twists in the break lines. Should have been told this when you learnt to pack. Since the breakes can be free when not set basically the lines can get twisted, once you have enough twists a tension know can form.

You can just cut it away and reconnect the risers after the repack. Why waste a perfectly good pack job? When I asked my rigger a few years ago about needing to repack the main, he said he's never reconnected the main incorrectly before on reserve repacks. I guess it's just one of those things, which 99% of the time will be fine, but it's not that hard to spot that 1% of the time when a mistake has happened. Anyway at my dropzone it's more like a rule that you should repack the main before jumping it, some reserve repackers even add a note onto the rig reminding you.

Aren't you suppose to repack the main after a reserve repack anyway?

Have you ever tried tracking in a wind tunnel? It hurts. There are lots of ways to hurt yourself in the tunnel. You can see this thread here, where a tunnel instructor talks about injuries http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1273092 It's the US. I would get insurance for even sleeping or walking down the street. I don't think I can even imagine how much the medical bills would be for just a broken bone.

It's very good, but there are two problems I found with it 1. It's not travel insurance. It just covers medical costs. So it's not bad to add onto say a cheap standard travel insurance plan. 2. Limited to 30 days per trip. So I couildn't use it anyway.

I found a place which was willing to add it. http://www.etravelinsure.com The insurance has an annual multi trip 90 days max per trip insurance for just under £100, which is pretty good. You have to get them to add wind tunnel cover, it already covers skydiving. Just note the excess for skydiving is £500.

Paraclete XP, NC

Virtially all policies are type a). They explicity say that if an activity isn't mentioned then it is only covered if you phone them and add it to a policy. Every travel insurance policy has a list of activities. The only exclusionary policy I found was a specialist policy for only medical cover.

I'm looking for travel insurance that includes wind tunnel cover, since I plan on doing quite a bit of time in the tunnel. Also the trip is going to be two trips of just under 3 month each. No insurance company has wind tunnel on the activities. What exactly is it called, jumping out a of a plane is skydiving. Flying in a wind tunnel is called? Most policies are limited to 30 days, so any I find that cover anything aren't usable. I'm from the UK and the trip is to the US.