pilotdave

Ok, if your instructors are involved, great. Just FYI: they don't allow the forums on this site to be used for buying/selling gear, so you're not going to get actual offers here. What you can do is search the forums (the topic of appropriate first gear comes up every other day), read the articles about gear (the Safety tab at the top), and get some ideas from your instructors for canopy types and sizes that might be right for you. Then go through the classifieds and find stuff that matches what you might be looking for. Email the ads to an instructor to take a look at. Honestly though, buying gear while you are a student is not a good idea. I'm trying to think up a good military metaphor but I'm not doing too well. Maybe it'd be like using training grenades for battle or training with real grenades. Either you're going to buy gear appropriate for a student which you won't like in 3 months, or you'll buy gear not appropriate for a student and you risk seriously hurting yourself. Not to mention that it's unlikely your DZ will let you jump gear like that, so you're probably going to be buying training grenades. Dave

Just out of curiosity... did you figure out why it might have happened? Do you remember if you were distracted while you put your gear on? Were you in a hurry? Gear checks are great and thanks for the reminder, but the more important lesson is to understand what makes these things happen in the first place. I know it's sort of a rookie mistake, but a chest strap isn't rocket science and it is super important. There's gotta be some reason why you missed it. Any idea? If not, ponder it for a while. Dave

Student rigs generally have some features you won't find (or want) on your own rig when you're ready to buy one. 5'10", 225lb does not sound unusually big. Student rigs should fit you just fine. Definitely don't buy anything without your instructors helping you choose something directly. Don't go at this alone or with advice from strangers... you may find that you waste a lot of money when your instructors won't let you jump with the gear you bought. Dave

I've been using akando gloves (http://www.akando.com) for a few winters now. I just ordered my 4th pair (they don't last forever). I've owned a LOT of gloves... my hands don't do well in the cold and I'm always trying to find better winter gloves. Akando are the best I've found so far for non-bulky skydiving gloves. I have tried football gloves, mechanics gloves, cross country skiing gloves, and a bunch of different skydiving gloves. First I got akando's old winter gloves. Used them all season and then went to order another pair last year or two years ago and found that they weren't selling them anymore. Emailed them (they have great support) and they told me that they had new windstopper gloves, which are even better than the winter gloves. I ended up ordering one of the last pairs of winter gloves they had in stock along with a pair of windstopper gloves. Anyway, reading this thread got me thinking about buying some new gloves again. Got my first hole in one of my winter gloves a few weeks ago. Windstopper gloves have no holes but they're getting a bit worn out. So again I went to the site and found that they have a limited supply of windstopper gloves, but they are back to selling winter gloves. So I emailed them again to ask what was going on. They told me that the new winter gloves combine the windstopper material with added lining to make them even warmer. I ordered a pair... don't have em yet. Shipping (from Croatia) is free from Akando's site though. Anyway, just thought I'd mention the new akando winter gloves in case anyone is interested. Haven't seen em for sale anywhere other than Akando's site. Dave

For the most part, I think they do offer "the right protection." They protect from the types of bumps and hits a skydiver is expected to take. They don't protect from major impacts (at least they aren't tested and guaranteed to protect from any particular impact). If we wanted helmets that could protect us from the same impacts that motorcycle helmets do, we'd be wearing motorcycle helmets. Dave

Most of us don't touch down at 95 mph.

Depends what you mean by real protection. Protec doesnt protect against kicks to the face. Z1 might not have any certifications, but that doesnt mean it doesn't provide protection. It's more a question of what kind of protection you want... Each does a good job of handling one kind of protection but not others. I'm sure my Z1 has protected me from a few bloody lips or broken noses. Got NAILED in the jaw on a casa exit once. Thank goodness for the full face. Dave

I can't find too many good ones... it's in the background of some pics though. Here's a couple where you can pretty much see what it looks like. Porter door on one side, 182 door with the strut and step, and the U206 door behind the 182 door. Maybe calling it "nice" was an overstatement but it works well anyway...

We have a nice one. It has doors for 182, U206, and porter, all in one. I had no idea it was so versatile until we started operating 206s this year. We started using our otter/caravan mockup at first until someone pointed out that there's a 206 mockup right next to it. Who knew? I don't have drawings or anything (no idea what year it was built... long before my time). I'll see if I can find a pic... Dave

Can you say that without giggling? I can't seem to do it. Edit: Actually it's modern tandem fly. But I still giggle. Dave

Tandem is what changed skydiving. It's alive and well though! Dave

I use a big gear bag... nowhere close to carry-on size if it was full. But all I have in it is the rig. Everything else goes in another carry-on or gets checked. When I arrive, I can put everything in the gear bag if I want. They don't give any trouble at the airport when you show em that the bag is all squishy and almost empty. Dave

I've forgotten to take mine off too, and they never caught it. It would be a $25 mistake if they noticed though. Dave

Always put the rig in something. A duffel bag or gear bag works fine. A roller bag or hard case is better for carrying the rig around the airport and protects it, but it's more likely to get checked at the gate when they run out of overhead bin space. Don't have anything else in the bag other than paperwork that might help... the TSA letter, cypres card, airline policy, etc. Make sure you don't have a hook knife on the rig. You want it to look as much like what they've seen in their training as possible. Stuff like altimeters in with the rig might throw them off and they'll want a closer look. And when you go through security, just put the rig bag on the conveyor belt like everything else and don't go warning them about what they might see. 9 times out of 10 they don't say a word. Flying to Nationals in October, the TSA guy just said "where's my skydiver?" when he saw a rig come through. Other times I've had them call other screeners over to take a look before... for training. It was the first parachute they had seen other than in their manuals. Dave

No, nobody uses that camera for skydiving. Well, one guy did, and here's the beautiful footage he shot... http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=4916. Sorry, gotta get a different camera. Read the photography forum before buying anything. Dave

Nope, no reference (I've tried to find one). Just what was taught by my I/E when I took the course. Dave

That right there is a stunt that I was taught is now forbidden by UPT (even though it's in the manuals) when I took the sigma tandem course. Arms crossed promotes a de-arched body position, which makes the tandem more prone to side spin. Not really a modern tandem fly exit position, is it?

Ahem... The ONLY reason I'm looking slightly forward to snow... Makes skydiving so much more fun. Dave

Thanks for reminding me what I left off of my comparison of the AFF programs. EVERY jump in the ISP has particular canopy skills to work on. 6+ coach jumps vs. 3 means an awful lot of difference in required canopy training. Also, all those required tandems at your DZ have a negative effect that I've seen over and over and over again there. AFF students land on their asses more than on their feet. It's so drilled in on tandems that it becomes natural. It's also a great way to break a tailbone when you don't have an experienced tandem instructor helping out. Dave

There are standard techniques for calculating a canopy's area. You don't need to invent one. But the thing is that there are more than one and different manufacturers use different techniques. So then you get a lot of "your 135 is actually 139 square feet." But nobody can define "actually." But does it really matter?

But they didn't. Dave

350D and 400D record the timestamp to the nearest second (don't know if that's an exif standard or what, just the two cameras i can check). Probably need to "synchronize swatches" all together at the beginning of an event like that. Dave

I completely agree. All I meant was that I don't think a family member of a skydiver is more likely to sue a tandem manufacturer than a sport rig manufacturer. Difference is that tricks with tandem rigs are more dangerous than with sport rigs, and the implications to the rest of us are much greater when a tandem rig is involved. Dave

Aside from possibly being available on more types of rigs, does it have advantages over the skyhook? I'm impressed that you're giving it away. Nice job! Dave

Your DZ is basically doing the old AFF program, and adding 3 tandems. Just for a comparison, an ISP AFF program would include more jumps with instructors (I can't remember how many jumps are in each category A through E, but at least 10 total?). Category F ends with two hop n' pops... 5500 and 3500. Then once a student has demonstrated that they can save their own life including in a low exit, they move on to coach jumps. Categories G and H are where they transition from life saving skills to group flying skills. It's usually 5 or 6 jumps... or as many as it takes to demonstrate the skills and fill the 4-page yellow card. It's easy to see that an ISP AFF student will probably have a bit more experience at 25 jumps than a student that went through an older style AFF program, even though their jump numbers might be the same. They will probably have far fewer solos when they get their license (a good thing, in my opinion). But all those instructional jumps aren't cheap. Dave