karenmeal

Mine is brand new.. thats me licking my boyfriends face. I was drunk.. it was funny? "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

the cheesecake mix is good with graham cracker crumbs and fruit... but I love the apple pie a la cold stone!!! It is absolutely brilliant. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Sounds like you got your head on straight and aren't just another crazy freeflier. Next time you do a solo, try back tracking! Its just important that you glance over your shoulder every so often to make sure you're not going up or down the line of flight. (And aren't hosing yourself) Practice a nice slow transition from a sit to a back track.. I kinda just ball up a bit, lean back while maintaining fall rate with the group and then slowly point my toes, unfurl my torso and straighten my arms out... then when I'm out of the way of everyone, I arch hard and ZOOM! If you master this break-off method.. you'll be leading tracking dives in no time at all.

Aren't you a college student? How the heck can you afford that and a new rig and continue to jump!?!? I wanna know the secret! It sure as hell aint packing parachutes... "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Back tracking probably isn't as hard as you may think it is. I would go practice it a bit. The nice thing about back tracking away from a group from a sit-fly is that its a very gradual transition (not so much corking) and you get to have your eyes all over the sky. It's really important that you are able to account for the whole group. If you are having trouble doing this, then it is likely that you should limit the size of the group you are jumping with. I mean this in a nice/helpful way.. but with just over 100 jumps... a 4 way freefly probably isnt appropriate unless the other 3 people have lots of freefly jumps. (500+) And in that case, you'll probably be base and everyone will be very easy to account for. The best way to learn to freefly is in very small groups (2 ways) with people who have more experience than you. Its a safer, lower stress environment which makes it easier to build skills. When learning to freefly bigger is not better! The larger the size of the group, the more difficult and dangerous the jump has the potential of becoming. So to sum that up, if you jump in a small group (2-way), it will be easier to learn proper break-off techniques. (You also may want to up the breakoff altitude for a few jumps until you get the hang of things...) "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

That looks good! Which one are you? I miss the nor-cal boys. Had some good jumps with thom. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Right before I break off when I am in a sit, I take a moment to count everyone in my group to make sure nobody is "missing". Then I gradually lean back and start my back track, I do that for several seconds before I flip to my belly and finish the track. Breaking off this way, there is really no need to do a barrel roll or anything before you deploy, since you have just accounted for all your group members and have cleared the air above you. However you end up breaking off.. just make sure you don't get into the habit of just rolling over to your belly and tracking away.. it should be a gradual progression. BTW... the banana peel breakoff isn't really the optimal head-down breakoff technique. Its ok for smaller groups, but not too accepted on larger formations.. so you may as well develop a good habit early on. I'm pretty sure that the most accepted "proper" head-down breakoff technique is to turn 180 from the formation and gradually enter into a back track (then switch to belly). Maybe someone will come along and say something different.. but the bigway freefly camps I have done have taught us to use this method. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

In my opinion, at your level its OK to mess around every so often with freeflying... but you really should be working on your RW skills. If you take the next 100 jumps to work on belly skills, it will make you such a better freeflier in the end! The same skills and concepts from RW apply to freeflying and they are easier to learn while you are on your belly and going slower. It's also likely that you will have more fun learning RW right now. Your jump will probably be more sucessful than if you tried to learn freeflying this early on. Besides... you may end up doing tandem video or want to be a coach or an AFF instructor one day... it's hard to do all that if you never learned RW. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

You're a couple of months late on this... I've gotten 40 since February... Half of those without gloves! (and half of those under 4,000....) "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Shouldn't the debate about pot go to the Speaker's Forum? Back to the fun of the topic at hand. Who is going to live it up tonight? "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

It's not all about money, man. Edited to add: And Oh yes I will be living it up tonight. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

nope. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Buy a normal altimeter, then go buy an audible. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I think you need to do more "fun" jumps. Go out and do some crazy fun freefly things. Try getting on your head and flapping your arms and kicking your legs like you're running all over the place. Try doing disco moves while on your head... Pump your arms, give the shocker, just get out in the air with the attitude that you will have a fun jump. These aren't just silly things to do either, they're fun, and they help to develop skills. For example, giving the shocker will help you learn how to use your arms to dock. Jump with people who relax and don't intimidate you. Pick a coach who can make you laugh and then plan a super-silly skydive! You can be learning valuable VRW skills while still acting crazy and having fun. Don't be scared of looking like a fool, try to look like a fool! If you go out and do some fun jumps without as much pressure, you're going to be able to relax, and your head down will improve! "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I have a couple jumps on a batwing loaded at around 1.3 or so.. the reason that I chose a stiletto over a batwing is because I found the front riser pressure to be too much for me to handle on the batwing. (But I am just a weak girl..) I also just like the zippy feel of a stiletto. Maybe the batwing has a bad reputation because they used such hideous fabric? What is that stuff? Its like gross old wallpaper! hahaha... But seriously, I think its a fine canopy.. and I don't think it deserves a poor reputation. *cough* c-*ough*-rossfire *cough* "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I've given blood and jumped in the same day before.. but as a smaller person with asthma, who tends to be borderline anemic.. it just didn't work out well for me. (felt pretty hypoxic at 13.5) If you feel like giving blood and then following it up with a good rush, try smoking a cigarette right afterwards! Thats some serious fun right there... "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Do RW jumps in small groups! If you get people to jump with you who have more experience, your skills will increase tremendously! If you want to freefly later on down the road when you have safe gear and more jumps.. a good solid foundation of RW will be invaluable to you. The same skills and concepts from RW apply to freeflying.. and they are much easier to learn in the lower stress environment of being on your belly. So go make some RW friends and buy them some beers and get some free coaching out of them. (Thats what RW people are there for... right??) "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

When your rigger ends up saving your life, do you take care of him/her? I've witnessed an alarming trend recently of people not taking this tradition seriously! This is even more serious than the beer rules! And by the way, being underage is not an excuse. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Hell yeah they've been lost before! Many many many times. The typical skyball is just a tennis ball filled with some lead shot and a little pull-up cord tail. Most DZ's (that I've jumped at) that have allowed skyballs have made you jump it over a large field where it won't really be an issue if you drop it. Of course, you still try your best to catch it. There are also some good guidelines that some DZ's have in place for jumping w/ skyballs.. such as approving certain experienced jumpers as ball masters and everyone that is not a ball master has to jump with one when they do ball jumps until they are approved. Make sense? I can't think of better wording You also want to get control of the ball fairly high.. usually around 6 grand or so. Ball jumps rock! They are excellent training tools and just plain fun. I love telling my whuffo friends about playing catch in the sky. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I'm getting a new line set and a new pilot chute! 1300 jumps on a lineset is just getting to be too much. Then the rest is going to bills... hooray. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

My extreme thing was going to college for about 6 weeks in VA before I dropped out and got a job packing in California, drove across the country all by my little 18 year old self and spent two years partying, traveling, packing and jumping a bunch. I'm just now starting school back up because I want to be a kindergarten teacher so that I can have my summers off. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

As a packer and a rigger, I applaud the extra effort that your packer put into closing your rig. The easiest thing that your packer could have done was to notice the problem and ignore it. However, your packer was concerned about your life and took extra steps to try to prevent you having any injuries. Your packer probably has a much neater pack job than you, and this resulted in the closing loop being too long for that particular pack job. This has happened to me many times, and whenever I feel that the excessive length of the closing loop has become an issue, I change it! I try to remember to tell the owner of the rig, but sometimes I am just too busy... probably because I spent my extra minute fixing your rig so that you would not have any problems on the airplane or in the sky. If I had a customer get pissed at me because I put some extra effort into their pack job to try to prevent a horseshoe (probably the scariest malfunction in my opinion) then I probably wouldn't be their packer anymore. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Treat it like a normal belly formation.. arch hard to come down behind the tracking dive, then once you are on level and are at the back of the group, match their fall rate and begin to drive in. What you do not want to do in situations like this, is dive straight for the leader. Pick a point back behind everyone to aim for. When I am in a steep tracking dive I will sometimes bring my arms way back so that I am pretty much holding my hands behind my rig. Then I just arch like a mo-fo. Also, make sure that once you make it into the formation that all of your corrections are slow and smooth, its difficult to constantly be aware of who is behind you and to your sides, so you need to pick a spot and stay there. Double check this one with your organizer, but in my opinion, if you are directly above a tracking dive and cannot get down to them, break-off early! This is a bad spot to be in as you may be a good deal higher than the group and people may not see you on break-off. And then finally... it takes pretty much everyone a while to figure out tracking dives. Its a tricky thing, not quite freeflying, not quite RW... you'll get the hang of it before too long.. don't worry. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Wow, at 500 jumps you really seem to be on the ball... you want to overload your reserve, you are already a very experienced canopy pilot (since you seem confident that you could swoop an f-111 seven cell loaded over 1.7 after encountering a very stressful situation), and you don't want to listen to advice from people who have way more experience than you. Hey, while you're at, why not try to land a birdman suit? I hear it can be done.. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I wouldn't worry too much about what your pro-track reads. It just matters how your speed is relative to the people you are jumping with and if you all are in a relatively mutual comfort zone. FYI- my protrack generally reads around 145-150 when I am doing a mainly sit-fly jump. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham