Avion

My eight grade science teacher told me the secret of keeping one hands warm skiing in 1977. Wear wool gloves under leather mittens. It works great. Back to topic. I'm just starting out, and my rig has a pillow cutaway and a D-ring reserve. I was thinking I might get a D-ring cutaway too. Because it will be awhile before I do any real 4 way stuff, so d-rings will be OK, and all you have to do is get you thumb through it and push. That much easier to do with cold hands and under stress than trying to grab and pull a pillow. I suppose the soft rings would work just as well, although I have yet to see them. Cheers, and congrats for making through such a situation. This forum always helps me temper my enthusiasm with a little bracing sobriety.

Hi, my name is Brian, and it's been six hours since my last flight

I already told everybody. Here's the link: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1518634;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread The only time I felt a little quizy was during the fast spin, other than than just a few wave of aprehension at times. Over all it was Grrr-rate! Enjoy Oh, and by the way, I went to the lav before we geared up, just in case

I just did my first tandem. On the way up, 7mins to 15K, I noticed my ears poping just bearly a few times. On the way down, we freefell to about 5K, I noticed a moderate pressure building up on my ear drums. Less than painfull, although almost alarming. My hearing was quite muffled. I tried yawning and swallowing, but these failed to clear my ears. Once on the ground, I held my nose and blew gently. That helped, one side cleared within a couple of minutes and the other took about half an hour. When I was younger, I tried scuba diving. I went on an open water dive in the Bahamas. I got down about 50'. It was very diffucult though. I could bearly move up or down 2 feet without staying for a while to clear my ears. That was painful. I must have small tubes. They say a dive from 13.5K is like going 12-13 feet deep in water. Just enough to notice really. They also say it gets better the more you do it. I been practicing clearing my ears a few times a day now. You can alway blow a little air into them for a while before you go to get them to open up and used to venting the pressure differences. Cheers

AFF: Most likely! I already own my own gear

I got hooked on the tunnel. I originally planned to learn just enough to be stable and confident for AFF. Then, I found out it's a lot of fun. When I start last year about this time, some of the best teams in the world were training there, it was a lot of fun just watching them. Then, I got to thinking about it, it's cheaper, and you can stay in longer. So, you can learn stuff faster than by jumping. I can back fly now and am starting to learn how to sit fly. I guess learning head down will have to wait till after AFF...

Thanks Ari, for everything, you know what I mean

I've practiced memory exercises and medatation, off and on, for decades now.

Wow! Where do I begin? I been tunnel training for a year. I been itching to start AFF. It was a beautiful day. I was in Cocoa looking at a house for sale and figured, hey, while I'm out here, I should go and and watch them come down in Titusville for a while. Well, little did I realize that I would run into two people I know from the tunnel at the dropzone, and of course they asked me,"Are you going to jump today?" When I said that I had just came out to watch, they looked disappointed. I thought about it for a while, and concluded, It is a beatuiful day... I am ready... Uh... Hmm... Uh... OK... Let's do this thang!

Bungie, bungie did I say? It's that little thingy that keeps you legstraps from sliding down you legs when you sit fly. Do you think they're worth the $10 to install 'em?

If you read Brian's book, he explains that with canopies that have high front riser pressure, you use a little toggle input first then pull on the front risers. This deloads the pressure from the front risers so that you get more response from you input. But what do I know, I've got a big ZERO jumps And I must say, at 100 jumps, I hope your trying this stuff far away from the ground. I might have little experience, but I've done alot of reading, if you know what I mean.

Inertia is a function of mass. An objects Inertia varies in direct proportion with its mass. For all practal purposes units of mass may be considered as units of inertia. Inertia is mass' resistance to change in either speed or direction. Due to this property mass can store energy. Energy stored in this fashion is refered to as Kinetic Energy, KE, which is mass times velocity squared. Momentum is mass times velocity. Momentum is generally what Johnny Jumper would consider to be inertia, and what Shooter Shaun would consider to be the knock down power of a bullet. Kinetic energy is what scientists use to determine the trajectories of ballastic objects and such.

I had one packing lesson from a friend already, and she had me arrange it so the hacky was snug up against the pocket, but fully outside it, rather than partially inside it. I wish they would have just installed the bungee and the pud when I asked them to. Oh well, guess I get my A, then ask them again

You know I seen some pouches with the spandex all stretched out around the opening but the rest of the pouch is OK. Is that caused by stuffing the hackey inside the pocket?

By the difference between the two, I imagine that the air can get behind the hacky somewhat and tend to pull the PC out of the pocket when sit or back flying. By design that is prevented with a pud. So, prehaps that's it.

I sit corrected

I will probable have a 10 minute block on weds 16 or could make it thur 17, we could take a half hour if you wanted to get a 20 minute block. Or, I might be able to extend mine to a 15min. I've been working on belly, back and sit flying too, and relying on just the tunnel instructors. Usually a ten min block with 2 mins at a shot, some times 2.5mins depending on how many people are in that session. The first turn I do RW drills, then work on back/sit for the rest. They like to see that you have some ability to back fly before they let try sit flying. Sit flying is harder in the tunnel because the air speed is lower than in the sky. I'm still have trouble geting controlled lift in sit after 10mins or so. Each instructor want you to do things a little different. That's the only down side to relying on them, some times you have to put up with being re-instructed by each one. Then again, sometimes it good to have more than one teacher because one might have the answer to your difficulty. Cheers

Let me aquaint you with the 'Weak Equivalency Principle.' Basically, it states that when one object is very large compared to others, like the earth compared to the people and things on it surface, the gravitational force between the earth and any of the smaller objects on its surface appears to be equivalent regardless of apparently large differences between the smaller objects. That means your rock and your feather will fall at equivalent rates near the earth's surface if they are protected from experiencing air resistance durning the fall.

It depends, what do you want to work on flat flying, free flying, or both? With your ~2.5 hours of air time you could probably still learn alot from just the instructors or if you wanted more, a personalized brief and debrief you could get the tunnel instuctor coaching package that costs a little bit more than just block time. You should schedule your time now though, the tunnel busy, you can alway hire a coach to work with you after have some time scheduled. Just two cents from a poor 4 hour bunny Cheers

Uh oh! Onions are you sure? There seems to be an absence of a Hacky vs Pud thread. So, why do the manufacturers claim the pud is freefly friendly.

What do you mean centrifugal force is make believe. It's what pulls a string tight when someone twirls around a weight tied to it. Eveybody knows that, its just common sense

Hmm... The rigger who did the inspection also mentioned that I'm just trying to do some homework before I get there. In the mean time, I really getting the AFF itch. So, it's going to be soon

I just got a Vector 3 rig and was wondering if I should have the hacky sack changed to a pud, because I intend on doing some back & sit flying, and probable head down eventually. Anybody have any experience to mention about this? Thanks in advance, Brian

I know Olaf is a really good belly flyer too. There might be tunnel policy against having more than one customer in the chamber with a tunnel employed instructor at a time. Recently, they just baned instructors flying higher than 4-5 feet with customers, so over/unders with a tunnel instructor are out now. Also, the tunnel instuctors and maybe some outside people are setting up something called the International Bodyflight Association. Eventually, anybody wanting to professionally coach other people in the tunnel will have to have a IBA pro rating. To get that rating the applicant will have to show compentance in 4 way and freeflying skills.