bob.dino

I can only speak for Picton here, but there's a few people that make a living doing a mix of AFF & tandem video, so it's definitely possible. Call the Sydney Skydivers office and ask to speak to the owner, Phil Onis. He's a man of few words, but he does know the commercial side of skydiving inside out. Apropos of nothing, Phil's just done his 22,000th jump . Edit: Phil is also very into supporting competitive skydiving. There's a large number of current and former 4- & 8-way competitors around the DZ, and teams get good deals.

In my inexperienced opinon: solos won't help. You'll just pick up bad habits. My current rig doesn't have hip rings and it doesn't cause me any problems. A jumpsuit sized to fit you properly may make the world of difference. Read more. All that said, it's the instructors at your DZ that know you best. Listen to them above us.

Check the serial number with Icarus. To pass a XF1 off as an XF2, they'd need the serial number for an XF2 of the same size with the exact same colours. Tricky to find.

It's normal to be bloody scared. You're jumping out of an airplane for Christ's sake! Use the 'Search Posts' link above and search for 'Door Fear'. You'll find loads of helpful hints on how to help with it. And remember, once you're in freefall you'll remember why you do it .

Having read your other thread where you state your interests are: AFF/I, freeflying, & swooping: Picton has just built a big swoop pond (130m x 35m). We're waiting for it to rain so it'll fill . There are some top quality swoopers based here, including Drew Lipinski, Mike Vaughn, George Attard, and occasionally Robbie McMillan. There's plenty of decent freeflyers in Picton, but competitive freeflying is only just beginning to get off the ground. The Funny Farm organisation are pretty in touch with who's doing what where in freeflying and swooping. They'd be able to tell you more. As to making a living solely from AFF, it could be tricky. Do you fly tandem camera?

You're out by an hour. When you posted that message it was 08:30 in Sydney.

There are four big sport jumper DZs in Australia: Picton NSW, Nagambie VIC, Ramblers @ Toogoolawah QLD, and York WA. Picton is my home DZ. Quite a few tandems, lots of AFF, and lots of sport jumpers. Two Skyvans, a Twin Otter, a Turbine Beaver, and a Jet Ranger. During winter we'll run either a Skyvan or the Otter all day, potentially switching to the Beaver in the late afternoon. During summer, it's usually two turbine aircraft for most of the day. Last summer it was normally the Skyvan all day, with four or five hours of the Otter through the busiest part of the day. Nagambie runs a PAC XL750 and is focussed on sport jumpers. There aren't a lot of tandems there at all. It's a very well run DZ, and I've had nothing but good experiences there. Toogoolawah runs Caravans. There are three on site, but they're not owned by the DZ. Great facilities, friendly people, expensive jumps. Not too many tandems. Ramblers run a separate tandem operation on the beach in Coolum. I've not been to York, but I'm sure Squeak will chime in soon. It's his home DZ. There are lots of smaller Cessna DZs (in NSW: Nowra, Elderslie, Warnervale, Temora, Wollongong etc.) and there are also lots of tandem factories, primarily on the tourist track along the East Coast. The APF send an email out once a week called the APF Broadcast. Amongst other things it contains employment opportunities. Email the office and ask to be added to the list.

Not in this country.

Come to Picton. We have two Skyvans, a Twin Otter, a Turbine Beaver, and two camels. Seriously.

Happy Birthday Darlin'! All the best, and don't let Betsey talk you out of Apple Martinis .

Shorts and a T-shirt. The less fabric restricting my movement, the better.

This is very true. Shower and change underwear every day.

0:10:0 Ten 4-way team jumps. Lots of progress, and one happy dinosaur .

Do you jump with an AAD when not on bigways?

Seems to have gone AWOL. The link from earlier in this thread is 404ing and there's no obvious link on either the Skyventure AZ or Skydive AZ websites... wonder what's up?

Get yerself a clutch of SonyEricsson P910i phones, and use the built-in email client. Supports IMAP and VPNs too.

You saved me some typing. Thanks .

Crazy Frog vs. Axel F.

Call Squeak...

Lainey has a lovely voice. Plus it's just after midday here so he can distract her from work .

Naked. Just avoid any cat docks.

Almost anybody...

Do you have a picture of it? I don't want to call you colour blind before I see it .

I've seen three major ones. In the first, a good mate did a femur, knee, and ankle. The incident didn't have a major emotional impact on me, though having to call his parents was pretty rough. Maybe this is because we weren't aware of the extent of his injuries until he reached hospital. That said, I became much more interested in the right way to teach canopy control immediately after this accident as, with better training, this could've easily been avoided. The second was the same one Travman saw - this incident. I feel for his girlfriend. The third resulted in no injuries, but involved a friend of mine bouncing about 20m. I thought she was dead. That wasn't pleasant. A high-speed approach and traffic caused that one. All incidents occurred under good canopies. Which, given that I've ordered a smaller faster canopy, is a timely lesson.

Not the ones I know .