tdog

I was hoping so... He seemed to be a good guy - and I felt sorry for him because he was so close in the show to getting it right....

I was where you were at a month ago – but I had even less jumps when I did my first solo. I put in 11 consecutive jumps solo after AFF. I practiced a bunch of things during those. I learned to pack and jumped my packjob more than once. I spotted the plane more than once since I was the only non-freeflyer or tandem and thus going first (if you can believe they trusted me). My learning progression was very accelerated during these jumps... I asked coaches for drills to practice and did them. I gave myself at least two learning objectives for every jump (except for my first solo which I just relaxed and enjoyed the view) I sat in on an instructor teaching some people to be coaches. I spent hours talking to people at the DZ. I learned a lot. My skills improved a lot. But... I tried to get more people to jump with me (coaches) during those jumps, either as official coaching sessions or just “fun jumps” - but with the holidays and some advanced classes going on, they were all busy... Instead of waiting, I kept jumping solo. I wish I had more opportunities to jump with other people to practice working in proximity with others. Once I was able to get in the air with other people I learned my fall rate and forward movement skills were less fine tuned than turning, stability, heading control, and other things I could practice alone. For an example, I practiced tracking and forward movement a lot alone, so much so that I ended up having too much speed too quick (which is not a bad thing when needed), thus docking harder than probably necessary and overshooting the first time I tried. Now I got to learn to use less and apply the brakes sooner when docking. Anyway, that is my experience. I wish I would have done three jumps a day with the middle one always being a coaching jump... I am also a student so take it for what it is worth… And – as other people said, I strongly believe that canopy skills are neglected in a lot of learning programs, yet it saves your life every time you jump… I am signed up for the next canopy class. I have been giving myself just as many canopy learning objectives as freefall – and I enjoy pulling higher than most (letting the other guys on the plane know of course) so I can play around with those skills.

Me too... I kept losing gutter awareness – so they kicked me out of the alley and told me to try skydiving instead.

Just got done watching the HALO two part TV Show on Discovery Wings that my TIVO recorded moments before I got home. God... These guys on their 28th jump are jumping with oxygen, at night, with a 40 pound rucksack between their legs, in groups of 8, and expected to land within 50 meters of one and another in no winds... Their first jump (think AFF1) is with a single instructor not holding on - some fail the course right away. Some tumble until their AAD go off. Some get kicked out for near misses in air. Interesting show. Seeing military training in contrast to sport training shows strengths and weaknesses for each. I thought their use of chemical stick lights, with red on the front, and green on the back of the jumper, was an interesting tidbit (if you see red they are coming towards you – stop and turn, green means go, you are following)… This tidbit could have made it into the discussion thread about a week ago about night jumping… Also, strobes must be turned of on landing otherwise you are assumed injured… There is a fatality, an instructor goes in, and a busted ankle in the show, so it is kind of grim too. Don’t think I will show my non-jumping friends and family because of the fatality – they already have enough to worry about. Anyway, anyone else see it? Anyone participate in this military course? I thought this show was much better than the history of skydiving show last week that made it on the forums - a lot more info, a lot deeper discussion. I actually learned a lot.

I know on one of my first solo jumps I practiced touching both in freefall and under canopy. No one told me to do this, and I didn't ask since it was a solo jump... I figured it couldn't hurt because no one was around. It made me feel better at least that I found them quickly.

4 people already have posted dreams of slamming in with no canopy and walking away. What does that say about you people? God, I wanna live in your dreams.

I have only had one skydiving dream (while asleep)... Malfunction... Cut and pulled reserve. Then woke up as the reserve smacked me. Never saw how it ended. Kind of like going to a movie theatre and the power goes out in the middle of the movie...

Ditto. I almost made that post a week ago when the incident forums were really quiet. My first week of skydiving last fall was rough - like an incident a day on the forums, some local - and at the same time our office manager had 4 of her family members killed by a drunk driver, - so I did the AFF 1 while she was going to a mass funeral. (I would have been at the funeral instead of AFF1 if it were local.) There are two things I think about every once in a while that gives me perspective. #1 - If every automotive incident/fatality was posted to a forum, would I ride my motorcycle or drive my car? Would there be enough bandwidth to support that? The point being, our small community knows about every incident world wide, something that is unique. It hurts a lot when we see the incidents, but we learn from them. But the downside is we can’t live in an anonymous world where we drive by someone’s mangled car on the highway and say, “shit, that made me late to work..” #2 - There were 37 known vending machine fatalities between 1978 and 1995, for an average of 2.18 deaths per year. When was the last time I had to justify to a friend, "I find buying Coke from vending machines so rewarding I am willing to risk my life to do so." Vending machines killed 4 times more people than sharks. I am scared shitless of sharks. Seriously, I hate them. I walk by many vending machines without any change in heart rate. I sometimes even put money in them. Why do sharks scare me more than vending machines when statistically my fears are unjustified? Just thoughts. Kind of touchy-feely for a Wednesday morning…

Sure. Now, would I want a rigger that us unwilling to pack his own reserve?

One way normally because you are doing what they say with both hands, but you can talk back as needed. No way... Try hiking up a 1000' hill (45 minute hike) with 70 pounds on your back in the hot summer day. And, you cannot fly in the peak of the day because the air is too rough... Three flights from the training hill was my max in any one day, and I went home very tired. I normally did two. Perhaps you are right. I read of a team of freefall coaches that were using special noise cancelling microphones to be able to communicate to students in freefall. "More arch, kick your legs out." This might catch on...

I am assuming you are referring to the list of skills required to get the paragliding licence that I cut an pasted into the forum... On paraglider - you have a radio at all times. I owned/own the radio. It was not hard for an instructor to tell you stuff as you were flying, and them to watch you from the top of the hill. And since you are often so close to the hill, sometimes they just told you as you passed by.

Get used to it, that pressure will be with you as long as you jump and continue to learn. Sparky Sparky, I respect your opinion a lot, and for the sake of debate, not argument, here is mine: I agree about pressure... It is a great learning tool as long as it does not promote risky decisions. (Think peer pressure and swooping) But take the next line of my comment that you did not quote: "Leave that kind of pressure to someone who has the skill to know when to abort the bet instead of risk it all." My argument is that a sub 25 jump student working towards an “A” does not yet have the maturity in canopy skills to meet the requirement of 5 consecutive landings safely, just as the same person in 150 jumps does not have the skills to swoop a canopy loaded 1.5 to one. This argument comes from someone who made some risky decisions to get 5 seven-meter landings for my paraglider rating and remembers learning the hard way. I would (and am gonna as a personal goal) accept Brian’s challenge (and pressure) of 5 landings in 10 meters. Heck, my personal goal is to nail a postage stamp. But I am not gonna make it consecutive. I am going to be happy with picking a plan "B" whenever my plan "A" landing spot is not ideal due to patterns, traffic, change in winds, spectators, etc. I have no pressure to do something risky just to not miss a consecutive mark. In a few months, once I am used to my own canopy, I will gladly do a bunch of hop-n-pops with no one else in the patterns where I can concentrate on consecutive landings in a controlled environment… But not yet… For now, I will land in my Plan “A” spot only when I know I can do it safely and away from others. Sparky, thanks for making me think. I know I am the novice on this thread, but I am learning here... T.

Just to make sure you understand my point... I am all about learning to land on a postage stamp right away - because you never know when you will need that skill... There is a lot of ROI in that skill.... I wanna be able to land in a parking space between a Winnebago and a tree… It takes a lot of time and training to get that skill, and until I do have that skill, I am more likely to get hurt! If I was on the 5th of 5 consecutive required spot landings, I might consider something more risky to get the 5th spot knowing missing one would cause me to go back to the beginning… I am worried about the consecutive part more than I am worried about the meters. Losing 4 jumps of progress on a scorecard because of one “learning mistake” is high odds. Leave that kind of pressure to someone who has the skill to know when to abort the bet instead of risk it all.

vs. 10 feet (what Kneal posted assuming ‘ = feet) vs 10 meters (what Brian posted)... Big Difference!!! 10 meters = 32.8 feet, right??? So, Brian is suggesting a “circle” 65.6’ in diameter. Per my previous post, the paraglidng requirement for the beginner license is 25 feet or 7 meters, just to bring it into scope since we are talking two measurement systems in the same thread…

Brian, Great Ideas. This post is gonna be long because I have cut and pasted info into it... I want to add a cross discipline perspective to this… I learned to Paraglide before this new skydiving passion of mine… The ram-air paraglider is really not that different than a skydiving canopy, yet the paraglidng proficiency and learning seems to be a lot more intense… You have ONLY seven tasks for students to learn… Look at what I had to go thru to get my paraglider P2 rating (like the skydiving A)… This is cut and paste from http://www.ushga.org/documents/sop/sop-12-02-10-04.pdf. Substitute the ground launching with packing and deployment tasks, and it might transfer over to skydiving quite well… The paragliding P2 spot landing requirement is somewhere between the current skydiving A requirement and your proposed new requirement… BUT – I know a lot of dangerous situations where students in paragliding were so obsessed with landing on the spot that they put themselves in harms way to get there… We used a little flag on the ground, and I remember doing all sorts of weird things to hit it dead on – when I should have been worrying about consistent flares and PLFs when needed… Now, I have to say the two times under student status that I landed on one foot on a handkerchief no bigger than my shoe, I was stoked – but there were many other times I was more than 25’ away - by choice and also by novice skills. I have also dropped a toggle on flare and landed in a sharp turn that should have killed me, so I have a lot of resepect for the ground. That being said, knowing that hitting a spot was much less important than landing safely in the landing area, I picked up a different viewpoint in landing my paraglider (after a few painful landings) that I still use today while learning skydiving… I make a “landing zone box” – perhaps 100’ X 100’ wide. At my DZ, I take the pea gravel pit for size and cut and paste it to where I want to land. I draw this in my mind as I am flying overhead… Anywhere in the box is a-ok to land. If someone else is in my box, or about to land in my box, I will move my box before it is too late. Then I draw a “runway” thru that box that is into the wind. My goal is to land on the runway in the center of the box…. If the winds change or I catch last minute sink or lift, my runway is still safe to land on. I consider myself successful on a “spot landing” if I land in my box, on the imaginary runway… As I got better at paraglidng, my box got smaller and my runway shorter. I am relearning a lot under my skydiving canopy because, like most students, I have used different canopies on different flights. Each one has a different glide slope and each reacts differently. I have landed a Spectre loaded 1 to 1 in no wind and a navigator loaded .6 to 1 in high wind gusts while doing a PLF backwards… Considering that I have used so many different canopies, I am happy with my results... Now – the argument can be made that landing out you need better accuracy than my "box". I agree. The landing area becomes a much smaller box when landing in a parking lot… I don’t think my own personal learning technique is contradictory to a spot landing, because I always do have one specific target on my “runway” dead center of the “box” – and as I am landing on my “runway” I am learning to fine tune my skills to get to the center of the runway. But, I am not killing myself to get there. As proof that my concept is not too far fetched – look at the following alternate approach acceptable in hang gliding… To adapt it to our steeper glide slope, just make the lengths shorter, as we don’t have a hang glider flat glide: So, to take this long post into one line… Perhaps the landing requirements should focus more on landing safely in a safe-zone with a defined center instead of landing on a specific spot??? Anyway, thanks Brian for challenging me to be a better canopy pilot and challenging the community to be safer. Travis

Ying, who might you be? One post? Just registered on this site in time to make that one post? Are you a normal visitor with a second personality, or just someone from the outside world thinking you might wanta look in. Wanna see a good fight? By your logic process, God would see driving a car as suicide too... Of all many friends who are dead now, they all died behind the wheel. Five of them were killed by repeat offender drunks. How come your God does not protect my friends? And, my doctor who died while skiing at Vail... His weekend job of ski patrol saving lives, which brought him fatally in touch with a tree, was suicide too? However, I do agree, naked skydiving should be prohibited… After all, if God wanted us to be naked, we would have been born that way. Is that the fight you are wanting? I gave it to you so others might be able to post only positive things about how wonderful our world is. The truth is, I have found skydivers to be obsessed with living, not dieing... I think we respect our lives more than the average folk, and we live it to the fullest. I rather live a real long and real full life. But if I could only do one, I know which one I would take. I hope your God respects me for that. Sorry guys, this makes my first angry post. I owe you all some beer. Lottza beer it seems. T.

I don’t need to be “pumped up” by music, the turbine on the plane blowing air in my face as I board is all it takes. I just play my normal radio station. But, one day I had the “Faithless” CD “No Roots” playing super loud in my loft as I was taking a shower getting ready to head to the DZ… The music on the CD is very emotional in that it pulls you in manipulates your mood like good trance or even Pink Floyd, if you are into those genres. The following lyrics I thought were especially relevant to skydiving off the No Roots album, and were somewhat motivational when I was first starting: “I Want More, Part II” Decisions based upon faith and not fear. People live right now and right here. “Bluegrass” …Born to fly but we stay grounded and I don't know why We have a powerful tool, no need to cry With it you separate the truth from a lie The point I wanna make, Is you could never escape from your fate, The mistake is to take without giving. So, break the tradition. Make a decision, cause no matter how hard you try You're still in prison, If ya born with wings and you never fly Listen, you don't stop, Especially when the going gets rough. That's when it's real And I love that stuff… Anyway – now that CD is to me = Skydiving = My happy place…

Or do it like they do heart surgery... A tray of tools that not only has a place for everything, but is well counted before and after... My best friend is a heart mechanic and he hates when I joke about leaving tools under the hood.

Gee - your rig is gonna look a lot like mine... Almost identical… We even have the same exit weight, perhaps I have 5 pounds more or so… Lets see what Christmas does to that, I might need to get a larger canopy. I went with Vector III - Skyhook, PD Reserve 218, Cyrpres2, and the Aerodyne Pilot 210. I wanted used for my first rig – but the market was dry for someone of my height, weight, and preferred canopy age/size… So I got new. I did not have the opportunity to demo the Pilot, because, well, you need a container to demo it in... But there is a good end of year sale on the Aerodyne products right now – and I got the Pilot for such a good price I am confident that I could sell it used after a summer and break even, or damn close. If I don’t like it, I have little to lose since my container is speced to take just about any 190-210 canopy. So call it a demo that I own. I demoed vicariously thru a friend or two at the DZ. I know a guy who really liked the Pilot after a demo, so much so, when I asked him how the demo went after his first jump, he said, "I have never had a canopy open that well before." After two weekends, I asked again, and he said, “I purchased it, does that tell you how much I liked it.” He is selling his Sabre2 because he felt the consistent off heading openings was a safety concern now that he joined a 4-way team. Everyone who does not like the Pilot said something like, “I heard it flies great but lands like shit”… But others disagree… I guess I will find out… One thing is for sure – canopies are like cars – everyone has an opinion and you have to make up your own mind. The Spectre is what I have been renting. I have had a lot of fun on it, and, I found the seven cell a bit easier to pack than the 9cell… Less lines to handle.… If someone gave me a canopy for Christmas (I can dream, can’t I), I would not mind the Spectre at all. You can see by my current jump numbers, I am no expert here, but, I do have some paraglidng experience that has transferred over, so I have been a little more aggressive on the risers and toggles than some of my peers… (Of course, above 1500’ and away from others.) I know I could learn a lot on the Spectre before needing to move up on wing loading, while at the same time, it recovered from aggressive riser/toggle turns, heavly loaded 360s, and stalls without scaring me like another canopy did… But, that might make it too easy to fly long term, thus I chose something else... My only complaint - it opens so slow and smoothly I actually would not mind being under a fully inflated canopy a bit sooner. So, in a nutshell - The Pilot, Lotus and Spectre were my final three I picked from... I narrowed my list down to after talking for days with a bunch of people and my instructors. I have nothing to gain from the following or else I would not post it… I was very happy with my purchase from Dominic at Square 1. We logged a few hours on the phone, and I learned a lot from him... I would make this referal to my best friend. PM me if you want more details.

$25 per jump, includes packing. No day rentals. Likely someone is waiting for it too... And unless you are learning to pack, you can't pack... I wanna jump where you jump.

Not to hijack the thread - but does tunnel time count in ratings like this, or just real skydiving???

I think you picked the right year to sell a pink rig... I was just at the mall, and oh my god, everything is pink this year. Well not everything, but more than I expected...

I did buy a Vector. There were two other rigs I liked just as well as the Vector that had quicker lead times that would have saved me money in the long run on rental fees. The used market was real dry for my size, so I opted for new. I did buy the skyhook. It was one of two reasons that I decided to wait for the Vector. I talked to someone who had a very positive skyhook experience at lower than normal cutaway altitudes. I view it like this... The skyhook might deploy my reserve quicker. I will not change my decision altitudes or procedures because of this, just like I don't drive a car with airbags faster on icy roads. But, a majority of the skydiving incidents are user error, and I know I am not perfect (or else my car would not have airbags or seatbelts), so perhaps if I, or a friend near me, really screws up badly, I pre-paid for a second chance at life. I have seen two videos where the person was under reserve for less than a second before landing (and living injury free). If the skyhook can double that time – all the more power to it. Now - I am working real hard to learn and practice everything that I need to never need the extra speed the skyhook offers. I sincerely hope, when I am old, I can tell the next generation – “The only thing the skyhook did for me was increase the chances of finding the free bag and PC attached to the main when I cutaway, thus paying for itself.” I hope I never have to say, “it saved my life.” Have any of you cutaway on your vector with the skyhook, who can share what it is like? Not an intentional testing cutaway – but a real EP? T.

And - that is a perfect example of how it should not be done - in contrast to my previous post. Sorry you had a rough time. That sucks.

My two cents - since I just went thru a traditional AFF program... In the first jump course we saw how it was packed and how it worked, but we did not learn to pack it... In the AFF - I was working pretty hard on keeping track of everything I needed to learn in the sky. Learning to pack would have been overwhelming at the time... The few weather holds we had were productive and I was taught things I could argue to be more important to my well being than packing. The "A" proficiency card has 35 items on it... Many are not taught fully in the AFF jumps... The one’s that are taught well need more practice before someone should sign off. We students have a lot to learn and practice with coaches and solo after we are done with the formal AFF portion of our studies. Packing is one of them. The instructors clearly made available the resources for us students, and other experienced jumpers were always there to help, give advice, and look out for us. At any given time there seems to be at least one AFF instructor in the hangar or on the plane – so I am asking questions to them all the time. They are glad to help. I personally think the person who taught me how to pack, is more qualified than a few of the AFF instructors I worked with. Don’t get me wrong, I would trust all my instructors, but, there is always someone who is the most qualified… He has been packing since he was 14, jumped his own pack job on his AFF 1 on his 18th birthday, and years latter is now is a coach working towards his own AFF instructor ratings. Looking at instructors jump numbers on this forum, he has packed more rigs than most have jumped, and he is a good teacher. Also, as the rigger who packs most of the reserves – he has the best command of user errors across the whole DZ that have caused malfunctions that he has had to repack. Just my two cents... It is about making sure the students have all the resources available they might need in the community, not trying to teach them everything in the first few jumps or within a specific curriculum, or with a specific instructor.