JDBoston

All these techies here.... interesting. My name is Joe Deal. Appropriately enough, my job is separating people from their money. Specifically, I sell storage management software at a company called Astrum Software in Boston. I've got 27 jumps to date and my primary specialty, if you can call it that, is landing on my feet. But I'd like to learn how to freefly. And if anyone comes up with a joke about my name that I haven't heard yet, I'll buy you a jump. Joe A-38502

On AFF 3 or 4, can't remember which, I jumped rig #13 on Friday the 13th. I am still here. But it was kind of spooky all the same. Joe A-38502

If you're not squeamish the Granada Motel is only $40. Don't worry, they will certainly have a vacancy.... or thirty. It feels like the kind of place that "Cops" is going to show up at any minute. In all fairness nothing like that happened when I was there. You might want to bring your own soap though. Joe A-38502

Hard to say which is the lesser of two evils here. Everyone should take a look at www.skydivenet.com (7/4 incident) for an example of why this discussion is a valuable one to engage in. Joe

Mollie is excellent, I did 3 jumps with her at X-Keys as part of my A license requirements. We may have met there, it was just about 2 months ago. You get a LOT of prep time with her on the ground, which helps a lot, and she is generally a very good instructor and motivator. The improvement I felt from just 3 jumps was pretty striking. So: lots of fun and well worth the $70/jump. Ten jumps is a slightly different equation though. And I must admit I did have a little more fun on the "freefly safety jump" with Heath. Basically you try to sit and if you're like me you spend most of the time on your back. Good luck pounding that license out! Joe A-38502

I heard another interesting stat - the risk of 1 jump is the same as the risk of driving 440 miles. With the exception of course that on the road, a lot of the risk comes from some other dumb driver (and there are lots of dumb drivers out there...) running a red light or something, whereas on a typical Otter load you only really have to watch out for maybe the 3 or 4 other jumpers who got out before and after you and will be closest to you under canopy. Most of the fatalities involve one person and one only, and like the other posts say, most could have been prevented somehow. So the bottom line is you have much more CONTROL when you're skydiving over what happens to you. That shouldn't make you afraid, it should just make you take it seriously and make it your business to learn about everything. A good place to start is www.skydivenet.com. I read every single incident there before I even jumped once. I feel a lot more comfortable when I know what could go wrong and what I could do to hopefully avoid it. Blue skies, Joe A-38502