Orange1

Argyle, that was a great post. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

You know what they say about pictures speaking 1000 words...I bet that video has done more to raise real awareness on hypoxia among the dz.com community than all the previous threads on hypoxia combined. Even if you didn't want it posted, thank you. I bet there are many people who are now for the first time thinking very seriously about what the risks on high altitude jumps are. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

i kind of want to help but the last one of these i tried had all sorts of questions i just couldn't relate to, and they seem to assume anyone who does an 'extreme sport' (makes me think of Aguila's thread!) regularly likes danger, adrenaline etc... ie the questions tend to get phrased in such a way as to determine the outcome. If yours isn't like that, feel free to send it to my dz.com email address. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

55 questions in 5 minutes?? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

well hell.. if people call skateboarding an extreme sport... but the idea of "extreme" sports (anything) doesn't do it for me, either. too much young testosterone wanting to use that label to brag about something, imho But skydiving is a sport that many people wouldn't even consider because of the attendant risks, so if "extreme" is the general categorisation used for that I would have to say yes it is. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Bill, great article. Some perspective on the above numbers from a completely different situation: my daughter was hospitalised recently with an infection complicated by asthma. They wouldn't let her go home until her O2 sat was 95+ (ie equivalent to an altitude we would see as low). To be honest those numbers wouldn't have meant much to me without some idea of what it means "in practice". So, a very different situation, but I thought the perspective might be useful. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I'm a Low # jumper and until someone said nose lines broken I didn't see it. I thought to myself the whole front looks awfully wobbly and I hope if I was sitting under that thing the mushy and deformed look would tell me it's time to cut. But, until you said what it was I was still looking at the pic thinking somethings not right but I'm not sure what it is. Wonder how long I would have done that under canopy in a real situation -- hopefully just 5-10 seconds before making a decision (to cut). So stupid follow-up question, did this jumper ever feel that the canopy wasn't really flying like it was supposed to or is this kind of mal really subtle and you wouldn't even feel the difference in control, etc? Which leads again to the question of: did the jumper do a control check on the canopy before commencing to fly it down? imo it's not always necessary to know exactly what is wrong, but it is necessary to know if the canopy is going to respond to your control inputs the way you want it to. I am a low number jumper too and even though everything has always looked perfect on all but one jumps (PC over the nose) I have always done a control check (which btw also told me my PC over the nose was landable, which it was). Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

This guy had 40 jumps you said, but flies with a camera? Maybe this is one of the reasons why low jump numbers are advised not to use one or? edited to add: snap to doug's post at same time Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Can you tell me what is your rate of decent under canopy? Huh? It was the post that I responded to, that mentioned the guy noticed the problem when he saw he was going down too fast (which is why I had that bit in quotation marks). So why don't you ask him? I was only wondering if a control check had been at the appropriate time. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Did you friend check the canopy and do a controllability check after opening, or did he only check it when "he noticed he was going down too fast"? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I know I have very low jump #s but in my mind "it can still be steered" pretty much equates with being able to predict how it will behave on the way down. I know this isn't what you asked, but I am interested in the thought process that goes behind deliberately deciding to land a canopy that fails a controllability check. I also don't quite understand this: Are you worried your reserve won't deploy? ...i'm not trying to flame you , just honestly trying to understand. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Um... you seemed to ask whether or not you should have released the toggles before kicking out of the twists (at least that's the way I and some others interpreted part of your question)... imo knowing the answer to that is part of knowing what to do with line twists... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

as a matter of interest, did you do AFF? i did a SL FJC and i guess because line twists are common on SL it was pretty much drummed into us what to do with them, including to never release the toggles until the twists were cleared. (we were told: "half of you will probably have line twists", and sure enough half of us did, including me.) there were certainly things i'm sure we all forgot on the info overload but i'm pretty sure no-one forgot what to do with line twists. also, when you say "spinning", were you spinning fast or just turning slowly? i've had a few openings (at relatively low WLs, well below 1:1) where i had non-inflation of a couple of end cells but never enough to turn me so that i noticed. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

37. static line. was only going to do one "been there done that" jump Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

well, i think its clear that kynan considers most of the answers in this thread to be equivalent to the "random advice givers" he so dislikes. lucky for you all he can't check for tampax wrappers in your trashcans Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Well, insurance premiums may depend on how many years you have had a drivers' license, and many car rental companies won't rent to people who've had a license less than 2 years. Maybe not based on miles per se, but it's pretty much the same thing. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Thanks for this thread... it came to mind when in freefall yesterday i noticed my strap flapping against my visor Held on to the helmet at opening and saved it - brand new Z1 with a protrack inside, wouldn't have been fun to lose it. Lesson learnt. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

i'll bite... what is it? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

The "life is too precious to be enjoyed" school of thought See this Onion article: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45591 Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Hey Jigs I was wondering what had happened to you. I don't have anything to add to the good advice above (& i definitely support the idea of some tunnel time). I remember how much you wanted this and in that sense not surprised to see you back again! So the best of luck and good vibes, and I'm sure you'll get it done this time round

karl.. i meant exactly the difference between sout and soet... i see someone else spelt it out back to the thread and on a more serious note... Rob, when you say "real hospital", do you mean in Zim or in SA? There was a story recently about a guy badly injured in Zim who battled to get back to SA to a hospital. This could be really serious and to be honest, while we all know down here that "Africa is not for sissies" it is possible that jumpers more used to easily available medical care, being flighted out etc may not realise how serious the situation can actually get. Whatever, decent medical insurance will no doubt be necessary. This link may be of interest: http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,9294,2-7-1442_2030558,00.html I seem to recall a story about a Cape Town guy with a worse outcome but can't find it via a search function. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

er... good try but i think what you wrote means something different from what you meant to ... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

No, they're not. And yet I have still seen many people happy to jump with newbies just because they like to give back to the sport (& a few of them have said to me they find it a lot of fun!). And I've seen a bunch of jumpers out of budget for the weekend still get enough together to make up a load for someone (me) who needed to do first freefall within 24 hours of last DRCP. And those are the kind of people who have kept me around the sport. Thankfully I have encountered no real 'skygods'. I would say the OP probably needs to find a new DZ... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I would be interested to know what an experienced jumper (5000 jumps plus an instructors rating) would consider to be the highest wing loading at which point a moderate jumper would get the benefit of a little extra wind penetration and manuverability before adding the risks that go along with highly loaded canopies. I would guess this to be higher than 1:1 but not by too much. Insight? Wind penetration issues are the main one for me too. Of course along with that comes the problems associated with flying smaller canopies even if they are 'only' loaded around 1:1. Because of this I doubt I will go above 1:1 (that's on a 150) for a good while yet. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

That's true, but with 2 and a half weeks if he's focused, has the cash, and gets somewhere with decent weather that operates daily he could easily get 25 jumps (or more) and an A in that time. This may be a better option than if waits for his local DZ to reopen, if that means he can only do AFF on weekends? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.