MarkM
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Everything posted by MarkM
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Don't you only need to be "B-qualified" for night jumps? That's how I did them. Yeah, night jump requirements are "B-qualified" not B licensed. Outside of some rare boogie requirements, a B doesn't really let you do anything you can't do with an A.
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I used to drink about 3 liters of coke a day for maybe 15 years and gave it up cold turkey a couple years ago. The first week or so sucks, but after that your body gets over its need for caffeine. Now I just drink the odd Fanta or root beer(neither has caffeine), but mostly stick to water. Cravings sort of follows your diet. If you stopped drinking coffee totally you'd probably eventually lose the cravings to drink it.
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Air flow reacts to different materials in different ways(creating or removing drag). A jumpsuit keeps that the same from jump to jump. And also normal clothing can get in the way of your handles. When you get off student status that's a good time to buy your own cheap jumpsuit. Then when your landings get better you can spend too much money on one, just so you can look cool
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Looks sweet. Now just go jump it and tell us how it flies.
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Never had a problem with glow sticks mucking up my vision in the plane either.
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Yeah, those events are way too small and localized to be a hurricane.
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The thing with the training methods is that they all have their pros and cons. AFF might have had you more prepared for a solo release in fewer jumps, but your ATP gave you several canopy rides with an instructor sitting right behind you showing you how to fly a canopy. Edit: and btw, progressing more slowly isn't always a bad thing.
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Still just a C license requirement to jump at the boogie?
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I solo a lot. It's relaxing "me" time where I can just chill out and focus on the environment.
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A lot of the skydiving companies bend over backwards for their customers, because they know it's a reputation business. Others can be real hit or miss.
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Hard butt-first landing. Feels like I was in prison
MarkM replied to ntrprnr's topic in General Skydiving Discussions
I used to setup for landing, feet close together and ready for a PLF and then when I touched ground I'd either: 1> Run it out / slide it out on my feet. 2> Go down to my knees and slide it out on them.(bruised my knees a couple times doing this though). 3> If I was hitting the ground hard, turn sideways into a PLF. My decision time was when my feet touched the ground. I had a bad habit of flaring too low and I'd often hit the ground harder than I'd like. If I had a good flare I could run it out or slide on my feet, if the flare was bad I could still PLF. -
Hard butt-first landing. Feels like I was in prison
MarkM replied to ntrprnr's topic in General Skydiving Discussions
Stop landing on your ass. You can compression fracture your spine. Legs are easier to repair than your spinal cord is. Let them take the first hit on a bad landing(PLF). Then the next time you hit bad air you won't have to sit on a pillow. -
Hey there's no problem with that. Just close your eyes during the jump
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Going back to the Triathlon 160 for a hundred jumps, then getting a sabre/pilot 150. The Diablo is a not a beginner's canopy and your landing problems are lack of skill, not wing loading.
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Knowing you, if I had a friend that was a student I'd be comfortable with them getting advice from you once they were off student status.
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The RSL for experienced jumpers isn't for some remote possibility that they may forget to pull their reserve. It's for when they're in the basement and getting out their reserve that much faster can save their lives. Better jumpers than you have bounced pulling their reserve too low after trying to get stable. There are some jumping situations where it totally makes sense to not use a RSL, but for most jumpers RSLs are more likely to save them than kill them.
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Naw, see now you're describing a "real" skydiver. A "real" skydiver knows why the birds sings, spends all day at work looking out the window at the sky, gets all excited when they smell nylon, and name their cat Swoops. It's a different distinction from those other guys that jump out of planes just for shits and giggles.
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But then no one is currently a skydiver, because no first skydiver could've been created as there were no other skydivers to recognize them. Frankly if you've jumped out of a plane, deployed your own chute and landed on your own, you're a skydiver. It's an action you perform, not an attitude or state of mind. And if you stop doing it, you're no longer a skydiver. You were a skydiver.
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Have your kid be "l33t". My middle name is Alan. For the first 10 years of my life I thought it was spelled Allen
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I would've thought High School was too old of a market for MTV....
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Actually the only two problems I've really seen with the Neptune have been the battery indicator issue(which they've since fixed) and minor cracking issues with the case. Considering all the calculations it has to do to work properly(it auto zeroes itself during the day, but has to know when you're in a plane, has to detect when you're in freefall, has to detect when you're under canopy), it's had suprisingly few issues. I can't wait to see what they do with the Titan. Then we can have threads like "Skydiving without live feed heads up display GPS and freefall speed indicators".
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DZ with Strictest Safety Standards/Training?
MarkM replied to Apollinaire's topic in Safety and Training
Pretty much any of the big DZs in Florida would suit the bill. They're typically well staffed with very experienced instructors, have a good selection of gear, nice planes and see a lot of students. Plus you have wind tunnel access in Orlando. That doesn't mean the smaller DZs aren't often better. I was a student at 5 dropzones and one of best instructors I had was a guy at a small cesna DZ up in Indiana. The best thing you can do though is to just go out and interview instructors at dropzones. Get a feel for the ones that are going to give you the attention you need and have an attitude that best meshes with yours. You can have a guy who has the most ratings in the world, but if you don't vibe with him he won't be a good instructor for you. What makes a "good" instructor often varies from person to person. -
Awesome, thanks for the update.
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Low batteries. The battery indicator on the Neptune didn't used to work very well, but they've made it better with recent software updates.
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First time my Neptune ever died it stuck at 11.5k on the plane ride up. Second time it died it stuck at 5k on a canopy ride down at night(though since the backlight had died, it was pretty obvious it died). Oh, and that second Neptune lock up was a friend's. Mine kept freezing up that night on the ground as soon as I turned on the backlight so I had to borrow his and break it Neptunes can and do stick. The screen basically locks ups and you have to take the battery out and put it back in to fix it. In all my cases it was a low battery that caused it, but I'm sure it can happen due to other reasons. Personally I think skydivers should always have two altimeters. That way when one fails, you have a backup and between the two you can err on the side of caution. Maybe it's a visual and an audible. Maybe it's your eyes and your time sense. Whatever's really reliable for you. But I think any single source of altitude awareness will eventually let you down.