MarkM

I totally didn't mean that to sound derogatory. I've never met anyone at Skydive American who looked down on me when I was up there for the first time last weekend and I plan on making that my home DZ. It has a lot of "skygods", meaning that there are extremely skilled people there that I hope I can learn something from. I'm from smaller DZs, Cessna shops with barely a runway. So when I see the kind of skill I see down here, yes I consider it skygodhood. But I don't mean that in any negative way.

I don't have a problem with people wanting to swoop, because really it's their life and they're not hurting anyone. But I don't understand how it can really be done safely, no matter how many jumps you have. Before people slam me, let me try to explain(have patience, because I probably won't do it well). I own a sportsbike. I will crash that sportsbike someday. There's too many unknowables for me to protect against to not crash that bike sometime in the future. So I wear a helmet and armored jacket/gloves as my out. If I crash, it'll give me a chance to walk away. I think skydiving is safe for that same reason. If I leave the plane and break my right arm, I can't deploy. I'm screwed right? No, because my left arm can get my silver. Skydiving safety is all about those outs, those second chances when an unknowable comes your way and takes out your primary. Yeah, sometimes people die because there really is no out, but most of the fatality reports IMHO are when people fail to use their out or fail to execute the out properly. Back to my bike. I got these sweet turns not too far from my house, the only ones for about 100 miles around(I live in Florida), problem is the turns have walls on the end of them. If I wipe out, I slam into a wall doing 70 mph. My body armor won't do crap in that situation. Do I go there sometimes? Yeah, but pretty rarely and I don't push it. My friends carve that place up a lot and that's their busines. One has about 10 years riding experience and wiped out at 15mph turning onto a road leaving from there last month. His rear wheel just "gave out", slid, caught and the bike threw him. Broke his wrist. He would've died if that had happened in one of those corners they carve. Last year one of the skygods at Skydive America had his canopy collapse at 100 feet. Totally freak thing, it put him in a coma. I don't know anything about flying, but I can't help but believe that the air is going to be full of just as many unknowables to a canopy as the street is to racebike. So I don't think hook turns are generally a safe thing to do, no matter what the experience level, because if you get hit by one of those unknowables I don't see where your out is.

Date Location Category Age # Jumps 4/13/01 DeLand, FL LAND 30 4700+ 6/9/01 Pepperell, MA LOWT 41 900+ 6/17/01 Buckeye, AZ LAND ?? Lots 8/2/01 Monroe, GA LOWT 40+? experienced 8/26/01 Gardiner, NY LOWT 41 3100 The ground doesn't care how many jumps you have or how experienced you are. I'd say more, but since I'm a student my opinion doesn't merit much.

Well, my EOS is uglier than sin, the chest strap is a little low and the cutaway pillow sticks a bit out more than I like. Oh, and the lack of main riser covers kinda sucks too.... But then gear has come along way since they made those back in 1992. I think if people didn't like their gear, they wouldn't jump it. I'll save my EOS for basing, but wouldn't want to use it for normal skydiving.

Woohoo! Doh!

Hmm, go to Skydive America and see Mark... go to DeLand and see Carrie... Uh, did I mention that the bus ride to the plane at Skydive America is air conditioned?

Bah, there are no parties in DeLand according to SkyMamma. Besides I thought you moved to Sebastian?

I'm wondering if that must be more of a focus in the AFF/AFP programs, because no one really went over my arch much on SL either. Think SL is more of a "Hey you lived! You pass."

Damn girl. Give me one of those relaxed easy going DZs any day

Alright, no one else has dropped by with nuggets of info so I let drop what little I know. Your best bet will be swinging up through Key Largo, latching onto US 1 and take that to the Florida Turnpike. There are a lot of DZs up along the turnpike as far up as Orlando. There's a DZ right in the keys, but I haven't heard much about it. Right before you hit the Florida Turnpike there will be Skydive Miami in Homestead. Never been there yet, think it's a "small" DZ for Florida, but it's right next to the start of your trip up the east coast so you might swing by it. Once on the Turnpike you can hit Skydive America(bit west of the Pike really), Sebastian, and take it right up into the Orlando area for Lake Wales and DeLand. I've only visited Sebastian briefly and spent one weekend at Skydive America. Sebastian probably has a great view, it's not too far from the Atlantic, and I heard a few british accents when I swung by. Skydive America has great facilities for sleeping over at, but it's a little in the middle of BFE. Sebastian is also within an hour or so of both Lake Wales and DeLand, and you have the wind tunnel in Orlando. Maybe you could book an hour or two in there ahead of time? I have no idea what the night life is like at any of these DZs.

Which part of Florida are you coming to?

Anyone see the new nike commercial with the base jump in it? Long ass commercial and was very cool. The base jump made me skip back during the fast forwarding through commercials I usually do on my Tivo.

You can request certain types of payments. Like a cashiers check.

Uh, what?

Heh heh, not bad.

Jesus guys, ease up a bit. Before you start slamming Clay for "hooking it in" at jump 60, don't you think you should know more about his canopy, wing loading, training? Or at least have seen him fly?

I still like the nude jump idea, but I don't think that would work because my instructor will need to be able to keep ahold of me. Other than that, there aren't any safety issues involved with it, right? I'd always figured nude jumps were pretty harmless. Hmmm.. which AFP level does my instructor not hang onto me at....

A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Hey pal, why the long face?" When did this become the bad joke thread?

LOL.

It's disturbing that racer knows nothing but bar jokes and that they're all bad.

Yeah, I logged it. Was jump 18. Felt kinda embarrasing asking the guy to sign it in though.

2 people, 1 chute. Tandem. Figured that was worth a half.

What do you call that, a dude-pack? Maybe pack in some chips in case you get the munchies on the canopy ride down?

The student instructor wrap wasn't something I heard, I was on that load, was first to land and saw the instructor fighting the wrap down to 900 feet or so(DZO's estimate) from the ground. I don't base my "cover your own ass" philosphy on stuff I've heard, just the stuff I've seen at different dropzones. Yeah, the rigger smoking a joint while packing a student main is still 100 times the packer I'll ever be, but that doesn't mean I'd want him doing my reserve when I get my own gear. And no, I don't think that DZ was "bad". I think you'll see good things and bad things at any dropzone. IMHO you learn as much as you can as fast as you can and just try to jump with the good and avoid the bad. And when I say "bad", I mean "something that crosses a highly subjective and extremely personal fine line of safety".

I understand. But my trust just doesn't go into doing something I already feel is unsafe(for me) unless I really know the people I'm dealing with. For example I remember once hearing from someone/somewhere that if you're jumping gear you don't know(new main, new rig) you do a simple hop and pop on it first. That stuck in my head because it seemed like sound advice. On my second 10 sec delay an instructor was going up with another student for an exit where the student did heading control on the instructor. He'd drop me off at 4500 and then at 7500 both him and the student would do their thing. He was looking to buy a used rig from someone at the DZ so he borrowed it for that jump to test it out. Mentally alarm bells went off for me, but naturally I'm not going to say anything because what do I know. I exit, hit the ground go in to the hanger and start hearing people outside screaming to cut away. The BOC pouch on that rig was loose. He didn't know it, ended up prematurely deploying on the track from the student, and was wrapped by the student's main and his. If you were my AFF instructor I'd trust you to know tons of stuff I don't, and to know what's best for my safety more than I do. But I'll still call off our dive myself if there's something going on I'm not comfortable with. I'm sorry if that makes me sound cocky or like a know it all. Also totally understand and have zero problem with things like that. I don't expect limits my mentors set to be flexible just because I may feel I can go beyond them. Those limits are in place for my safety. But at the same time the limits I set for myself are equally unflexible, I won't go beyond those because someone I don't know, but has a rating or some jumps, says I can or should. Some may say that as a low timer I don't have the knowledge to set that second set of limits, but I don't see how I have any other choice.