Eule

Somebody on the ground is going to think "weirdest.birdshit.ever." after that. I read an account that a guy wrote about peeing from a hot-air balloon. Not sure of the altitude, but he was out over farmland. He said the stream broke into little droplets that sort of followed each other down in a meandering path as they were blown by the wind. It was relatively early in the morning and he said the sunlight catching the drops was pretty. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Caution: student/low jump numbers here. Some thoughts. There's a young guy who jumps at the DZ I go to whose dad jumped back in the day. His dad brought his old rig one day and jumped it a few times. From his comments I think it dated from the late 70s or early 80s. It looked mostly like the rigs I am jumping, except for the riser releases. I _think_ they were Capewell releases - something like a big buckle on the risers where the three-rings goes on a newer rig. I pointed to the release and said, "Hey, yours doesn't have the three rings." He laughed and said "This is old stuff, you don't even want to know about it." At first I wondered why he didn't tell me about it - I was expecting something like several people have said here, that the older jumpers like to talk about "back in the day". Thinking about it now, he might have not wanted to talk about it so as not to get me (a student) confused. To me, the different handles/EPs would be the biggest concern. I've seen a lot of things happen out of force of habit, mostly in cars, where there wasn't the added bonus of a planet coming at you. When I was learning to drive, I switched back and forth between a '79 Olds with a column-shift automatic and an emergency brake pedal and an '84 Nissan with a floor-shift automatic and an emergency brake handle. When I'd driven the Olds for a while, and then got into the Nissan and tried to drive off from being parked, I would quite often pop the hood and turn the wipers on instead. Another time I was riding with a guy who had driven a stick for 8 years and had just bought a floor shift automatic. We were pulling away from a light in Drive when I suddenly heard his foot hit the floorboard and saw him reach down and flick the shifter forward. Thankfully he didn't push the button, so it only went into Neutral. It took him mashing the gas, hearing the engine rev, and realize he wasn't getting any thrust before he figured out what had happened. Sometimes it's not force of habit, but just lack of knowledge - take somebody who is 25 or younger and knows how to drive a stick, put them in an old VW, and watch how long it takes them to find reverse. One way around this, _if possible_, would be to modify the old rig to have handles like a new one. I know that takes away from it being an "old rig", and if somebody has one in really nice shape they probably don't want to hack on it. Something like this happens in countries that have strict vehicle inspection laws; people that have old cars will temporarily hang turn signals or a third brake light or whatever they need to be legal on the outside of their car, drive to the show or campout, and then take the extra stuff off for the "stock" look. But I think it's easier to make those kinds of reversible mods to a car than to reversibly mod a rig. Having said all that, after I get lots more jumps in, I think it would be interesting to jump a round that's set up on a "modern" container/harness/three-rings with the same handles I'm used to. (Mostly) the same procedures, but a different ride. (It might even be a license requirement somewhere past A; I haven't looked.) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Thinking about some of the 'regulars' at the DZ I go to... - Teacher - Semi truck driver - In the Air Force - Construction (residential) - Construction (commercial) - Work at TV station (not a face on the air, but a producer or similar) - Waiting tables Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Just curious about a couple of things... What happens when you fire up a tunnel for the first time? I mean, I know that you probably go around and check for screws, nails, boards, tools, and other large things that have been left in the air path, but I figure when the fans start turning for the first time, you find a lot of gum wrappers and dust that you missed... What do the PC-based systems do that the manual control doesn't do? (If I had to guess I'd say the PCs are used to automatically handle the timing and "time's up" lights.) Is there an emergency stop switch that isn't wired through the PC that can be used when the PC crashes? Have you gotten any nasty phone calls from the airlines yet? "Our bookings to Orlando are down 37% and we think it's your fault!" :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Try this. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I'm a student, not a video guy or TM. I did hear this one day with a TM and a somewhat nervous tandem going through ground school: TM: When we're up there, do you want to fly the parachute? Tandem: Uh, is it hard? What do I do? TM: Oh, it's easy. If the parachute opens, I make sure- Tandem: Waaaaah! Another day, I was on a wind hold and was BSing with some of the tandems waiting to go. One lady volunteered that a) it was her birthday and b) her brother and several of his friends were all going to come with her, but as the date approached, the excuses got thicker, so she ended up coming alone. She thought this was funny because the men involved were all firefighters. I hung out nearby when the video guy walked up and did the ground interview, "why did you come out today" etc. She mentioned her birthday and the video guy was about to go on when I stage-whispered to her, "Tell 'em about your brother!" She lit up and told the video the same story she told me. She went up, jumped, and landed - the video guy ran up to her on landing: Video: How was it? Tandem: YEAH! Oh my god! Great! Whooo! Video: Do you want to say anything to your brother? Tandem: [Looks directly into the camera and points both index fingers at lens] You SUCK! Wahoo!!! The video came out great. It seems like the TMs and video guys are often rushing to make a load, and maybe you do this already, but enlisting the help of students or fun-jumpers who are hanging out and talking to the tandems might help add to the video. (Edited to add:) Lots of possible variations on this one: Video: Hey, I see you put the hook knife back on that tandem rig. TM (to video): Yeah. TM (to student): Uh, don't show this video to my parole officer, OK? Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I've told several people I was jumping and one person has come close, so far. It was at a party after work and he asked, "Can you breathe up there?" He may have just meant "at that altitude" - thinking of pressurized cabins or similar - but the way he put it made me think he was asking about free fall. It may help that a lot of the people I've told have been technical types - engineering, computer geeks, etc. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Hello! I'm just down the road a bit, in Tulsa. I jump a little west of Tulsa at Cushing. I know some of the "regulars" there go up to Mt. Vernon on occasion as it's only a few hours away up Route 66. I know that I disagree with a greenie at my peril ( :) ), but even though this is an important step, I don't know if this alone makes you a real skydiver. The real question is: Have you bought beer yet? (Assuming you're of age and don't abstain, of course.) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

When you realize that you have to pay a minimum amount of attention at your job to get the money to keep jumping. :) I started in June and went for a couple of months before I took a weekend off. It was a lucky combination of the other half complaining that we hadn't done Saturday night dinner+movie for a while and the weather being no good to jump. :) I still think about it a lot, but it isn't as bad as it was at first. Earlier this year, I did postpone a weekend visit with the family to Monday because it was supposed to be good jump weather that weekend. I didn't tell _them_ that - they didn't even know I was jumping at the time. I visited them on Monday (my work schedule allowed for it) and after a good visit, I explained to them why I was busy on the weekend by putting in the video of my first jump. After the inital shock, they took it pretty well. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

The HTML source here directs one to irc.xircn.net:7000 #Dropzone ; is that equal to the above? Is one preferred over the other? Thanks! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Congratulations! Good feeling, isn't it? :) The whole rope is a steering line. The loop at the end that you put your hand through is a toggle. You will learn all about this when you go through your first jump class. Pay attention, there will be two quizzes later. One will be on paper and the second one will consist of having a large planet thrown at you. I started right in on the first AFF jump and if I was starting from scratch again I'd do a tandem first, like you did. The first several seconds of my first AFF jump were entirely occupied with me thinking "oh sh-t I let go of the plane and I'm hurtling towards the ground", before I calmed down and started doing the things I was supposed to do. If I had done a tandem, I could have done that part while I didn't have to *do* anything else. Also, don't freak if you end up doing an AFF level more than once. Some people get right through it in 7 jumps and some people (like me) take longer. I've got over 30 times as many jumps as you have and I still don't have my own gear. The way it was explained to me: Imagine you're 16, you just learned to drive, and you found Bill Gates' (or Scott McNeely's) credit card on the sidewalk. If you go buy a new Corvette, you'll probably wrap yourself around a tree within a week. If you go buy a '52 Ford, you'll probably spend more time under it (or at the shop with it) than you do driving it. Or, you can rent a lot of nice cars until you figure out what you really need or want. As I understand it, usually you have to have at least an A license before jumping naked. (I think it's a requirement for the D license.) On the kids jumping: it varies by state and country. In the US, _usually_ you have to be 18 to jump. I think there might be a few states where it's 21. Some dropzones will let someone who's 16 jump, but there is usually extra paperwork involved. Check with some local DZs to find out what their rules are. Welcome! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I'm not experienced (32 jumps), but I do have an observation. Don't freak out or get mad at yourself if you end up doing an AFF level more than once. I sort of convinced myself that I'd just whip through AFF in 7 jumps and go on from there, but it didn't quite work out that way. Reading the forums here, it seems to be fairly common to repeat one or more levels. If you don't have to repeat, great! If you're of legal age, buy beer as required. :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

OK, then it's about 50 jumps, plus or minus. The repacks and checks should only add a jump or two to the price. The repairs will vary - are they just fixing the stitching on a leg pad, or replacing one of the main straps in the harness? My numbers assumed that the rig is getting used for one-instructor AFF jumps all the time. These are typically over US$100 and possibly more depending on where you jump. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I agree with this. The DZ I jump at doesn't charge "gear rental" separately for student jumps. The jump is a certain price and the instructors, gear, jump ticket, etc are all included. I looked back over the wavier I signed and it mostly seems to cover me making a claim because I get hurt, but some of the "claim of loss" stuff might be construed to include the gear. I am not a lawyer. Looking at the economics of it, I figure it like this. I know what I pay for a one-instructor AFF jump. I know what the instructor gets out of that, because one of my instructors volunteered it one day. I figure the normal (licensed jumper) jump ticket price is pretty close to the marginal cost to put one more person on the load. I also figure the packer gets his normal rate. Doing the math, I find that after the instructors' cut, two jump tickets, and a pack job, approximately half of the jump price remains. Depending on exactly how much the replacement canopy costs, something like 30 to 35 jumps, plus or minus, would pay for it. Therefore, if a particular student rig has a cutaway with complete loss of the main canopy less than once every 35 or so jumps, then the DZ is making money. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I still haven't tried it at work, but that seems plausible. Last night I started on an adventure with a netcat proxy to automagically rewrite the incoming HTML to simply contain a link to the post instead of calling postShortcut() but I couldn't make it work right. I decided a) this was a symptom of having no life and b) it really needs to get fixed on the server side. I wonder how many different kinds of nothing would happen if we complained to Gossamer Threads directly. I agree with AndyMan above that just having a plain old link would be the best thing. Eule (edited to add agreement with AndyMan) PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

First off, thanks for the many replies! Instead of creating many posts, I'm going to attempt to reply to everything in one big post. I'll go along in the order that the replies were originally posted. We'll see how it goes. If I understand you correctly, I/my instructors have sort of done this already. I have done a few (OK, several) dives where the plan was simply: exit; COA; be stable, belly-to-earth, and hold a heading with no turns or spins; wave off and pull at the usual altitude. Not the usual "turn one way, then the other, then forward motion" kind of plan. I have talked about doing an IAD/SL type skydive - more below. 1. Very occasionally, like maybe two or three times a year. If I close my eyes and sit still, it usually passes after less than a minute. 2. Hearing loss? No. I am not occupationally or otherwise repeatedly exposed to loud noises. I can usually tell if a TV is on in another room, even if it's muted and I can't see the light from the screen - I can hear the 15.7 kHz whine. Ringing? Occasionally. Less than once a month and more than once a quarter. When it happens, it doesn't affect my ability to have a conversation and I don't think I speak more loudly than usual. Hard to clear? Sometimes it takes me a while (maybe 0.5-1 hour) after I come down from a jump. Pain? No. 3. No. Tried it on a tile floor and walked along one of the joints - OK. 4. A little. If I do it with my eyes open, I lean back and forth and tense and relax my leg muscles to stay balanced (hands at sides). If I start with my eyes open (either looking down at my feet or straight ahead), and then close them, I can stay vertical for a while, but eventually I start leaning to one side or the other far enough that I stop the experiment so I don't fall over. Usually I end up leaning to the right when I feel I'm about to fall. 5. No. Based on that, perhaps it would be helpful to find a doctor. If I can finish AFF in less than about ten jumps, that's probably feasible. Much more than that and I'll have to wait long enough that I'll probably have to start from AFF 1 again. I've gotten video once for exactly this reason. On that dive, I managed to not have whatever problem is bothering me. I think I have already experienced this a bit. When my brain tells me I am level, it's lying to me a little bit - if it tells me I am level and then I stick my right leg a little further up in the air, I seem to be closer to actually level. I'm at right about 22 minutes (182-10K to 12.5K). I hear you, but I also heard the same thing when it was "you've only got 10 minutes of freefall, relax!" :) I did go to North Carolina in July. The tunnel seemed to help, and I wanted to make a jump after my tunnel time there, but I couldn't organize it in the time I had. When I got back home and jumped, I seemed to do a little better. This past weekend, I talked to the DZO for a while, and he said about the same thing regarding a tunnel. Basically, "go to the tunnel and don't leave until you think you've got it fixed." More on this conversation below. I thought about it a little more. I'm pretty sure the instructors are trained to expect all kinds of crazy sh-t from a student, and should therefore be smart enough to not put themselves in a bad spot. Most of the time, at pull time, I've been able to see my instructor(s) - maybe not their whole body, but at least they were in front of me, or on my side but towards my front. This time, my instructor was at my right rear. I knew he had docked on me but it felt a little odd as he was changing grips right after he docked and I wasn't sure what was going on. My instructor, and especially the DZO, don't seem to be very interested in justifications for my not pulling on time. Words like "must" enter the conversation quickly. Re-reading my post, I may have been a little hard on them. On my earlier skydives, I definitely got the debrief of things I did well first, followed by things I needed to work on. Lately, the dive plan has been pretty simple, and I feel like I know if I did well or not while I'm still in the air. It might have been unfair to say that the only things they told me were what I had done wrong, but the "be nice first" part was kind of brief. I did this, this past weekend (8 Oct). I got one jump in on Saturday, during which the first part of the dive was fine, but I started spinning near the end. No jumps on Sunday. I've only ever had three instructors - two people that work there as instructors on some of my jumps, and the DZO (also an instructor) on a few of my jumps. The DZO and I talked. We talked about the tunnel, as above. One theory that he and one of my other instructors is developing is that the pattern of "I spin, instructor stops" may not be useful. I don't _plan_ on having the instructor stop my spins - I want to fix them myself. In the jump that prompted my original post, I got mad at myself for thinking "the instructor will stop the spin because I can't". But they feel that they might be reinforcing a bad habit. The DZO suggested that I might do a jump with the instructor jumping with me but relatively far away (i.e., he's not going to come in and stop my spin), or maybe by myself so that I _know_ there is nobody to stop my spin. I've been asked that, as well. Almost always I can answer 'yes' to both. The jump that prompted the post was the first one where if anyone had asked if I had fun, I'd have told them 'no', which was a signal to me that something is a little off. After I had ten or so jumps, I came back home from the DZ and the other half asked "How's the skydiving going?" I just sort of looked myself up and down, stretched my arms and legs, and said, "Pretty well, apparently!" We both broke out laughing. :) Like I said above, perhaps I was being a bit hard on them. On the other hand, if I land knowing that I didn't complete a very simple dive plan, maybe they feel it's not much use in trying to give me the good stuff first. I brought this up with the DZO - the idea that if I'm having this much trouble, maybe I'm in the wrong sport? He said he didn't think so; he wasn't going to tell me not to jump - he didn't think I was dangerous; he thought I knew how to do it because I've done the right things, just not all in one jump; but that something different needed to happen for me and he wasn't sure what that was. Well, I've driven past one half a dozen times now, I should be doing great! :) I did go to the tunnel back in July (see above). I think that if I do go again, I will go to a place (Perris or Eloy) where I can jump immediately after the tunnel time to see if the tunnel time "took". Hey, I agree with this, but my instructors don't, so I have to listen to them or go someplace else... I agree, but I am also aware of the arguments surrounding them. At this point I always jump with one because I'm jumping the DZ's gear, all their gear has AADs, and the gear checks are thorough enough that having it shut off would get noticed. I'm getting some of that in person and a lot of that here, and it does help. Before I ever went to a DZ, I read dropzone.com, Poynter and Turoff's book, and some other things on the Web. Pretty much 90% of what I read has turned out to match the actual experience. The only thing that I disagree with in the 'new to jumping' material is the (implied? put there by my own wishful thinking?) idea that 'you go out, do 7 jumps, you're done with AFF, 18 more to your A license, there you go'. After getting into it, I hope to one day find the mythical skydiver who passed his or her AFF in precisely 7 jumps. :) Sort of. I've only ever jumped with three instructors - two who work there as instructors, and the DZO, who is also an instructor. I don't think there are any other AFF instructors at the DZ. Of the two who aren't the DZO, I've had a little better luck with one over the other, I think. I've seen carpenters doing that before and wondered how the hell they didn't fall off. It very well could have nothing to do with my balance. It was sort of on my mind because I had a cold a couple of weeks ago during the week and my ears got stuffed up and my balance got a little weird. It was fine by the time Saturday rolled around, but it made me think about possible problems in that direction. I hope it went well! That's happened to me once. I want to make it happen more often. :) Making it happen every time is not realistic, but I think I can get better odds than 1 in 32. I am still pondering my next action - it's not going to be to hang up my wings, but it's probably not going to be to do the same thing I've been doing to learn. Thanks again to everyone for the thoughtful replies! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

AirNav also has a summary report at http://www.airnav.com/fuel/report.html . Google knows all. http://www.google.com/search?q=2000+gallons+in+liters http://www.google.com/search?q=2000+imperial+gallons+in+liters http://www.google.com/search?q=45+miles+%2B+100+meters+%2B+5+feet+%2B+2+mm+%2B+3+angstroms+in+furlongs Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

First thought - You're almost as much of a geek as I am. Second thought - You totally ignored the latency in the keyboard and/or mouse interfaces. :) Looking at http://www.networktechinc.com/ps2-prots.html and http://www.computer-engineering.org/ps2protocol/, the best-case timing for a PS/2 mouse or keyboard to send one 11-bit packet to the computer is about 635 microseconds, and the worst-case timing is about 1075 microseconds. In other words, the mouse or keyboard is adding 0.00064 to 0.0011 seconds to your score. USB is probably a little faster. I've got a keyboard that despite being branded |d|i|g|i|t|a|l|, is just your basic rubber-dome model. I may locate a Model M (buckling-spring) for comparison. The monitor is set to 75 Hz. The mouse is an old Logitech trackball. I ran six tests, in the below order. I was always faster on the keyboard as compared to the mouse - 20% faster on the first two pairs and 10% faster on the last pair. I've also been awake for about... uh... 20 hours at this point. Wow. I may try it again after I've slept. 32.5 years old, male .459 .289 .279 .299 .389 av .343 (right thumb, button 1) .288 .244 .292 .353 .219 av .2792 (right thumb, space bar) .249 .319 .348 .369 .309 av .3188 (right thumb, button 1) .278 .246 .249 .262 .245 av .256 (right thumb, space bar) .258 .299 .269 .289 .339 av .2908 (right thumb, button 1) .225 .264 .261 .300 .249 av .2598 (right thumb, space bar) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

The Right Way (tm) to fix this is on the server end. However, you can make Firefox lie about what it is (it'll tell the server it's IE) and the server seems to believe it. I installed "User Agent Switcher" (from https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&id=59 ) and gained a menu item that lets me tell Firefox to say it is IE6, NS4, or Opera8. (This is just the default list; you can modify it.) When I flip it to IE6 and reload a forum page, I see the "copy shortcut" on the posts. When I flip it back to "default", the "copy shortcut" goes away. I'm not sure if the "copy shortcut" _works_, since it's a Javascript function to paste the URL into the clipboard. I'm on Linux and I'm not sure where the text goes, but it doesn't seem to go to the X clipboard or cut buffer. Tomorrow at work I can try it on Windoze and see what happens. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I dont think it should be related to the forum activities. There are and have been several really, really horrible trolls on thje forums in the past. And some were quite the postwhores. see: Unt-m-dD-g, among others. I agree that this is subject to abuse. If trolls didn't exist, participation in the forum would be a step towards "good guy" status - it'd rank you higher than someone who reads and doesn't post. But trolls do exist. Maybe rate-limiting would help: so many points per post up to a max of so many points per day/week/month/whatever. On the other hand, you soon end up with a tremendously complicated formula. It can be difficult to codify trust. I disagree that other communities lack a "real life connection" but I know what you're getting at. It's quite possible to code or create Web pages or do some other things while sitting at home in front of the computer, but to skydive you have to go to the DZ and presumably meet other people. One possibility is some kind of link to the various regulating agencies - some way to confirm that Joe Smith really does exist and has a USPA B-license or a BPA A-license or whatever. This probably raises several sticky questions of privacy, third party access to what the agencies may consider proprietary data, etc, and may not be practical. This seems similar to the way that I understand public-key signing parties work. Usenet hasn't really come up with a good solution to this either. Other than reading somebody's posts for a while, or knowing them through some other connection, there isn't a formal "trust" mechanism. Individual users can have "kill files" that list authors whose posts are not to be displayed; on Usenet this is private to each user, but on a board system like this, where everyone's preferences are on one server, it might be able to connect this to the "trust" system. In other words, if a lot of people have a user in their "ignore list", it reduces that user's "trust" score. This would probably have to exclude the forums like Bonfire and Speaker's Corner; you might have 5000 jumps and every rating in the book but if half the people in Speaker's Corner don't share your politics, you'll end up in a lot of "ignore" lists. Then again, this is much simpler BeerPal.com exists, but doesn't seem to offer the analogous service to PayPal. Darn. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Thanks for the closeup! This is much more like what I had in mind. Stills and video cost extra. I accept small, unmarked bills. :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Hello all! Caution: Long angst-filled post follows. Like the subject says, I think I'm developing a new training method: DFF. Yes, I have 31 jumps. No, I haven't passed all the way through AFF yet. I am starting to get frustrated, and I am trying to figure out my next move. I jumped on 4 Sep, then didn't jump the next two weekends due to weather or getting to the DZ too late in the day. I jumped again on 25 Sep. My first jump that day (#29) was the best skydive I've had yet. I was stable, my instructor released fairly early, I held a heading and didn't turn when I didn't want to - great! I was so happy that I actually shouted and hollered right after I got under canopy. Later that afternoon, I went again, and did my usual unwanted spins in free fall, but at least I stood up the landing for the first time (beer!). This past weekend (2 Oct), I did jump #31. I spun a lot - belly to earth, but turning like crazy and not sure how to stop it. My instructor had to stop my spinning all the way down. I remember being in the air and thinking "I don't know how to fix this. I'm just going to wait for him to stop it." Which is the Wrong Thing to be thinking, but it was all I knew how to do. He redocked on me just at pull altitude (5K for me) and I was concerned that he didn't know I was about to pull, so I waved off longer and ended up pulling low, at about 4K. (This isn't "low" for an experienced jumper, and it's not "low" as in AAD- fire land, but it is lower than I am supposed to go.) The canopy ride was also less than great - I didn't land out or hard, but it just didn't go very well. When I got on the ground, I very nearly started in on the DZ employee (a video guy, not my instructor) who walked out to meet me. But I held my tongue and went in for my debrief, which was my instructor and the person who observed my canopy ride telling me everything I did wrong. I would much rather them tell me what I did wrong than lie to me and tell me I did good. I think it's natural to get a little mad when somebody tells you you did something wrong, but on previous jumps, I've been able to get over that fairly quickly and realize that they were telling me what I needed to hear instead of what I wanted to hear. I wasn't able to do that this time. After trying to plead my case a bit, I simply stopped talking, and waited for them to finish. I knew that if I said anything more, it would lead to an unpleasant situation for everyone. I took off all my gear, walked out the door, and got in my car for what turned out to be a 3-hour drive to think about things. When I left, I wasn't sure that I would come back. While out driving, I thought about things. I like jumping but I'd like it more if I didn't suck at it, so I need to figure out how not to suck at it, which I'm not sure I know how to do. I have figured out pieces of it, but I haven't yet put them all together. Some of the things I do know are: - Some of my spins are caused by my right knee/leg being low. I have decided that my sense of level-ness is out of calibration, so what I do is arch and put my body where I think it's in the right position, then raise my right knee/leg a little more. This usually gets everything in the right place. - Many of my bad jumps start out with hurrying around on the ground, or waiting until the last minute for the wind, or similar. The fix for this, I think, is simply to not get on the load if these conditions exist. - Relaxing does help, when I can do it. If I start to spin slowly, sometimes I can relax and arch enough to fix it. Once I start really turning, I tend to tense up, which doesn't help at all. - Looking up at the plane as I exit, and arching anytime, helps me get in the right position. I used to go head-down right after exit. I also had a couple of tumbles out the door and arching put me back belly to earth. I have also pondered what my possible next moves might be. So far I have come up with: - Keep going back to the DZ and slogging it out. - Go back to the tunnel. I went to the tunnel in late July (between jumps 15 and 16) and it did seem to help; maybe it would help again. - Try a different DZ for a few jumps. I do not expect this to magically fix my problem - I think the problem is mine rather than the fault of anyone at my current DZ. But maybe an instructor at another DZ might see something or explain something in a different way that will help me understand what's going on. (I've jumped at the same DZ for all 31 jumps so far.) - Go to the doctor and have my ears and related hardware checked out to make sure my balance isn't totally hosed. I can walk around every day without falling over, but maybe I've learned to compensate for some problem while I'm on the ground that is kicking my butt in the air. - Realize that the large number of jumps I am taking to get through this should be telling me that I'm not cut out for it, and hang it up. I ended up driving back to the DZ; the folks there were kind of relieved to see me as they didn't know where the hell I had disappeared to. We BS'd about non-skydiving things, went for a beer, and then went home, as it was late Sunday by that point. My instructor had already left when I got back, so I haven't yet had a chance to sit down with him with a calm head and talk about my most recent jump. I plan to do that this weekend. So... anybody been there and done that and got some sage advice? I know that probably none of you have seen me jump and don't know what specific problems I might be having. But I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person in the world to have a hard time getting through "basic". Thanks! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

You might not be able to do much about the first, but maybe you can do something about the second. That's US$35,000, which seems really low to me - but I'm not in the UK. I'm not sure of the terminology, but had you gone to university full time, would you have gotten the same degree you have now in 2 years, 4 years, or something else? In the US, $35K might not be bad for a two-year degree, but it would be a little low for a four-year degree, even for someone who just graduated. At least that would be more interesting than what I do now, but how difficult would it be to get into those companies Take your logbook and your resume'/CV and go there in person. (Don't try to do it over email, fax, or phone.) Knock on the door, explain that you skydive and do electronics, and would like to work for them. It might take a couple of tries for you to get in to see the right person, but keep at it. Depending on your finances and how you feel about it, you might even accept a job in the shipping department or something, and then work your way into an electronics job later. Another way that doesn't work everywhere is to just go there and hang out and be helpful. After a while they will start writing you checks. This may sound silly, but it is exactly how I got the job I have today. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

My generic suggestion: find out where a few local DZs are, then go hang out at each one for an afternoon or so before you decide. I did this at two DZs in my area - when I explained that I was thinking about jumping and just wanted to hang out for a while, both places were cool about it. Before I went and hung out, I was mostly planning on jumping at a DZ that is relatively close to my house. After I hung out at both places, I decided that the one that's farther away was where I wanted to go. Good luck! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Caution: low jump number person here. The DZ I jump at has radios for the students, and I understand radios are fairly common at many DZs. On your first several jumps, as soon as you get under canopy, somebody on the ground starts talking to you, and this continues until you get on the ground - they tell you when to flare. In my experience, for the first few jumps, I was pretty much relying on the radio for the flare timing. I gradually got used to the idea that I wasn't going to hit the ground hard and started planning ahead a little. I'd look at the wind and how fast I was coming down and think "I bet they'll tell me to flare pretty high this time" or "I bet they'll wait until I'm almost on the ground" and comparing that to what was said on the radio. As I got better at it, I'd still jump with a radio, but they'd only talk to me if I was about to do something silly, and I got to do my turns and time the flare without help. After some more jumps, I started doing it without a radio at all. Besides, you remember how to do a PLF, right? :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.