rendezvous

I prefer the idea of completing the AFF at one DZ if you have no complaints against the folks there. That way your instructors get to know you and your potential much better and can accordingly advice you. There's enough time to hop around once you are done with the AFF.

Why is the water training that is required for the B license not actually a part of the A license. Isn't the purpose of the trianing to enhance the safety of the students if they are faced with a water landing. Whats the rationale behind waiting for it. If someone chooses not to go for the B license shouldn't he/she still be going through the water training, after all water hazards can be encountered anywere .

It was becoming increasingly difficult holding on to the strut so I let go of it.

Well I try to explain that the risk we take is not mindless but measured. I try to explain to them how fatality in Skydiving is not a stand alone event but an outcome of a number of events chained together. That trying to understand this chain and prevent it from forming is how we try and reduce our exposure to risk. I find this "chain of events" explanation to be quite useful because most of the non skydiving community thinks that a malfunction is synonomus to fatality.

I think he was an enlisted.

As an a license if you haven't jumped for 90 days whats the procedure for getting current again. Do you just go and jump or is there something else involved.

Won't dispute that but there are always exceptions to the rule. Had an airborne visit our DZ for a night jump once. Being his 1st jump at the DZ and that too in the evening he was asked to do a Hop'n'Pop right over the DZ. He was on the 1st load of the evening. It took us and the local police 2 hours to find him. He exited right above the landing field but got confused with all the lights around and just let himself drift away. Fortunately he was uninjured and the police didn't bother much about it. Bad things can happen to anyone, anywhere. Airborne or no Airborne, mistakes can be made by anyone.

I have exactly the same problem and my password is all alphabets. No special characters. What do I do ?

would be interested in knowing from those who answered yes to "went so low that the AAD fired" how they managed to get so low ?

thats what I thought too. Thanks.

Who has to sign off the maneuver requirements in free fall for B & C licenses. Can any licensed jumper sign them or do you need an insructor.

Ok ! let's brain storm this from the purpose of having some fun. So let's see, the FAA requires you to wear a parachute if you intend to jump. No where does it say that you are required to open it before a certain altitude is reached or you are considered illegal. The BSR lays down safety requirements as a suggestion but if you choose not to open the chute until you are at 500 ft you are not going to be breaking any laws. You might upset a lot of people and never be allowed to jump in the area but you won't have been illegal. From that point of view if you are forced to use an ADD then you are in essence being forced to be open at 750 ft, clearly an infringement on your right to determine your opening altitude. To portect that right you'll have to keep the AAD off, which is as good as not having one. So the case now is would you like the FAA to set a limit to the legal opening altitude and if you aren't open by then, are you willing to be legally liable for it. Talking of seat belts, let's look at another aspect of driving, speed limit. If the state requires you to follow speed limits why does it not make it a requirement by law to have a device that will not let you exceed the maximum speed limit posted or atleast not allow a vehicle to exceed a certain maximum speed determined to be the max. safest fastest speed which I'm sure will be way less than what a lot of people choose to cruise at on highways these days. Just some food for thought ...

Thats normal. If you haven't jumped for a while it's bound to make your nervous. While going through my AFF sometimes I could jump only once a week and at times once in two weeks. And then ofcourse being a 1 cessna DZ I did my share of waiting around too. All that game me plenty of time to worry about everything I could. All the waiting and thinking use to get me quite anxious but then it would all go away once I found myself stepping out of the plane.

reading a bit of this topic the sense I get is that spandex is the better choice from a safety point of view if the pilot chute during extraction bunches up at the mouth of the pouch or inside it. Spandex being stretchable will not resist the extraction as much as codura could.

unequal yes, but thats just part of the process of phasing out the old system. Most of the jumpers with a D license in less than 500 jumps will eventually reach that number in a reasonable phasing out period.

looks like you chose to pull when you felt things were getting out of hand. I'd say thats good thinking. Right on line with the cardinal rule: pull, pull at the right altitude, pull stable. It's the most important thing to remember and you did. As for the rest, well what does your instructor suggest you do ? he's the best one to get some input from since he's seen you do what you may have been doing wrong.

congratulations ! ... cherish this feeling and it's going to only get better.

I think depth perception is somthing that is developed over a period of time and once you've attained a certain level of comfort. To expect students to deal with it when they have so many other things to learn about and worry over is out right stupid and dangerous.

well, when I was at that jump number my instructors told me that it didn't really matter if I went for a 7 or 9 cell Zero P as long as my wing laoding was under 1:1. That is what you need to make sure too. Don't go over 1:1 until you have about 150 to 200 jumps. As for 7 or 9 cells, well, the skills that you need to develop as a new jumper can be adequately developed on both. Both have pluses and minuses about them. I'd say go for the right wing laoding and the rest doesn't matter at this point.

Ok ! I didn't quite get what made you LOL ?

Have someone good with packing like a packer do a pack job for you. See how neatly do they get it in. It might just be that you aren't being able to get enough air out of your canopy which is probably causing the bagged canoopy to be too volumonous for the container.

I agree with you though I'm not into BASE. At the moment I'm just trying to understand it more so that one day I can take it on.

I once saw a picture in the Parachutist of a guy doing this in India.

Oh ! don't worry, I failed AFF2 of all the levels. I managed to fail it even with 2 instructors holding onto me. One of the instructors at the DZ where I learn't who happens to be quite an accomplished guy and a very nice person once said that he passed his AFF in 22 jumps. According to him he use to spin like a top.

Like skybytch said, Skydiving is about risk management. That's precisely what it is. The idea is to keep yourself educated and well informed about the sport so that you are capable of measuring the risk and managing it. Being in the sport is really a matter of what you percive to be an acceptable risk. You have to realize that it's a sport in a different realm. It belongs to a league where errors in judgemnet are not about home runs or touch downs but about getting hurt or dieing. In it's absoluteness it's risky. No doubt about that. The idea is to reduce that risk by understanding it and to that extent the sport has advanced enough to make that risk manageable within the limits of risk the amount of risk that will always exist. I'm in the sport because in my perception I think I'm taking a well measured risk and I'm willing to accept the amount that remains open inspite of all my efforts of being safe. As a return to the risk I take, the sport pays back by harnessing a side of me that I would rather have tamed and disciplined by Skydiving than any other sport in the same league.