dragon2

ciel bleu, Saskia

Your capslock seems to be stuck You do not have to complete your AFF at the same DZ, well not unless you paid all the jumps in advance But it does help, and a AFF jump at another DZ may not be the exact same jump so it may "cost" you a jump. Better call that DZ first and ask, you'd likely also have to "book" AFF instructors for that jump anyway so make sure to call ahead. BTW jumping only once every 2 weeks makes it quite hard to finish AFF in the minimum number of jumps anyway. I'd count on having to do some repeaters. Your best bet is to try and do more jumps quicker, especially during the first part of your jumping career. ciel bleu, Saskia

Where (country) are you buying it from? As I doubt many here know the going gear prices in Poland. I do know that you can get somewhat better (less jumps) gear over here at a decent price though

Since I tend to own expensive, big, breakable smartphones, I got a cheap little pre-paid for skydiving. I put some important numbers in the phone book. Make sure it's charged every now and then. Turn it off and put in jumpsuit pocket for an emergency phone. Don't really care if it gets damaged ciel bleu, Saskia

Most canopies especially the all-ZP ones will go 1000+ jumps easily, mostly depending on the jumping environment (grass, desert etc). Other people had that part covered. You really want to keep an eye out for the lineset though. For microline, which is what most canopies have, count on having to replace the entire lineset about every 600 jumps, so if a canopy is listed with 500+ jumps, ask about the lineset otherwise you may end up having to reline it immediately or soon, and the price should reflect that. A canopy with a brand new lineset may be up to a couple hundred dollars more expensive than one with a need-to-replace lineset, but you can jump it immediately so you may want to pick a 700 jump relined canopy over a 500 jump need-to-reline one. Or not, depending on wether you even are planning to jump your first canopy for very long... The steering lines (especially the lower ones) generally need replacing once or twice in between. They shrink the fastest and if on risers with velcro get chewed up fast. This is not very expensive and quick to do, but you might enquire about when those were replaced last. ciel bleu, Saskia

Obviously, a parachute with yellow colored ribs does not work, as can be seen in "reserve1.jpg" I know, that's what I said when I gave it back to the guy I'd borrowed it from: Wouldn't YOU chop something with these colors?!? ciel bleu, Saskia

And now he added a nice snag point for the bridle too, very very smart. ciel bleu, Saskia

We do actually: in case of a reserve ride or any damage to good or person (at least the ones where a jumper had to get medical care, ie not just an ice pack) we have to report it to the KNVvL. But everyone there is on holiday it seems, kinda hard to get my hands on our statistics right now... Edit: Oh yeah the reserve ride thing reminds me, we seem to have had a markedly decrease of spinning mals these last few years. ciel bleu, Saskia

First off, what license is that? Just AFF? Not a license as such, so weird name if they call it that. Anyway you could do your AFF in 4 days at lots of places, at no extra charge. Could they mean A license? Sounds more like the right price. But that's your first 25 jumps in 4 days, not including ground school (?), can't see you do 6/7 jumps every day as a newbie, so that doesn't make much sense. Ground school should be included in the course costs, wouldn't worry about that. ciel bleu, Saskia

I tend to hold on there yeah Keep breaking my nails otherwise ciel bleu, Saskia

I heard the same, also that that is at about age 6. Not an official source though. We did take at least one DZ kid here for a tandem at 4 (or rather, said kid arranged the entire tandem jump himself! LOL), but the kids I see/film are usually at least 9, and a lot of kids are "highschool" graduats so 16 yrs and up, no problem there. ciel bleu, Saskia

Now THIS pullout is just ... wrong .... ciel bleu, Saskia

some of me this season ciel bleu, Saskia

Last ones. Well anyone searching for off-color rib patterns now should have a good idea of what does and does not work ciel bleu, Saskia

..... ciel bleu, Saskia

... ciel bleu, Saskia

some more ciel bleu, Saskia

some (eh, a lot) more pics: ciel bleu, Saskia

According to how I did when I started out, you could easily jump a 135ish stiletto-type canopy. As you can see in the picture attached, I did absolutely fine on mine

You. Are. Not. Getting. The. Point. You're either a troll or a DGIT, hopefully for you (and your jump mates) you're the former. ciel bleu, Saskia

What they did here was: Firstly this BSR wasn't announced to it came as a sort of surprise to most fun jumpers. You can keep flying the canopy you already have (and the surprise kept you from quickly buying another one I suppose). If you want to change canopies and will end up in another (higher) category by doing so, you first have to meet the demands for that category. So, for people with less than 700 jumps and jumping too small or too HP canopies according to the BSRs, this just meant that the next downsize was probably going to have to wait a little longer. ciel bleu, Saskia

OK, here ya go. This jumper was one of the reasons for our canopy BSRs. Jumper with 100 jumps, just bought himself a sabre 150, loaded at a little over 1.2. Quite a windy day, at the time I resigned myself to driving the van and taking landing pictures, I had a couple hundred jumps then. Guy comes in with the wind, flying an unfamilar-to-me canopy. Hey that's

The pullout system is safer in some ways because it allows for a pilotchute when YOU want it, very good for CRW you can time the openings better, a pilotchute out of the pocket is kinda hard to do with this system so good for freeflying mainly, and getting a pilotchute in tow is much harder (though not impossible) with a pullout. It's UNsafer if you let someone else pack because there are differences in how the bridle runs on various pullout rigs and some are more easy to pack wrong than others, which when done wrong creates a total if the bridle cannot pull the pin free because of no slack or around a flap, this way you can pull all you want but no opening (hence the tip of picking up the rig by the pullout handle if youre not sure you did it right, you'll instantly see what I mean). Another possible malfunction is a floating handle, ie you let go of the handle BEFORE you pulled the pin. Don't know why you would do that, it's easy to feel the pin pop (and kinda cool actually), but this was/is a common malfunction with pullout jumpers. Still safer than a pc in tow, IMO: you can pull the pin by hand or go to your reserve without any mess for the freebag to avoid. After the pin comes the pilotchute, with you still pulling on the handle, so when you throw the pilochute you have to really throw it because it's not in your hand as with a BOC, there's a length of bridle in between so make sure that pilotchute gets clean air. Which is the one reason I don't jump a pullout, as I wingsuit, where the burble makes a shorter pilotchute throw inadvisable. Almost all pullouts have their pilotchute reversed from BOC, it's already open when it comes out so it grabs air better. But there's also pullout systems with a "normal" pilotchute... Oh well. Anyway what the owner did sounds fine to me, as long as everything is hidden under the flaps (no bridle sticking out), usually it'll open just fine I also cover the bridle with the pilotchute on the rare occasions when I pack a pullout, this makes it easier to pack and keep control of the bridle and keep it from sticking out anywhere. YMMV, but I think this jumper ought to know how to pack his own rig better than a newer jumper who has never seen a pullout before ciel bleu, Saskia

Just to clarify, was the jumper present when you did that? If not, you could now have packed him a total malfunction, which is quite easy to do with a pullout if you don't know what you're doing. Most of the packers here @ Teuge when packing a pullout leave the main flap open and the pillow hanging out a bit, so the jumper can check the slack and bridle routing himself. Tip: on a pullout rig, if you can lift the rig by the handle after packing, you did it wrong! Other than the last bit of the packing, "stowing away" the pilotchute implies you tucked it away farther than it should be: you're supposed to be able to pull out the pilotchute by hand, you get that right? So the pilotchute needs to be on top of the bag directly under the flaps, with the bridle folded underneath or next to it usually so it runs "free". ciel bleu, Saskia

Diamant 160 main and Micron 175 reserve in a Invader rig. The very best stuff I ever jumped all rolled into one ciel bleu, Saskia