SethInMI

I wanted to marry my English teacher when she got out of jail, but apparently you can't end a sentence with a proposition.

I can understand a looking for a name for a jump that is from a skydive using base gear and a low opening altitude, just so that you can easily communicate that when talking to people. I don't know what to call those kind of jumps, using the term Heli-BASE seems to fit the bill...shrug.

Why don't ants get sick? Because they have little anty bodies.

It looks amazing. Base model under 60k with 495hp. I want one. Of course I wanted the c7 when it came out, but didn't buy one, so I probably won't buy one of these either. Lisa, I'll have to live vicariously through you...

it turns out that if you rearrange the letters in "Gearhart" and replace most of them and add a few you end up spelling "nano-thermite". Coincidence? I think the jury is still out on that one.

Why is your title "Feel like a fraud?" 'Cause you are doing a tandem as a passenger, and not jumping on your own? That's a bunch of crap (or as I imagine you brits would say a load of shite ) Jumping is jumping, you still have to have the balls to get out of the plane hooked to someone else or not. And as experienced jumpers know, the best part of jumping is sharing the experience with others.

Sounds like you are warming up to the mid-engine idea. When you buy one, I'll come over and go for a ride. (Well probably not, but it'd be tempting, even though I think I'm about 6 states away)

I had this happen to me when I was 1st learning to pack. I packed a steering line line-over on a 1:1 wingloading canopy. After it deployed, I saw what it was, flared the canopy, and when I let the toggles back up the line-over cleared. We looked it over after I landed for burns, but the canopy was fine.

Why was Pavlov's hair so soft? Because he conditioned it.

my friends tell me I have intimacy problems, but they don't know me well

When I was a new jumper, I thought about this a little more than I do now. I realize now that I would be too busy fighting until the end to decide where to land. Only if I completely came out of my rig would I expect to give up and decide where to land. I'd probably aim for the peas in that case. You would NEVER be forgotten if you hit the peas. In my rig-less scenario, it would be bad because people would assume suicide, which would (I sure hope) not be the case.

I would say IAD you are already in the deployment sequence when you leave the plane as your pilot chute is out. Static line is a little murky.

Automatically means via an AAD, not a static line. I guess it would blur things a bit if you had a really long (500+ft) static line that allowed the jumper to get some "freefall" time, but pratically speaking USPA DZs won't count static line or IAD jumps anymore, so there is no "potential" to count on.

Then this one's for her:

I have gone through several canopy downsizes both on my own and with a rigger to check/help. That involved removing old canopy from risers and toggles and pilot chute, packing it up and sending it off, then hooking up new canopy to risers and toggles and pilot chute, then adjusting toggle positions later to get the right flare/full flight performance. It is a process that requires care and it helps to have someone involved who knows what they are doing. I have also hooked up demo canopies to my rig, which is of course much easier. But I learned how to do both of these when I needed to do them.

Something like that you would plan for. Let the other jumpers on the load know what you are practicing, and figure out a place you can land where you can have some space from everyone else in the pattern. Either land away from everyone else like at the student area or alternate area if they exist, or pull extra high so you land well after the rest of the load, or do a hop-n-pop with your own pass.

Bill Von Novak downsizing checklist was always the recommended thing: Full disclosure: Despite having known about the checklist for many years, I have never attempted some of the things on it and I have downsized several times...

Sounds to me like you are wondering if the hassle of training/learning is worth it. Sure the training jumps are stressful, but the payoff is you get to the point where you can demonstrate you have the basic skills needed to safely jump on your own. If you honestly don't want to learn those basic skills, then sure, I think a dropzone would allow you to just do static line jumps. You pay them the $ for an instructor and a packer and they will take your money all day long. But it may be after a number of static line jumps, the idea of learning to deploy your own parachute may not seem so scary/difficult. Switching from static line to self-deployed and picking up a few simple freefall skills would allow you to jump by yourself. That gives you more flexibility, you don't need an instructor, you can jump at higher altitudes for longer flight time (or farther away from the drop zone). Some of the fun can return to training jumps if you back off the expectations, tell your instructor if you pass great, but if you fail, it's just another fun canopy ride for you. Lots of people like flying parachutes around just as much or more than the freefall part. Look at the front page of this website, it shows a huge canopy formation, built by people who focus specifically on canopy flying, not freefall.

It was a great series. No blowout wins, a lot of interesting defensive strategies, and huge efforts on both sides. But there will be a * in a lot of peoples minds over the fact that the Warriors were missing their best player, and lost another one at a key moment in the last game.

That is well put.

The problem with that question is that it lacks context. My definition of dangerous is different than yours. Personally I don't feel I should do "dangerous" things, IOW "dangerous and too dangerous" are synonymous. But that is me. As a result, I would probably say "skydiving is not that dangerous". But I would rather respond that "skydiving is as dangerous as X or Y" and then you the questioner can make your own judgement of what that means. Dan BC's answer "skydiving is a dangerous activity that can be done safely" is a nice turn of phrase which I like, but it also provides no context. Is driving a car a "dangerous activity that can be done safely?" how about mountain biking? or downhill skiing? If you say that phrase to your partner, is he or she going to worry about you more or less? The fact is skydiving is getting safer; the fatality rate is going down, and that is despite all the millennials who apparently can't tell the difference between their asses and the holes in the ground they are going to make on their next jump. One other comment, going through a fatality list and removing ones that don't apply to you IS valid. I don't concern myself with suicides and other medical events, or people dying while fucking up a reach for their rears while swooping, cause I don't reach for my rears, and am not planning on committing suicide, and heart attacks are a "you are gonna go sometime" thing with me.

Before my surgery my anesthetist offered to knock me out by gas or a boat paddle. It was an ether/oar situation

I'd be interested in seeing how your experience aligns with the skydiving community as a whole, at a statistical level. To do that would require: 1. Knowing how many skydivers you know that have gone in (well enough to attend their funerals) 2. Knowing how many skydivers you know (well enough to attend a funeral) 3. Knowing how long you have been skydiving 4. Knowing how many jumps the jumpers you know have (or had) If you know that, we can calculate whether your friends' fatality rate is above or below the mean for all skydivers (per jump or per year). Maybe there is something about where you jump or the kinds of people you befriend? But I suspect that if your stats are high, eventually reversion to the mean will bring your fatality rate/micromorts in line with the micromorts of the community