RandomLemming

SportRX are the bomb - they have one model that works to -8 and shedloads of astigmatism (I've got really bad eyes!) My only caution would be that you will end up with slightly 'bent' vision out of the edges of the goggles if you have high astigmatism, but nothing that you can't learn to live with.

Hmm - surely the reserve pillow is Plan C ? Plan B is the main deployment handle. Plan A? Well, that's for Douglas Adams to explain :D

Just in case there are any UK jumpers reading this thread, I believe that there are license restrictions here on when you can wear just a digital alti. I think it's a B license, but it may be a number of jumps. You can wear one alongside an analog, but some instructors / CCIs aren't thrilled by the idea of people wearing 2 altis because of the increase in snag points.

I did my FS1 with Fran at Empuria in 2 days, and that included repeating 4 jumps that I didn't nail. My only caveat with Emp would be the wind - I've been grounded there for a week solid before, so that may catch you out - I'm not sure what it's like this time of year though. Getting your CH1 is easy - just explain at the office that you need to do it, and they'll get the BPA instructors to keep an eye on you and go over your jumps. I did my CH2 there in March this year.

Based on semi-recent experiences, between USD20 and USD50 for a single action, but north of Nigeria (ex French colonies) there is a definite preference for Euros.

That statement scares the living daylights out of me, and I think its' because I don't understand it. Do you really mean that the cutaway handle on your student rig was a dummy and would not cut your main away? Or are you maybe not talking about your student rig but the drills harness that you wore on the ground? I can understand a dummy ripcord for your main if you're on static line, but not a dummy cutaway handle. What was your procedure if you had a malfunction on your AFF jumps?

Make sure you get an external harddriver ASAP and set it up in Time Machine. By doing this, all you need to do to make backups is ensure that the external disk is plugged in and switched on. I know of 6 hard disk failures on friends and family MBPs in the last 3 months, so backups are important to me :) Besides, there are only two types of people - those who have lost data and those who are still to lose data. Or think of it like this - you wouldn't skydive without a reserve, would you ? :D

I'm guessing spiderman must be new? I can't remember riding that when we were last there, but then, hulk and dueling dragons wrecked my stomach. Sebastian looks nice - I might be ready for my downsize by then, so I could get some good use out of demoing a PD canopy. How are they about low passes ? I don't mind paying full fare, but I want to do a load of hop and pops if possible.

Thanks - that's useful. Hurricane season concerns me a little - we were there for Charlie a couple of years back, and the only positive side to that is that we got to ride Dueling Dragons and the Hulk 6 times each within about 3 hours. The wind tunnel is quite appealing actually - I might get her some tunnel time here before we go so that we can fly together over there :) Thanks a lot for the advice!

We're looking to take a family vacation this year. My wife is a rollercoaster fan and I want to get some skydiving in. Can anyone please advise whether late September / early October is a good time to visit Florida with regards to winds and other weather issues. Also, any pointers to dropzones within about 1 - 2 hours of Orlando would be MUCH appreciated. We'd ideally like to find a villa or something about half way between the DZ and the parks and spend our days between them. My goal is to get around 20 - 30 jumps over 5 - 7 days, with as many of them being H&Ps as possible, so this is something I need to consider in DZ choices. Thanks loads in advance!

Thanks loads! It was a 5-way... Doh!

All, A while back, a cartoon image was posted showing a load of lemmings going off of a cliff, and about half way down, 4 of them are building a formation. Does anyone have a link to this thread / image ? Googling lemmings+skydiving mostly gives pictures of people. I'm not sure what to make of that ;) Thanks in advance....

Apparently the reason for the BPA requiring a B license for a full face helmet is (and I quote) "Lost in the mists of time". The main reasons that I've heard are as follows: 1. Obscures your view of your cutaway handles. On this basis, no well endowed women or fat blokes should ever be able to skydive because of this safety issue. 2. It gives people one extra thing to fiddle with under canopy, increasing the risk of dangerous landings or collisions. As someone who doesn't even take his booties off to land, this doesn't really concern me. 3. Fogging issues have caused people to go low when jumping through cloud - they didn't deploy because they thought they were still in cloud, but in fact their visors were fogged. The above reasons are anecdotal. I'm particularly interested to hear of any incidents where the full face helmet was found to be a contributing factor (either with regards to cutaway or collision). I'm also very confused as why being able to pack and land within a specified area and having 50 jumps makes you safe to wear a full face, while not being able to pack or land within this target but having 100 jumps makes you unsafe.

I try to learn new things and their pros and cons.

Hi All, I mailed Aerodyne last week, but haven't had a reply yet (to be fair, I can't remember which day I mailed and it could have been late in the week). I'm sure I'll get one, but in the interrim, does anyone know what Aerodyne's official position on psycho packing a Pilot 188 canopy is? This is something I'd like to try jumping, and I've done a pack at home (then repacked it using reverse bagging Pro pack), but I've read stories of DZ staff taking issue with the psycho pack unless approved of by the manufacturer.

I read that article recently. Until I read it, I was ready to downsize to a 170. Since reading it, I've realised I've got at least another 100 jumps on my 190. And that's despite the fact that I normally jump the 190 at sea level and recently put 20 jumps on it at 5000ft above sea level (and landed the last 18 standing up)!

It's quite common for UK students to train abroad. Many choose Spain. A lot of students have really good experiences by doing this, but there are a couple of things to watch out for: 1. Make sure that you contact the dropzone that you plan to jump with back here and see if they have any issues with the school that you plan to use. 2. Make sure that the school you choose really has BPA instructors. While many people will put you through a UK AFF course, they'll do it with USPA instructors. This isn't a big deal, just something to be aware of as it may mean having to do your CH1 (Canopy handling course required for A license) here under BPA instruction. One thing that you WON'T get training abroad is the sense of community and being part of your dropzone back home, and it may take a little while to break into that. Unless you jump at Hinton. If you're going to be in Northern California at any point soon, I can recommend a fantastic AFF instructor who got me all setup, and I came back and just carried on my jumping career at a couple of southern DZs and all over spain.

I'm not convinced about that. I just spent 4 months and a LOT of commercial flights around north and west Africa. On the majority of these flights, none of the sky waitresses spoke any english at all, and in many cases, neither of the drivers did either. I sat in the emergency exit row on numerous occasions, despite being completely unable to communicate with any staff on board the aircraft in the beginning, and only able to communicate in broken French towards the end (Je sui parlez un per Francais ment now) Also, most of the airlines I used (sadly not all) are not on the EU banned list, so I'm guessing that they're legit to some degree or another.

The fact that no-one is shooting or shelling me anymore, and I don't have to spend any more time in north african hellholes. Everything else is just gravy!

My pilot 188 in a normal pack job (nothing rolled or folded) takes about 800ft to open on a H&P. To clarify - exit plane at 3500ft, pitch pilot chute within 2 seconds (confirmed by video), in the saddle between 2600ft and 2500ft. Allowing for the 2s to pitch (out stable, arm back, pitch), I put subterminal deployment requirement at about 800ft. I just LOVE JSC - I got so many hop and pops there to work this stuff out :)

Have a look at tripadvisor.com - I know they do one.

Urk... I've just seen the poll relating to non / ex jumpers posting here. Is there any way to close this thread down ? I'll stop posting in it, and leave quietly, but I still reserve the right to post a classified. I might not be good enough to socialise and share advice with, but my gear's pretty new, in excellent condition and going cheap, so I'm sure an exception will be made

For 100 jumps? I thought it was thousands? Fortunately for me, pieing doesn't seem big over here :D

Thanks for the advice... I'm actually on 101 jumps now, which makes things even worse...

Safety reasons mainly... I'm just not progressing or getting better at certain key skills, and because of these, I'm limited in what I can do. That coupled with the fact that I only get time to skydive about 20 days of the year, and I'm just not able to do enough to stay properly current and safe. The fact that I only get to go out about 20 days a year means I'm picky about when I go, and I try to only go on days when there is a good forecast. Unfortunately, this means that the instructors / TIs / Manifest organisers are really busy, so I've not been able to get the training I need to sort my issues out.