PWScottIV

Heh, you said "Ball Master" Gravity Waits for No One.

That's hilarious! Maybe he's gonna be a "good" (and "traditional") priest from now on, and "keep it in the family". Now it'll be somthin like, "I knew god didn't want me to do it with the prostitute anymore because he got me caught. I always knew he had a "plan" for the choir boys." Gravity Waits for No One.

You should send him a photoshoped version of your ID card with fun stuff like an image of a celebrity and your "real" name (Beecher meat). And send him the phone number of someone who has screwed you over in the past. You could send him a photoshoped deposit slip while you're at it... I bet he'd get all excited about that. Gravity Waits for No One.

I could be wrong, but I don't think you're able to do anything more than a Tandem from over 15k without your A-License... Can an AFFI confirm that? Also, where will you be traveling from for your training? I've done AFF at Byron, Davis, and Lompoc... Gravity Waits for No One.

19/20 #14 aren't symmetric enough for fake. Gravity Waits for No One.

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking... Gravity Waits for No One.

You mean in full flight, right? I really didn't notice THAT much difference in max-glide. It felt like it might've had a bit wider range (Full flight to Max Glide). Am I wrong about that? Gravity Waits for No One.

Ditto Gravity Waits for No One.

Fucking crap man... I think he just "busted a nut". When I'm running from police dogs, I ALWAYS cover my junk with one hand and carry the gun with the other... Duh. I should start training classes for this sort of thing. Gravity Waits for No One.

I read it on the interet it has to be true! Umm, yeah, but being Aquarius you must've already known that you were the best lover than anyone, right?! Gravity Waits for No One.

It got down to about 70 F a few years ago... I thought about putting on a jacket, but then I thought, "Fuck-it, I'm just gonna live dangerously today". It was terribly cold. Living in California sucks. Gravity Waits for No One.

Ok, well I've heard a few of the normal ones, but theres one in particular that I CAN 100% GUARANTEE NO SKYDIVER HAS EVER HEARD BEFORE. Ok, so I was explaining to my mom all of the different positions you can fly in (Belly, Sit, Head-down, tracking, etc.). I told her that when I was jumping on a particularly cold day, I got to about 200mph in a stand. I explained to her that the cold air shooting up my nose felt a bit like snarfing soda out my nose... Eventually the conversation ended. Ok, so then she calls me back a couple of hours later (almost midnignt) and she has this sound in her voice that makes me think someone died... I was totally bracing myself to hear something terrible... She said, I've been up thinking about this for a long time and I'm really worried you're going to get hurt... (I'm sure nobody here has had THAT conversation with their loved ones before...) Ok, but you're never gonna guess WHAT she was worried about... She said, "I'm just really worried that you're going to freeze the inside of your nose. You know that can be very dangerous, don't you? You might never be able to smell again". I did my best to not laugh, because I know she was really worried, but honestly I couldn't stop myself... LOL here I am flying towards the ground at nearly 200mph and she's worried about me freezing the inside of my nose. Gravity Waits for No One.

Damn sorry to hear about your loss... I lost my keys last weekend, so I know EXACTLY how you feel. Maybe you can do what I did... Those hardware stores seem to have just about everything these days. No, but really, that sucks. I actually did almost have something very similar happen recently... Hard drive failure. I was a dumbass and didn't back-up the hard drive that had my entire final school project on it (500+ hours of work)... Luckily, I only lost a little bit though... Gravity Waits for No One.

Yep, it's tough to admit it, but completely true... lol Gravity Waits for No One.

Oh yeah, my brother in la has wona thos fansy pop-out thingamabobs. Yeah, he made it realy big in the manure bizyness... Done his famly reel proud. lol Gravity Waits for No One.

I'll second that. It's the only altimeter that I've owned and it's great. Note that it's fully digital, though. The needle on the front is moved by a stepper motor in the device, so there's no analog altimeter to speak of really. I've had no problems and am very happy with my Altitrack. You should probably look at getting an audible, too. I have a Solo, which works great for what I do. I'll third that. The altitrack is awesome. Before you try freeflying you should definitely get an audible. However, as a novice (at least), it could become extremely dangerous to rely on audibles for anything more than a backup. If the battery goes dead in your audible and you're not using your visual altimeter, there's a high chance that you won't notice it until you're waayy too low. And the biggest problem is that (atleast from how I've been trained) you need to learn to look at your visual altimeter habitually... If you rely on your audible to tell you when to deploy, then you'll never lock-in that critical life-saving habit. However, considering that I too wanted to start freeflying with only a few jumps, I set my audible to ONLY go off 500 feet below my deployment altitude and at my hard-deck altitude, so that I should never hear it unless I've already deployed my chute. The only times I have heard the freefall alarm has been during long snivels. I have made up my mind that if I ever hear my freefall alarm without knowing my altitude, then I need to reconsider what I'm doing falling toward the ground at over 100mph and consider taking up golf or bowling. Once I get more experience (maybe 200 or so jumps), then I might consider getting two audibles and placing more reliance on them to remind me when my separation and deployment altitudes come up. My audible (L&B Optima) also has three alarms for my flight pattern (1000, 600, and 300). Even though I am usually very aware of my altitude via my visual altimeter and looking at the ground, the beeps are helpful to help que me in to where I should be in my pattern, especially helpful when I'm distracted with monitoring other close air-traffic. Gravity Waits for No One.

That's what I'm trying to determine. If the whole death and dismemberment thing wasn't such an obvious risk, then I'd strap on a VX-39 and base jump off my roof with the fucker. Like I said earlier, for me, I think my best approach to the situation will be to go back to the 190, work on the aforementioned skills, and then go back down when I feel I can handle things such as avoiding another canopy. At my DZ it's not gonna be much of a risk, because it's pretty small... But If I decide to jump at Perris during a boogie, then I could become a serious risk to myself and others. For myself, I'd like to at least begin getting comfortable with the skills that could save my life someday, and as others' have mentioned, doing so with a larger canopy might be more productive. Gravity Waits for No One.

I guess it depends which direction and how far off... Honestly I haven't actually walked in the locations that I would probably need to land in, but in studying satellite images, it looks like there are many outs... Obviously they could be full of ditches, boulders, and fences, but that's pretty difficult to determine for sure ahead of time unless someone was to actually checked them out first hand. I haven't needed to land off before, and yes, that's one of the reasons I'm here asking for people's opinions. I know I haven't experienced the things that kill, I haven't been closer than 100feet to another flying canopy, I've never landed off, I've never had a mal, I've never had severe turbulence near the ground, I've never needed to do a low turn, etc, etc... I know, and although I still need A LOT more experience to reliably land with high accuracy, I've recently been able to get much closer than 50 feet... Sometimes needing to correct a couple of feet so I don't actually hit the flag when I touch down... It's not been like that every time by far, but I seem to be improving. I've jumped a pretty large range since I started jumping the 190... Everything from about 18 to maybe -5 (downwind). I've had to run out a few landings in no wind, and the times I did it, I feel I was able do so safely. The only downwind landing I had I opted to PLF, partially because I was going to touch down in a small gully... So with that said I know my landing experience is extremely limited. I know I could get totally hose myself on the spot and then end up in a field full of barbwire, boulders, foxholes, and a tree-line that's creating turbulence... How will I perform then? Will I break something, Will I paralyze myself? Without having experienced things like that first hand it's impossible for me to know. That's why I'm trying to get as much information about the decisions I need to make, so I can do my best to keep myself and others safe. Gravity Waits for No One.

Thanks, I'm starting to get the impression that everything you said has a lot of truth to it. My goal here is to open up the lines of communication with jumpers of many different skill/expereince levels and perspectives. In an attempt to help myself make well informed decisions about things that have the potential to seriously "impact" my future wellbeing. Of course I'm going to place a lot more weight on what my instructors tell me, but I also believe that getting a second (or thirtieth) opinion can help me make decisions for myself that are formed not from cockiness, but from a broad sampling of others' opinions, whether read from a book, heard in-person, or in an online forum such as this. Gravity Waits for No One.

I want to add emphasis to his statement. I downsized by a huge step at 100 jumps. The canopy never hurt me even though it came close a couple of times. What saved me was much more along the lines of luck than any skill on my part. I would have learned solid and predictable canopy skills much sooner on a more forgiving wing. Well said Billvon. Cheers, Robin So I've pretty much made up my mind that I'm gonna go back to the 190 and work on becoming comfortable with ALL of the maneuvers and modes of flight billvon suggested. When I feel I can do all of them safely and confidently at relatively low altitude, then I will "reward" myself with downsizing. Like I've said a bunch of times above, I don't want to die or get seriously injured, I'm skydiving because it's fun and I'd like to keep it that way. Gravity Waits for No One.

They might be right. You might be more confident after 50 jumps or something... Its coming when you think you know it all. Remember your canopy can show anytime something you have not seen before. I got my metal with a PD Nav220, WL 1.0. WL does not kill, bad decisions do. Try to fill up your bag of experience before you run out of your bag of luck! I definitely wasn't trying to come off like I know it all... Because, and I'll try to make it more obvious, I KNOW NEARLY NOTHING ABOUT SKYDIVING. That's why I'm asking the question in the first place. The ONLY reason I started this thread is because I HAVE VERY LITTLE EXPERIENCE and I want to be able to learn what I can from people who do have experience. So, as you mentioned, I don't get to the bottom of my bag of luck... I do feel lucky so far... When/if I'm lucky enough to have 1000, or even 10000 jumps I'll probably still feel very lucky and I'll also still feel like there's things I can learn. I know wing loading isn't 100% of the equation for success or failure while learning to pilot a canopy, but from what I've read and heard, it is one of the biggest factors. If I thought I was hot-shit I would have been like "awesome, I get to jump a smaller canopy! I'm sooo cool!" But that was the opposite response I had to being offered the opportunity to do so. When I took the opportunity I was very careful because I knew I was placing myself at a higher level of risk. So, I'm here to determine, with the assistance of other jumpers with more experience, if I should continue to jump this smaller canopy, or if I should go back for a while. I'm not skydiving to die, I'm skydiving to live. The only reason I said anything about my background was to let readers know that I'm not some 18yr old kid who's fearless because they've never developed a healthy respect for the dangers associated with the activities they participate in... It had NOTHING to do with bragging about how "sporty" I am, or cool, or experienced, or whatever anyone might think differently. I know skydiving can kill me. It could kill me on my next jump. And I also understand that there's many ways to make that happen without even trying. For that matter, I also understand that I could do everything exactly right and still die. Furthermore, I understand that the more "risky" choices I make (canopy size being one of them), the more likely the odds will stack up against me. And like I said before, I'm skydiving, in part, because it makes me feel more alive... Not because I think it would be a "cool" way to die. Or even worse, be paralyzed for the rest of my life... Gravity Waits for No One.

Wow, three people think I should start hookin it... Gravity Waits for No One.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna go back and spend more time working on those skills on a larger canopy. I guess I just don't know the proper term for what I do... I thought it was considered a staged flare, but maybe it's not... Instead of just one "stabbing" single-rate flare, at about 15 feet I flare to about 25% to level off my flight, then at about 3 feet or so, I smoothly transition to 100%. My landings are usually very soft. Gravity Waits for No One.

I edited my post to add my personal information... I think I tend to be very conservative at first, but as I develop a better idea for what will hurt me and what wont, I tend to push myself to experience the boundaries of what I can do. I've been pretty heavily involved with rock climbing for 21 years... In that amount of time I have only had two sprained ankles... So I think that should say at least a little something about my ability to keep myself safe while still engaging in a high risk sport. I know that the things that will injure/kill in skydiving are different, so that's why I'd like the honest, educated opinions of experienced jumpers. Gravity Waits for No One.

Having just completed AFF and obtaining my A-License this weekend, I am amazed at how little canopy training I received. So, just to start, I think canopy skills should be emphasized from the beginning. Then, and I know I'm probably gonna get flamed for saying it, but I think there should be REQUIRED Training and/or Tests to prove one's abilities for particular wing loading thresholds. So, for example, when someone wants to downsize to say 1.5, they would either have to pass a proficiency test or take training courses that would prepare them to the test. The test/training could focus on skills that would help keep them and other jumpers safe while exploring the limits of the canopy's performance range. I think it would also be a good idea to have currency standards that are directly related to the performance characteristics of ones canopy... If someone was very current and at a wing loading of say 2.4, and then took a year off, they wouldn't be able to jump that canopy without passing some sort of proficiency tests, or receive re-training if required... I know my experience is pretty damn limited, but it just seems weird how there's no regulation at all for one of the things that's killing the most. Motorcycle riders have to wear helmets now because riding without one was a big killer, and I doubt many people think that's a bad idea... Why does it seem like such a bad idea to regulate canopy performance based on demonstrated proficiency??? Gravity Waits for No One.