DougH

You could reach out to sucessful active clubs. Jumptown in Orange MA Connecticut Parachutists Inc. in Ellington CT And I thought Orange VA was also a club, but I haven't jumped there in well over a decade. What are you trying to accomplish? Stand-alone club opening at a new airport? DZO looking to sell to a group of fun jumpers?

Congrats Al, well deserved. I know he will do a great job, he represented us well here in New England with his previous position..

Depends on the type of jumper. A slide-in for students is not the better or safer option. Legs are more durable, and telling students to slide is inviting them to land on their less durable tailbone. Bad for the spine when things aren't perfect. Additionally students often have a more vertical aspect to their landing thanks to things like high flares. They aren't aware enough to evaluate when one approach is appropriate versus the other, so they should only be taught the PLF.

I don't mind if students friend request me, especially if they were part of a group that is memorable for one reason or another. Sometimes students wait around for weather, etc, and you get to interact with them longer than usual. Your situation sounds like something the instructor would be stoked to hear about.

If I had to sterotype across gender and race I would say that all of female Indian students I take perform excelently, and much much better on average than the males in their groups. Not that it matters gender or race, doing the opposite of what you competently instruct is just what some tandem students do. We have a reasonable weight limit, so smaller instructors don't end up having to take the 285 couch dwellers to stay under system weight because we don't take them at all. I do think there should be some equity here, all the instructors should be able to take any of the students that walk in the door unless there are special indications, like a disabled passanger who should be paired with the most experienced instructor. I understand having a period for new instructors where you don't pair them with students at the edge of the weight limit, or who have a huge height diferential but eventually the kid gloves should come off and they should manage the same students as everyone else. Just my opinion.

I am 5'6, and I make it work. I have seen smaller instructors. Would it be easier at 6 foot tall and lanky sure, but you can still handle most students. It is harder, you need to plan and fly your exits correctly, compared to the 6'2 bean pole who has much more room to get away with mediocre exits and poor student instruction. But so what, regardless of your height or experince you shouldn't just toss yourself and the student out of the plane with no consideration given to the exit. Also as you get more experience you will have to work harder to shoot handicam footage. I think strength matters very much. If you are short and on the weaker side I would give pause and focus on getting strong. You should be able to fly and flare unassisted with the heaviest student your DZ allows after a long day of jumps. You should be able to deal with the uncoordinated student that is pushing against you as you make your way to the door. If your dz has a slide up door like a caravan or an otter you need to be able to operate the door with a student on the front unassisted. You should be able to get you and a student up off the foor from a seated position if you have a load where there isn't enough room on the seat/bench. Just a few strength criteria that I am making up in my mind. All of the things above can be made easier using smart techniques, but everything is easier when you are stronger. I can squat or deadlift my biggest possible student, that is far from winning any strengh records, but it makes getting through a day way easier.

Good job on trying to sort things out until you got that reserve overhead.

You are able to compose shots better. They allow to you properly aim the helmet regardless of how the helmet might shift on your head, and how you are angled. That is compared to the orange plastic lolipops. Compared to a dot on a visor or goggles they do all of the above, plus it doesn't ever shift which can't be said about goggles. And I agree, you don't need it, especially in the age of people shooting with two super wide gopros, but I think if you give a good flier the option it will bring out the best in their product for tandem videos. For outside still photos of formations it is night and day. It takes you from just pointing at the formation and holding down the tongue switch to being able to precisely compose the shots.

It all depends on your use of the camera helmet. Is it going to be used only for outside video? Leave the ring sight on the ground for inside video. Is it going to be used to film fun jumpers, or are there paying customers? You are a pro if you are getting paid, and my thought processes is professional jumps deserve a professional setup. Video and still? What are you using for video? What size lense on the still camera?

Not if I win the powerball or mega millions. Does this mean I will also need to buy a new fuel truck?

I don't think so, but I also think that many newer jumpers don't bother to get much knowledge beyond what is needed to get them their license, so if you should stfu, they should too! When I started jumping 15 years ago I viewed it as centered around the persuit of knowledge, and maybe I am getting crusty, but I don't see that same approach as frequently.

I originally asked how tall you were, but I see that it is in the title. Even being very tall that weight is going to make it very tough for you to get into the sport. You are going to much safer and have more longevity in the sport at 250. Give fasting a try, and combined it with heavy resistance training to give your body the signal to spare muscle and burn body fat. Search for Jason Fung on youtube. Interesting guy and while his medical practice is directed at helping those whose weight is causing health problem the overall concepts are the same.

Those looked awesome until I saw the price. I will absolutely lose my 200 dollar pair of custom ear pro a few weekends into the season.

He may be a legal adult, but it sounds like actual adulthood deferred. You are obviously living under your parents roof, and the discussion about not having access to the funds makes me wonder whose money it actually is. Maybe I am off base, but that is how I interpret your comments. Skydiving is an adult sport for adults that sometimes like to act like children, but for the most part we are all living under our own roofs, or on friends couches, and we get to make the choice to waste sums of money on a awesome yet needless expensive and dangerous activity. it isn't going anywhere, when you are actually living like an adult you will be free to follow your skydiving dreams.

I am very happy with my M2, especially what I percieve is an actual safety benefit of not having to take it out for service. For myself I think the Cypres service intervals decreased safety, because I didn't end up renting a unit when mine was out for service, and I would continue to jump the rig while it was out.

I love my gopro 7 setup. The glove is a pivot pad base that I already had from my GoPro 3+ setup, with a 3d printed camera mount that got it from Juan RS. The camera mount is flawless, it uses the stock skeleton housing for the top camera and the bottom camera just fits in with a tight fit and a bungee. Easy to get cameras in and out, no snags, just clean. I love and hate my GoPro 7. The image is great and the stabilization makes all of the footage amazing. It is also a buggy piece of shit and I hope that the engineers at GoPro eat a batch of bad street tacos and get endless diarrhea. I have lost probably 3 or 4 videos this season because the camera locks up when the video is recording, and there is no way to get it to reset short of pulling the battery which isn't going to happen once you leave the plane.

I am hearing that it was the Collings Foundation "Nine-O-Nine".

Self packing parachute, bad voodoo. I have only been in the sport 14 years, but I ran into one or two messed up jumpers with nicknames like Nova Jeff, who had their Nova's wad up too low to do anything about it, but two high to get away without some serious injury.

I don't know how I missed this gem! I totally think you should kick out those fake weekend instructors like myself. Then you will have to hire more full time instructors to handle the weekend capacity, and you will have to share more of your weekday jumps. The math will totally work out in your favor, trust me I am certified public accountant who pretends to be a skydiving instructor on the weekends. I will get to fun jump more, so screw it, and I don't really care if you have to switch from Dinty Moore stew to Alpo because you suck at math.

If my memory is correct, and I am looking at the right PIA service bulletin, that had a very limited impact on civilian sport containers. But your point is well taken. https://www.pia.com/images/rocketlauncher/PDF/SERVICE_BULLETINS/20160711ZodiacBS_Atom-25-002-3_stickycorduraincontainer.pdf

It will be just fine. It isn't best practice to leave a rig in a hot trunk or car, but if I had to pull a number out of my ass I would have to say that close to 100% of rigs get exposed to similar conditions multiple times during their service life. 3 days of it is hardly a concern.

It seems like we are missing information to give you reasonable advice. How many jumps over how many years did you have when you stopped jumping? My thoughts would be different for someone who had a fresh A license, or 130 jumps over 3 years, compared to someone who had a D license and 800 jumps under their belt and 4 years in the sport.

Grow a beard, you can't get ingrown facial hair if it is long and sitting above your skin. The worse my helmet does after a sweaty day of tandems is smoosh my beard down.

Big difference between ideal, and manageable, and in my opinion ideal depends on where you are in your skydiving progression. Shorter stocky people will often have a much easier time with their student jumps. They have less rudder to deal with at a time where it could be described as uncontrolled or minimally controlled rudder. For example my easiest tandem students are short guys with a beer belly. They have a built in arch, I could sleep on the way down. Your tall lanky student has more control surface, less built in arch, and problems with body position with their legs and arms have a bigger impact on their stability. As you get your license and move on to group skydiving the lanky ones have more tools in the toolbox in terms of fall rate and body flight, but the right jump suit choices for can narrow the gap for stocky people. All that being said your body type won't be a problem at all.

That is actually a great idea for the interim. I have done that in the past, I probably should have reverted back to my simpler cheaper solution. Actually I might combined the two ideas, and have the seamstress reinforce holes around where my regular suits upper grippers are with some binding tape, then I can wear it right over my tighter jumpsuit and not lose the grippers.