brettski74

So many posts to reply to. In general I agree with the likes of John, Nick and cocheese. There is too much noise. I think the simplest solution to it all is that rather than requiring moderators to delete posts after the fact, require moderator approval before posts even appear in the forum. This, of course, makes the assumption that the moderators have the time to wade through all the crap for us, however, they seem to be deleting some posts in there at the moment, so they must be reading through the crap already. Further, I think that if people make a couple of posts that do not get approved, they'll get the hint that the incidents forum is not the right venue and the amount of moderation in the incidents forum will hopefully go down as a result. It also assumes that the forum software has that option, but I think that's a fairly safe assumption for many forum packages. I understand that the incidents forum is not a formal incidents report list. On the other hand, the posting rules do suggest that the incidents forum is supposed to be held to a higher standard than most other forums on here. I think that moderation before the fact will serve those goals much better than moderation after the fact. If anyone wants to get the word out sooner than moderator approval can be obtained for their post, they can always go to the condolences forum and post their condolences to the family and friends there or go to the safety and training section and openly speculate all they want about the effectiveness of RSLs or AADs or putting trampolines over the whole landing area or whatever else...

Having spoken with several people from out west who did not come to the last record, I fail to see how a tunnel in Montreal is going to address any of the reasons they cited for not coming - the main one being getting on the record. It's no small expense for someone in somewhere like Vancouver, Edmonton or Calgary to fly out to Toronto/Montreal and live for a week. It can be hard to justify the expense when the possibility exists that you can come out here and not make it onto the record. I think there are certainly things we could do to address some of those concerns, but a wind tunnel in Montreal is not part of that.

I wasn't aware that Montreal had seceded from Quebec and joined the province of Ontario.

Actually, if I understand correctly, quite the opposite. CASA issued an airworthiness directive questioning the reliability of the Vigil shortly after the French issued a similar directive. It was based on the French statements. This statement cancels that airworthiness directive. Effectively, they are saying that they no longer have any reason to believe there is a reliability problem with the Vigil.

Seriously, get coaching. It's so much more worthwhile. I know you said there's a money issue with coaching, but if I had the chance of doing 15 minutes with a coach, or 60 minutes without a coach, I'd take the 15 minutes with coach. A good coach will: - show you the right way to do it first time, rather than let you spend an hour learning bad habits that will limit you later on. - give you immediate feedback on your performance and correct anything you're doing wrong. Even if you've got some pointers on the right way to do something, without someone else watching you and providing feedback you'll likely miss most of the errors you're making while trying to learn a new skill. I strongly believe that you'll get much better value out of 15 minutes of tunnel with a good coach then you will ever get out of an hour or more of tunnel time without a coach.

That's just silly! Everybody knows that the way of the future for skydiving is wormholes. It'll be interesting to see how the digital altimeters and AADs of the aircraft era deal with the sudden pressure change when the wormhole is turned on.

Given a 31mph face down collision with the ground you can let your imagination run wild :) I'm assuming that you're involved with the development of this software and that english is not your first language. No biggie. What Howard is saying is that "It is all broken" doesn't make sense in the context. Perhaps something like "You are critically injured and unconscious." would be better, or if you really want to stick with the first person dialogue, "I am critically injured and unconscious."

Where is the option for "This has not happened to me nor was I aware of it happening to anyone else prior to reading this post."?

Perhaps you're thinking of the AN-2 biplane? The AN-28 is a twin-engine, turboprop aircraft with a tailgate. It's somewhat similar to a skyvan and just as noisy. The fuselage is a little narrower and looks much less boxy than the skyvan. I suspect that they are more stable under CoG changes than the skyvan, as I don't recall anywhere near the amount of bucking as groups exit the aircraft nor any briefing about limits on number of jumpers behind the line as I have had for every skyvan I've ever jumped. I did a bunch of jumps out of AN-28s in Sweden and Latvia and from memory, I believe the max-load of 22 stated above is correct. It is definitely in the low 20s range. With regards to space, up to that point, I'd only ever jumped from cessna 182s, Twin Otters and Caravans. In comparison to those aircraft, I would consider it quite roomy, even at full load, however, it is not a roomy as a skyvan. There is certainly a lot more room in a fully loaded AN-28 than in a fully loaded twin otter or caravan. I'm not a pilot nor an aircraft owner, so I'm not qualified to comment on runway requirements, fuel consumption or maintenance requirements.

What's up with the mailto: link? Fixed version below. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=18592660755

While you will no doubt find many jets in Paris, I suspect that you'll have even less chance of jumping from any of them than you would have of jumping from the one jet currently parked at Perris airport in California.

Do a search on here. There have been a couple of threads about people from the UK who have obtained their licence abroad (most commonly in the US or under USPA) and then had issues upon first returning to the UK and wanting to jump. I believe the problem lies in there being one or two requirements for the BPA A licence that are not included in many foreign organisations' A licence requirements. You would do well to talk to the folks at the local dropzone where you are thinking of doing most of your jumping as to whether a USPA A licence would be accepted and/or what additional steps you might have to take on return to the UK in order to jump as a licensed skydiver.

According to some of the information on the PD website, I'm getting the impression that the Storm may be a better canopy for the newcomer to CRW - particularly with that casual CRW kit option. Can anyone who has flown it give their impressions on it as a suitable canopy for someone during a person's first CRW coach jumps and on whether someone downsizing from a couple hundred jumps on a Sabre2-170 will find it a fun flying canopy or whether it may be a little tamer than they might be expecting?

I think actually the opposite is correct. If you're jumping in American airspace, then FAA rules apply. There just happens to be an FAA rule that exempts visiting skydivers from various equipment requirements so long as the equipment still complies with similar equipment requirements from their home country. It is for this reason that you are allowed to keep your 6-month repack cycle and jump PdF gear in the US when jumping as a visitor.

I think the OP was saying that the planned opening height of 3000' combined with the spot, free-fall drift, track-off and canopy flight back towards the DZ put them at an altitude that is higher than made sense to enter the pattern, rather than she deployed higher than she was supposed to. At least, that's how I read it.

The usual reason would be to get out of the sport while you still have your money, your girlfriend and your "real" job. Skydiving tends to be a little addictive.

From Medicine Hat, the two closest dropzones would be Beiseker and Didsbury. They're listed in the dropzone database as Alberta Skydivers and Vertical Extreme. You can also find them on the internet. I personally haven't jumped at either of them, so I can't tell you any more than what's in the dropzone database - they look like smaller, cessna dropzones. Some people love smaller dropzones. Me personally... I'm a turbine snob, so I'd be going for the turbine. Eden North may now be the "bigger" dropzone in the province, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a place with a friendlier vibe. Couple that with great facilities, great people and a great plane, if you can live with the extra couple of hours on the road, it may be well worth it. Of course, I haven't been to Didsbury or Beiseker. There are a few folks from Alberta who post on here from time to time. Perhaps some of them can weigh in with more on them.

That may be the price at many places south of the border, but expect to pay a little more in Canada - the OP was asking about Alberta. In Canada, I'd expect to pay around $35 per jump ticket as a licensed skydiver with my own gear. Where in Alberta are you? I personally know the folks at Eden North and have done a bunch of jumps there during some time out west. Eden North is a great dropzone and they now have a Caravan for the summer, which IMHO makes it even better, but depending on where you are in Alberta, there may be more convenient places for you to go.

That should be easy, since nobody has. I think the point that you're missing is that this is not an appropriate place to be trying to learn the basics of skydiving. I'm sure that you have instructors and coaches available to you to teach you this stuff at your dropzone. I'm sure that there is also standard BPA manuals that provide information on the concepts of bodyflight. These are your sources of information for the things you're asking about in this and at least one other recent post I've seen from you. If their answer when you ask these questions is that you're not ready for that yet, then trust them because you probably aren't. We all had to crawl before we could walk. You may want to check that attitude, too. It's great that you're 16 and learning to skydive, but that doesn't make you special. Age doesn't have a whole lot of meaning in here - well... mostly. Also, just in case you didn't know, the term "Sky God" is generally not used as a compliment, but is generally more of an insult and/or joke. If you already knew this, then please refer back to the comment about attitude, above.

Awful news. Ahmed was a great guy, well liked and a good load organizer. He'll be sorely missed for his smiling face, his positive attitude to things and his talent, among many things. BSBD.

You're missing the point. You're not giving "them" beer. You're giving everyone beer, including yourself. When someone else achieves a milestone or does something stupid, they'll give everyone beer, including you, even though you probably had absolutely nothing to do with the reason for the beer. You need to read up on the beer rules. It's got nothing to do with saying thanks to your instructors or whoever, although I'm sure that your appreciation will be well received. It's about the camaraderie. It's about meeting other people on the dropzone, making friends, sharing in your success and sharing in theirs. It's got nothing to do with tipping, payment, remuneration, or anything of that ilk. Seriously, do a search for "beer rules".

A lot of good dropzones are in the middle of woop woop. Big cities tend to have big airports, which cause air traffic problems. Hell - 2galahs is over 40km in a straight line from BNE and they still need to get flight level clearance from BNE air traffic control. I'd also point out that from downtown Brisbane, it's not that much longer to drive to 2galahs as it is to drive to Caboolture where you're jumping and there's a lot less traffic. The beer rules are very generously followed out there, too. What can I say, I really had a lot of fun at Toogs.

Do you feel that you're not able to jump safely and that's why you're not motivated, or are you unmotivated and that's why you're concerned that you may not be as driven to safety as you used to be? It's just a thought, but perhaps you're just in need of a new challenge? What kind of jumps do you do? Taking a break may be one answer. Another might be to try to learn a new discipline. If you were doing 4-way and feel like you've done all that you wanted to do in that discipline, perhaps try taking up freeflying, wingsuiting, CRW... whatever takes your fancy. I know that early on in my career I did a *lot* of solo jumps working on individual skills, but that got boring pretty quick. When I started to do more 2-ways, that cured the boredom that was beginning to set in very quickly.

If you're inside a cloud (let's call a spade a spade, shall we...) you won't be able to see the sun. You have no reference for direction. While I've often heard the "Plan the dive and dive the plan" line with reference to the "Do I pull inside a cloud?" question, I generally hear it in North America, where jumping in clouds is not legal and not a regular occurrence. When I've jumped at places where cloud jumping is legal and there are rules for doing so, the general rule has been do not deploy inside a cloud unless you reach your hard-deck. There are other considerations as well. You may want to discuss this topic further with your instructors.

The largest operation in the Sydney area is Sydney Skydivers out at Picton. I personally haven't jumped there, but I've heard good things. There are a couple of people on here that call Picton home, but if you really want to hook up with the Australian skydiver crowd, check out skysurfer, as that's where most of them hang out on the intertubes. There are no doubt other dropzones in the Sydney area, but again, you're best bet to find out more would be to check out skysurfer.