chrismgtis

I would think this is the kind of act that we don't exactly want the public to view and get the wrong opinion of skydivers from? If it was my DZ I would give him a firm hell no. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

No worries billvon. I'm jumping and comfortable with my 175 triathlon and sticking with it for a long time. I'm no master under a 175, so I have no business downsizing. Especially with 81 jumps.

I'll quit. Sure. When I have a really really really bad landing. Will I get bored first? Hell no. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

You lived and with no real injuries. I've chopped for a whole lot less than that. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

The word is my girlfriend is going to buy the camera and helmet for me. We will see. When I started researching this so I could find out what camera and helmet to get, I decided on a Cookie and it appears Sony doesn't make the PC line anymore. So, I'm looking at the HC line of cameras. I'm going to use Cookie's "build your own" option on the site and get the helmet, mount and everything that way. I figure spending between $400-500 will get me a pretty decent camera without having to spend too much. So I looked at bhphotovideo.com to see what they had available. The Sony HC38, HC48 and HC96 are in the $400-500 range. Which would be the better camera? I'm planning on using the camera for free fall video. That is probably the main use that will come out of it, but I will use it for other things. I am going to import all the videos into Adobe Premiere to edit. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

I can't see any reason that doing a tandem first would hurt. I did so myself. If anything, I think it helps a lot to at least give you an idea of what to be prepared for without having to do much at all yourself the first time. As they say, better safe than sorry and that's the way I feel about tandems. I don't discourage anyone from trying AFF first, but I do recommend a tandem first since you never know how you will react to falling 120 miles per hour towards the earth. Though, not too many people seem to have a big problem starting immediately into AFF. None I've really heard of. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

I think I did a better job of stowing the lines on my last pack job this weekend, so I'll see this Saturday when I jump. I still need to work on getting the canopy in the bag better though. Another jumper, Mike, gave me some pointers (tying the rings together,etc) and I tried that. I noticed that the lines did look better once I had them stowed, but I also need to start pulling the lines down from the container and then stowing them, instead of pulling them from the last stow to keep them straight. Other than that, I think I'm doing a great job. Somehow I keep seeing the bridle (the part inside the bag) on top of the canopy once it's in the bag. I'm not sure how big of a potential problem this is though. When I first started packing this didn't happen, so I picked up a bad habit somewhere in the midst of trying to learn to put the canopy in the bag. I've gotten used to doing everything well except for that. At first flaking was the hardest part to me. Having a new canopy, getting in the bag became the problem. It's a hell of a job to get the canopy small enough to fit in the bag, hold it down and pull the corners of the bag under it without letting the canopy inflate. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

New pilot chute as of about 40 or so jumps ago. Can't tell you exactly on the line length. Less than 2 feet. I've used short line and longer. Didn't really make a difference than I can tell for sure. I'm almost sure that it's due to the difference in length of the lines from one riser compared to the other. That and I think I've developed a bad folding habit somewhere. I'm working on it though. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

I have been having line twists on opening lately for several weeks. Some are pretty mild, and I get thrown out of the line twists on opening and a few I've had to kick out. I'm pretty sure that the issue is caused by my pack job, although it only started happening in the last few weeks. I've let highly experienced jumpers watch me pack, asked instructors and other jumpers what might cause the problem, had other people pack my canopy to see if the same problem occurred, etc. Last week I had another jumper pack for me and didn't get a line twist on that jump. Everyone seems to think that I'm doing everything the way that I should. We have also checked the steering lines and they were twisted a little bit, but not enough to cause a problem. I don't believe that I'm dipping my shoulder or anything at pull time. I think that it might be how I am stowing the lines or putting the bag in the container. I've noticed that when I pack I usually have a few lines with slack in them after they cascade out, one of the lines in the cascade will have some slack and I noticed last week that when I had all the lines stowed one side was longer than the other, making the bag lop sided, but I had never noticed this before. Looking for more suggestions. I might get someone to jump my pack job and see if the same thing happens. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

I have found Avast to be the most pleasing in my experience out of all of the offerings out there, which include free and software which requires a purchase and/or a yearly "subscription" to virus definition updates. Tip: Don't ever pay for AV software. If it costs you anything, it's not as good as what you can get for free. That also goes for anti-spyware and anti-adware. Also, do not ever purchase anything that claims to block popups. They are useless in this day and age. I never see a single popup. I'm a Network Administrator, IT Technician and PBX (phone) administrator for Emerson Climate Technologies, have a CompTIA A+ certification, a Network Administration certificate, an IC3 certification and 7 years experience on the job in Information Technology, just in case you're wondering about my "credentials".

Luckily when I had a reserve ride people watched my canopy fall and actually went to get it for me. Then I had a hell of time finding the freebag. I searched 4 or 5 times for it in a forest of thorns, trees, high grass and ant hills. Then the guy I jumped with on that load went with me because he had a good idea of where it landed and pointed it out after looking for about 2 minutes. It was about 20 feet off the road on top of a huge thorn bush. Doh. I had scowered probably a 1500 square foot area looking for it. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

Agreed. I don't mind the current cycle. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

I wouldn't wear it (wouldn't do a whole lot of good probably), but I would feel much better if I did. With me it's more like, I've annoyed myself talking about it so much. I see a full moon and I think "Someone is making night jumps. I can't wait to do mine". ...skip dentist appointments, let the tread on your tires get too thin, decide that you would rather eat yogurt than go to the grocery store for food so you can save money... Or look up the nearest drop zones in the area where you're vacationing. You decide that buying life insurance and medical insurance costs too much. You could be jumping with that extra $300 a month. I've done that. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

Well, if you have money or a good life insurance policy, your kids would be set for a long time in about oh, 4 minutes or so. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

Get in your car and put the pedal to the metal for an adrenaline dose.

I have the attitude that while you should always consult instructors at your DZ about anything you are told here, this is still an Internet forum whose entire purpose is to speak to other skydivers, who you can not speak with otherwise - with this you get a much wider range of experiences and expertises. As far as expertise goes, people don't realize (or ignore) a simple fact that no matter whether you have 50 jumps or 5000, we all progress differently. We all work on different disciplines and progress in each one quicker or less quickly. There are far too many scenarios that make everyones experience different. I may have learned entirely on my own how to do something which a jumper with 5000 jumps still is not proficient at. That is one of those facts of life that you can't really argue with. Still, you have to argue that you simply can not believe anything you read online, whether a person's point of view, the news, a Wikipedia article or even a paragraph in an encyclopia. You have to be open minded. It's just a requirement that no matter where you get information from you can never really take it as factual information without analyzing that information, getting other opinions and most importantly using your own mind to determine whether, first off if the information is possible or makes sense at all or second if it's information that you can possibly rely on and use. No matter where you get it, that is true. So, this is an Internet forum. We are here to discuss. We all have our own expertises. Were each different and are more experienced in different areas. While jump numbers is an indicator of experience it's also not an indicator of expertise. One reason for this is frequency. Another is, no one person has the perfect solution to anything. I do agree with "speak to your instructor", but I don't agree with "don't give out advice here". That is wrong and makes no sense. It's everyone's responsibility to practice common sense and use their own mind. You wouldn't take someone's advice just because they said so, or you shouldn't. We should be able to give out advice and be able to consider it, not ignore it because "You can't listen to anyone on the Internet or", "Instructors know better than skydivers on the Internet". That isn't true. They may know better in some situations, because they may have been there with you, but not in all situations. Point in conclusion, this is a forum - if you have advice give it. Just practice some common sense and try not to give out ridiculous advice if you can. If you're reading it, use your brain. You're the one making the decisions. It's your life and you're the only one that can decide what is the best solution for you. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

When I started, I'll admit that while I'm uncomfortable with heights I'm not as afraid of them as most people. I'm the type of person that will walk to the edge of a cliff (although I feel like I need to grab hold of something and feel uneasy). Still, on the plane for about my first 7 jumps in AFF, while sitting with the instructors getting to altitude a lot of those thoughts ran through my head. At one point around my 6th jump I thought to myself, "why the hell am I doing this?". Everyone deals with fear differently and the same goes for fear in different situations. You might deal with fear of speaking in public better than someone deals with jumping out of an airplane for example and vice versa for someone else. It's a mind game. What I personally did was decided to just force myself not to think about what could happen. You have to not really think about what your doing as jumping from a high altitude, approaching high speeds and what could happen if a malfunction occurs and you "go in". In life these things happen. You can die at anytime. What counts is that you make a decision whether or not this is something you really want to do and whether or not you are the type of person that is willing to take the risks involved with doing something you love doing. I personally decided years ago that I had made too many mistakes in my life and that I had let fear control me and prevent me from doing something that I wanted to do, needed to do and could have made my life a lot better and that I just didn't want to take the risk of dying and regretting not doing something anymore. That was one of my big motivations. At the same time, I'm still afraid of public speaking. I could jump out of airplane much easier, because to me personally you're not risking being judged by possibly hundreds of people for every word you say. So I can handle facing just that fear alone, but that is me. It's not the same for everyone. People ask me all the time how it's so easy for me to skydive, yet I find it really hard in a lot of cases to be as outgoing as everyone else and things like that. We handle things differently. It's not our fault though. It's just the way our brain works individually. The exact same reason why Albert Einstein could come up with some many formulas, theories and was a brilliant mathematician. He was a complete moron when it came to plenty of things. -Close your eyes, breathe and think of skydiving as a normal activity. If you can do that you would be surprised how much it helps. -If you can, talk to people on the plane to keep your mind off of it. -Psych yourself out (I think that's how to explain it), by telling yourself "14,000 feet? Pfft. That's normal. Big deal. -I know a lot of people do it, but it might help not to drink any soda or anything with a lot of sugar or caffeine it before you jump. In the past I found out that if I was nervous doing something, that made it a lot worse. It's harder to relax when your jacked up. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

Starting a track at 2500 ft. at my experience level is far too risky the way that I see it and a "hell no". It was a one time thing anyway (for a long time - no interest in doing anything like that really). Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

lol.. I like this one. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

It's about as freaky when you look up and see everyone in your 13 way above you and you have no choice but to pull very soon. That was a little scary. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

It's a good class. Pay attention and do what he says. You will probably see lots of improvement from it. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

Oddly enough I didn't have my first "unstable" exit until somewhere around jump 40 or so. I got out of the plane and went into a tumble for about 8 seconds. All I can attribute it to is some crazy turbulence. I was 100% aware and calm the entire time, but I was thinking "What the hell?". After about 8 seconds I went stable. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

Congrats. Now the real fun begins. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

That depends on which version you have (older version). Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

This is also an Internet forum where if people did not give advice it would eliminate the purpose significantly. I mean, not even highly experienced AFF instructors always have the best approach to something. Hopefully no one just takes anything someone says as the best correct answer available. I don't mean perpendicular to the ground. Just enough so that you don't hit the ground, try to stand it up as a reflex action with your feet hanging *straight* down and face plant or bust your knees. I just thought I would make a small recommendation as something to try. Doing that made a huge difference in my own landings. To the poster, congrats on doing well on level 4 and please do speak to your AFF instructor about anything you plan to do differently on your dive. Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033 Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan