redlegphi

Ah. Yeah, that's an extra several hundred dollars per month. Especially since I think Gordon's in a fairly high cost of living area, yes? So you should have tons of extra dough once you pick up your 6. Just don't get a girlfriend or anything and you're fine.

I honestly don't think military paratrooper training matters one way or another. Static line jumps out of a C47 aren't anywhere close to a freefall out of a passenger jet. At most, military training would let him know what he didn't know about skydiving and would cause him to go get civilian training. I think putting him at a civvie DZ is really the important part, from a jumping factor.

$225 per month Hostile Fire Pay, which is like, 132 jumps or so. Plus, the combat zone is tax free, which is good for another couple thousand dollars. Seriously though, as others have alluded to, it's all about making priorities. If you're single, it's not that hard. Cut back on the other fun shit you do (do you drink? do you smoke? do you dip?) and start funneling that money towards skydiving. You aren't going to be becoming a skygod in one year, but you'll get in a good number of jumps and have some fun. And you can always mooch beer off of other people at the DZ. As far as finding a DZ, go click on "Dropzones" up on the top of this page, enter your ZIP code where appropriate, and it'll spit out all of the closest DZs for you.

Fixed that for yuh

Almost forgot, get deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan for a year. It's amazing how much money you can save up when you don't have any place to spend it. Of course, there are certain drawbacks to going to either of those places

Yeah, HALO's really the only way the Army's going to give you freefall training. Airborne training is all static line and has very little to do with fun/sport skydiving. Tuition Assistance can only be used for very specific types of schooling, and I'm almost 100% certain that skydiving doesn't qualify. As has already been suggested, I suggest getting a job around the DZ on the weekend (packing, manifest, whatever) to make a little extra cash for jumping. As an enlisted (I assume) soldier in the US Army, you're never really going to make enough to go out and make 20 jumps every weekend. Take a look at your budget, see what things you HAVE to spend money on (family, food, housing), and budget a good chunk of what's left for skydiving.

Columbus is the home of Fort Benning, which, in turn, is the home of the US Army Airborne School. As far as I can remember, all of the DZs at Benning are on the other side of the river (in Alabama). Was he pointing towards Alabama when he said "Over there is where we used to jump."? Also, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense that he was not only allowed into the Army after being discharged from the Navy, but that he was made a paratrooper.

I'm not an "old timer", but I don't think that military record indicates that Duane had jump training in the military. Camp Sibert was the Army's Chemical School at that time, so I don't imagine they had an Airborne School as well. I don't think he was at Fort Hayes long enough. And I don't think they had an Airborne School in Jacksonville. On top of all of that, Paratroopers tend to be pretty proud of what they volunteer to do. If he had volunteered to be a Paratrooper, I would think that he'd have mentioned that, either directly to his mother or in a letter.

To add on to everybody elses checks, check to make sure altimeter reads zero while on the ground.

So, just to make sure I understand this correctly, the quick flare to the "sweet spot" allows you to use your body to shift the flight of the canopy so it's parallel to the ground while still conserving most of your forward speed, allowing you to have a nice, long ride out to your final landing flare? It's cool the kind of stuff you can learn on here sometimes.

You left out the bit about bringing beer.

As MajorDad has alluded to, it also has a lot to do with the personal decisions a jumper is making. For example, I think about half of USPA's fatalities last year were swoopers impacting with the ground under a fully-functioning canopy. So if you're not a swooper, you can take those fatalities out of whatever statistics equation you're using. What it really comes down to is risk management. There is, of course, always a chance that both of your parachutes will fail to do their jobs correctly and you'll end up dead because of it. However, this is an extremely rare occurance. Most of the skydiving deaths each year could be prevented by choices made by the individual skydiver. Do they know how to properly execute emergency procedures for each possible scenario? Do they properly maintain and inspect their gear? Do they know how to keep seperation between themselves and others, both in freefall and under canopy? Are they flying a canopy suitable for their skill level? Are they flying that canopy in a manner suitable for their skill level? Etc. If you really want to impress your parents, I'd suggest finding out what possible issues you could have while skydiving and finding out what can be done to prevent or deal with those issues, thereby mitigating the risk.

That doesn't answer my question. What is so dangerous about a PLF? Or, to put it another way, how is a PLF more dangerous than a stand-up landing?

What's so "dangerous" about a PLF?

I liked the first one with the jumpers better. Especially the ones where the kids just do an ass drop on to the edge of the door and then just kinda roll out.

Weather holds are just a part of jumping. They suck some times (well, a lot of the time) but they can be useful too. Especially when you're a student and new at the DZ. They're a great time to get to know some of the people around the DZ better and to pick up skills that you'll need to get your license, such as packing. Lemons --> Lemonade

beat ya to it! by a wisker! Both are at 6:44! btw, do you notice that there's an automatic spell check while we're typing now? ltdiver I think the spell checker is actually your browser. I know Firefox has one, if that's what you're using.

Ummm... two words... "Dead Batteries" Not to mention that cell phones require towers that do not cover the face of the planet and that a GPS unit requires the ability to receive a signal from space, which can be blocked with thick enough trees.

Well, it seems to me that if first-timers and other assorted newbies are being treated like shit at DZ and are being treated well at wind tunnels, then the DZ is the last place you'd want to send a newbie. If they hit a wind tunnel, meet some nice people, and get some experience for what they should be expecting/doing/learning in actual freefall, maybe they'll get hooked on the sport before some asshat on a DZ completely turns them off to the entire sport of skydiving. Maybe they'll even get enough experience in the tunnel that they'd get a little respect (or at least a little less harrassment) from the DZ regs. This is all a roundabout way of saying that your real issue isn't tunnels or the BPA (at least not entirely). Your real issue seems to be the people at the DZ. It's kind of hard for me to believe how bad things apparently are in the UK, given my limited experiences at DZs in the US. What do you think are the origins/causes of this anti-social behavior at UK DZs and do you have any ideas on how to make these DZs a more welcoming and less cliquey place to be?

You don't even really have to jump off of furniture. Just get into position and then take a couple of hops to the side. On the last hop, just initiate a PLF. And as Chris said, stiff is bad. The key is when your feet hit, your body goes limp and you're really only concentrating on twisting the body so that the soft, cushiony bits are hitting.

Here's how I did it, which I found to be pretty good. First weekend, I only did the first jump. I kinda wanted to just savor that and not work on going any further. Next weekend, go back and plan on doing 3-4 jumps per day (assuming you can afford this). I think you'll find that after 3-4 jumps, your body's going to be going through some weird shit, as your adrenaline levels have been jumping all over the place, so trying to do more than that becomes counter-productive. Either way, if you're able to get in 3 good jumps on each day that weekend, you'll be done with AFF and on to solo status. Once you're on solo status, just show up every weekend you can and do as many jumps as you feel comfortable doing and can afford. Depending on weather, it could take a while, but you'll get there. As far as the question of the first jump being tandem or AFF, that's really a personal thing. If you're pretty sure that you won't have any issues getting out of the plane for a solo freefall, then it's fine to go with AFF first. If you're worried that you're going to go up in the plane and then get scared in the door and forget everything you've learned and freak out, Tandem is a good way to break your brain into the concept of jumping out of an airplane. Welcome to the sport and good luck!

Just a thought. Instead of giving Skyride new places to send their unwitting customers to, why don't the non-Skyride DZs get together to form a legitimate booking business with, like, ethics or something. They can agree among themselves to just send jumpers who call to whatever the nearest DZ is (unless the caller requests another DZ specifically). They could even pool money to advertise some. As many have said, the concept of Skyride isn't bad in and of itself. It's their ethics that are abhorrent. So take their business model and apply a nice dose of ethics. Just my two cents.

Odds on this even being mentioned in Parachutist (other than in the letters)? Maybe it's time to push for an independent ethics panel made up of non-DZO jumpers.

Quotehttp://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/milarticles/bllod.htm You may need to go to the local JAG office for the infomration you need.[/reply Agreed. Your JAG is there to do this work for you. They might even see it as a fun little challenge. Though they'd probably appreciate it if you can point them in the right direction with anything you can get off of this forum.

The "Lower Alabama Skydiving Association", which, as far as I can tell, is somehow associated with the people at the Atlanta Skydiving Center and Skyride.