bluefingers

so what would you suggest I do to incr my fall rate so that I can keep up with someone considerably taller and heavier than me? Kerry

I don't know, I'm new at this. He did say that I was being a bit lazy. Maybe I should have worded that better. I wasn't working. Was just parking off. He did explain the whole thing about being inefficient when you are working at your extremes. Kerry

Hi I went through the S/l progression and freefall progression prog in South Africa, and we don't use an alti, until our second 15sec delay. Counting became habitual. But in this case, no I don't count on all my skydives, but I do normally count when I track. Minimum of three maximum of 5 seconds. Yesterday, I didn't count. Kerry

Hi I did a coach jump on sunday, with 10lbs of lead, and according to the coach's Protrack, we were at about 120mph. BUT, in the debrief he said that I could arch harder - I was too relaxed. This was in the mantis position. Something for me to work on. I've invested in a decent RW suit with boosters, and ZP fabric on the front, spandex arms etc. Kerry

hey congrats!!!!! Kerry

Hi all I had a very educational jump yesterday. It was the second RW coach in our cat II programme, wearing 10lb in a weight vest, jumping a Hornet 210. Without the lead I load it at 0.68. It was my 62nd skydive, and I’m a bit of a late starter with RW (did S/L progression, and got stuck there for ages). Was wearing lead cos my coach is a good 45 - 50kg heavier than me. Unlinked exit at 9500ft (C182), I had to dock, coach moved back 2m, turned 90 deg and moved back another 2m. I had to fly in and dock from the front. All good. Then I released him and we just worked on body position (mantis) till wave off at 4500ft. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of the skydive till this point. Then I tried to track. Arms close in, hands cupped, rolling shoulders, legs straight and together (it was the first time I had tried this). Well, I was zigzagging all over the place, and felt very unstable. This is where I made a mistake. I stopped counting in my head. I was concentrating so much on getting my track on a heading, I lost altitude awareness. A glance at the ground indicated that I wasn’t where I normally am in a track, so got into the box, checked alti and got a huge fright. I reached at 2500ft, fumbled, got it and deployed. Snivel, snivel, 3 line twists. With that glance at the alti, my heartrate must have tripled. My body position on the pull wasn’t too good, which is probably why I had the line twists. Kicked out of them pretty quickly though. I don’t know what altitude I was when under a full canopy, I was too busy trying to find the airfield. Orientated myself, figured I might just make it back, but decided not to. Didn’t want an iffy landing on a fence. So chose my out – the middle of a field next to the airfield. Landing was a lot faster than I was used to (fourth jump on this canopy, first one with lead). Landed safely, and my coach picked me up and gave me a stern talking to all the way back to the airfield. But he didn’t yell or make me uncomfortable. In the debrief he was calm and encouraging, and I really appreciated that. Lessons learned: 1. The skydive doesn’t stop at wave-off. Keep altitude awareness!!!!!!! Keep that mental count going in a track. I managed to use up 2000ft trying to track by not being altitude aware. 2. Don’t try too many new things on one skydive. On this jump it was new exit, new body position, new RW, and trying a new way of tracking. 3. LOOK at the ground, and if you can see the trees are a bit bigger than normal, do something about it. 4. Practice tracking. 5. Practice touches. I have been doing these on the ground, but not nearly enough. I fumbled and lost a couple of precious seconds. Kerry

Hi there I had a dodgy alti on my first jump of the weekend, a Barigo, belonging to the club. It was RW coach jump, the very basic stuff (just driving forward and docking). At between 5 and 4500ft (which was break off alti anyway) I glanced at my alti and saw the needle bouncing around quite radically. I immediately waved off, tracked for 3 seconds, waved off and pulled. I had fairly good idea of where I was in the sky because of my previous alti checks. I looked at my alti under canopy, and it seemed to be working fine, but I didn't use it for my landing pattern. I used my eyes. Mind you, having done umpteen static line jumps with no alti, I have a good idea of what 1000ft looks like. Second jump of the weekend was scary, but I'm going to start a new post about that. Kerry

Hi there! I'm at exactly the same point as you - after a loooooooong progression Anyway, just curious, when you start your cat II coach jumps, are your coaches teaching you Mantis? Or still using the box position? I tried the Mantis with hugh newman at the margate boogie - felt really different, but I found it much easier to arch. Did my level 1 coach jump on saturday - failed. Was box position, linked exit. Release. I backslid a bit. Drove forward to dock, floated quite a bit on the coach. Arched hard. Got down to him. Docked. Relaxed my arch. Popped straight back up. Time up, turn and track. Spoke to one of our coaches, and he wants to get me on the trolley practising the mantis position, then go up and do some solo's, getting used to the body position, and 'feeling' it in the air. Getting the muscle memory there, before doing anymore coach jumps. TO me this makes sense, because there are only a limited nr of subsidised coach jumps. Once you've used them up, you end up paying two slots, unless you get a coach willing to pay his/her own slot of course. I would chat with your coaches and see what they suggest. Kerry

Hi all Cross post from gen skydiving. I don't know anything about the incident involved, and am not a rigger, or even close. Just thought I'd post this email sent out to south african skydivers by Aerodyne. FYI Hi Skydivers As many of you have heard, there was an incident involving a PISA manufactured Teardrop, whereby the main pilot chute handle was pulled off the pilot chute during deployment sequence. We are currently drawing up a Safety Bulletin regarding this, and will publish it ASAP. If you own a PISA manufactured Teardrop, please check your main pilot chute where the plastic tube handle is sewn onto the pilot chute fabric. If you find that there is any wear at all, or it looks like it is coming loose, please do not jump it until it has been modified in one of the following ways: 1) The zig-zag stitching has been re-enforced with bartacks (A Qualified Rigger must do this) 2) It has been sent to the PISA factory, now called Aerodyne Systems, for a factory upgrade / modification. If there is no wear, please still get your nearest rigger to do this mod, or send it back to us. If you have any queries regarding this, please contact me on the below numbers. NB: If you have already replaced the plastic tube handle with a Hackey Sack or Monkey Claw, this should not apply to your pilot chute, but check it anyway to be on the safe side... Kerry

Hi all Here's an email sent out by Aerodyne in South Africa. I don't have any details on the incident mentioned, just thought I'd post this here for those who own teardrops. Blue skies Hi Skydivers As many of you have heard, there was an incident involving a PISA manufactured Teardrop, whereby the main pilot chute handle was pulled off the pilot chute during deployment sequence. We are currently drawing up a Safety Bulletin regarding this, and will publish it ASAP. If you own a PISA manufactured Teardrop, please check your main pilot chute where the plastic tube handle is sewn onto the pilot chute fabric. If you find that there is any wear at all, or it looks like it is coming loose, please do not jump it until it has been modified in one of the following ways: 1) The zig-zag stitching has been re-enforced with bartacks (A Qualified Rigger must do this) 2) It has been sent to the PISA factory, now called Aerodyne Systems, for a factory upgrade / modification. If there is no wear, please still get your nearest rigger to do this mod, or send it back to us. If you have any queries regarding this, please contact me on the below numbers. NB: If you have already replaced the plastic tube handle with a Hackey Sack or Monkey Claw, this should not apply to your pilot chute, but check it anyway to be on the safe side... Kerry

that's nuts in a good way right? Kerry

I like Nac's akshent .... Kerry

I just wanna know who nr 67 is ? Kerry

Blue: Who's spotting this load? Fellow skydiver: Kerry, just dry your eyes and get out! Kerry

I don't have photoshop, so cant resize pics, besides, I'm lazy. SO if you wanna see 'em, go to http://www.skyflyer.nl/gallery/spgm.php?g=Blue There's about 15 pics there, ranging from age 5, to First jump course (gotta love those student overalls), to full length of my avatar, to out and about in SA, to being winded out, so we went and did a 90m gorge swing, in our jumpsuits (do NOT laugh at the helmet!!!!), and finally, scrubbed up for a wedding (doesn't happen often). Kerry

Who are you calling "old"!!!!!! Kerry

Hey there! Well, you obviously made a huge impression on them if they are prepared to create a position for you! That's fantastic! Go girl! Kerry

Thanks for all the wishes! I just love birthdays Kerry

Hi all! Thanks!!! Stormy, you're not late, it's today (21st). Heli was just really desperate to get in there first! Aneblett! Happy birthday for yesterday!

aint that the truth ..... as for the rest! Kerry

PPC (Pietermaritzburg Parachute Club) was est 1953, but first jump was in 1954. We're celebrating our 50th anniversary early next year ... Kerry

yep Naccles .... Hey Jess! Brainstorming is lots of fun! You're lucky you get taken to dinner! We get to do ours around a stuffy boardroom table. But an abundance of coffee and fizzpops makes the task a tad easier Just go prepared, but also be flexible. One idea sparks many ... before you know it, four hours have passed and the ideas are still flowing. Just needs a kickstart. Good luck! Kerry

Well, we headed off down to the Margate Boogie, hoping to squeeze in a few more jumps out the King Air at 14 000ft Unfortunately, it wasn't to be .... left home at 6am for the 1 1/2 hr drive, got to the airfield, and sat and shivered in 15 - 20 knot winds. After a while we went and had a huge breakfast, then back to airfield, then went on a bit of a road trip, showing Erno (dz.com's ernokaikkonen) a bit of the south coast. Back to the airfield. Still windy. So we went off to Oribi gorge and did a gorge swing (90m), in full skydiving gear (sans rig of course! Erno rumbled about a base but there was no landing area, besides I don't think the organisers would have been too impressed! ) - jumpsuits, helmets the works. The guys running the show thought we were nuts Will try post pics a bit later .... Kerry

I dreamt I had a mal (don't know what went wrong). Pulled my cutaway puff, and pulled and kept pulling, eventually using both hands, because the cable just kept coming and coming and coming and nothing was happening. Suprisingly, in the dream, I was super calm, muttering under my breath. Eventually I got rid of the main, and pulled my reserve handle at about 50ft. Look up. And there are my risors, and a big beautiful white slider, and absolutely nothing above that. Did my checks, and landed my big slider in the pit. The other night I dreamt I had to do a delta, but I had a creeper with me. The plan was to hug the creeper to my chest, riding it like a boogie board, and work on my legs. It went well, until pull time. I couldn't figure out how to pull without letting go of the creeper, every time I moved my right arm, the creeper would start flapping like crazy. So I kinda flipped over into a sit of sorts, with my legs wrapped around the creeper, deployed, and then the damn thing disappeared into thin air. Very odd. Kerry

ah memories .... on one of my jumps this weekend I was on a load that didn't have a JM or senior (more beer!). So I asked who was going to be spotting and what the exit order would be. Not a stupid question right? The answer I got? "dry your eyes and get out!" and as for "I'm chuffed to fuck for ya Blue" ...well, Matt's known for putting his foot in it .... he means well ... really ... Kerry