UDSkyJunkie

Danielcroft, Sounds like you're at a great DZ that used tandem the way it was meant to be used... that's a good thing. I will always think AFF is the superior option for those few who come in knowing they want to pursue a license. Most future jumpers are more like you though... they come for a carnival ride and get hooked, and quality tandem instruction (or lack thereof) is what determines how many of you come back a 2nd time. I agree that some do not wish to be challenged, and that's really ok with me... however, they should be given the option. Asking "do you want to pull" as your instructors did is an excellent way to do this. If the student says no, no big deal. But at least they were given the option. Much better IMO than not offering, or worse, (yes I've seen it) the student asking if they can pull and being told "no". And they should be given an altimeter regardless... noone's going to force them to look at it. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Ah... I hadn't thought of that, and can appreciate the need for unique protocols in unique circumstances. Certainly *most* DZ's do not have this particular concern, and thus a 12-grand deployment would simply be an inconvenience. However, I would be remiss if I didn't note that placing a DZ/landing area so close to the ocean that being pushed backward into the water following an unintentional high deployment is a real concern seems a rather poor display of risk management. It really doesn't take that much distance... a mile or so maybe, assuming adequate spotting skills and monitoring of the uppers, to reduce this risk near zero while still providing spectacular under-canopy views. If it's close to the ocean so you can put "beautiful beach landings" in your marketing brocure, well... words aren't really adequate to describe my opinions on how bad of an idea that is. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

I don't like to get into heated online arguments, but dude... you're out of line. Period. If providing the passenger with a handle (and thus an active role in saving his own ass) is "madness" then I can't imagine what you think of AFF... arguably the best, most effective way to teach skydiving. Why is it madness? what are you afraid of? the guy dumping at 12000'? so what? Yes, you ARE negligent in not allowing your passengers an altimeter, and I don't give a s*** what anybody else does. Tandems have NOT reduced skydiving to a carnival ride. Lazy instructors and greedy DZ's have. Good instructors and forward-thinking DZ's use them as an effective tool... even better DZ's promote AFF for those who are interested. Your students comments in your logbooks are irrelevant and say NOTHING of your skills and even less of your instructional capability. They are coming off an adrenaline high and could have been strapped to a monkey, had an AAD fire their reserve, and been remote-controlled in to a rough landing and they'd have gushed all over the monkey because they don't know any better. I can possibly understand not letting a 1st jump tandem student help the flare, but the process should still be explained/practiced while you're up there. If you've got two sets of toggles on your canopy, there's even less excuse. Bottom line, tandem indeed has less value than other forms of instruction, but can be an excellent introduction to the sport. IMO any 2nd jump student should immediately be put into AFF or IAD/static line, and almost all 1st jump students should at least be given the option. Some students want the jump to be a carnival ride, and that's fine... we won't see them again anyway. But for those who are expecting more, we should provide more. If we don't, we're lazy. If tandem is our only option, we should do our best with the tools at hand instead of making excuses for what amounts to laziness, lack of skills, or greed. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Hard to argue with construction orange... prettymuch visible in all conditions. It's fugly, but does the job The bright yellow canopies that Airspeed flies are pretty visible even at Eloy and would certainly be visible in all other conditions. Turquoise/neon blue is bright against everything but the sky, but if you mixed it with something that stands out against the sky it'd be very visible. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Tips? Stop hiring packers... EVER! Yeah, it'll suck really bad for awhile, but you'll learn. Trial by fire. You might also try finding an old F-111 canopy or a well-used ZP canopy that isn't so slippery to practice on. If you've got the technique nailed with a easy-to-pack canopy, it's easier to transition to a tougher one than if you're trying to go strait to ZP. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Hehe... people have been saying this for over a decade, and the picture hasn't changed. Belly is dead at individual DZ's, but it's not going anywhere in the grand scheme of things. Nationals still has 60ish belly teams and what... 8 VRW teams? And what discipline are all the big money meets in? let see... Paraclete: belly. Malevsky cup: belly. valentine's meet: belly. World challenge: belly... yes, there are freefly money meets too, but not for thousands of dollars (yet... it'll happen soon enough). Freefly/VRW is very cool, and it's new(ish) and exciting and growing, but it'll never displace belly completely. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

I'm not quite as small as you, but I'm pretty small for a guy... 135 lbs and 5'7". You may struggle a bit during AFF and it may be hard initially to find canopies that don't make you go backwards on a windy day, but once you get into the experienced jumping world, don't worry! Personally, I find my small stature to be a HUGE ADVANTAGE over the big guys! Why? I don't have to contrort myself as much in the door for exit. I never have to worry about going low, but I can always add weight to my belt if I need to fall faster... it's ALWAYS easier to go faster than slower! I can (and in fact, have to) wear a skin-tight jumpsuit, which gives much greater control and faster response than a floppy suit. Reduced mass means it's easier to turn, easier to track, easier to stop. Everything in the air is easier! The only time it's been a disadvantage is as an AFF jumpmaster, when I'm trying to keep a guy twice my size stable... but honestly that's more about skill than mass. One big word of caution: be conservative on canopy size and wing loading... small canopies perform much more radically than larger canopies of the same wingloading, so while some brand-new jumpers find that they're very comfortable at a WL of say 1.2, but with a large 210 sq ft canopy, a small jumper loading a 120 at 1.2 would be a recipe for injury. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

I think #5 is the big one. Also, ask questions about the gear... it's condition, DMF, # of jumps, previous owners, ect, and ALWAYS get pictures. A honest seller won't hesitate to provide all this, while a dishonest seller may paint a bit too perfect of a picture for the price and raise reg flags. Sellers of stolen gear may have no idea what you're talking about, and it becomes obvious by vauge, confusing, or conflicting answers. Poor english skills are a huge red flag in my book too... they could be nigerian, or they could just be lazy e-mailers, but I think it's fair to say that people who steal parachutes and sell them online are likley to have a below-average command of the written word. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

I can add a similar story for your benefit and others: Recent (last couple months) 4-way with a pick-up team for the day. Breakoff roughly 4300, I (point) turned 180 and tracked, the tail guy, somehow, turned and tracked in a manner that put him directly below and parallell to me. He's a pretty heads-up guy, so I really don't know how this occurred, but the fact is it did. I am light and a very flat tracker, so by 3500' he was well below (a few hundred feet) and behind me. I considered trying to change direction but decided against it due to not wanting to inadvertently end up in another person's path (a poor decision in retrospect). I also considered allowing the low guy to dump first, as I was pulling away, and decided against it because I don't like dumping much below 2800-3000 with my canopy due to guaranteed 800 foot snivel (again probably a poor decision looking back). Decided instead to dump immediately with the logic that I was high (around 3300 by this time) and he would wait a few more seconds (poor logic). Result: As soon as I let go of the hacky, he dumped RIGHT below me. my canopy did it's standard snivel, went into a minor linetwist, turned 180, and headed directly for the other guy's much faster-opening, fully-inflated canopy. I kicked out of the twist and went to grab a right rear riser to turn away (still decending much more quickly than him) and whizzed by at high vertical and horizontal relative speed at a distance of less than 15'. Everything happened so fast, I really don't know if my riser input had any effect. Other jumper was below and his canopy faced away, so he never saw a thing. Too many lessons learned to list. Actually, I already knew those lessons, so primary lesson learned is to follow your training instead of trying to make something up on the spot! I screwed up, and it nearly was a disaster. I believe the other guy screwed up too by tracking the wrong way, but that's not really the point... I should have dealt with it correctly instead of making it worse. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

There is some truth there... though that's the case with more than just the coach rating. I have seen similar behavior among the more experienced members of coaching, AFF, tandem, 4-way, freefly, and other disciplines toward the lesser experienced teachers. They can indeed. I just don't think it's worth a slot plus a fee. When I had 100 jumps, I did not have the knowledge or skill to be worth that much to someone with 10 jumps. I don't feel I would have provided that value until I was in the ballpark of 500. your mileage may vary. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

I do not think still being close to student status is an advantage... a good instructor can put himself in the mindset of the student. However, I DO know you can develop yourself tremendously by taking the coach course and doing some coaching. For most of my skydiving career I've been the least experienced on the dive and always learning. Then in 2007 I changed dropzones, no longer had a team, and found myself frequently the most experienced and the organizer. on top of that I got my coach and AFF ratings. I learned more that season than any other, even though my flying skills actually took a step backward due to rarely being challenged after 2 years of serious 4-way. Now I'm at a big-time DZ (eloy) and I'm back to being the less experienced jumper on many, many dives. But, I have greater perspective and more appreciation for those who are willing to help me continue to improve. My opinion, if you're willing to get the coach rating and not charge, do it... you'll learn a ton and your students will benefit as much or more than from most who do charge. If you want to charge, I think you should wait until you really believe your skills and knowledge are worth the student's money. for a few talented individuals, that may be as early as a few hundred jumps but for most I think it's more. I personally still barely feel adequate... teaching AFF is easier because the skills are SO basic and the mistakes are usually easier to observe and explain. teaching 4-10 way RW is easier because you're teaching people who to think, what to look for, how to approach, the process... teaching the middle, what coaches do... that's HARD. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

An interesting opinion, and one that I haven't seen often. I actually agree with you, sort of... it seems odd that we have people with 150 jumps who are "coaching" students on basic RW skills that they very often have not mastered themselves, and are in no way prepared to effectively teach. I have limited coach/AFF experience, but I personally found the coach dives to be more of a challenge on average because you're trying to impart skills more advanced then "don't die". Problem is, coach jump rates suck. Why would a super-experienced AFF jumpmaster coach for $10 when he can do AFF for $40. You could up the fees, but then you're asking brand new skydivers to shell out even more cash, when they're already stretched pretty thin. I think the post-AFF coach progression should never be mandatory. Too few DZ's really have enough qualified staff to make it worth the student's money. They can learn just as much from friendly jumpers around the DZ for less money. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

You got it... you need to be armed with the knowledge to deal with any imaginable situation that could occur. You have to know because if you jump long enough, things will ineviatbly go wrong... you'll never know what it's going to be or when but it WILL happen. Some stuff goes wrong fairly frequently (like minor line twists, slider hang-ups, ect) and some things are really pretty damn uncommon (like bag locks) but they all do happen and you still have to be prepared for it. And you have to be prepared for anything on any given jump, without warning. So I wouldn't say to EXPECT problems as such... that might make you a bit "jumpy" and cause you to react inapproprately (by say, chopping something at the first sign of trouble when maybe it was a small problem you could fix) in the same way that expecting perfection could make you a bit lazy and cause you to be taken by surprise. Rather, you need to be prepared equally to deal with everything from a perfect opening to a complete ball of shit on every jump. PS. big stuff going wrong is really pretty uncommon. I've had one cutaway in 1,100+ jumps, and that's fairly "average." On the other hand, I knew a student who had his first two cutaways on jumps 1 and 3 (no shit!), so anything can happen. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Freakyflyer, You bring up valid concerns, and I'm happy to see someone actually do some reasearch and ask intelligent questions. Some of what I'm about to say has already been said by others, but I'll put it out there anyway. It is definately common for first-jump students to panic, flail, not pull on time, lose altitude awareness, ect, and absolutely the job of the instructor to deal with those situations. However, students who do the above would not be allowed to progress to the next level in the student program. The deceased was not a first jump student, he was actually nearing the end of the AFF progression. during his particular dive, he was instructed to turn away from the instructor and track (read: move away rapidly) prior to opening his parachute. This is a common practice late in the AFF program as tracking is a necessary skill. Such an instruction would not be allowed if the student had not demonstrated reasonable stability and calmness on previous levels. This is because once you track away you really are on your own. Training wheels are off. It seems that the student had an uneventful skydive until AFTER his turned to track and was away from his instructor, at which time, for some reason, he became unstable and began to panic. At this point, the instructor is in a very bad situation... he has about 10 seconds to catch and pull for a student who is wildly unstable and already moving away from him quickly. Chances are that nobody, regardless of skill level, could have saved this student. The instructor did try to save him anyway, and in fact got so low himself that his AAD fired and he landed under both his main and reserve, putting his own life in jeopardy. The student was equipped with his own AAD, which also fired the reserve parachute. Unfortuately, he had the great misfortune of being so unstable that he actually became tangled with the reserve during deployment. This is a very rare occurance but not unprecidented. I hope you can see from the above that this was not an incident that could necessarily have been easily prevented... it resulted mostly from bad luck and yes, from the poor emotional control of the student. If any mistake was made on the part of the staff, it would have been advancing the student before he was ready for that level... I will not speculate on that as I have zero knowledge of the jumpers past performance, but I can tell you that many students show no indication of a problem, and then may panic "out of the blue" on a later jump. In fact, some extremely experienced jumpers (literally with 1,000's of jumps) have died due to panicing and the poor decisions or lack of action resulting from said panic. I am a bit concerned that you say you believed skydiving to be "incredibly safe." The reality is that skydiving is NOT "safe" at all. It is a risky action that is managed by training, preparation, reliable, well maintained equipment, redundancy, idiot-proofing, and some damn gutsy, highly qualified instructors. All of the above have turned skydiving from an incredibly dangerous sport to a sport that carries risks of reasonable magnitude (IMO). For a ballpark estimate, approximately 2 - 2.5 million skydives were made in the united states in 2007, resulting in approximately 20-25 fatalities. Hope this answers your questions, and I hope you go to make your first skydive!

The polycotton and booties will help, hopefully your suit has a little "wing" as well. Flattening out and "cupping" may slow you down a bit but they will also reduce your ability to fly correctly. If it's an option definately get some tunnel time... more airtime always helps, and many people find they fall a bit slower in the "mantis" position vs. boxman. In the end, little guys need weights. I'm 135 and had to wear 18 lbs of weight to keep a comfortable pace with my 235 lb teammate. Another 170ish lb teammate wore about 10 lbs as well... but the vast majority of people above 160 or so will refuse to even consider wearing weights outside the team environment. The advice to lose weight yourself may sound harsh but is accurate... if you're carrying around 30 lbs of "natural arch" skydiving will be harder for you no matter what. Losing a bit will help your fall rate, make your turns faster and better, reduce the odds of injury on a bumpy landing, and reduce wear and tear on your equipment (my 235-lb teammate broke lines on at least 4 different canopies on at least 6 separate occasions). "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

As said before, do NONE of the above! Your lines are going to shrink due to heat and require replacement before they "wear out" most likley anyway. Silicone in lines/risers/cutaway cables is definately going to attact dirt. This is very bad for obvious reasons on cables and will actually INCREASE wear on lines/risers. United Parachute Technologies recommends cleaning/lubricating cutaway cables with a multi-purpose oil (3-in-1 is perfect). Note they say to use a very small amount of oil, as a thick layer will tend to attact dirt and may increase pull forces in cold weather. Modern skydiving gear lasts a very long time. The best thing you can do to extend it's life is to store it in a cool, dry, dark place, keep it's time in the trunk of your car limited to going to and from the DZ, and keeping it out of the sun. Beyond that, regular inspections by your rigger and yourself will prevent small, cheap problems from becoming big, expensive problems. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

***could you tell me some? US is wired... you can own a gun with 12 but you can skydive only with 18?! Quote yep... and you can skydive at 18, but you can't drink till you're 21. There are very few US DZ's that will let you jump when you're under 18. The ones that will typically will only allow AFF/static line instead of Tandem. The problem is that when you're under 18, the liability waiver isn't considered legally valid, even if the parents provide permission and the waiver is notarized, it is often considered invalid in court. Most other countries legal systems don't work that way, so with parental permission you can jump younger. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

dude, if you're not comfortable, don't jump it... you don't necessarily need to confront him, just take the $60 hit and get it re-done. As a newer rigger who has only really packed for myself and a few friends, I have run into the occasional rig that I'm not proficient enough to do well... almost always because the reserve is two sizes too big, but if you're really good you can make it work. one time it was a reflex, and I admit I just don't have the technique down for that rig... the pop-top doesn't bother me and racer's are fine, but the reflex is much more tricky. I was packing it for a friend, and when I got done, it didn't look good and the pull force was way too high. In the end, I had to apologize to my friend and tell him that he simply needed to take his rig to someone with more experience with the reflex system; but I also had the decency to not charge. Personal opinion, having friends pack your reserve isn't always a good idea unless you've seen their packing abilities firsthand. When a rigger isn't a friend, they consider it a buisiness deal and as such quality is expected... some friends might consider it "practice" and not put in quite the same effort. Sad, but true. Not saying this is the case in your specific situation, but I've seen it happen that way. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

the USPA ISP lists two AFF instructors for AFF levels 1, 2, and 3A; after that, it's one instructor. I believe some DZ's may go to 1 instructor sooner, but don't quote me on that. Regardless, the 2-instructor requirement is applicable to the AFF program ONLY... if you start with tandem progression (as I believe Rex did) then your first "AFF" jump can be done with a single instructor. Either way, by the time you're at level 5-6, one instructor would be the norm. With the rules part out of the way, consider the following: some DZ's (mostly larger operations like Spaceland, Eloy, Perris, Deland...) have a lot of very experienced, current, talented AFF instructors, and can therefore justify going to a single instructor earlier in the program. Other DZ's (mostly smaller operations) may only have 1 or 2 top-notch instructors or may not have any at all... it is an unfortunate truth that the best instructors will tend to leave the small DZ's for the large ones so they can earn enough to live in a trailer instead of a tent. The instructors they do have (even the good ones) are in general going to be less experienced, less current, and have less of a support system to help them learn quickly. Those DZ's are more likley to need to keep 2 instructors later in the program. A 2nd instructor may or may not have changed things. If it is true that the student was to track off a breakoff and things went bad after he broke away, the chances of recovery would be extremely small in either case... too much distance to cover in too short a time, even if the student were perfectly stable. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Millina, I understand and respectfully disagree with your thought process. I think you will find that most other experienced jumpers do as well. I have been around skydiving my entire life, and have witnessed the after-effects of many fatalities in many locations spanning almost 3 decades. Sometimes (usually small DZ's) the fatality will result in a total shut-down of the operation for the day, especially if the jumper was a well-known and loved regular. Other times (large boogies with hundreds or thousands of attendees) I wasn't even aware of the fatality until days later. Each of us copes in our own way... some need a day off to regroup and basically do all the things you said, and others need to "get back on the horse" as soon a possible, and do their thinking later. Still others, especially those who have been around awhile, may not seem to react at all, although I assure you they are thinking about it deep down. Although any fatality or severe injury is tragic, skydiving comes with inherent risk, like many other sports, and when incidents occur it is not necessarily prudent to shut the operation down. Do ski resorts shut down every time someone is killed? What about indy 500 races? Fighting championships? why should skydiving be singled out? At large facilites (i.e. spaceland) shutting down on a busy day could be quite a financial burden to the owners... those operations can cost thousands of dollars a day in overhead. Especially in modern times, it is extremely rare that a fatality occurs in a manner that we as a community have not seen before. Many experienced jumpers will not learn anything they don't already know, so why stop them from jumping? If it is truly a new and unique event, chances are it will take days or weeks before we figure out exactly what happened, and in fact sometimes the only person who knows what happened is the deceased. Rather than shutting down operations following a tragic event that we can do nothing about, it is in my opinion wiser to be proactive; we are better served by providing new and experienced jumpers with opportunities to refresh their memories and learn about new developments in order to prevent incidents. This is the purpose of saftey day, re-currency training, saftey articles in parachutist, ect. It is impossible to quantify the effect of these measures but I assure you they are effective for those who take them seriously. Your decision to support spaceland or not is of course your own, but I hope you will reconsider. If you stay with the sport for a long time (as I hope you will) I think you will find spaceland to be extremely professional compared to many operations. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Hmm... if we rigged up a series of rings around the perimeter of the canopy and ran rope through it... oh wait, that's been done already... If you dont' know what I'm talking about, go find the oldest guy on the DZ and ask him how much ropes and rings sucked! Then ask about the "opening shock inhibitor" design on the Delta II. Malfunction rate ~33%. (no, I'm not kidding) "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Both myself and my younger sister were packing at age 13. I actually learned on tandem rigs before sport rigs. And I was TEACHING people to pack by the time I was 15. Both me and my sister have excellent records and were the preferred packers at our DZ for years. On the flip side, I've seen other kids (and adults, for that matter) who pack like shit and just want quick cash. It depends on the person, not the age. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Really? That's very interesting actually! Would you mind sharing what his advice was on the best body postion for big way, and why mantis is not recommended? Also, did he give a rough size at which this starts to apply? 20 people? 50? 100? I find it works very well in the 20-way-ish size, but haven't been involved in anything bigger than that so I can't talk from experience. Any info is appreciated. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

Also note: canopy manufacturers quietly make small changes to airfoils and linesets occasionally. Your old set and your new set are not necessarily the same "version" especially on an older canopy like a Sabre. And further food for thought: my Sabre 135, which could use a reline, has end-cell lines about 4" (10 cm) shorter than my center-cell lines. That means some lines have shrunk 10 cm MORE than others... if the center-cell lines have shrunk 10 cm total, than yes, 20 cm of shrinkage may be possible. "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

I have to respectfully disagree here. Yes, if you're stuck flying solo, you can work on a sit, stand, HD, ect, but that only works until you're "stable" in that position. As soon as you can maintain stability, there are a very limited number of things you can do without a reference point, just as in RW. Basically, you can bring your FF skills up to about the point your belly skills were when you graduated AFF... whoopee! Maybe not even that far, since at least during AFF you should have had a non-moving reference. Furthermore, an incredibly large majority of belly fliers could use a LOT of work on their body position, some of which could be done on solos. Anyone who's ever spent 3 hours of tunnel time purging the box-man flying style from their brain and trying to learn mantis knows this. In either case, solo's aren't going to get you very far... you really need a reference. And a reference that isn't drifting all over the place themselves, at that! "Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."