DropDgorgeous

There oughta be a few windsocks at the dropzone. Basically downwind means in the direction of the smallest side of the windsock, crosswind - you sorta do a 90 turn, but it doesn't have to be exact - I've never really concentrated all that much on it, and upwind is just to fly in the direction of the big part of the windsock again. At that altitude, you're already close to the ground, so you can get yourself beacons, like when you're going downwind, look to - say your right - maybe there's a building, and then when you do crosswind - just try to turn towards the building so that you're looking at it. But don't stress too much about that - I've done some landings where I totally screw up the landing sequence and then just look at the windsock to try and see in what direction I must land. I've started looking at the windsock before we go up though - on my first jump, after my chute opened, I looked where I knew there was a windsock, and I couldn't see it. Kind of freaked me out a bit. I started looking at the other jumpers to see in what direction they're landing. When I got to the ground I realized there was no wind ie. windsock won't be lifted. They'll teach you the order of importance for landing - Flare, land in an open area, and lastly - prefrably into wind, so if you screw up, not such a big deal, unless there's a VERY strong wind, but they usually don't let students jump then. My jump last Saterday was cancelled because of the wind. They're very safety aware.

Before I went up they showed me an airphoto of our dropzone, so you'll know what it looks like from the air. You don't really need it though because the plane usually drops you directly over the dropzone, or near enough to it (it has a set route back and forth over the dropzone). My instructor sometimes looks out the door before we jump to make sure we're near the dropzone, but it's not really necessary. Otherwise, if you really don't see it, which is quite unlikely, you just start looking where the other people are landing - quite easy to see from the air since the chutes are normally brightly coloured. At our dropzone we have four corner beacons to mark out the student landing area eg. a hanger, and then, depending on which direction the wind is coming from, you play around at one of the beacons. We have to go to the one from which direction the wind is blowing. That's the time you can use to start getting comfortable with the chute - play around, do 360's, see how strong the wind is when flying forward, etc. In your training they'll teach you your landing formation (it usually differs according to the dropzone) - ours is as follows: as soon as you get to 1000ft, you start flying downwind, at 500ft you turn to crosswind, and at 250 you turn upwind - that way you land into the wind and it also helps slow you down even more. I'm doing level 6 and 7 on Saterday, and I can't wait - I have to do a forward dive out of the plane, and in the jump I have to do a backflip as well. The first few jumps we just stepped out and arched, so i'm a bit nervous about this one, but i'll think it'll be fun . When are you starting your course?

During my first solo jump after the chute had opened, I got this surreal feeling - like, I'm actually here

I'm still busy with my AFF, and honestly, what the other guys say is true. You can wake me up in my sleep by now and and I'll be able to tell you the emergency procedures - It gets so drilled into you. Just do it, it' s a much more wonderful experience jumping on your own. I did a tandem again a week ago - at a different dropzone - and it just wasn't as much fun as I remembered my first tandem to be, because I had jumped on my own a few times.

For me the experience is totally different - i'm always completely calm and relaxed...untill the door opens and i have to start walking towards it

Thanks for the goggles add - never knew there were so many different to choose from. I'ts sad, but as far as I know we don't have a tunnel in SA . I've only ever seen one on a DVD i've been shown. It looks like you can really become confident using a system like that.

Apparantly SA has about 13 dropzones. I've been at my dropzone for the last month (every weekend, whole saturday - what can I say ), and I haven't met anyone by that name yet. Quite a few other interesting people though. I find it amazing to find so many COMPLETELY different people in one place, actually spending so much time with one another. It's quite cool

I intend to get myself as comfortable in the air before I start trying new things, but I can have aspirations, right

Thanks for the advice

Thanks for the great advice

Hi there

Hi all