davelepka

Was the reserve, by any chance, one of the larger Optimum reserves? Not that it explains or justifies the lack of a refund, but there were some monumental delays in getting the TSO for the larger Optimum reserves, and I know several dealers were taking orders for them anyway and just waiting for production to start. So that might explain the delay in delivery of the reserve, but the non-existant refund is unexcusable. I would suggest you check with PD, and report the problem. With the serial numbers in hand of the reserves you did recieve, you should be able to determine when the order was placed with PD, and if the order was for 3 or 4 reserves. If the order was for four, and four were shipped, the guy kept or sold the 4th to someone else. If the order was only for 3, he might have pocketed the cash. You could also ask if he made any orders or placed a deposit for a reserve that the sale was never completed. I don't think PD makes a habit of sharing that type of information, but given that the dealer is failing you horribly, they might be able to give you some info pretaining to your situation.

That's my biggest problem with the situation, nobody is 'lining up' to get into bed with these guys, but the situation remains that it's either play ball, or they'll take your customers across town. If a business was free to use a service, or able to continue on with business-as-usual, that's one thing. If I want to start 'Dave's Airplane Washing Service', and pitch it local DZs, they can choose to do business with me based solely on the value for dollar I present. The threat of lost business to their competitors is not part of the decision making process. It's one thing to offer a service to a business, and let them choose to accept or not. It's another to offer a service, with the threat of taking their customers elsewhere as the penalty for not playing ball. It's dirty pool, and everyone knows it. You're right, we were on the cusp of wiping out the Skyride problem, only to have Doug come along and 'help' us all by filling the void. What a guy.

It's an example of the fact that this is a cottage industry. Those businesses that deal exclusively with sport skydiving are small by nature. There's not enough business to support more, or bigger, businesses. When you take a business like a DZ, and try to split up the profits too many ways, it's going to fail. This industry is not big enough to support an administrative entity, which is an apt description for Proskydiving. Take an indusrty like health care, or workmans compensation. Both of them have businesses who's sole purpose is to handle the adminstravtive tasks between service providers and customers. There is enough complication in the administrative end, and enough money in the industry that these business exist, thrive, and are welcomed by all involved. Note the part in bold, that's the key. The other key is that Proskydiving isn't exactly 'optional' for the DZO. It's either get on board, or lose out on every customer they can rope in and direct toward your competition. So we have a business idea being applied to an industry that cannot support it, and we have it being presented in such a way where the DZO is forced to choose between two evils, either losing some or their profits, or losing a lot of their profits. I don't think it's a stretch to say that's not going to be good for skydiving. As per the Facebook conversation that posted, it seems that Rook Nelson agrees with me. I don't know if this is related, but Rook's dad was the first guy to build a mega-DZ in a seasonal area, and really kick ass in the tandem business. In fact, after his initial success, Roger went on to hold seminars (for free) telling other DZOs how to market their DZs and run their operations so they could share in his success. Now I don't know how much Roger taught Rook about business, but the guy had the right idea, and I have to assume that his kid does too.

Retail is a different animal. The online retailer, or even big-box chain store that can sell me a screw driver for less, still has to sell me a screw driver. They have to stock it, trasact the sale, and either deliver it or provide a store where I can pick it up. If they can do it for less than the mom and pop store on the corner, then so be it. For the record, I avoid Walmart like the plague, and always choose the local store if one is present. What were dealing with here are people who do nothing but collect money. Proskydiving does nothing in terms of providing the actual service being sold. The DZO is left to do everything they used to do for 100% of the profits, for something less than that. It would be the equivlant of Walmart setting up a kiosk in the parking lot of the mom and pop store and selling me the screwdriver inside the store. I still need to walk in the store and pick it up, and mom and pop still need to stock the screwdriver and pay rent on the store, but are forced to take less than sticker price after Walmart takes it's 'processing fee'. The whole deal is a straight jack for the DZO. It might be legal, and it might be the way many industries are going, but that doesn't make it right for one of our own to do the same to our own industry. Of course they're going to avoid the pitfalls of Skyride, and of course they're going to wrap it up in a pretty package so they can 'sell' it people, but in the end it's a DZO muscling in on the profits for services they don't provide in a locality they have no interest or investment in.

What I wrote was - -and I added the part in paranthesis because a lot of what Skyride does isn't legal, but using SEO to intercept customers is legal.

You might want to consider calling the DZ and seeing what they have for rent, and what they charge. If you currently jump a 175, there's a good chance they'll have something very similar. First off, taking your rig on the plane is going to be tough, and probably cost you something. Keep in mind if you check the rig and it gets lost or damaged, the airline isn't going to cover the cost. So if you do take it, it needs to be your carry-on, but then you still have to pay for the extra bags you'll check, both ways. On top of that, if you take it on the plane, you need to drag it with you everywhere else you go on your vacation. Shipping a complete rig, fully insured, both ways is not going to be cheap. Even then, if something should happen to the rig, it takes time to collect the insurance money and replace the gear, and if that time extends into the skydiving season, you're not going to be happy. So if Elsinore is where you be jumping 'for sure', call them, and see if you can rent a rig. Some of the bigger, year round DZs have rig for rent that are sport rigs and not just student rigs. If you want to stop on the 'spur of the moment' at a DZ along the way for a jump or two, just rent gear there as well. In the end, it's going to cost you something to have a rig to jump on vacation. Taking your own also adds the pain in the ass of transporting it, or the cost of shipping it. You can leave it at home, safe and sound, and just rent some gear for your 'semi-jumping' vacation. Now if this was a 'jumping' vacation, where that was the primary reason for the trip, and all you planned to do, by all means you want your gear, but in this case, it might just be better to rent.

Thanks for posting this. That story is a prime example of a perfectly legal, but unethical, use of SEO. The actions of JCP are legal, but frowed upon by Google, a company that collected some $2.5 million dollars from JCP for legitimate advertising. So the law has no stance on the subject, but Google feels strongly enough about it that it's willing to sanction one of their own 2.5 million dollar clients. Just because what Skyride and Proskydiving does is 'legal' (in the sense of SEO and intercepting customers) does mean that it's right. They're cannibalizing skydiving in order to line their own pockets. Let's fast forward a decade, and see what we're left with if this continues. A very small number of people will be making a very large sum of money off of skydiving, anf they won't be the ones owning or operating DZs. Meanwhile, DZOs will be severly limited in the money they can make because too much of their business will be filtered through one of these 'services', who of course soak up a cut of the profits before passing the business to the actual service provider. Let's face it folks, skydiving is a cottage industry, and it always will be. Take a look at any of the equipment providers and you'll see this to be true. The only companies with any size to speak of are those also involved in the defense industry (let's leave UPT and Strong out of this because tandem makes the skydivign world go round). What would Bonehead's annual sales be if they didn't have the military contracts? How about Tony Suits or Bev, how long have they been in business, and how long have their sales been stagnent? There just isn't that much money in sport skydiving. I know it seems like it costs a fortune, but that's thanks to the FAA and the fact that it's a small industry. The FAA has made airplanes expensive to own and operate, and that's the majority of the cost in making a jump. They have also made the equipment more expensive to manufacture due to TSO testing and adhering to that TSO during construction. (In all fairness, the FAA has made skydiving safer with these things). Beyond that, the gear is pricey because the industry is small. I'm sure if you could sell 50,000 rigs per year, they could find a way to make them cheaper. In point is that profits in sport skydiving are a small pie, and you can't cut that pie up too many times before everyone is just getting crumbs. These 'services', like Proskydiving and Skyride don't bring anything new to the table or create additional revenue for the DZ to justify their cost. It's a straight loss for the DZO, and one the DZO would be better off without. If nobody stuck their nose into their local business, the DZOs would be better off in the end. Leave them to deal with their local customers and local competition one-on-one, and allow they to live or die of their own devices.

If the DZ started one for you, take a look at the A license proficiency card, and if they didn't, you can find it somewhere at USPA.org Either way, it outlines what you need to do for an A license, and some of that involves air skills which must be demonstrated to a coach or instructor. So while you may be cleared for solo after 8 or 10 AFF jumps, you cannot just do solos up to jump 25 and get a license, some of the jumps will have to be with a coach or instructor. Check with the DZ to see what their policy is, and what they charge for those jumps. They may also have a 'cirriculum' in place for you to follow post-AFF and pre-license that will make sure you get everything you need.

Cutting away first takes away your ability to control any part of the main canopy. If you don't cut away first, you at least have the options of cutting away or not, and when if you do cutaway. Think of it this way, two canopies deploying next to each other are like two loops. Up from one riser, across the canopy and down to the other riser. These two loops, without and free-swinging 'ends' can bump into each other, and exist without entanglment, as we have seen many times on CRW jumps. It's actually impressive some of the CRW collisions/collapses that clear themselves and leave two good canopies flying away from each other. Either way, that's essentailly what you have with two canopies deploying next to each other with no cutaway. Now change that, and pull the cutaway first. Some point to the riser covers and unloaded 3-ring system as being likely to contain the risers, and keep them out of the way. This might be true, until the reserve risers deploy out from under the main risers, and shove them off to the side. If you cutaway, and the main stays put, the main risers are now free to swing around with as much line as they can pull from the main pack tray. Maybe not the best thing when deploying your last parachute (remember, even though your main is still in the container, you pulled the handle, so now it's just dead weight). Scenario two, you pull the cutaway, and the force of the reserve either leaving the container or actually opening dislodges the main from the container, and the PC pulls it skyward, trailing lines, canopy and your risers (swinging all over the place) right past your last parachute. Now the concept of the two closed 'loops' is gone, and there are pieces and parts of the main free to grab, entangle or twist around anything it wants. The solution is to not cut away. Leave the main connected, pull the reserve and deal with whatever happens. Maybe the risers and main stay put, and you have a 'normal' reserve ride to the ground, and you don't have to look for your main. Maybe the main comes out at some point duruing the reserve deployment, again, it's a wait and see deal. If the main is inhibiting the inflation of the reserve, and you have a pair of streamers, you might need to cutaway at that point. Maybe the canopies deploy right next to each other, and settle into a nice bi-plane, so you ride them both down and land 300+ sq ft of fabric. Maybe they both inflate fully, and then start to fight each other, ending up in a downplane. You don't want to land that, but your advantage is that a downplane means the two canopies are as far apart as they can get, so a cutaway is likely to be clean, and you're left to land your reserve on it's own. To summarize - cutaway first, and you have one option left, that being fire the reserve and see what happens. You can't do anything but that. Fire the reserve first and see what happens, with the cutaway handle still in place as an option for you to deal with whatever you're looking at. On top of it all is the time factor. A PC in tow is damn near terminal, so even a few seconds to locate and pull the cutaway handle will eat 100's of feet. Consindering the number of people who have gone in under partially infalted reserves, a couple hundred feet can literally make the difference between life and death. Stop the ride, see what's what, proceed accordingly.

How do you see Proskydiving any differently than Skyride in that case? The basis of their business is that they have optimized the SEO such that they can intercept a fair portion of the web traffic looking for a DZ in a given locality. They then offer their 'service' to a local DZ who knows that Proskydiving is 'holding all the cards', and if they don't deal with them, their competition will. In that sense, the DZO has lost the 'free will' to participate based solely on the value of the deal, but is pressured by the loss of all the local traffic that Proskydiving can snare. It would be one thing if Proskydiving was actaully marketing in some way, and bringing new customers to the table. In that sense, Proskydiving would 'own' those customers, and the DZO could refuse to accept them because they would still have all of the customers who would have jumped without the benefit of the additional marketing effort. I'm not sure why you can't see that any way you slice it, these guys are getting in between local customers and their DZs, and taking a cut of the action. If Proskydiving didn't intercept them, these people would have been connected directly with their local DZ, where they would have made a jump and the DZ collected 100% of the profits. DZOs aren't on board because they want to be, they're on board because it's the lesser of two evils. The first evil - lose a cut of your profits to Proskydiving because they catch your customers on the web before you do, or the second evil - lose all of your profits to Proskydiving and a competing local DZ because Proskydiving caught your customers and sent them elsewhere. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it's borderline mafia behavior. You pay the 'protection' money, or risk being 'unprotected'. Meanwhile, the people you are paying are the same people who will hurt you if you don't pay. The 'protected' person would be better off if the 'protectors' didn't exist. Ditto for DZOs and Proskydiving (except for one DZO, that being Doug Smith who owns Proskydiving).

The most surprising thing about this whole thread is the idea that you're a professional pilot. You of all people should understand the concept of getting in over your head, not nessecarily from your own experience, but if spend enough time around airplanes, you run into the guy with way too much money, and not enough stick time to keep up with his bank account. Low time pilots flying planes that are way too fast and complex for them, but since they have the bucks, they get the hardware. At least high performance airplanes and helicopters cost enough that not everyone can get their hands on one. You have to be rich and stupid to get in over your head in that world. Canopies, on the other hand, all cost about the same, and can be bought used for $500 or less. The other thing is, people can tell when you don't know what you're doing. It may feel great to you, but it shows when you're in over your head. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI4d5AeAi7g

When it comes to foreign jumpers, rules that follow them from their home country are put in writing, reserve repacks being a good example. Because it's not a matter of following the local regs for a jump made in that locality, it's an exception, and put in writing because of it. Anything not specifically down in writing as being an exception just falls back to the default position of following the rules/regs for the locality where the jump is made. A USPA DZ in the US needs to conform to the regs of the USPA and the FAA, so all jumps made there must toe those two lines. In the end, the DZO really only has to answer to the USPA and the FAA, so they do what it takes to make them happy, not the odd visiting jumper looking for some special treatment.

Wth regards to the statistics, they only show the fatalities, not the injuries. You might not fit the profile of a dead guy, but maybe you're right on track to ride a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Speaking of the rest of your life, can you work the toe brakes on anything with a fused ankle? That doesn't take a big mistake on a fast canopy, so you make a small mistake, and then how do you feed your family. Forget feeding them, let's say you finances are in order. How do you participate in their lives to the fullest from a wheelchair, or with a back/neck pain? What are you going to miss out on just because you were 'bored' with your other canopy, and because you're a pilot you figured you could handle any old parachute? Lastly, even if you go by the statistics, all they do is point to what usually happens, and who generally gets hurt, but they do nothing to guarantee that you won't end up in a box. Even if the 'vast' majority of jumpers killed under an open canopy have over 1000 jumps, there is still a small minority that are under 1000 jumps. Knowing that you 'most likely' would have been OK is no solace to your daughters who might have to grow up without a father (or with half a father).

In that case, why bother advertising anything? Do you mean to tell me that you don't know that Pizza Hut exists and makes pizza available to you? Of course not, but the point is that you can generate new traffic by marketing it to new group, who previously might not have thought it was 'for them'. As an example, we read in Parachutist every month, 'How Skydiving Changed My Life', which is an account from a jumper about the positive impact that being a skydiver has had on their lives. Often times, it invovles coming out of a depression, or recovering from some other misfortune. What if you ran a campaign on Lifetime along those same lines? Empower housewives to conquer their fears, and do something they never thought possible? Then we'd have an onslaught of middle aged women doing tandems. True related story, years before the internet and skydivng met, I knew TI who lived in a part of town that had a significant gay population. Sitting in a local bar one night, he strikes up a conversation with a guy (who happened to be gay) and the topic of skydiving comes up. Turns out the guy loves the idea, and does a tandem the next weekend. The word spreads, and this TI goes on to bring out 20 or 30 gay guys for tandems that year. None of them ever thought about it, nobody ever marketed it to them, but there were plenty of them interested, and once they realized it was open to them, they jumped. As far as your other points, I know about the reality of business, and the internet, and the problems associated with it, but I see this as different from the 'open market'. Again, this is a small industry, that many people get into more out of passion than for money. It's true they need to make some money to stay in it, but with the up front costs, and risks invovled, you could get a better return on your investment in other industries. To turn around and cannibalize the industry for your own personal gain is just wrong. You might be getting ahead in business, but it's on the backs of your brothers. You want a piece of the Smithtown action? Do the work, and open a DZ in Smithtown. Once you do that, you're entitled to your piece of the Smithtown pie. You're even entitled to steamroll the existing Smithtown DZs and run them out of business with low prices, high advertising budgets and better business sense, but all of that comes after you make the investment in Smithtown and build the DZ. I know that brick and mortar is suffering at the hand of the internet, but that's retail, where there are goods to be housed, and those same exact goods can be had elsewhere. Skydiving is a service business, and in the end, the service still needs to be provided at a brick and mortar location, so you're not helping anyone but yourself when you get inbetween the customer and the guy who owns the bricks and mortar. It's legal, and present in other industries, but that doesn't make it right, and don't expect the repsect of your peers when you shit all over them in order to get paid.

Legally, that is correct. Unfortunately, the laws have lagged far behind the technology, but we both know that this type of business comes down to 'get on board, or lose out on a ton of business'. These sites simply utilize SEO tactics, and they do so to an extent that the average DZO cannot match. Legal? Yes. Fair? Not entirely, and while I no business is not always fair, this is a small industry, and you're just taking money out of other DZOs pockets. If you were a competing DZO in a local market, taking money out of the other DZOs pocket is the name of the game. The catch is that you actually have to own and operate a DZ, and service the customer. To sit home in Chicago and shoe-horn your way into business you have nothing to do with is chicken-shit. 'Might' being the operative word. How about put the marketing system in place first, then charge for participation in the program? Simply running a website isn't marketing. Every DZ has a website, and if everyone minded their own business, a customer who googles 'Skydiving in Smithtown' would on recieve results from people offering skydiving in Smithtown. Running a website just inserts you inbetween an existing local customer searching for DZ, and the actual DZ they will be patronizing, and that's not marketing because it doesn't bring in new business. You want marketing, run a national TV campaign and generate some new traffic. Find a way to get people who aren't already thinking about jumping ( not the same people you snare when they search for a local DZ) and get them to a DZ. In that case you've something and deserve something, otherwise, you're just jamming your dick in a place it doesn't belong. Indeed they do, but I'm a prick, so I wrote what I did.

Is that Doug Smith the same Doug Smith that owns Chicagoland, and ProSkydiving.com? This guy expects anyone to believe that he's dropping Skyride because it's bad for the industry? How about because he owns ProSkydiving.com, a website that does essentially the same 'job' as Skyride, think that has anything to do with his desicion? To be fair, I don't know of any instances of ProSkydiving.com lying to customers, ripping people off, or witholding any monies from DZ participating in their program. To continue being fair, and realictic, Proskydiving does come inbetween DZs and their local customer base, and install themselves into the transaction, taking skydiving dollars out of localities where they do not provide skydiving services (sound familiar?). Proskydiving will defend itself by saying they plan to expland out to national advertising (sound familiar?) and that they provide an easy way to book tandems for the DZ (sound familiar?). They'll go on to suggest that they're website is honest, not misleading, and offers links directly to the DZ where the customer will be jumping, which is all true. They won't mention it, but the truth of the matter is that they also make it VERY easy to book through Proskydiving, and not so easy to work around them and deal direct with the DZ in question. They have 'all' the answers for what everyone hates about Skyride, as well they should. It would take a monumental retard to try and start a new service that doesn't address these concerns when Skyride is public enemy number one. In fact, it's a nod to their marketing savvy when they recognized the niche for a 'better than Skyride' solution. Without Skyride as the shittiest of all starting points, what they offer wouldn't look quite as rosey. In the end, skydiving across the board would be better off if DZOs only had to compete with other local DZOs for business, and everyone esle kept their hands out of the pot. I'm not going to say that Doug is a crook because Ben and Cary came along and clearly defined what a 'crook' is in the indusrty. Doug is smart enough not to repeat those mistakes, staying just above the watermark left by those two. He is, however, a pirate (and not in the funny way). He (figuratively) sails all over the place, collecting a share of the riches and taking them back his home port, and his only defense is that he's not as bad as the last group of pirates. I hope somebody forwards this to the Skyride crew and Doug doesn't get his $20K. Look up the thread about Proskydiving, and see where he breaks down the costs. He'll be making literally hundreds of thousands of dollars this year off of running a website booking tandems, all money that should remain in the locality of the DZ providing the actual jumps. Fuck him and his $20k, he deserves to lose it.

A couple of thoughts to add here - first off, the Sabre was one of the first mainstream Z-po canopies, and was designed to replace all the F-111 mains in service. Of course, at that time nobody knew what was going to happen to a Z-po main 1000 jumps down the road as F-111 canopies never made it that far. Either way, the openings were 'tuned' to replicate what you got with a new F-111 canopy, provided a perfect pack job. In hindsight, we know there are two problems with this - 1. Brand new ZP is a bitch to pack, so gettting a 'perfect' pack job, like the test jumpers used, was a task most jumpers were not up to. 2. As it turns out, mircro line gives the opposite raction as dacron as it ages. F-111 canopies were known to have longer openings as they aged, so you designed them to be 'firm' right out of the box, so as it aged, the openings would soften up, but not take 1500'. When you ship a Z-po main with micro line that starts with 'firm' openings, they only get worse as the lines wear and begin to shrink. (Just a side note for those who don't know - spectra line shrinks with age. When your steering lines shrink, it's like moving the brake setting further up the line, which makes the openings faster.) So you take the Sabre, ship it with a slider and line trim that aren't going to be tolerant of sloppy packing, or poor maintenace, and let people jump it for 10 years. Now it's a cheapo canopy, attractive to new jumpers without a bunch of money to buy a rig. Two things these jumpers don't have are 1.) Great packing skills, and 2.) Money to spend $200 on a reline. What you end up with is the 'perfect storm' for hard openings, sloppy packing and out-of-trim linesets. To that end, I think the factory now ships a larger slider than they originally did for the Sabre. So if you get the 'current' sized slider, and have the steering lines replaced from the canopy to the toggle, the Sabre is no longer a 'problem'. I jumped a 135 and a 107 Sabre for about 1000 jumps between the two of them, with 90% of those jumps with a full face, 8mm video and 35mm still camera, with one or two hard openings to speak of.

It already happened, and it's what started this thread when the OP complained that it wasn't fair. It's happened before, many times, but the problem is that it's only in these 'obvious' circumstances that it doesn't fall through the cracks. If the guy had more jumps, or a slightly lower WL, it might not have been enough to raise suspicion. If there were a lot more jumps or a lot lower WL, and the problem was the attitude of the jumper (something you usually can't tell until after they jump), it also would have went un-noticed (until it was too late). The real change is in the attitude of the jumping public at-large. We need to establish that pushing WL or a canopy progression is uncool and unacceptable. Lower time jumpers will argue that it's unfair, and infringing on their freedoms as a skydiver, but that's the same argument 'the opposition' made when low pulls shifted into the 'uncool' catagory. Years, later, low pulls are certainly uncool, and not tolerated one bit on any DZ I know of. Let's make stupid canopy choices suffer that same fate.

Piston powered twin-engined aircraft are rare in skydiving due to the increased maintenance of having two piston engines. The 402s are turbocharged and the turbos add maintenance, and if the pilot mis-manages the turbo system, it can shorten the life of the engine and add to the operating costs. Most piston twins have retractable gear, and of course, that adds to the maintenance. Overall, if you find one that been properly maintained, it's going to be too nice and too expensive to jump from. If you find one for cheap, it's most likely been neglected, and going to be too expensive to jump from. This is the reason you see so many DZs running multiple Cessna singles, there aren't too many options for 'bigger' planes besides the turbines, and those are all literally 10x the cost of another Cessna. There are a bunch of cabin class twins that would haul 8 or 10 jumpers, and can be bought for 'cheap' (compared to a turbine) but they're all maintenance hogs.

Very good. If you had $100,000 worth of govt. training to fly a canopy, I might have a different opinion. As a guy with 150 jumps, with 1/3 of them a decade ago, and no formal training to speak of, you're still in over your head.

I am shocked to hear this. You, of all people should be aware of the need for a progression in your learning, and that you build up to high level of proficiency, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot replace straight-up time in the cockpit. You can study and train, and ride a sim to get there before the next guy, but all of that has to be accompanied by a pile of stick time. The same way you weren't ready to be a jet pilot with 150 hours, you're not ready for the canopy or WL you're jumping with 150 jumps. Even if you had attended canopy control courses and recieved one-on-one coaching (have you done either?), you would still be pushing a little too hard with your equipment choice.

I did forget to mention one thing, the money. Of course, used is cheaper and these days a pretty nice used rig can be had for 40% or 50% the cost of new (sometimes even less). Anyway, the money is only a factor if buying new will in any way limit your spending on jumps. Making more jumps is far more important at this stage of learning than having a shiney new rig. You won't be out-performing any equipment anytime soon, so you don't need the latest and greatest, you just need pretty good and to do a shit-ton of jumps. So if byuing new is a big outlay for you, skip it for sure and put the savings into jumps. You'll be way better off at the end of the season with 150 jumps on a used rig than making 75 on a brand new one.

That's sort of the reason people suggest you buy used for yoru first rig. There are a dozen different rigs to choose from and a myriad of options and configurations to choose from. There is no 'standard' or 'norm', each rig is built to the customers specs depending on what they plan to do with it. So the idea is to buy a used rig for the first season. You'll be able to put some jumps on, fall down with it a few times, and then sell it for about what you paid. In the meantime, you're building experience, and learning what you like or dislike about that first rig. You're also making friends at the DZ and can borrow their rig for a jump or two so you can try different rigs or canopies. At the end of that first season or two, you'll be a much more informed consumer, and can better set-up a rig that you'll want to jump for many years. I'd be curious to know what you're exit weight is, and what you've been jumping as a student. Keep in mind that students jump oversized canopies for the added level of safety they provide to jumpers with 0 to 20 jumps. Beyond that, if you haven't had a problems with canopy control, a 1 to 1 WL is a good place to shoot for in terms of a first canopy. Figure on a bigger rig weighing 25 lbs, your clothes/helmet/shoes etc weighing another 10 lbs, so add 35 lbs to your body weight to get your exit weight. If that equals 230 lbs (or thereabouts) the 230 is a good size for you. 1 to 1 is a conservative WL, and not all that fast once you have 20 or 30 jumps under your belt. Another thing to think about is that gear choices and preferences will change from season to season. Buying a rig isn't always a 'long term' commitment like you might think. Maybe you find you want a different container, or maybe a different main canopy catches your eye, but your rig will most likely change and evolve over time as you change and evolve as a jumper. Under no circumstances should you buy a new main canopy with your first rig. They are unusually hard to pack, and will literally ruin your day as you struggle to pack after every jump. Even for seasoned packers they are a pain in the ass, and if you're just learning to pack, it's that much worse. Look for a used canopy with at least 200 or 300 jumps, with 500 or 600 being ideal.

It shouldn't. Part of an AAF Is job is to hang on. First you hang on, then you fix whatever you're hanging onto. You can't always prevent things from going wrong, but if you hang on when they do, you're in prime position to fix whatever needs fixing. In terms of size dfferential between students and instructors, it varies greatly from situation to situation. However, there are times where the difference is just too much, and the better idea is for the instructor to pass the jump to another. If you're an above or below average sized jumper, knowing when to pass on a student isn't a knock to your abilities, it's a nod to your good judgement and realistic thinking. Besides, if you're a big guy who passes on the super lightweights, you're the go-to guy for the anvils when the other instructors run out of lead. Vice versa if you're the lightweight, let the fattys go with someone esle, and you get the looooong freefalls you get when the dive is motoring along at 92 mph.

Everyone is nervous about their landings at first. Your last one wasn't so hot, but how about the ones previous to that? Assuming those were good, ask yourself is those were made in turbulent conditions and if you landed in a ditch. Let's face, it those are two major errors on your part in that you shouldn't have been jumping in turblent conditions, and you shouldn't have been landing in the vicinity of a ditch. Interestingly, the two may be related as any ground feature can casue or add to the presence of turbulence, even ones below ground level like ditches or swails. Anything that disturbs the airflow of the wind can casue turbulence, and of course above-ground features like trees or buildings are easy to understand how they can disrupt the airflow. Below ground features, however, might not be as obvious, but if the wind has a ditch or depression in the ground to spill into, it's going to effect the stability of the air downwind of that feature. So moving forward, firstly avoid jumping on days when the winds are stronger, or gusting with much more than a 5 to 7 knot differential. Gusts are an obvious hazard, but even smooth winds can be problematic when the overall speed goes up. They will make manuvering your canopy harder as mistakes are tougher to recover from in higher winds, and they also aggrevate the situation with object turbulence. Which brings me to my next point, before your next jump ask for a lesson in object turbulence, what it is, where it exists, and how to avoid it if you end up jumping in conditions where it may be a factor. Furthermore, find out how it may have related to your accident, and how you could have avoided it. Which brings me to my next point, before your next jump ask for a lesson on planning your canopy flight, and using the pattern and it's turn points as a tool for improving your accuracy. Even if the ditch didn't cause the trubulence that dropped you into it, your chances of having a 'good' landing go up when you touch down on a smooth, level surface. So when you go to jump again, your confidence is restored based on the idea that your first few landings were fine, and you identified the mistakes that lead to your accident, and sought corrective training. On top of that, turbulence stings a good number of jumpers to the tune of broken/sprained feet or ankles or bruised tailbones. It's not that uncommon, and no reason to doubt that you can make a safe landing in the future.