DaVincisEnvy

Valid information, however; we'd prefer the student focus on the tasks and objectives placed before them by their instructors. I did not mean to imply that this relaxation technique should ever supersede focusing on the information or objectives presented by an instructor, and I apologize if that was unclear. I have simply used this technique many times (in skydiving and other pursuits) to quiet my mind before undertaking arduous or stressful tasks. It has helped me improve my ability to focus on important goals and objectives during stressful situations by reducing fear and the likelihood of panic. Since the OP has been struggling with anxiety, I thought it might be helpful to him/her as well, although only when practicing the technique would not interfere with following the advice or instruction of instructors.

Tips and tricks from one newbie to another: SMILE and BREATHE!! Seriously, it sounds cheesy, but it's very hard to not relax and take a small mental step back when you smile. Smile on the ride up, even if your heart is pounding and your brain is screaming at you, "Wtf are we doing back here again?!" Smile at your instructors. Make goofy faces. Sing a song in your head (or aloud!) and bop your head to it. Soon, everyone else in the plane will start smiling and laughing and relaxing, too. Breathe in slowly through your nose, hold it for a few slow seconds, then let it out slowly and deliberately through your mouth. Focus your mind on your breathing. Focus on every detail of how it feels when your breath enters, when your lungs are full, when your breath leaves. Focus your mind on this slow and steady and calming experience of breathing. Do it on the ground, in the plane, anytime you start to feel your nerves firing up. Visualize success! Don't psych yourself out! I had to repeat AFF1, too, and I was more nervous about that repeat jump than my first one. I was worried that I was doomed to make the same mistakes again. It takes a lot of nerve and a lot of confidence in yourself to experience how things can go wrong, to learn how you can do better, and then to go back and do better. Visualize a successful jump, from overcoming the fear as you climb out the door, to perfectly performing each step in the dive flow, to enjoying the breath-taking beauty of being under canopy, to flying a smooth pattern, to performing a beautiful stand-up landing. See it in your mind, then do it in the sky. And SMILE! You're doing what so many dream of and what so few actually accomplish.

That's a good list. I'll also add: 1) Kiteboarding (all year round, although you'll probably want at least a thin wetsuit this time of year). There are lots of shops along the beaches that rent kiteboarding and surfing gear. 2) Cumberland Island (you take a ferry from downtown St. Marys, GA) makes a nice day hike -- ruins of mansions, wild horses, completely unpopulated (and few mosquitoes this time of year!). It's also about a 10 minute drive from the local DZ to the ferry terminal if you get weathered-out one day. 3) If you're looking for a chill bar, check out Kickbacks in Riverside -- 100 beers on tap, tap handles covering the ceiling, a half-dozen big LCD TV's set to whatever games are playing, good food, diverse, friendly and laid-back crowd. It does get pretty crowded on Friday and Saturday nights after about 7pm, so get there earlier for dinner if you're going with a bigger group.

True. I think part of the problem is that they were both locals and used to those temps, while I was not. I probably should have 'fessed up to being a cold wuss from the south before boarding the plane without gloves. Although I did ask about gloves, my instructors said that they usually prefer students to jump without gloves since gloves can make it a bit harder to feel and recognize the hackey (especially as a newbie). I also knew that if I wanted gloves, I'd have to go buy them (it was a tiny Cessna DZ and they didn't have any gloves lying around that would fit me). Leaving the DZ to buy them would have meant pushing back my jump by a week. I was excited and in a hurry to jump, so I ignored my better judgment and hopped on the plane. It was certainly a wake-up call for me to experience how such a seemingly-small thing as (not) wearing gloves could have such a radical impact the outcome of the jump.

A cautionary tale: My first AFF jump was without gloves, in northern Indiana, in late October. The temp on the ground was right around 40F, and the temp aloft was probably around 10F-15F. By the time we were at pull altitude, I had lost all sensation in my fingers. I went to pull, but couldn't feel my handle -- my main-side instructor pulled for me. Later, on the ground, my instructors asked why I didn't pull when my hand was right on the hackey during every practice touch and at pull time... I couldn't feel a thing, much less get a good grip. I was lucky this was on an AFF jump with two great instructors, otherwise the jump could have ended much differently. But lesson learned -- for AFF2 (well AFF level 1 version 2.0), I had a nice pair of batting gloves and everything went perfectly. The gloves kept my hands warm and didn't interfere with my ability to feel or grip my handles at all.

Around jump number 15, and yes. I was the last one out of the Cessna and pulled at about 7k' on that one, just for a little breathing room

It doesn't have to be either-or (i.e. your non-skydiving significant other or skydiving). Don't underestimate the value of moderation and variety in your life and in your relationship. Just because you enjoy skydiving doesn't mean that you have to or should give up everything else in your life, including other interests, activities, and friends. If jumping is all you do on the weekends, you'll miss out on other opportunities -- things you and your GF might really enjoy. My husband isn't a skydiver (he's done a tandem and AFF and loved it, but due to job-related restrictions, he can't take up sport jumping for a while), and our un-official compromise is that we spend one day per weekend at the DZ and the other day doing something he wants to do or that we both want to do. It keeps both of us balanced and happy. Once he's able to take up jumping, too, I think we'll still keep the same weekend arrangement. There's too much to experience in life to spend all your time doing one thing -- even if it's something as awesome as skydiving. Just something to think about...

While skydiving is indeed more dangerous than driving, the comparison of fatality risk while jumping to that of riding a motorcycle is fairly valid, at least in the US. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) 2006 report entitled "Recent Trends in Fatal Motorcycle Crashes:An Update" (http://hawaii.gov/dot/highways/hwy-v/Recent%20Trends%20in%20Fatal%20Motorcycle%20Crashes%20Update.pdf), the rate of motorcycle fatalities for 2004 was 4E-7 fatalities per vehicle mile driven. Taking the USPA's fatality data for 2000-2009 of 25.8 fatalities for ~3 million jumps = 8.6E-6 fatalities per jump. So, the risk of fatality while making one skydive is ~21.5x higher than riding on a motorcycle for one mile. Or, put differently, if you commute to work more than 22 miles each way, you'd be safer skydiving into work than riding your bike (okay, just joking... sort of).

Another term for "dog leg" which you'll see frequently in meteorological discussions is "directional wind shear" -- just a change in wind direction with a change in altitude. You can get an idea of whether there is significant shear near your DZ by checking the forecast winds aloft before you even leave your house.

When I went through AFF last year, my DZ used standard 2-way radios attached via rubber band to the side of the ProTecs such that the speaker of the radio aligned with the slits in the helmet near the ears. The rubber band -- just a standard large stow band -- when around the bottom of the radio, through one ear slit, into the helmet, out the another ear slit, and around the top of the radio, effectively holding it to the helmet without the need for any permanent mounting hardware. I've never heard of one coming off, and I could hear them loud and clear when I was coming in to land. Cheap and effective.

Tulsa's my hometown, and also where I went to college, so I've probably done most of the things there are to do around there. What types of activities are you looking for? Outdoor/adventure? Indoor/cultural? What kinds of food do you like? I grew up near the Cherry Street area (on 15th St. between Peoria and Utica) -- there are a lot of neat little shops, restaurants/bars, and coffee houses (Kilkenney's Irish pub, Mary's Trattoria, and Coffee Shop on Cherry Street are three of my favorites in that area). If you're looking for more of a bar/club scene, check out the Brady District -- McNellie's Pub (great beer selection) and Caz's (a fun, quirky, dive-ish bar) were two of my favorite haunts. Tulsa also has a surprisingly diverse selection of ethnic foods for being land-locked in the middle of the country. My favorite activity growing up was storm chasing -- when the weather is too nasty for skydiving, it's often because of some awesomely gnarly storms moving your way. So get a ham radio license, join Skywarn, make sure your comprehensive car insurance is paid up, and enjoy nature's greatest show! Floating the Illinois River is also fun during the summer. But beware, Oklahoma has some of the most depressingly backwards liquor laws that you'll encounter in the US. No beer above 3.2% (read: no beer worth drinking) allowed on the river, in grocery stores, or anywhere else you might like to conveniently purchase or consume it. However, if the river cops flag your raft over, they cannot measure the alcohol content of whatever is in your nalgene bottle ;-) Feel free to PM for more specifics. I have no idea what you're looking for suggestion-wise, so I just threw some of my fav's out there.

True, at least from my own experience. My A-license hop n' pops were completed as part of a canopy control course attended by a bunch of army rangers who thought nothing of getting out at

This point may be a bit moot now since you've said you're planning to keep the Scion... But when you are ready to buy a new (or new-to-you) car, negotiate the price on the car you want before you even tell the dealer that you have a car to trade-in. If dealers know that you have a trade-in, they'll take that into account when offering you combined prices on both the new car and the trade-in (e.g. they'll make the price on the new car sound quite low, but they'll also be low-balling you on the price of your trade-in, as well). Instead, know the book value of the new car and the book value of your trade-in. Don't even tell the dealer that you have a trade-in. Get as low a price as you can on the new car, then, once that is finalized, tell the salesperson that you have a car that you'd like to trade in toward the purchase of the new car. You know what your car is worth (book value), and since it is a separate negotiation at this point, it will be much harder for the salesperson to conceal any gross underestimation of your current car's value. You'll get a fairer deal. Or better yet, if you're willing to put the effort into making an extra grand or two, sell the car yourself to a private individual. The buyer gets a great deal since there's no dealer mark-up, and you make more money because the dealer isn't offering you less for a trade-in to maximize their profit when they re-sell your car.

In the southern US, there's a different, generations-old "escape hatch" saying to put at the end of any comment that could be interpreted as offensive: "Bless his/her heart". Insert that phrase at the end of the most awful insult you can muster, and no true offense can be taken. After all, you are blessing the person after you ridicule them. It's like slinging a mud ball at someone and then bringing out a bucket of warm water, a soft sponge, and some lightly scented soap to wash it all off. So the "insult negator" phrase isn't anything new -- Just sayin'

This is coming from a fellow newbie, so keep that in mind. While I was finishing up my A license and searching for gear of my own, I put about 10-15 jumps on a Fusion 190 rental (loaded at about 0.90), before finding and buying a Spectre 170 for my own gear. I thought the Fusion was fun to fly -- it's a bit more quick and responsive than the Spectre, to be sure, but at my jump numbers, I'm not doing anything terribly radical to experience the full performance envelope of either of those canopies. Both have been fun, and both have much more to teach me. My one caution about the Fusion: several other students who jumped it reported squirrely openings (bumpy openings into diving turns, etc) and didn't like to take it up. I never experienced that and loved to jump the canopy, but just be aware that I was in the minority of low-time jumpers who had consistently smooth openings. Many of the more experienced jumpers and instructors at the DZ attributed those squirrely openings to likely asymmetrical body position on opening and to the nature of semi-elliptical canopy openings. I'm sure some of the more experienced jumpers here could explain in more detail the why's and how's of that if you're curious.

It sounds like I went through a progression similar to yours while trying to get through AFF. I started AFF in one location, made 2 AFF jumps, ran out of money and good weather, and had to wait another 2 years before I was in a location and had the financial stability to get through the entire AFF course. I explained my situation and went through the FJC again at my second DZ. I was the only student in the class, and I remembered far more than I thought I would from my first FJC, so the classroom portion only took about 2 hours. I was fortunate that my instructor was willing to work with what I already knew, letting me tell him what I remembered from my first time around and then filling in the gaps and really drilling in the EPs, dive flow, basic canopy skills, and gear knowledge. If you remember a significant amount of knowledge from your first FJC, and you are lucky enough to be in a small class where the instructor can work with you at an accelerated pace, your second FJC might not take the full 8 hours.

That's a fantastic idea! I haven't really played around with my ham radio since I left Oklahoma for a state that doesn't get many Skywarn activations. I know of a couple other hams on my home DZ, so I'm going to propose something like this once it warms up a bit. I actually did my first cross country (case of beer sitting by the door to take up to the DZ this weekend, of course) a couple of weeks ago, and it was an awesome experience. Sunset light glinting over the water. DZ miles away. Quiet canopy ride (although 50mph uppers DO make a fair bit of noise). An operational question: Do you leave your brakes stowed until you're down low so your hands are free to operate the radio?

Haha, damn! When I previewed that post before submitting, I noticed that I wrote "to much," went back to fix it to "too much", and added the "o" to the wrong "to" ... Go figure -- that's what I get for trying to be grammatically correct on the intarwebs.

This is the method that I was taught when I learned to pack. I've had a few much more experienced jumpers look at me with skepticism when I'm doing it ("Why are you making all that work for yourself when you can just do ??"), but after I show them the demo that Brian does in the video, they either nod in slightly surprised approval or shrug it away as the harmless OCD packing of a newbie. WRT the "short but thick" PC stretching out the pouch: From the video, it looks and sounds like the important parts of this packing technique to prevent a horseshoe are: 1) to make sure that the bridal attachment point on the underside of the PC is pulled down and aligned with the outer edge of the PC 2) to have the bridal folded inside the PC so that it exits toward the hackey/out of the pouch Brian doesn't seem too place to much emphasis on the rest of how he folds the PC fabric. But that's just what I took away from the video. It would be something to ask Brian when you email him, and if you post his answer here, I'd certainly be interested to read it.

In Oklahoma, where this event occurred, a speed trap is defined as any municipality that receives more than half of its operating revenue from traffic tickets. I was pulled over outside of just such a town. The fact that it was a speed trap doesn't excuse the fact that I was undeniably speeding. I was lucky to get the warning instead of a ticket. But it was, indeed, a speed trap

One warning, no tickets. I probably deserved a ticket when I got that warning (85 in a 65). It was an obvious speed trap, with 3 cops on each side of the road and a Cessna overhead taking speed readings. I had college parking permit stickers on my 10-year-old car and certainly wasn't dressed to impress. I was respectful ("sir" is a very powerful word) and apologetic, but didn't try to BS. I knew I was guilty. I think the cop took pity on me because i behaved like a decent human being and because he knew that a parking ticket would leave me eating raman noodles for an entire semester... One of my favorite get-out-of-a-ticket lines comes from a friend. She was speeding (something like 90 in a 55) down an empty state highway late at night. Well, not entirely empty. A cop parked alongside the highway pulled her over as soon as she passed. When he approached the car and asked what she was doing, she replied, "Keeping up with flow of traffic." The cop looked around, and there wasn't a headlight or taillight to be seen in either direction. "What traffic? There's not another car for miles," he replied. "I know," she said, "I was trying to catch up to them so I can keep up!" The cop got a good laugh out of that on what was obviously a boring night. He gave her a warning and told her to slow it down.

I've flown in the Orlando tunnel a couple of times (and it's only big enough for about two strippers in there at a time with you, otherwise their dance space will be cramped) When you buy a block of time, you can split it up however you like. The times I've been, we split the time into two minute blocks and just rotated through until our block time was up. 5-7 minutes total for each of you would probably be plenty for your first time. You should also consider what your goal is with the tunnel time. The tunnel can either be an amusement ride where the coach moves you up and down and all around, or it can be a learning experience. If you want to use the tunnel to improve your skydiving skills, be sure to make that clear to the person you speak with at the front desk when you make your reservations. Consider paying the extra money for a coach to work with you on intensive training customized to your skills and abilities. Have fun!

This is just from my own experience buying my first set of gear a few months ago: Don't be in a rush, but keep your eyes and ears open (at your home DZ and with any used gear sellers, like the classifieds here on dz.com). Before buying gear, I spoke with my instructors and the experienced jumpers at my DZ to narrow down what type of gear I should be looking for (what size canopy, what type of canopy, which containers have good reputations, date of manufacture, how many jumps on the gear, etc). When I came across some gear that I thought might be suitable, I ran it by those experienced folks at the DZ for advice. After a couple of months of this process, I found a complete rig here on DZ.com, checked it out via "riggers escrow", and bought it. Was a great transaction, and knew that I was getting gear that was suitable for me. Good luck!

Mine was about 3-4 hours the first time (with only me in the class), then about 1-2 hours the second time. (I had to take a year and a half off after AFF2 due to $$ and then wx, so I just started the AFF progression anew at my new DZ). The first course was very thorough, and I certainly benefited from the one-on-one instruction. I also assume I had a bit of a knowledge base advantage coming in with a physics and meteorology background that made understanding freefall and canopy aerodynamics and wx concerns much easier. My second FJC was also one-on-one, and turned out to be much more of a review -- I remembered far more than I expected from my first FJC. My instructor quizzed me on each topic, discussed in more detail the knowledge gaps that I'd developed during the intervening year, and then focused mainly on EP's and dive flow.

I'm not sure the problem is with the instructed portion of AFF or early coached jumps. Students really do tend to be overloaded at that point and far more focused on freefall. They're also either still under radio or recently off radio. It wasn't until I'd been off radio for several jumps and had to plan and implement my own landing pattern un-aided that I began to realize just how much I didn't know about canopy work and just how important it would be to learn as much as possible. Honestly, the most valuable portions of the canopy control course for me were the (more) in-depth discussions of the aerodynamics of canopy flight, the most common applications of specific canopy skills/maneuvers, the dedication of the hop n' pop jumps to canopy work only, and the de-brief after every jump. During the FJC and instructed portion of AFF, the basics of canopy flight were covered (e.g. standard landing pattern, flare height, flying in breaks, and how to steer with toggles and risers). However, the focus was almost entirely on how to do an A-card skill, not why that skill/technique works (why, aerodynamically, a specific input produces a specific result), or when to use it. And knowing when to use a skill early-on usually comes from discussing common applications, as well as by learning the basic aerodynamic theory so that students can properly apply those skills to not-so-common situations. I'm not advocating for or against the ISP here, just relating my personal experience. And my experience was that canopy work was not emphasized very much during the instructed portion of AFF. There really wasn't much emphasis during the coached phase, either, although that could have also been a result of being at a small DZ where there aren't many coaches (and solo-self-supervise students are vying for the attention of instructors who are already trying to get the next AFF student briefed and in the air). When I was filling out my A-card, I would usually ask an instructor what a particular maneuver/skill was and how to do it. Then I'd make a jump, complete the skill, and get signed off. For my own curiosity and out of a desire to be a more informed and safer skydiver, I would then seek out one or two of the most experienced jumpers at the DZ and engage them in a discussion about when to use that maneuver/skill and what some of the nuances, cautions, and consequences are of using that maneuver in different situations (e.g. be careful not to stall your canopy at 100 ft if you're using a flat turn to avoid an obstacle on final, etc). What my home DZ lacks in certified coaches, it more than makes up for in mentors, but as has been mentioned before, mentoring only works if the student and the mentor are willing. I've met many accomplished and experienced skydivers who will take literally hours to talk to and teach eager new jumpers. But I've met far more students who choose to ignore and avoid the advice of those experienced jumpers, and I've already seen several hurt because of it. The mentorship method works wonderfully (and, in my opinion, works even better than formal instruction much of the time) when the student and mentor both want to be there. But not all students will be of the persuasion or mentality to seek out knowledge on their own. In that case, I think that a formal requirement for a canopy control course before the A-license is issued is a wonderful idea. Yep, and I did, but it was really just going through the motions to get signed off on my A-card until I took that canopy course and learned the how, the why, and the when of those techniques.