Muffie

Potatoes. My dad grew up poor and had about fifteen different ways to combine cheap ground beef and potatoes to make a good meal. And when I was in college a baked potato with bacon and cheese was dinner for most of one year. Lunch was those two for a dollar apple pies from McDonald's. I also used to make large batches of soup or stew and just eat them for the entire week (cheap meat, potatoes, carrots, onions).

I have a multi-speed suit that I found was really useful in the tunnel. I was able to zip up completely when doing belly but unzip the arms and legs to get more drag when learning sit-fly. I think it took about a month to get IIRC, but I was local, too, so able to drop by and get measured and all.

I really liked Croatia - I was Star Alliance and able to use miles for a flight to Dubrovnik and then able to use Hilton Honors points for free hotel once there. Based myself out of Dubrovnik, rented a car and drove around a bit, and took escorted tours into Bosnia and Montenegro because at the time I was told it wouldn’t be smart to drive a car with Croatian plates into either country. You may be well into tourist season, though. NZ’s great as well. If you’re Star Alliance then you can fly Air New Zealand. You’re getting into the colder season if you go in June, but June/July is actually one of my favorite times to be there. Just know that part of the day may be rainy. I also used miles for a trip to Thailand and then went to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat (or however that’s spelled. It was only about $150 to fly to Cambodia from Bangkok and a top notch five-star hotel was less than $100 a night in Cambodia). Haven’t done it yet, but I think my next miles-based trip is going to be Malta.

I have about four hours in the Denver tunnel. Loved it! I scheduled tunnel time through my instructor which is really the best way to go IMO. I did 15 minutes at a pop once a week. My instructor recommended 10 to 15 minutes for each session. I thought everyone there was fantastic and some of the instructors post on here so if you don't hear from one of them PM and I can send you the contact info for the coach I worked with. I could definitely see the difference when I jumped.

" ....................................................................... Working in other countries can be a challenge. Take it from a guy who used to work in the American skydiving industry during the 1990s. It helps if you are young, energetic, have medical insurance, have a working visa, have lots of ratings and are willing to work longer hours ... for less pay than citizens. Working visas can take up to two years to secure. Trust me, it took me that long - and more thousands of dollars than I care to remember - to get a NAFTA visa. The ratings that pay the best are packing (you need an FAA Rigger's License to do that legally in the USA) and tandem. The beauty of working with tandems is that you get paid to wear out some-one else's gear. Outside freefall videographer is the next most popular job, but the difference is that you need to invest $10,000 or $20,000 in equipment and pay for all its maintenance out of your earnings. There used to be hundreds of jobs, packing mains at major American DZs. However, Americans treat un-documented aliens worse than they used to treat slaves! One complaint and you are on the road! Sorry If I am bursting your bubble, but making a living - as a professional skydiver - is hard work. To keep a job, you need to be willing to work longer hours - for less pay - than the next skydiving bum. Although, if he's going to do it, New Zealand might be the place for it. Last time I checked (early 2010), going to that school qualified you for some sort of educational visa. And then you would get extra points towards a residency visa for having education in NZ. They also give extra points for residency visas if you're a tandem master or instructor with over a 1,000 jumps. And if you're under 30, you can prettily easily get a work/travel visa for a year that might let you build up work experience which would also give you a leg up with residency. Most of the folks I know (experience primarily limited to one dz) who are tandem masters, packers, or video there are non-NZers. (Two of whom worked/jumped in America under less than legal circumstances back in the day and would probably agree that that's no longer an option.) The drop zone I jumped at their last two TMs were home-grown folks who came up as video and then when they hit 1,000 jumps converted over to TMs. Having said all that, when I was thinking of doing the school in early 2010 I was told it wasn't what it used to be and probably not worth doing. So, definitely talk to recent students if you go that route. I was more interested in living in NZ than working as a skydiver, so took a different option to make that happen. As always, someone else may have a different take on it all.

Whose money do you think is in those bank bags? It's probably a bunch of pick-ups from small mom and pop businesses that deal partially in cash. And how exactly did the banks steal from you in the first place? They offer a service. They charge a fee for that service. If you don't want that service (ATMs, checking, savings, electronic fund transfers, etc.) store your frickin' money in your basement. If one charges you too much, go to another one. It's those types of skewed justifications to take from others that really make me shake my head sometimes. Skewed justifications? Hey Muffie... Bite Me . Those MFRs played willy_nilly w/our monies. Crashed the economy, & were then given another $700 BILLION in TARP funds (AKA: more of our money). If you don't recognize the theft? You're beyond help. Yes, skewed. Like saying that TARP gave away $700 billion when last time I checked it disbursed only $432 billion and is expected to cost $19 billion when all is said and done because that money was given in exchange for ownership interests or assets that mean most of it gets paid back. And in return it arguably stopped a chain reaction liquidity crisis that could have made the financial crisis much worse. And that would have hurt everyone in the country. But, hey, if it makes you feel good with yourself to take something that isn't yours based upon those kind of arguments, then actual facts certainly aren't going to do anything to change your mind. Sorry to all if this ends up finding its way to SC...

Whose money do you think is in those bank bags? It's probably a bunch of pick-ups from small mom and pop businesses that deal partially in cash. And how exactly did the banks steal from you in the first place? They offer a service. They charge a fee for that service. If you don't want that service (ATMs, checking, savings, electronic fund transfers, etc.) store your frickin' money in your basement. If one charges you too much, go to another one. It's those types of skewed justifications to take from others that really make me shake my head sometimes.

If you can I'd recommend that you find a coach that works with skydivers before you get there and arrange your tunnel time with the coach. IMO it's a better approach than just showing up and you'll get more out of it. I did fifteen minutes for my first tunnel session. They break it up into chunks of about 2 and a half minutes each spread over half an hour. It is tiring. Also, I have longer hair and after taking twenty minutes to get all the tangles out after that first session I bought a balaclava to use for all my other sessions. Well worth it! It was never an issue on my jumps, but definitely is in the tunnel. Enjoy! Sounds like a great excuse to get in some tunnel time!

Then to have accurate data, they need to be excluded. They tend to be simply due to the lack of relevant incidents (at least that are listed on this site). Sweden had a malfunction fatality this year, but the last one I have for there was in 2005 which involved a landing fatality possibly on a Katana 120. And they do use a downsizing chart very similar to Brian Germaine's. A Swedish friend and I compared the two one day when we bored. Netherlands had a student canopy collision in 2010, a landing fatality in 2008 (experienced visiting jumper on a Velo at a competition), and a landing fatality in 2005 and one in 2004. 2004 was an off landing. No info. on the 2005 incident. One of the problems with cutting out information by location is that jumpers move around. I can personally think of at least ten people I knew from NZ who were jumping in Sweden, Germany, Spain and the U.S. at various points this year.

Nope, not really. Vengeance moves up the list to 7th place, but the first six stay in the same order. Velo 18 Stiletto 10 Sabre2 10 Katana 7 Spectre 6 Crossfire2 5 Vengeance 4 Pilot 4 And since it made me curious after I did this, if you just look at collisions/wraps the Velocity is still at the top with 6. After that are a bunch of canopies with 2 each and a bunch with 1 each. Again, this is only based on canopy info for about a third of the incidents.

I would recommend against this if you can. I also had a tendency to land and then fall down on my knees when I was learning so had some beautiful bruises on the knees and thought I'd pull out the old volleyball knee pads to protect myself from further injuries since I certainly wasn't going to stop jumping for a few weeks to let the knees recover. Ended up pivoting on one of those knees in the doorway of the plane without lifting the knee and tore my meniscus. Doubt I would've done it if I hadn't been wearing the knee pads. Bruises go away in a few weeks, torn meniscus, not so much. What? How the Heck did you do that? You sure it wasn't a prior tear you didn't know about earlier? Think carpet & hardwood flooring installers. Those guys spend several hours a day pivoting on their knees. If you had a weak knee that was about to go. It would've went anyway, pads or not. No, definitely happened then. I felt something when it happened and about forty-five minutes later it swelled up and hurt like a mother which is a classic symptom. You have to figure that carpet and hardwood guys are moving forward and backward for the most part. I also think they wear a different type of kneepad than the volleyball type I was wearing. Maybe the prior bruising to the knee didn't help things much, but I really think it was the abnormal movement coupled with the fact that the knee pads kept me from feeling what I was doing as much. I was sitting with my heels tucked under parallel to the door and then went up on my knees and pivoted on that knee to face the door. I think it was only a few inches of movement before I felt something and lifted the knee, but enough for a moderate tear. Anyway. YMMV. Of course, feel free to test it out yourself if you want...

Sorry if it wasn't clear what I wrote - About 70 of those had between 25 and 500 jumps. And another 37 had between 501 and 1,000. I only had WL for a much smaller sample of the total. So, if we say that the three that were between 1.2 and 1.4 were ok, then you still have ten lives that could have possibly been saved by some sort of more conservative canopy progression up to 500 jumps. Add to that the countless broken pelvises, femurs, etc. that don't even make it to the incidents reports...

I would recommend against this if you can. I also had a tendency to land and then fall down on my knees when I was learning so had some beautiful bruises on the knees and thought I'd pull out the old volleyball knee pads to protect myself from further injuries since I certainly wasn't going to stop jumping for a few weeks to let the knees recover. Ended up pivoting on one of those knees in the doorway of the plane without lifting the knee and tore my meniscus. Doubt I would've done it if I hadn't been wearing the knee pads. Bruises go away in a few weeks, torn meniscus, not so much.

Not so sure of that. I checked my spreadsheet which covers 2004 to present - about 250 landing or collision/entanglement fatalities. About 70 of those had between 25 and 500 jumps, so they account for somewhere between a third and a fourth of the fatalities. I only have WL for 13 of those. 10 of the 13 were over 1.4 WL. Other three were right at 1.2. Almost all of the thirteen were somewhere between 250 and 500 jumps. Looks like another 37 between 501 and 1,000 jumps. Have WL for eight of those. One was .9, the rest were over 1.4. (The low WL hit her head on an obstacle during an off landing in high winds.)

One thing I noticed when I was starting out was that when I practiced my flares up high I also tended to lift my legs up which meant that when I went to flare at landing I was also lifting my legs up. Slid a few landings in before I figured out why. So, for the OP, if you find that your feet aren't the first thing touching the ground, maybe check for this during your practice flares.

Thanks! It's always fun to see the different perspectives/interps.

Why do you have Velocity twice? (Velocity?) I did this using a pivot table from a spreadsheet and the "Velocity?" one is the most recent incident where someone thinks he was on a Velocity, but it hasn't been confirmed. So, since I had the question mark in there it treated them as separate entries and I didn't manually fix it before creating the PDF.

From the data I have, Velocity seems to be the clear winner. But there are 2/3 of the incidents where I don't have canopy type and this is only for the last seven or so years and some of it is just what people posted in the forums, so maybe not reliable, etc. etc. I filtered out any fatality that wasn't related to a malfunction/entanglement, collision/wrap, or landing problem. Top 5 w/ number of fatalities per: Velocity 24 Stiletto 12 Sabre2 11 Katana 7 Spectre 7 See PDF for full list.

Or maybe he was thinking he was either going to die or pull it off and if he was dead, then it was over and if he pulled it off then he'd get the rush. I've been thinking about this for a bit now and Sangi's incident brought it to the forefront in my mind. When I entered the sport I knew there was a risk of dying no matter what you did (plane crashes happen each year), but I was ok with that risk. I'm single and I don't have so much as a plant that relies on my continued existence. I don't want to die and I'm sure there are people who would miss me (hopefully), but if I did die it'd be over. It was when I started to realize the number of busted pelvises, snapped femurs, etc. that my perspective started to change, because what I don't want is to be laid up in a hospital for six months and unable to walk properly for the rest of my life. And I don't want to have to put that kind of burden on the people around me or find myself alone in a moment like that because none of them can take it. Now, I'm not into rapid canopy progression or doing crazy stupid shit on my jumps, so I'm not exactly the target population for these types of "interventions" but maybe we need to quit telling guys who are pushing too hard too fast that they might die and instead talk to them about the jumpers who are in wheelchairs, brain damaged, have lost limbs, etc. Maybe we should emphasize instead the life changing consequences of surviving accidents like this. Instead of seeing it as go big or die it might help if they see it as taking a little extra time to learn the right skills vs. living the rest of their life looking at the sky and wishing they could jump but not being able to.

That's how it worked for me. I just contacted my coach when I wanted to go and we'd set a time and he'd put it in the computer. If you don't have a name of an instructor to work with a few of the guys who coach there post here or people can PM you a name if you need one.

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend pursuing the risk-taking aspect of it either. Especially depending on what type of anthropology you're studying. What about the age/experience dynamic? This is one of those sports where you end up being friends with people over a 30 year age range and often based upon experience in the sport. You could also look at gender issues since that has some unique aspects in this sport as well. (Not necessarily VB's issue which is just women seeking an Alpha male and men who can and want to taking advantage, IMO). Personally, my first response was just leave us alone to do our thing, but if you insist on studying the culture, find something a little more original to study. Not sure if they've made you read it yet, but there was some paper on Tejano dancing culture in Texas (I think) that I had to read in school. Can't remember all the details now, but I think if you pursued something along those lines you'd be better off.

I know a guy who came down to NZ from Switzerland(?) to finish off his A license. Didn't seem to have a problem doing it. I'd clear it with the AFFI and/or dropzone wherever you're thinking of going, though. They'll be in the best position to tell you what you need.

Playing devil's advocate here - What happens when someone isn't going to land in box 1 and they are desperate not to get grounded so they either (a) turn too close to the ground to get into box 1 when they could have safely landed in box 2 or (b) turn to get back into box 1 and end up face to face with someone else landing in box 1 or (c) decide to land in box 2 but no one is expecting them there? Isn't it better to teach jumpers to be aware of who else is in the air with them and to be prepared to handle any eventuality whatever that may be or require? It seems to me that a lot of this discussion, if implemented, would give people an excuse to not look around as much which means that you actually up the risk of an accident when someone does something unexpected which it's pretty much guaranteed is going to happen.

In 2007 there was a collision involving a military jumper (not at Elsinore) and one of the factors may have been that the military jumper's canopy was difficult to see because it was a camoflauge pattern. Anyone know whether that could have been a factor in this incident as well?

But for that to actually work aren't you assuming that there are no factors such as experience or equipment choice that affect the outcome?