grue

He called me! He sensed a disturbance in the Newbie Force cavete terrae.

That's the first dz.com person I've spoken to, does that mean I owe beer? cavete terrae.

: 2 : 6 (!) cavete terrae.

I really wanted to get a bunch of jumps in today. Sigh, there's always the weekend I guess. cavete terrae.

Mullins' Super King Air is back for another round at Skydive Adventures in Luverne, MN on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of July. I haven't heard anything about pricing yet, but I'll post here as soon as I know! http://skydiveadventures.net/ (has NOT been updated for this year's boogie yet). cavete terrae.

Whoohoo! Fate smiles upon me, weather forecast for tomorrow just went from marginal to.... Click the attachment and hate me :) cavete terrae.

Long canopy rides for you! cavete terrae.

cavete terrae.

Fair enough :) Like they used to say on G.I. Joe: Now I know, and knowing is half the battle! cavete terrae.

I will be as soon as I'm off student status. I need to be able to hear my instructor in the plane for now. Gimme a couple weeks :) cavete terrae.

why the hell did I not know that before? That could be the way to go! cavete terrae.

Yeah, I'm at the point where I'm considering saying "fuck it", ordering a brand new harness/container custom, and then buying used canopies, but I don't really want to go that route unless I absolutely have to, since as a college student, that'd mean going into serious debt for gear. cavete terrae.

I swear to god, looking at the classifieds to try and find a rig, nobody that skydives is over 5'10" or 150lbs, making it damned hard to buy gear since I'm 6'3", 210lbs :P Thus, I poll! cavete terrae.

computers and the internet at DZs... sheesh! In my day, we only had carrier pigeons at the DZ and if we wanted to be online...wait, shit. nevermind. During the 6 hour wind hold yesterday, I played a few rounds of golf on Tiger Woods on my PSP Since it's an hour and 40 minute drive to the DZ, I tend to stick around "just in case" I can make a jump. Turned out to be worth it, that "stick around" jump got me cleared for full altitude freefalls!

I will DEFINITELY be jumping the king air! Once I have my A, I'm definitely gonna visit LSPC and Crete, I figured I might as well do all my student shit at one DZ, and then I could travel! I've got some fiends in Lincoln and stuff to, so I definitely have excuses to come down there :) edit: Any idea how much gear rental would cost me for the boogie? cavete terrae.

See my thread on being a real skydiver now :) I packed I tracked I turned I burned! cavete terrae.

Well, I think we're gonna be jumpin' tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get 3-4 dives in, if not more. If I do that, I just need one or two more jump days. Should be next weekend, or the weekend after, if fate plays nice :) cavete terrae.

Ok, maybe I'm misunderstanding the whole deal, but isn't a hard housing the steel tube that the cables are running through? That's visible on most rigs as far as I can tell. cavete terrae.

My last load yesterday, I realised that I was the only person on the plane with hard housings, I was kinda surprised by that. My JM was wearing a Vector 3, but I don't know what kind of rigs everyone else was jumping, but I was fairly surprised to see that. cavete terrae.

Achtung: Newbie post pending. I'm a static line student, and besides the financial aspect of it, I'm glad I'm going through this way, for lots of reasons: 1. Builds confidence, one step at a time, without being overwhelming. On my first two jumps, my only responsibilities between exit and deployment time were: arch, arch, arch, and arch. 2. Slowly introduces new things. On the next four jumps, it was very similar to the first two - arch, but pull the bright orange thing on your hip. The 4th of these, nothing is changed in terms of perception, except that the static line isn't doing the work any more. 3. Get low first. A static line student, as mentioned, is used to getting out low, and doesn't have problems with this. I think this is an excellent trait, because where are most likely going to have an "oh shit get out of the plane" situation: 10,000 feet, or a couple minutes after take off? 4. EARN your freefall. I like challenges, and I don't like having things given to me on a platter. I love the aspect of knowing that for my first few jumps, I was not a skydiver, I was a parachutist, and that if I wanted to change that, it was going to take hard work and I'd have to earn it. 5. Canopy skills: Our first several jumps have little or no time before we're under canopy, so being under canopy is the foremost thing on our mind, and we train a lot to make sure we know what we're doing. I'm not hitting the peas on every jump, but I stand up the vast majority of my jumps, and I come down within 15-20 metres of where I plan before I even get in the plane most of the time (though this stat is getting fucked up for me, the 7 cell canopy I'm jumping now doesn't have the drive of the 9 cells that I learned on!) 6. I said "besides the financial aspect", but I'm going to bring it up anyway. My drop zone doesn't offer AFF, but even if it did, I'd probably have gone static line anyway. Why, you might ask? Assuming I get my A in 25 jumps, I'll have paid a grand total of: First jump course, inc Jump #1: $165 Next 4 static line jumps: $40/each, $160 total. 20 freefalls: $25/each with rental, $500 total. USPA membership: $51. $20 license fee. $896US total for my A license. From what I understand, one should expect to pay $1,500-2,000 or even more for an A license through an AFF programme. Downsides? I don't get as much freefall time, and that's the only one that really comes to mind. cavete terrae.

For me as a drinker on a DZ, I think its great with non-drinkers try to uphold the beer tradition in their own way. I've seen cookies, cokes, brownies (normal brownies) and such, every time it was appreciated by all. Another neat tip, for non-beer drinkers, people tend to be ok with a 5th of some sort of favorite liquor. For instance, if you show up at my DZ with Jack Daniels, you will be well loved.

FYI I don't drink beer either but I still buy it!

So very true, haha. I'm a non-drinker, so I'll mostly bring up soda I'm sure First post edited to reflect my crosswind landing cavete terrae.

Altimaster Galaxy glow-face, in blue :) Love it. Much better than the damned chest-mounts! cavete terrae.

I had so many firsts yesterday it was kinda scary: First pack job First intentional loss of stability First track First jump with new altimeter First jump with hand altimeter First time using the front risers (at 3,000 ) EDIT: First crosswind landing, too! Wind shifted when I was on final, I had no intention of doing a low turn Hoping the weather's clear tomorrow, so I can start on my rolls and loops and... first full altitude jump! 11 more jumps! cavete terrae.