5.samadhi

yeah true southernman i never had have a problem with cold though...everybody else seems like they are miserable during winter but i thrive when its cold...dunno why cuz im pretty thin too! :)

yeah chin/jaw protection the little flimsy plastic visors arent going to do anything if you slam into a tree branch or ground or a body. i dont think anybody is operating under the premise that the visors on factory divers or Z1s are going to save them I hope not at least

well one scenario i thought was what if you deploy your main malfunction, chop, deploy reserve and get caught over trees, go down through trees and smack your head on a large branch. wouldnt it be better to have a helmet rated for an impact rather than a skydiving helmet??? just one random scenario that popped into my head...there are others though that are conceivable that wouldnt involve straight going in (obviously a helmet isnt going to help!). another: what about a high speed stall while swooping? Isnt a rated helmet going to be beneficial here? Obviously dont high speed stall! but mistakes happen...why not stack the deck...

for skydiving (terminal) in case of hard impact with ground, plane, or human bodies/canopies. all I can find online is people jumping them terminal off big walls and saying they work. terminal is terminal i guess so that answers whether they can be taken terminal decently. I will contact Apex and ask them about their experience using them in skydive environment. And then I will post their reply here. i am mainly concerned with peripheral vision. I do other sports also (downhill mtb and eventually want to start base jumping again) so a multi-purpose helmet wouldnt be bad. But I want one that will work good skydiving.

anybody jump one of these or have experience with them? Positives? Drawbacks? I like that it is actually rated for impact unlike pretty much all other skydiving fullfaces I have been researching. I would remove the visor (held in with screws) and jump it with glasses. http://apexbase.com/product.php?product_id=267

thanks a lot for the replies, that helps.

you give me a good opportunity to clarify my intent. I am not looking for personal critique of my landing obviously. I am looking for theoretical knowledge. so if i still have forward speed theoretically i still have the ability to generate lift by flaring deeper, correct? unless i am going downwind should I still have lift available to convert by deeper flare? not looking for canopy coaching on dropzone.com :P

couple questions for more experienced... I fly a sabre2 150 with ~1.2 wingloading...most of my landings are done with double front riser input let up with plenty of time to naturally recover before the flare. I have been running out landings lately (mainly when the winds are light). Can I avoid doing this by flaring a little deeper toward the end of my landing to keep converting the forward speed into lift? In other words, is my problem lately with running out as simple as I am not flaring deep enough toward the end of the flare? And if I cannot avoid running out a landing: is there a line where a person must run out a landing or can I always safely lean back a little and slide it on the soles of my feet? My question is: is there a point when a person simply MUST run out a landing vs sliding in on soles of feet? thanks! hope everybody had a fun weekend

unless there's an inversion :)

wildcard and dave, I totally agree with you. I almost posted last night trying to explain I wasnt an asshole thinking about using the students on coach jumps for my own nefarious ends... I thought it pretty obvious but now that I think about it my intentions are NOT obvious to you and your critiques are totally legitimate. Let me emphasize that I want to fly coach first and foremost to be able to interact with the beginners on my dropzone and foster them so that they want to continue skydiving. The worst thing I ever seen on dz's is how newbies will get ignored and then they will lose interest...not everybody is a 'type A' personality and outgoing etc...I would like to foster these types of skydivers to become excellent skydivers (or better/safer at least). Also, I DO feel like I should be learning QUITE A BIT on my coach jumps...because I really want to be an instructor someday (AFF/tandem). And I need to learn something on EVERY jump, fun jump, coach jump, hop/pop, whatever. That way when I get many many more jumps and many hours in groundschool classroom I will be ready. ok sorry for almost /threading (or did I? ). I'm kinda leaning toward the Sony CX now after reading these comments and thinking about it more...since I will want to do coach jumps without a camera for a little while anyway it makes sense to go for the more expensive one (it will take me awhile to save up for the sony compared to a used gopro). So while I'm saving this summer I can hopefully start my coaching.

^ are you saying there needs to be a "mad skillz" clause added to the chart?

i took 7 years off...I was a little scared when I came back but I just pushed through that fear and it was all good after a few jumps (current again). I'm not gonna lie landing those parachutes is a REFINED skill and it was a WHOLE LOT faster of a process than I remember (I guess I tend to remember in snapshots rather than a canopy landing as it is a ncessarily temporal process). Upsize a LOT from what you used to fly. I used to fly a 120 and I thought a 210 was fast as SHIT. Then a 190 was fast then a 168 was fast, then a 150 was really fast. Then it was not and landing was better again. be conservative with gear especially if you still have pain in your ankle.

beginner question. In a few dozen more jumps I will have the 200 jumps needed to jump a camera and also I will be hopefully getting my coach rating. I plan to shoot tandem videos and hopefully competitive 4way some point in my skydiving life. That said, would I be better off getting a sony CX150 NOW to use during coach jumps (to view during debriefing) instead of a gopro or some similar low profile camera. Benefits of sony now: have the gear that I need to shoot tandem videos. train on that gear, easy transition to tandem video (hopefully?). benefits of gopro/similar cam: smaller profile, cheaper, can hopefully learn on the gopro about framing and all that and transfer skills. its the last point im not sure about given my experience...can I really beneficially train on the gopro and have acquired some skills to make the transition to sony cx more seamless. I'm aware of some differences in lenses (which is what I am worried about will affect framing, etc?). I would rather spend a little more money now on box, lenses, etc and go with the sony than buy the gopro now and ingrain a bunch of bad habits that will be hard to transfer once I get the sony for tandem videos later. Does that make sense? thanks for helping :)

66lb of lead haha we had a 25lb weight to swim with a distance underwater and breaking surface as part of an advanced lifeguard training i did years back. it wasn't too bad. but not everybody is trained to swim strongly either obviously. scissor kick to the surface man!

slider control hehe that and setting brakes are probably the only two things you really need to do with a modern canopy to get it to open correctly.

May I ask your motivation for attending and is your profile correct? Matt is three years and 150 jumps not enough in your opinion to be a coach? I ask because I have three years and probably will have 200 jumps when I go try to get my coach rating...

it was designed in part to pack very new canopies and to give a slow controlled opening for demos they (PA) were sending out to people. I would definitely give it a try....its exact same as propacking just after rolling tail you set it down with a half linetwist ("upside down" compared to propack) and then smoosh the canopy in (air out) until its about the same size as the dbag. then with one knee on slider (slider control is extremely important at all times packing the canopy) and one knee about halfway up (so you're perpendicular to the canopy facing the side, not the bottom) you smash the last air out and begin tightly rollilng it. You'll know you did a good job when you end up with a tight football lump that slides easily in your dbag. It will probably take you 10 (20?) times rolling it to really get it down so dont be discouraged. Same with propacking its just experience that makes it easy. ps obvious but when you bag the canopy before doing any line stowing you need to untwist the canopy back the way you twisted it!

well psychopacking isnt going to give you a lineover. my experience: about 1000 pack jobs psychopacking no lineovers.

well swimming in water with lead isnt instant death. especially if you dont break the surface (or break momentarily for breath only if it takes more than one breath)...its quite easy to swim with weight added. but thats a good point and i swear i have seen people put lead on underneath their jumpsuit on dzs with somewhat large ponds adjacent.

I've seen a couple of javelins like that. I likes. Just wouldn't be smart to wear lead in your rig while jumping near water - you can't ditch it like you can a weightbelt. I'm not actually sure you can use it in a swoop competition, for that reason. no water training in netherlands I see :(

try psychopacking

why not bring muffins or biscuits or cookies? Why the incessant clamoring in this thread to bring a drink that many people have lifelong problems dealing with?

maybe request this moved to the instructor forum...also looking through there has given me a good idea of what it is to work as a skydiver. also talking to instructors at your dropzone helps give you an idea of the kind of life you're in for.

can you explain this more? I dont quite understand maybe I'm missing something. What if you want to video tandems?? Should you get good at doing tandems?

why not just use your memory? You will probably want to hone this skill (remembering details about the dive), especially if you ever find yourself in a role of helping out a friend learn something in freefall who has less experience. You might as well start now instead of giving yourself a handicap. I'm not surprised though that seems to be the way the entire world is going with externalizing their mind to electronic devices. dont be your cell phone!