1 regret -> wish I would've started earlier!

[Kell.nl 0]

Hey all,

I wish it were Saturday, as Saturday will be my first AFF jump. And my colleagues are reminded at least once per hour that I wish it was Saturday ^^

I did 2 tandems so far and absolutely love it. My first instructor is lucky I signed a waiver about not suing him (or anyone for that matter), since I will most likely be broke soon. And it is his fault for not scaring me enough on the first jump

Anyway, this forum is great. Already read a lot, and learned a lot. I'm looking forward to mingle in some conversations as soon as I get to know more!

Kell

[Peej 0]

hey kell,

welcome to dz.com! yeah there really is so much to be learned on here! You;ll love AFF, good luck and let us know how it goes!

Advertisio Rodriguez / Sky

[anthonymcgrath 0]

hey kell I have my aff commencing on the saturday 7th july myself - a full week of skydiving woohoo! - I've saved a handfull of cash and i'm itching to get there and jump lol!
have a great time saturday and remember to put some notes up on this thread :)

[skymama 35]

Welcome to the forums!

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[markph 0]

I share the same sentiment as you mentioned in your subject. Why did I not get involved in this sport when I was younger? Oh well...here's to good times...blue skies!

[jman 0]

I think a lot of people feel the same way. I made two static line jumps when I was sixteen, but I really didn't have the dollars to go farther until I was over forty. I made the decision to at least get my A license and now have my C. My favorite skydiving mentor didn't start until he was in his late 50's and has shot video for the 4 ways at the nationals. He has also participated in many pops type records. So it's never too late. Skydiving is a sport that you can participate in for a long time unlike other sports that can beat on the body that I have participated in.

[Kell.nl 0]

Well, here's my update...

AFF is so much better than tandem. I had such a blast. I booked 2 more jumps tomorrow

About the the jump itself. Exit went well and got in a stable belly to earth position quickly. During the first circle of awareness, the left instructor signaled about my legs/feet position, since they were a little off. I corrected it. The rest of the free fall went as planned, with the practice pulls and such. I did lock on to the altimeter at a little less than 6500 instead of 6000. Well, I figured better early than late
Wave and pull went good, and had a smooth opening. The canopy passed visual and controllability check. Made sure I knew where the landing area was, and I was quite close. So I "played", with doing turns and flares.

Fast forward, I actually landed downwind and here's why:

I started my landing pattern too high. I arrived at checkpoint 2 and turned crosswind and turned upwind at checkpoint 3. But I was too high to be able to land on the designated landing field. So I checked my options. There was another first time AFF jump student in the air, and he wasn't much higher in the air than me (the horizontal distance was plenty). He was either in or close to doing his landing pattern. So my first thought was of redoing a short version of my landing pattern. But I wasn't sure if that was safe with the other student doing his pattern (it probably could be done, but with my limited experience, I could not assess that). So I opted out for doing that. Second thought was to land in the next field upwind, but I wasn't sure if I would be able to go over the power lines. So I opted out on that as well. So I ended up doing a slowish 180, and landed downwind on the designated landing area. I was able to do a standing landing

So I learned a whole lot today. A lot during ground school, and even more during the jump! Ohh, and I learned to bring and apply sunblock

Kell