Hello from Portugal

[rouey 0]

Hello everyone!

Been lurking around for some time now, and just thought I should go ahead and introduce myself and tell my very brief history with the sport.

Skydiving is something I have been planning on doing for quite some time but kept postponing for years - poor finances, in a relationship with someone who wouldn't have any of it, working my ass off and being a parent thus ending up without time for any side activities, the list goes on.

Having just turned 39 and with the above issues behind me (apart from being a parent, but that is now manageable), the time has finally come. Went to the DZ last Saturday, just to "check the vibe", ended up doing a tandem at the end of which I had a smile on my face that is still there today. I immediately signed up for AFF which is scheduled to begin on Friday.

At the moment I'm having mixed feelings. On one hand I can barely wait to jump out from a plane on my own and to be the one in control of the canopy once it opens, on the other going through the "Incidents" section in this site has given me some pause. I'm trying to reassure myself by reasoning that I will not be in the type of situation where most accidents occur - not doing extreme maneuvers at low altitude, the DZ is small and the instructors are extremely experienced, which should make the chances of a collision extremely small.

Why come to this site and not to one where I can speak my first language with people closer to me? Well, the skydiving community in my country is quite small and apparently there just aren't enough of them to make a skydiving forum anywhere as complete and vibrant as this one. That, and the fact that skydiving is every bit the same everywhere in the world - so why not go and join the biggest online forum.

So... Hello everyone and apologies in advance for the inevitable broken English popping from time to time.

[skymama 35]

Welcome to the forums!
I know the Incidents forums can sometimes be overwhelming; I even think, "what the heck am I doing skydiving!" sometimes when I read the posts. All I can suggest is that you realize that skydiving is a calculated risk. There are definitely measures you can take to make the sport safer for yourself, but also remember that things happen no matter how careful you are. But, things happen even when you think you are going to have the most mundane and boring day in normal life. I have a whole list of injuries that have happened to me at home!

I do hope you have a great AFF class on Friday. Remember: it's normal to be nervous about it!

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

[Trafficdiver 8]

Your English is very good.

Everyone has the same fears as you when they start. Take the FJC (first jump course). That's the beginning of understanding this sport and its equipment. It will put to rest some of your fears and replace them with knowledge.

Afterward you can do your first AFF jump if you're comfortable with what you learned in your FJC. Or not. Either or is fine.

I've got a feeling you'll jump.

[rouey 0]

Hello skymama and Trafficdiver,

Many thanks for your words and for making me feel welcome.

At the moment my inner self is mostly excited about the whole thing, except for a little voice in the back of my head constantly making up very reasonable excuses to present myself and others, preparing for a last minute flinch. But I believe you've heard all of those.

But in the end your feeling will prove to be correct, Trafficdiver, and you could place a large bet on it.

Will keep you updated.

[PixieUK 0]

rouey

At the moment I'm having mixed feelings. On one hand I can barely wait to jump out from a plane on my own and to be the one in control of the canopy once it opens, on the other going through the "Incidents" section in this site has given me some pause. I'm trying to reassure myself by reasoning that I will not be in the type of situation where most accidents occur - not doing extreme maneuvers at low altitude, the DZ is small and the instructors are extremely experienced, which should make the chances of a collision extremely small.

If you're at a small dropzone, I would say your assessment that the chances of a collision are very small is probably right. I jump at a small dz and I'm usually the only one in the air by the time my huge student canopy lets me down, lol. At most, I've had 2 other students in the air at the same time as me and we were all on consols so had all passed our basic AFF levels. When I was doing my AFF jumps, I was often the last one out of the plane with my instructor(s) and there was a big separation between me and everyone else. Tandems jumping after me fall a lot faster so they're down long before me too.

Your ground school lessons will cover all the details of how to land in a pattern and minimise the chances of a collision. As a student, you are likely to be deploying your parachute a lot higher than anyone else, so it will take you longer to descend and so most, if not all of the other jumpers on your load will already have landed. Your instructors will go over this with you in great detail - if anything isn't clear, you should ask. And if you are not comfortable with jumping by the end of ground school, you don't have to.

My ground school instructor told me there was no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid answer, and I was to ask him 50 times if necessary, if something wasn't clear to me or if I forgot something he had already explained.

It all becomes a lot clearer after ground school - the course is very structured to cover everything you need to know and leaves out anything that's not needed yet. I would stay away from the Incidents forum for now - your instructors will cover all the things you need to think about to keep you safe and you will need to focus on what they tell you, not on some comment that may have stuck in your mind from these forums.

A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr