Been lurking long enough, might as well say "hi"

[38lightning 0]

Hello, all,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm a junior year mechanical engineering student with a concentration on rocket and gas turbine propulsion (rocket engines and jet engines). I joined the forum back in June after an acquaintance's Facebook posts about doing a tandem get me thinking about trying one myself. I like to learn as much as I can about something before actually trying it, and this forum has been a great resource in that regard.

I am located in northern Arizona during the academic year. Skydive Red Rocks in Cottonwood is the closest DZ to me, but my school has a skydiving club which jumps with Skydive Phoenix down in Maricopa. Can any of you offer any recommendations between these two DZs? Maybe one of these days I'll push past my last remaining apprehension about jumping (the thought of dust devils scares the living crap out of me) and actually go for it. If/when I do, I'll surely report back.

Thanks for some interesting reading over the past several months. Hopefully I'll lose the whuffo status soon enough.

Regards,

William

William "38lightning" Carpenter
High-power rocketeer, aerospace enthusiast, engineer

[tikl68 6]

Hi William. Pseudo welcome. It is awesome that you are doing research, many people that talk to me about skydiving ask a lot of questions and I welcome them, knowledge is power, and having been in the sport for some time for fun and for work most people seem satisfied with my responses to their questions. Most tell me that they have done some research and I think it is awesome. Yes dust devils are quite the nemesis. They are a tough cookie to crack, that being said, the LEAST LIKELY time for them to occur is early morning, so try to be on load 1 or 2.There are many factors that can create the conditions for them. I have seen them in winter over grass. So the best you or anyone else can do is mitigate the risk as much as possible in many ways. Time of day to jump, time of year to jump, weather patterns, landscape,temperature, the canopy you fly, knowing when to stay on the ground( watching other canopies having squirrely landings). And even if you put all the cards in your favor, be prepared. Tandem canopies are big and semi docile, but mother nature can still have her way with you.
Most people dont think about this but you are in far more danger of being hurt or worse on the highway, yet no one thinks twice about driving while multi tasking.
While working at one of the busy So Cal DZ's it was my day to train the tandems.The next day(Sunday) I learned that two of the groups that were there on Saturday at different times of the day left the DZ at different times and different directions were both involved in accidents and had some one in their group die. Along time skydiver and videographer (8000 skydives) that jumped/videoed her husband, was hit on the side of the road while bicycling with her husband in a group and was killed.
Hope to hear the story of how awesome your jump went in the future.

[skymama 35]

Welcome to the forums!
After all of the thinking that you've done about doing a tandem, what are the reservations you still have about it? Maybe we can help calm your nerves.

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

[38lightning 0]

Thanks, tikl68 and skymama,

The stuff I'm worried about is the stuff I can't control (i.e. meteorological stuff). As unlikely of a scenario as I know it is, I can't shake the thought of hitting some kind of canopy collapsing turbulence at an irrecoverable altitude. I just need to convince myself that that can be mitigated to my satisfaction by being careful about the weather and geography I jump in and being hyper-vigilant on final. The fact that the urge to give skydiving a try hasn't gone away after over six months probably indicates that I'll get over that eventually.

William "38lightning" Carpenter
High-power rocketeer, aerospace enthusiast, engineer

[38lightning 0]

Not sure how far these introduction threads are supposed to go, but this seems topical.

After getting acquainted with a couple local drop zones I picked the one I got a better vibe from and did a tandem today! From sitting at the door up through the first couple seconds of freefall it felt like I had made a mistake, but after that it was calm and enjoyable (even calmed down enough to start getting annoyed at the wind blowing into my nose). Flying under canopy has to be my favorite part, though. Once you start to forget about the feeling of the harness, it's indistinguishable from just floating a few thousand feet in the air (granted you all already know this).

If I can get the money to work out, I will definitely be looking at doing at least the first couple AFF jumps over the summer to see what it's like to skydive solo (well, with instructors holding on to you as opposed to strapped to you).

Thank you again to the DZ.com community at large for building a great collection of information. Hopefully this won't be my last foray into the sport.

William "38lightning" Carpenter
High-power rocketeer, aerospace enthusiast, engineer

[FlyingRhenquest 1]

It's good you enjoyed it. For all that I mostly just want to fly a wingsuit lately, I still like to take a break and do a jump where I just deploy my parachute right out the door at 12,000 feet. It's a nice 10-15 minute flight with great scenery and no other concerns than getting to the ground. Definitely worth trying, once you get your A license!

I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?