daffes 4 #1 November 23, 2013 Hey guys, I've just realized a long standing dream of skydiving. I completed my AFF past week and had a couple solo jumps. I'm super stoked about the sport and want to get better at it in a safe way and I hope you guys can help me out here :). Let me first quote Vladimir and Tamara at (http://www.vladiball.org/index7.htm) "Skydivers, who learn about the theory, will be able to take advantage of it immediately and thus experience a faster learning curve. Theoretical knowledge is always a huge short-cut, enabling you to learn more in less freefall time, less jumps, and thus less money. By having the theoretical knowledge, you can deliberately and consciously make adjustments to your body position in freefall to achieve the aerodynamic results that you desire." My instructors are very skilled, but I can't agree more with the above quote. I spend many hours looking for articles, books and videos similar to the one that I've linked above and it seems very hard to find this sort of content for skydiving, mainly about freefall and freefly (canopy control I found a couple good books). A few years ago I learned to Ski and the amount of material available was huge and helped me progress much faster. I can't understand why isn't that the same with Skydiving. Another area that I can't find much content is video classes about the main disciplines and skills I need to learn between AFF and A license. Like well performed tracking and fall rate control. I ended up finding tunnel classes about fall rate control later in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWyefbG48Ls and a good tracking guide here http://parachutistonline.com/feature/tracking%E2%80%94theory-and-application. Anyway, everything I'm curious about takes a long time to find a good and complete answer and I wish there was a central source for all of this. I would be willing to spend some $ in "off-air" learning material. So, if you have any suggestions of this sort of material it would be highly appreciated. Blue skies! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NWFlyer 2 #2 November 23, 2013 One of the more important life-(and limb-) saving skills you can develop is canopy control, and The Parachute & Its Pilot is a great source to dig deep into the theoretical (and practical) knowledge. Some good content on the USPA site, too. And there's always the USPA SIM (assuming you are trying to get a USPA license). http://www.uspa.org/BecomeaSkydiver/tabid/54/Default.aspx http://www.uspa.org/SIM.aspx"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wicodefly 0 #3 November 23, 2013 I am very new and have been looking to learn more too. The thing that has helped me the most is asking questions of knowledge jumpers and jumping with them. Taking video and debriefing. Taking to instructors, etc. On the theoretical side I purchased several DVDs from paragear.com. Just got them this week and I think they will definitely help me. Some of them were produced 10 or more years ago so the picture quality and animations are older, but the material is excellent. Specifically I bought: Surviving Skydiving (it's 5 videos in one) Canopy Control Core Essentials Basic Canopy Flight + Basic Body Flight Theory Learning to Sitfly They have others too. I haven't watched them all, but so far so good! One caution is that some if the advice/procedures may be different from DZ to DZ (specifically the landing patterns) so be extra careful with that. Again, I am a newb so please consult with qualified people before doing things in videos...Chance favors the prepared mind. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GLIDEANGLE 1 #4 November 23, 2013 This might give you a good start: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4052172#4052172The choices we make have consequences, for us & for others! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
