A non frequent skydiver looking for some gear

[theronstar 0]

I did the AFF and jumped from time to time, though not often. My friend said to get some kit to make long term savings and potentially jump more often.

I have an Alti and hook knife so far. I was advised to join a forum and see if anyone is reselling any of their gear? I am looking for a jumpsuit and helmet, I think.

Sorry if this was the wrong place, Ronald

[virgin-burner 1]

look here!?

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[Fast 0]

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I did the AFF and jumped from time to time, though not often. My friend said to get some kit to make long term savings and potentially jump more often.

I have an Alti and hook knife so far. I was advised to join a forum and see if anyone is reselling any of their gear? I am looking for a jumpsuit and helmet, I think.

Sorry if this was the wrong place, Ronald

Did you get a license? If not, you shouldn't be buying your own gear. The reality of skydiving is that if you can't afford to stay current in the sport, do tandems. You're substantially more likely to get hurt if you are only jumping one day a month or less.

Not trying to crush your dream here, but the impression that I am getting from your post is that you never actually got a license. That would have to be step one before buying any gear. Getting gear would then be greatly easier with the assistance of your local instructors.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[davelepka 4]

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My friend said to get some kit to make long term savings and potentially jump more often.

I am looking for a jumpsuit and helmet, I think.

What you're telling me is that the place you jump charges so much for helmet and jumpsuit rental that owning your own will allow you to afford more jumps?

I think what your friend meant is that if you own your own rig you won't have to pay for rig rental, and can save money that way. Rig rental can somtimes equal the price of a slot, so jumps are essentailly double the price if you don't have your own rig.

Of course, you have to spend the money to buy a rig in the first place, so I don't know what that will do to your jump budget. If you're a long-term kind of guy, you can buy an inexpensive used rig, jump it for a year or two, and be able to sell it for most of your purchase price. In that case, you would be spending less to jump, provided you can tie money up in a rig, and wait to sell it to get the money back.

However, there's always the cost of ownership when you have your own rig. You have to keep it in date to jump, so you'll need to pay for repacks, and any other maintenance that might come up. If you have an AAD, maintenance and batteries are another cost that you have even if you don't jump.

In the end, depending on how infrequently you jump, it might be cheaper to just rent gear. A couple of reserve repacks will run you $150/year, and if you have an AAD, that might be another $75/year. So if nothing else goes wrong, it will cost you $200/$225 to have a rig ready to jump. If rig rental is $25/jump, you can make 10 jumps/year and be even money, without tying up a $2000/$2500 in a rig.

Even if you made 20 jumps/year, you'll be out-of-pocket $200 on top of the cost to upkeep a rig. You could do that for 10 years, and be out the same money you would be if you bought a rig. You might not have anything to show for it, but you also would have been able to pay it out $20 at a time, and kept the bulk of your money in the bank, or spent on other things.

There's almost no way to win. It just costs money to jump. You can pay now, or pay as you go, but you always end up paying.

[kkissinger 0]

With the wind restrictions for students, one may be hard-pressed to realize any economy from owning one's own gear. In my case, many weekends have come and gone and all it takes is a single gust > 14 every 30 minutes to keep students on the ground. This is why I have three jumps instead of an A license at the moment. :(

Thus, renting is cheaper for me then owning.

Besides, the DZ where I jump requires students to rent their gear and licensed jumpers to supply their own.

[davelepka 4]

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Besides, the DZ where I jump requires students to rent their gear and licensed jumpers to supply their own

Not that it makes a difference, but most DZs well rent gear to any licensed jumper provided it is not needed for a student on the load in question. In fact, I know a couple of jumpers who will rent a student rig in order to make a back to back. They only own one rig, and if they can get a student rig with a 190 or 200 sq ft canopy, it's not all that different from their own rig.

As for students, you are correct that DZs generally want to use their own gear for students. Student rigs are generally set-up differently than a sport rig, so unless a student went to the trouble to buy a dedicated student rig, whatever rig they showed up with wouldn't do the trick.

Beyond that, you learn a TON of stuff in the first 20 jumps, and can easily go from jumping a 280 to jumping a 210 during that time. As a student, you're better off using the DZs selection of student gear to downsize your canopy to a point where you're at a size you want to stick with for 100 jumps. Then you can buy a rig be happy with it for a bit. If you did try to buy a rig before then, whatever you buy will be too big in another 20 jumps.

As for the OP, I took his statement of 'I did AFF, and then a few more jumps here and there' to mean that he graduated AFF and went on to make some jumps on his own afterwards. Also, it wouldn't make sense for his buddy to suggest buying gear if he wasn't already licensed.

[theronstar 0]

Hmm, thanks for the responses guys. I guess I could have been a little clearer but yeah like davelepka suggests, I am an A Licence Holder.

basically, the weather in the UK where I jump is often rubbish and i do not drive so getting to dropzones is trickier. I do enjoy skydiving when I do it and my belief was acquiring gear would incentivise me to go more as i've made a larger investment. It was more that the whole process of getting gear e.g. the skydive lingo etc. is still a little confusing.

I'll take on all your advice in finding my gear.

Best,

Ronald