How many times is to many???

[mtbriles 0]

Talking to a friend whos going through SL training (i did AFF) whose on their 6th attempt at 10 sec freefall. Now personally i think thats alot but im probably wrong. Now theres another student at this DZ whose got over 23 SL jumps and is not progressing.

When should the DZ recommend either bowling, another DZ with AFF, or should they just encourage this person to keep trying and continue to blow money on the level theyre not passing?

Just wondering what you guys think

Why not?
My direction in life is up...then down again REALLY REALLY FAST!!!
Never take life too seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
D.S. #55

[lolimfalling 0]

as long as hes not consistently almost killing himself i see no reason to give up....

[voilsb 1]

I've read on here about jumpers (with thousands of jumps) who took over 50 jumps to get their A license.

Brian

[humbled1 0]

Around the time I was doing AFF there was a guy who was also working towards his A. He was having ALOT of troubles with spinning. He went to the tunnel to fix it but still did at least 15 jumps to get through AFF. Even during coach jumps he would start spinning before deployment. I have seen the video, it looks pretty scary. I think it took him around 45 jumps to get his A. He never went low, always pulled when he should, occasionally while on his back spinning like a top, but he kept at it.

At least one instructor, who tried to help him work through his problems, gave up in desperation and refused to jump with him. But he did not give up and eventually made it.

Now he is a VERY solid belly jump and an excellent canopy pilot as well. He is on a up and coming 4-way team, and has about 450 jumps now. We got our coach ratings together and he impressed me greatly with his ability to teach.

Personally, I know our DZ is a better place with this guy jumping there....
I am not saying no one should get the bowling speech but I am glad this guy did not.

"Tell ya the truth, I don't think this is a brains kind of operation."

[mtbriles 0]

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Around the time I was doing AFF there was a guy who was also working towards his A. He was having ALOT of troubles with spinning. He went to the tunnel to fix it but still did at least 15 jumps to get through AFF. Even during coach jumps he would start spinning before deployment. I have seen the video, it looks pretty scary. I think it took him around 45 jumps to get his A. He never went low, always pulled when he should, occasionally while on his back spinning like a top, but he kept at it.

At least one instructor, who tried to help him work through his problems, gave up in desperation and refused to jump with him. But he did not give up and eventually made it.

Now he is a VERY solid belly jump and an excellent canopy pilot as well. He is on a up and coming 4-way team, and has about 450 jumps now. We got our coach ratings together and he impressed me greatly with his ability to teach.

Personally, I know our DZ is a better place with this guy jumping there....
I am not saying no one should get the bowling speech but I am glad this guy did not.

I didnt think of it that way.

Ok maybe not the bowling speach but do you think the student should switch to a different training method i.e. static line to AFF

Why not?
My direction in life is up...then down again REALLY REALLY FAST!!!
Never take life too seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
D.S. #55

[D22369 0]

If they are not doing something that poses a serious risk to themselves or others then there isnt a limit, I had a static line student that took 21 jumps to finally progress to a prcp, once she finally got it she really got it well and went on to become a tandem I.

when it became apparent that she wasnt progressing we passed her to the other I's as we all have different styles of explaining things and figured one of us had the answer to kicking her over the rut she was stuck in, it finally worked
Roy

They say I suffer from insanity.... But I actually enjoy it.

[Andy9o8 0]

Been there, done that. As someone who came up on the SL method when that was all there was, I can tell you that stability problems at that level are not uncommon. Back then, AFF didn't exist yet, so that wasn't an option. At the very least, I'd hope that his instructor will give him some more targeted coaching than just "Do it again and try to relax this time" that we used to get back in the Day. One typical problem with the SL/IAD method is that, for example, on the 5 or 10 second delays, if you start out unstable, by the time you've settled down into a good arch that will stabilize you, it's pull time, so you wind up getting frustrated.

You don't say whether your friend is doing SL because of cost or because that's all his DZ offers. Nowadays, sometimes a DZ will offer the option of having an instructor take the student on a couple AFF-style jumps just to get the stability kinks worked out, after which the student will resume his freefall progression where he left off. Or, sometimes switching to AFF altogether is the way to go for the person; it's really a very individual thing.

It took me about 35 jumps to get my A. There are plenty of experienced jumpers who had serious stability problems as SL/IAD progression students, but they persevered and now they have thousands of jumps. Bottom line, if your friend isn't seriously scaring the shit out of himself or his instructors, and he's not coming close to killing himself, and he wants to persevere, he should not be discouraged by others from sticking with it. Usually.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Talking to a friend whos going through SL training (i did AFF) whose on their 6th attempt at 10 sec freefall. Now personally i think thats alot but im probably wrong. Now theres another student at this DZ whose got over 23 SL jumps and is not progressing.

When should the DZ recommend either bowling, another DZ with AFF, or should they just encourage this person to keep trying and continue to blow money on the level theyre not passing?

Just wondering what you guys think

I had over a hundred landings in a Cessna 172 before my flight instructor let me try it solo. Six tries lasting less than a minute total are a whole lot less.

AFF or at least some form off AFF-like jump might help. It'll give the student a long time to relax and get used to freefall plus a little practice on exits.

Time in a vertical wind tunnel might help. It'll give the student better practice falling straight down at a constant speed but not do anything for the exits.

Regardless of the solution it's not yet time for the bowling speech.

[Skydivesg 6]

It took me 11 jumps to get off the S/L and 17 to get up to 5 second delays.

I didn't give up because I wanted it too bad.

I'm doing better now.

Be the canopy pilot you want that other guy to be.

[Arvoitus 1]

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It took me 11 jumps to get off the S/L and 17 to get up to 5 second delays.

I didn't give up because I wanted it too bad.

I'm doing better now.

It took me 19 PRCP's to get to freefall. My first FF jump was jump # 30.

One saturday I did 6 PRCP's of which only 1 was succesfull.

Wouldn't have quit even if'd gotten the bowling speech.

Your rights end where my feelings begin.

[Cheach 0]

Glad to see I am not the only SL'er who took more than 25! Mine took 32 mainly due to tracking issues.

I have only been around since June- but it seems like it takes a lot of people so long because they will wait so long between jumps. "I was doing 5 sec delays, but I haven't been here in 4 month."

"Uh...back on the rope."

I woke up next to a blowup doll Ash....so what do you think?

[GLIDEANGLE 1]

Perhaps this will put this discussion into perspective. The jumper described in this log is an AFFI, and world record holder in CRW.

http://crwdog.servebeer.com/CRWdog/HowCRW.html

The choices we make have consequences, for us & for others!

[keithbar 1]

I used up the alphabet on my s/l jumps back in 1980. I had all kinds of sub terminal stabilty problems. think i was on like cc when I got cleared for my clear and pull

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[faulknerwn 37]

Yeah I had 48 jumps when I got off student status. Did 20 actual static lines, and a bunch of freefalls. Did 2 attempts at AFF Level 2 but when they sent me back to Level 1 I decided that I would go back to flunking static lines cuz it was cheaper :-) I always pulled though!

Funny thing is - I don't even hold the record for student jumps on my dz. A 60ish year old lady did her AFF a few years back and did like 43 level 4's. I think 49 jumps total.. She was too stubborn to quit just like me!
She's got about 800 jumps now..

Heck, I remember hearing the story a few years back by a very famous skydiver - he actually had an AAD fire on student status!

[divingos 0]

What do you mean better??????

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• Quote

[SpinMachine 0]

Yeah, that guy goes by the name of SpinMachine on DZ.com.

I don't know about other things, but whatever Steve said about my troubles is true. I think I got my license on the 48th jump. The problem was even if I wasn't spinning during the jump I would start spinning as soon as I extended my legs to track at the end of the jump.

I think just keeping at it and getting air time helped. Matt (instructor at Elsinore) helped quite a bit. Because of him I finally understood what relaxing in the air really meant.

[Squeak 17]

it's been my limited experience that many of the students who have the most trouble, turn out to be very good skydivers. They have all their issues dealt with at student level.

One of our AFF instructors took FOREVER to get her A, she just attended the "Jump for the Cause" Womens World Rcord Jump

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[mjosparky 3]

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It took me 11 jumps to get off the S/L and 17 to get up to 5 second delays.

I didn't give up because I wanted it too bad.

I'm doing better now.

Now you are cleared for 30 second delays.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[Skydivesg 6]

Uhmm.. I don't know, that's a pretty long time to be fallin'.

Be the canopy pilot you want that other guy to be.

[Tomcat933 0]

My first freefall was jump 10, I had some problems, but probably would have reached freefall earlier if the wind hadn't picked up multiple times between my last PRCP and first freefall. My main problem with stability during static lines was that i would experience sensory overload, and either completely forget what I was supposed to do, or lose track of what my limbs, especially my legs, were doing. All it took to fix these problems was simply getting used to being outside the airplane. Once i was comfortable, I could recognize what my body was doing, correct it, and do it right. Obviously i completely respect these people for sticking with it and trying to figure the thing out, I'm just wondering how problems before PRCP could last for as long as some of these people are saying they have. Can the people just not get comfortable outside the airplane? Because as long as you are semi aware of what is going on when you're outside the airplane, all you have to do is let go and arch.

[Skydivesg 6]

Better than you..............

At least that's what your wife said. But she did say that wasn't to tough to accomplish.

Be the canopy pilot you want that other guy to be.

[JohnnyMarko 1]

not trying to sound like a hotshot (i'm not, i have 8 jumps) but im going through IAD and my 6th jump i did a clear and pull and got cleared for a 5 second delay on jump 7 and a 10 second delay on jump 8...my instructor said i did a good job at staying stable...could it be the instruction?

[kmills0705 0]

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not trying to sound like a hotshot (i'm not, i have 8 jumps) but im going through IAD and my 6th jump i did a clear and pull and got cleared for a 5 second delay on jump 7 and a 10 second delay on jump 8...my instructor said i did a good job at staying stable...could it be the instruction?

Good jump. That 10 second delay is an important milestone in your progression. You are starting to really get a feel for freefall. You are completely transitioning belly to early and hitting terminal velocity. This is where I have seen some static line students struggle with instability.

Keep it up! I would say it is the combination of instructor/student.

Kim Mills
USPA D21696
Tandem I, AFF I and Static Line I

[jimjumper 25]

I only took 32 jumps to get through Static-line. I got the bowling speach once. Of course, that was 27 years and 3500 jumps ago so I would say that anyone is eventually trainable. Some just take longer than others!

[JohnDeere 0]

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I only took 32 jumps to get through Static-line. I got the bowling speach once. Of course, that was 27 years and 3500 jumps ago so I would say that anyone is eventually trainable. Some just take longer than others!

Or that some are luckier than others?

Nothing opens like a Deere!

You ignorant fool! Checks are for workers!