AFF Level 4 - Failed Twice

[MNM604 0]

You'll love the bomb out exit!!!!! As you said, relax and enjoy it.

[christelsabine 1]

Hi happy skydiver
& congrats from overseas! That's really fine news.

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy and good luck for the small rest
on AFF

Christel

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[SKYHIGH 0]

Join the club. It took me 4 tries on level 4 also.

I had a spin problem. I finally stopped looking all over the place and concentrated on a fixed point. Toe taps also helped. After that, ...magic.

[Randy_H 0]

Well... I passed AFF Level 6 and level 7 today!! After level 7 I've made 4 solo diving exits and LOVED every one of them! Next Saturday, I am going to try a pike, or a half-gainer, or a cannonball on exit.
We celebrated with my buying a case of Heines for the DZ.

Thanks again to all of the instructors at SkyDive Deland! Nicolai, Nikki, Scott, Pine, Pedro, Christine, Nat, Ray, Bob. Thanks again, you all are the best!

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[kelpdiver 2]

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Well... I passed AFF Level 6 and level 7 today!! After level 7 I've made 4 solo diving exits and LOVED every one of them!

6 jumps today?! Man, talk about an ironman (at least for a lowtimer). I did 4 once, and was definitely getting sloppy fatigued by the last landing.

[Randy_H 0]

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6 jumps today?! Man, talk about an ironman (at least for a lowtimer)

Well... I don't know about Ironman. I'm sitting in my office at my desk right now and the longer I sit, when I stand up my legs are all wobbly and are pretty sore. It must have been a combination of the excessive late night partying with people from the DZ at my house and the 6 jumps!

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[Randy_H 0]

Well... now that I am sobered up from the partying that went on into early Monday morning (and I am feeling it at work too, believe me!

I was trying to squeeze in every solo jump that I could get yesterday so I manifested on two back to back skyvans. I wanted to be on that sunset load and there was 20 minutes between those loads. So I quickly got over to the packing area and slipped one of the packers a little cash and said that as soon as I get down, I need them to get right on my rig so that I can get right back up. It is amazing what tipping the packer $5 can get you. Everything was planned and should work out okay, right? WRONG!

I got up on the first load and made my jump. Since I am below 100 jumps, I have a student landing area that I am supposed to land at. I was the only novice on the load and landed where I was supposed to. I'm standing there in the middle of the airfield in between two active runways waiting for the truck.....and waiting....and waiting..... The bastards forgot about me!! I'm out there yelling, whistling, waving my arms around, and airtraffic is coming and going. I stayed clear of the runways and several times though about hiking back to the manifesting area but I think it is against the law to walk across an active runway so I stayed put. They finally saw me and sent the truck out to get me. I then sprint to the packing area and drop my rig, only to look up at the monitor and see that the sunset load is going up in 1 MINUTE!! I sprint back over to manifest and tell that they forgot about me in the infield and that I am not going to make the load. They told me to grab another student rig with a 220 in it so I ran over and grabbed another rig. I was doing my gear check and putting the rig on while in full stride to the skyvan stopping only to put on the leg straps. I got the chest strap on at the door and quickly put on my helmet. I was the last one into the aircraft and KNEW that I wasn't going to be the first one out. I'm surrounded by groups of people doing 5 way sitflys so I quickly sort out who is doing what and who is pulling where. Everything worked out, I just let people keep going before me until my turn, which was right before the tandem jumper on the plane. Since I still pop at around 5k, I'm pretty much the last solo flyer out of the plane. I did the jump and loved every minute of it. The feeling of being free, one with the sky and seeing that setting orange orb setting the horizon on fire, the sky being painted with the orange, red and purple hues that come from natures finest pallet. It was beautiful and I look forward to doing many more sunset jumps.

On another note, I like having fun with people doing tandem jumps now. If I can see that someone is really freaked out and they are getting video done, I ham it up for their video and give them a special exit! My favoite exit for tandem jumpers is to stand with my back facing the rear of the skyvan, look the tandem jumper in the eye and say "see you on the ground!", then I wink at them, put my arms straight out to my side and slowly just fall backwards. It is great fun! On Thanksgiving, I am going to jump again and work on designing some kind of signature exit for myself.

I hope that all of the experiences I've shared here will help other AFF students who are having trouble similar to mine overcome.

Thanks again to everyone for all of the support and I owe you all .

Have a happy Thanksgiving (for those in the US) and see you in the skies!

Randy

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[pccoder 0]

It took me a long time to finally keep my legs extended. Jump in shorts ONE time and you'll know that your legs are extended when you feel the wind on your shins.

PcCoder.net

[Mixoligist 0]

You rock....
Congratulations on getting through AFF.
Now the fun begins.

Bob

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Better you than me
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[Reginald 0]

Good for you!

"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

[flyangel2 2]

Great news.

Side note. Please, please please, do not make it a habit to be rushed to get on loads.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey

[Jeth 0]

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Well... I passed AFF Level 6 and level 7 today!! After level 7 I've made 4 solo diving exits and LOVED every one of them! Next Saturday, I am going to try a pike, or a half-gainer, or a cannonball on exit.
We celebrated with my buying a case of Heines for the DZ.

Congrats, Randy! I'm so happy U got it!
Man, I have to say I am always blown away when I hear about you other students who are going solo after 7 AFF jumps. My program is 20 jumps, and I have to fly with an instructor until I graduate. And, really, thats fine with me cuz I couldn't imagine doing solo's by myself right now! (With no guidance) I totally love jumping out & flying unassisted, but I am glad my instructor is still there to plan the dive, be the steady one in freefall, and help with the landing pattern (if necessary). I think it would be really overwhelming for me at this point to be cut loose to do it all myself.

Anyway, great that you're doing so well!

"At 13,000 feet nothing else matters."
PFRX!!!!!
Team Funnel #174, Sunshine kisspass #109
My Jump Site

[Randy_H 0]

Thanks for the nice comments everyone!
I am still stoked about having finally finished it, especially with my sticking point at Level 4!

I plan on jumping on thursday, friday, saturday and sunday (weather permitting). I might try for 4 or 5 jumps a day, if my body holds up. I plan on working with my tracking a little more. An experienced jumper at my DZ said that I should work on tracking perpendicular to the flight path of the airplane on exit. I'm not exactly sure why, so I plan on asking an instructor about it.

One of my instructors gave me some ground coaching on the mantis position. I plan on doing some work with it as well. I plan on purchasing a complete rig from Skydive DeLand and taking Scott Millers canopy control course sometime in the real near future.

Oh, I am also going to do my 1st hop and pop from 3500 sometime this weekend. I'm not sure if I am going to use a poised exit or dive from the aircraft. I probably will dive and then hard arch. I think the primary purpose of a hop and pop is to get you used to exiting the aircraft and deploying at low altitude incase of an emergency?

If anyone is ever in DeLand, look me up. Hopefully I will have my A license by then and we could do some jumps together.

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[tdog 0]

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An experienced jumper at my DZ said that I should work on tracking perpendicular to the flight path of the airplane on exit. I'm not exactly sure why, so I plan on asking an instructor about it.

The reason I know of:

Gives more separation between you and others. If you track the same direction as the jump run, you could end up over or under someone. If you track perpendicular - you get away from everyone else.

[bob.dino 0]

Exactly.

Tracking up or down the aircraft's line of flight could leave you under or over another group. Not so much fun at deployment time.

edit: spleing.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Oh, I am also going to do my 1st hop and pop from 3500 sometime this weekend. I'm not sure if I am going to use a poised exit or dive from the aircraft. I probably will dive and then hard arch. I think the primary purpose of a hop and pop is to get you used to exiting the aircraft and deploying at low altitude incase of an emergency?

If you feel comfortable about it, do whatever exit you can do quickly, as if it were an emergecy. For my 3.5 (the 2nd), they shouted "get out of the plane," I hurled myself out the 182, did a forward roll, arched out and pulled. Under canopy at 3100. But that DZ had students do a trial run at 5.5 to get a little experience with a little extra air space if needed.

[christelsabine 1]

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Oh, I am also going to do my 1st hop and pop from 3500 sometime this weekend. I'm not sure if I am going to use a poised exit or dive from the aircraft. I probably will dive and then hard arch. I think the primary purpose of a hop and pop is to get you used to exiting the aircraft and deploying at low altitude incase of an emergency?

Hi Randy,
it can be seen like that. I had a British AFF instructor watching me when I did my hop'n pop at 1500m (this is abt 3.5k ft). I did it just after having finished AFF 7. He said he just wanted to see me doing the exit proper, arching, reaching, pulling as quick as possible. He counted the seconds.

No need to think about that jump. Just do it like you did with your last good jumps and it's OK. You should not have a look around , enjoy the landscape ... , just jump, arch, reach, pull! (And safely land)

Good luck

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[Randy_H 0]

I did my hop & pop today. No biggie. It was actually fun. I did a standard 'poised' exit, no showing off this time. I was out the door, stable, and pulling in 3 seconds. It's nice to now have the reassurance that in the event of an aircraft emergency I know I can get out the door and deploy quickly if we are at a very low altitude!

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[christelsabine 1]

Isn't that nice?

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[Morcyk 0]

This thread's probably pretty much dead by now, but reading the first post made me think of myself... and I'm 3 jumps behind the one mentioned.

They taught us to only have our head outside the otter in ground school and I was a bit weird about that as well. So when I went to actually do the jump the instructor told me not to do it that way. That was relieving until he told me he wanted all but my right hand and foot outside the aircraft. So now I'm thinking, are you crazy?! Anyway once I got into the doorway, I was concentrating on that exit so much, I forgot I was supposed to be worried and the exit went nice and smooth.

Also on the ground they told us to relax and now try to "brace" our fall with our hands, so naturally during freefall when I fell out of balance, I went ahead and stuch my hands out and made it worse. The instructor told me to relax, I did, and it fixed everything.

I was also repeatedly told to extend my legs, and just like you, I kept thinking... what's he talking about, they're already all the way out! Well I was down at the DZ yesterday on yet another too windy for AFP jumpers day and I mentioned that too an instructor who provided an at home exercise... just in position pretty much, but with the feet against the wall to practice extending them with some resistance. He said it's quite natural to feel like they're all the way out already and you just need to get used to how they feel when you're up there. That's why instructors are great! They let you know when your legs are in good freefall position (remember the feeling), when they're fulling extended (probably the only time you'll ever see them tell u to bring your legs in), and when you're moving backwards (the constant nagging to extend your legs).

Now I've only done 1 AFF jump so far, but I would expect that I should be able to feel the difference by the time I finish and I also expect to fail a lesson or two. It happens, but think of it this way. Rather than looking at it as I'm not good enough for this, think of it as... sweet I get another jump in with an instructor right there. While I don't particularly like being strapped to an instructor, it's rather comforting that they're there during the AFP stuff, even though I if they weren't right in front of me, I'd forget they were there, hehe.

[Morcyk 0]

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hey, at least you didn't chicken out and ride the plane down like I did!

I'm too much of a chicken to ride the plane back down. Having friends jumping with you really makes it seem completely unbearable to consider them watching you get out of the plane on the ground, hehe.

[kai2k1 0]

There is nothing wrong with riding the plane back down. Although I never have, I think it would take more balls to ride it down than it would to jump out of it.

There's no truer sense of flying than sky diving," Scott Cowan