AFF Student Wearing Full Face Helmet

[Di0 1]

justinbaker27

I'm not looking to fight the system because I want very badly to be a licensed skydiver

I think you're looking at it wrong, you shouldn't be trying to "fight the system", the system in this case is there for the most part to protect you. And sometimes it means protect you from yourself.

Don't take it the wrong way, but you don't know what you don't know. I was in the exact same situation few months back, when I had a full-face and I wasn't licensed to use it yet, of course I asked why-why-why to every instructors around, hoping that somebody would have allowed me to use it at least on the solo jumps, after all I was only 3-4 jumps away from my license. And asking never hurt anybody. I probably wasn't even really trying to use it, I was more intrigued by why I couldn't use it for the sake of argument and because I needed to know what complications to expect WHEN I would have used in 3 or 4 jumps.

The set of reasons that they gave me made very good sense to me. First and foremost: already mentioned, a protek gives you the best impact protection. Since when you're a student, you're always under the responsibility of your instructors, even during solo jumps and even if you signed that scary waver, no instructor wants to see his students hurt. So they don't care how uncomfortable you might feel, or how much snort you spread around the sky, they only want to know that if you have that unlucky hard landing and you hit your head during your PLF, you noggin has the best protection possible, i.e. the standard, stupid looking, dorky protek.
Second, it can and it will fog. I didn't realize this until I had a few jumps with it and the weather became really cold. My visor doesn't flip and it became 100% fogged. I couldn't read the alti, I couldn't clearly see the landing area, I had to land blind, guess the turning altitude, flare blindly by only seeing a big green patch and a big blue patch. I turned low, I flared high at about 20 feet but I managed to get out of it without a bruise because I didn't panic, I had enough "muscle memory" to land without relying on the alti, I knew how to do only flat braked turns, I knew the landing area good enough to put the canopy in an empty area even without being able to clearly look at the ground, I knew how to hold a flare until impact without letting go and without stalling the canopy and I knew how to plf. Yes, I got talked to, yes, everybody got scared, yes, I totally fucked up a landing, but nobody got hurt because at that point I had few landings and I knew what to expect. An AFF student can do that? Maybe. Maybe not.
If your visor does flip open (that's the G3 case), then it might come open in freefall, it happened before and it will happen again. An AFF student is able to fix the visor while freefalling, while maintaining altitude awareness, not flipping out of control because he's using his hands on other tasks rather than flying the body, still focusing on the instructor and shutting back the visor in a reasonable time so that he doesn't completely throw the jump away trying to close a shield? Again, maybe. Maybe not.
And yes, a full face impedes communications, both verbal and non-verbal.

There are certainly advantages in using a full face: I love RW jumps and having a protection between my nose and my friend's shoe is very important. Also, especially in this time of the year, the wind blowing in your face is objectively a b*tch and it sucks. But that being said, for the most part using the protek is an unwritten rule in place for your best interest rather than something to make you feel bad about jumping.

Also, every student I met at some point will go into Full-Face frenzy and cannot wait until he/she gets off student status to wear the full face. I hear your pain, we all shared it, it's normal and, if anything, it makes getting off student status even more rewarding. :D
Second, you now deleted it, but I was able to read your experience that was far from ideal for a bunch of other reasons. So, I can see how this denial might add on top of your frustration, it makes sense. But for what I know, this is a "standard" routine, a non-issue, what you discussed in the other topic and you clearly don't want to discuss openly anymore since you deleted, is a much more delicate business and I won't go into details unless you want to, BUT the helmet thing is standard limitation for students and I wouldn't lose sleep on it too much.

I'm standing on the edge
With a vision in my head
My body screams release me
My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

[labrys 0]

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I don't have the air rushing up my nose or snot flying all over the place.

Enough has been said about the helmet. I'd like to also suggest that you check to make sure you're keeping your chin up. That'll improve your body position *and* reduce the amount of wind hitting you directly in the face and make it easier to breathe.

I never notice wind "rushing up my nose" when I'm wearing an open faced helmet, but I do notice that it's harder to breather when I have to look down... you might only be thinking that the wind is rushing into your nose because of that. I dunno...you might have an oddly angled nose

Keep your chin up. Literally.

Owned by Remi #?

[stratostar 5]

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I wasn't aware that in 120mph free fall you could hear anything anyways Smile lol. I thought that's why I spent all that time learning hand signals they put directly in front of my face. But if something is going that wrong that your taking the time to yell in my ear instead of instructing me or even pulling my chute that might be a different conversation.

Clearly you don't know shit then about what you can and can't do in freefall as an instructor or a student. Yes you need those hand signals for a good reason, that said....

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But if something is going that wrong that your taking the time to yell in my ear instead of instructing me or even pulling my chute

Guess what ace, yelling in your ear to ARCH as I flip your floundering fat ass around in the sky, is part of the instructor hand book and part of what you pay for, like good advice as to where to put your full face helmet.

Maybe you should spend less time worrying about wanting to look like a fashion statement and worry more about making skydives without such know it all attitude.

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I wasn't aware that in 120mph free fall you could hear anything anyways

clearly a lot of shit you are not aware of related to skydiving and skydiving instruction. Carry on.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[BIGUN 1,063]

justinbaker27

...and spent $370 so of course I wanna use it lol

Well, just fuck me.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[BIGUN 1,063]

Hey, Ron.

Used to own a 182 DZ. Agree. Smaller DZs are better to learn at. Larger DZs - much better for gaining skills. Used to drive the locals in these parts nuts when I would pat a student on the butt and tell them to head down to Skydive Dallas for a month.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[cbassmnm 4]

There is an incident in a parachutist about a guy with about 50 jumps with a new full face helmet. It fogged up under canopy and he couldn't get the visor up (gloves?) and ended up doing a 180 and smashed in the runway and got broken.
Coming open in freefall is not fun either.
Neither of these would be good for a AFF student.
After student status they are great.

[BIGUN 1,063]

cbassmnm

There is an incident in a parachutist about a guy with about 50 jumps with a new full face helmet.
After student status they are great.

Your logic statement broke.
Look, I'm not advocating a full face for all students, but the OP made it sound like he had a medical condition (turns out he had a want, not a need, more jumps than originally stated and was looking for validation).
The point was... on occasion we need to look outside the cookie cutter training program.
Turns out in this situation; I was mislead.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[JamMasterJay 0]

justinbaker27

I am pretty much always stuffed up

cheaper fix would have been to get some zyrtec and mucinex. address the problem...not the symptom

Truth is the distilled meaning of facts, for any truth refuted by a fact becomes a fallacy.