Diveplan

[bertusgeert 1]

For those of you who want to...help me out....

I have 34 jumps, have attempted sitlflying on 5 of them with ff safe gear.

Now, back at my usual DZ, we are getting the Turbine Westwind in, more altitude than we usually get. I still rent the DZ's student gear.

I want to freefly as much as possible, but some people tell me avidly never to try with student gear. Others tell me its ok. For safety's sake, I will then not try to FF.

So what is a good diveplan for me? I wanna do a lot of jumps, but dont wanna just jump out and go la la la, doin whatever comes to mind. I want to learn and work on something, put my money to good use. There isnt anyone else there at my level that will jump with me either.

So what can I work on? What is a good diveplan? (or 5!)

Thanks

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As jy dom is moet jy bloei!

[DShiznit 0]

I'm sorta in your same shoes. Get with another jumper that has more exp and practice two ways. That's what I do. :)

[karenmeal 0]

Do RW jumps in small groups! If you get people to jump with you who have more experience, your skills will increase tremendously!

If you want to freefly later on down the road when you have safe gear and more jumps.. a good solid foundation of RW will be invaluable to you. The same skills and concepts from RW apply to freeflying.. and they are much easier to learn in the lower stress environment of being on your belly.

So go make some RW friends and buy them some beers and get some free coaching out of them. (Thats what RW people are there for... right??)

"Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

[panzwami 0]

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Do RW jumps in small groups! If you get people to jump with you who have more experience, your skills will increase tremendously!

If you want to freefly later on down the road when you have safe gear and more jumps.. a good solid foundation of RW will be invaluable to you. The same skills and concepts from RW apply to freeflying.. and they are much easier to learn in the lower stress environment of being on your belly.

So go make some RW friends and buy them some beers and get some free coaching out of them. (Thats what RW people are there for... right??)

Yeah, totally. See if you can find some small groups of people to do RW with, and plan your dives around certain skills. Try side-sliding on one jump, up/down movement on another jump, backing up on another, etc. If you're jumping with other people around your skill level, you can each help each other get a grasp of those various skills.

Freeflying is a lot easier to learn if you are completely comfortable with your RW skills first. Remember, all freefliers are RW fliers for at least a few seconds of each skydive.

[flypunk 0]

I have to agree on not freeflying with student gear, have patience. As far as sitflying or trying to sitfly at 34, I will say rock on, and enjoy once you have proper gear.

Keep in mind that freeflying is exactly that, dont loose focus while trying to accomplish a "sitfly". Freefly is everyway to fly your body not only sittin or on your head, and the best way to get good at it is to have a good and solid RW foundation.

The advice on keeping it small is the best thing I can agree on, when you have more than one person to focus on your concentration tends to drop.

Keep it small, keep it simple, keep it safe.

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[HRHSkyPrincess 0]

Learn that RW stuff first and learn it well. It will only increase your abilities to freefly. It's all about being in command and control of your body. Freefly speeds are faster than RW and things can go wrong faster, too. You should have all the necessary equipment, which would include an audible altimeter, among other things.
I certainly would not recommend anyone freefly with student rental gear! Ever. Student gear is designed for belly to earth, deploy deploy deploy!!
When you're ready to sitfly, etc. get with someone who is very good at it and has excellent safety practices. Have fun...be safe...have more fun.

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Attitude is everything!

[HRHSkyPrincess 0]

Uh, what's with that A License number?

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Attitude is everything!

[DownWind 0]

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Do RW jumps in small groups! If you get people to jump with you who have more experience, your skills will increase tremendously!

Karen,

I couldn't agree more. I plan on working on my RW skills this season. One of the AFF instructors (thanks Tim) at Techumseh recommended drill dives with one other person. Just get out of the plane and concentrate on flying around the other person taking grips on each side.
I am tempted to the "dark side" by the awesome freefliers we have, but am personally more comfortable knowing that I am developing solid RW skills first. Oh and canopy accuracy as well....see screen name.

[adrenalinejunki 0]

I am kinda in the same boat you are! Are I can get to jump is rental gear that is old and not safe to freefly. I nailed the sitfly in the tunnel but have yet to be able to try it in freefall. So I just get as many RW jumps as I can right now until I can afford freefly friendly gear. Tried head down a few times and only got it the first time (by pure luck!). The bad thing is that there were no witnesses!

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What's the worst that can happen?

[TrickyDicky 0]

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Student gear is designed for belly to earth, deploy deploy deploy!!

I agree with throw-away, but I would have thought student geer with ripchord gear with good reserve pin protection would be more FF friendly that most gear.

Have you seen some of the shit some AFF students get up to? Olav would be proud.

Come to peterlee and we can show you the funniest AFF ever.

UK Skydiver for all your UK skydiving needs.

[riddler 0]

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I want to learn and work on something, put my money to good use.

You are underestimating the value of good belly skills. I know damn good freeflyers that can't track for shit. Guess what? When we FF together and break off, I'm doing all the tracking away from them, and I've still had one or two close calls. These days, I don't FF with someone unless I know I can get away from them, and they away from me. Work on your tracking, and you won't have that problem when you start freeflying with other people.

NoShitThereIWas! About the same number of jumps as you. Sitflying with rental gear. Two-way with a pretty good sit-flyer. 8,000 feet, I see his eyes get really big, and he moves away fast. Bam! I'm under canopy at 7,000. What happened?? Turns out the BOC spandex on the rental was loose and the PC came out while sit-flying. My partner saw it and wisely skedaddled. A lot of rental gear is old crap that is poorly maintained. You should get your own to save money and for your own safety! There's a reason people are telling you not to FF the rental gear.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[bertusgeert 1]

Ok guys, thanks a lot for all the advice!

Note: When I did sitfly, I made SURE my gear was FF safe. This was at a big DZ with experienced folks, and talking to the FF coaches with thousands of jumps confirmed that it was safe. Thanks for the concern though. I understand how dangerous this can be if not attended to properly.

As for the Audible, I understand as well. When I did sitfly I made extra sure to be altitude aware. I went belly to earth at 6,500 to avoide any problems with this (goin low). I talked to the coaches on that one too, and they told me to just make supersure, and to not lose awareness.

Tracking is definatley something I am working on a LOT. I want to be able to throw a super-track everytime I break off. How does this help in eventually flying a wingsuit?

Everyone here is telling me to jump with someone else. But like I said, its hard to find anyone. More kissin ass and buying beer I guess! I will try to get everyone I can to jump with me.

Now...

I had a few freeflyers tell me that if I can (gearwise) start freeflying, (and if it is my end-goal) to go ahead and do it ASAP, and to not worry about RW. But I hear a lot of people saying that RW is important as well, and I need to establish it.

I formed this idea about it.

If I can FF, I will. If I cannot, I will do as much RW skills as possible, learning stuff eventually aplicable to FFing. (like tracking.) I will not be interested in big ways or 4 ways or any belly if I can FF, so there isnt much use in learning RW for the sake of RW, but only in learning RW for the sake of applying it to FFing.

I also see myself doing at least a few BASE jumps later on in my career, so opening high and learning as much about my canopy as possible is also important to me. Even for the sake of just enjoying it, and later getting into CRW. For right now, just learning as much as possible while being as safe as possible.

In the end, thankyou for everyone's input and concern. I love having a plethora of experience to pull from here online, much more than is available to me at my DZ. Everyone here has been very helpful, even in telling me that I SHOULD NOT attempt things, and By all means attempt other things. Thanks yall, it helps a lot. (and I do take eveything into view of how many jumps ppl have, and do verify everything I will be doing with my super safety conscious S&TA DZO!)

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As jy dom is moet jy bloei!