skydiverxl

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  • Main Canopy Size
    170
  • Reserve Canopy Size
    190
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    Cypres

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  • Home DZ
    Hilversum Netherlands
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    A
  • Number of Jumps
    201
  • First Choice Discipline
    Freeflying
  • Second Choice Discipline
    Formation Skydiving

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  1. The people of Performance Designs have posted a document on their website that describes a technique called the ' accuracy trick'. What it comes down to is looking down and finding the spot on the ground that remains at the same viewing angle while you descend to the ground. That spot is then likely to become your landing spot. It continues by providing some tips on how to reach a spot that isn't at that initial location. Hope that'll help. To read the article, go to http://www.performancedesigns.com/education.asp and click on the link titled: 'Survival Skills for Canopy Control' The article has actually a somewhat wider scope: it provides various tips for any moment between your tracking to the moment you land.
  2. Seems good advice, i'll try this 'at home'. So, if you do this quickly enough there no serious change in falling speed and thus no level change? Until now, i did this in sit position, but the rotation went so fast for me: i was head up before i could even try to get my body head down. Using your advice for getting into headdown position, would the 'ball up' step just be ever so short: just to 'break' the horizontal position and then straighten again for head down?
  3. I've also been practising freefly basics lately. I learned some stuff that i proved to be helpfull to me and others: - i was instructed to do some half backloop to get from belly down into sitting position. This is a valid instruction but what it actually means to me is that I, from belly down position, need to press my knees to my chest, buttocks pointing downwards, arms spread out wide. This position is very stable and allows me to easily extend into sitting or standing position. During sit, I keep my upperlegs spread as wide as possible, which is a very stable positon to start 360 degrees side-flips from. (my first successfull sit positions proved to be somewhat frightening: the air pushed up my rig in such a way that it was not hanging from my shoulders anymore. I actually needed to assure myself that my leg and shoulder straps were still there.) - i never did purposely use a technique to turn left or right in sit-position, it 'just happens' when i want to. I think that i use a combination of rotating and a bit of bending of my upper body. I don't use my head for turning, which is a good thing because i need it for other/better things like keeping an eye on my co-jumpers. - I'm currently practicing side and front loops. I suspect that i don't execute them quickly enough yet, because i tend to create a lot of horizontal seperation from other freeflyers. - these side flips are a prep for head down position, i hope to learn that in the very near future. Keep me informed on your progress and things you learn while doing it. Greetings Jetze
  4. Replying to anyone who has written here. I appreciate you comments on my first entry, so to give some response, i'll just tell you I started skydiving over a year ago. I was just fired from my job, had a good severance pay, i was feeling tired and had absolutely no desire to work. My sister insisted we should learn skydiving, and so we did. The training completed, there i stood, on the landing gear 3500ft high up. I was screaming under my chute. So with no work to fill my 40 hours, i started skydiving, with absolute devotion, had my first level quickly, bought my own set. After 15 jumps or so i broke my ankle. Did around 6 jumps in 8 months. After that i started jumping again, planned my re-intro carefull: even stayed in the plane on my first jump because it wouldn't go above my self-set minimal height. Second jump and i was hooked again, i found a friend to do FS-jumps with: hence my first entry in this discussion thread: a request for inspiration for practicing FS jumps. Did a lot of FS jumps together and i was starting to think that i was not doing badly with FS. So then an 9 day-event started: all skydivers from my local DZ go someplace else, with better facilities, to do some serious skydiving. That week started for me with some refresher/first FS4 course. And i flunked it big time. Screwed up many exits, and had mayor level problems making me griphorny: something i never had before that annoyingly. I even screwed up some bonus jump: a pretty good FS4-team was to do a jump with the four junior skydivers of the course. And there i lay 10 feet below the FS7. F..K F..K F..K!!! I needed to find a way to relax, so i continued with something i had played with as well, freefly sitting. On that day it was cloudy, a layer on 7000 feet en some at 4500 feet. I exited on 13000 ft, being last in the plane i tapped the pilots shoulder in the hope he would make a swoop down in front of me. I'd seen it on video but never saw it before. As i jump, belly down and he starts circeling around me, nose pointing below me, and we turn and turn, while the plan is close; i can see the pilot's face in the cockpit. At 7000ft he shoots away, and i see him flying of through.... and then under the clouds. I then 'sat' and fell down between those two cloud layers: some surreal sight. This was THE jump of the week. Last week I also did some cool jump with an experienced freeflyer: another mental skydive movie in my head. It's funny the way i relate to skydiving says so much about how i stand in life. For the moment: i'll stick to freefly mostly: it's fun. I will do FS again: but first i just play again.
  5. I guess you've never heard about Frightful the Freeflying Falcon. Admittedly, mostly a head down flyer though. A friend of mine told me about a documentary he saw on National Geographic about a skydiver and a falcon in freefall (like the linked picture). Does anyone know if there are some clips of that video available on ther net? I would love to see it. Gr Jetze
  6. That acrobat document was exactly what i was looking for: it's intro states: Don’t want to do the same old 2 ways you have always done with your mate before?. Some well designed dives preparing for the bigger FS4 work: ranging from simple side-slides to pretty complicated FS figures. I'll post this document on my own dropzone website (with reference to the source of course) which i maintain http://www.pcmn.nl. I recommend it to anyone wanting to learn better FS and having only one partner to jump with. (You know those early mornings when everyone is still sleepy and having only one thing on their mind: coffee!!).
  7. Seems to be just what i was looking for on first glance: i've just printed it and i'll read it while traveling to my dropzone this afternoon. I'll let you know if it was usefull to me ;-) Thanks so much, Jetze
  8. Yep i'm trying to jump with experienced jumpers with us. And once in a while i succeed and those jumps are then really really fun to do. My financial resources just make it impossible for me in going for some weeklong drilling course with a coach, so that's out for the moment. So there i am, on my dropzone, me and my friend and we want to learn: the only way seems a program on paper, we learn ourselves for the time being, find a camerman occasionally. So again: we can provide me with a good FS2 drilling program that prepares me for FS4?
  9. A friend and i have now made 15 FS jumps together. Since we're both beginners at FS, we made all the basic figures first (sidebodies, compressed, cat grips etc). And now how to go from here? Is there some FS2 training program that provides a good preperation for FS4? What about blocks randoms etc for FS2? And where to get that info? Any advice is much appreciated!