dthames

Using the [inline file.jpg] code with an uploaded attachment shows fine in Preview but after Posting the image is only attached and note seen inline with the message. Thanks Dan [inline show-image-tip.jpg] Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

THIS!! Again, lots of good words of wisdom from other commenters too. My work load is fluctuating, but I'm considering a trip to Perris in January or February. Actually, when there isn't a big boogie or anything going on. Fewer witnesses to my inevitable rough landings and various idiotic moments. Sounds like a lot of it is "suck it up, buttercup!" Which is true. conquering the fear initially was part of what was so cool about it, but its been creeping back in faster than I expected. And this is definitely me: I was actually at Perris the weekend of the big wingsuit record, and was too intimidated to do anything. Wingsuiters should not intimidate you. We put our dresses on one leg at a time just like everyone else. I went to the Zhills New Years boogie with 7 jumps and was on AFF category C, as I recall. There were plenty of experienced jumpers there making fools of themselves enough that I was not concerned with my lack of skills. Actually when you are one of many that suck you stand out less. Like, "Oh another student faceplanting" instead of "Hold on, I want to watch THE student land". Beat down those things that try to hold you back and go after what you want. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Skydive Dallas is a few miles east of Sherman TX and a good place to both train and jump. I have to travel a bit to get there but it is a great DZ with a great staff. Welcome to the forum and the sport. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Flight path planning and flying the planned path, to avoid jumpers in other exit groups, are both very important. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I had a tough time getting started because of several reasons. I was not able to continue training at the DZ where I made my first jump. This was sad at first but later I felt like it was a blessing. Later (still a student) it was not a problem for me to go to any DZ, show them my log, they would want to do an evaluation jump, and then we could continue at that DZ. Don't be afraid to go to another DZ for a winter vacation or just for a few jumps to increase your experience. The longer you go without jumping, yes there is some concern with that. You can expect and should want to do some refresher training. Training and knowing your stuff will help your confidence and should reduce concerns. One thing you should do (my opinion) is to continue to study section 4 of the SIM. If you know section 4 inside and out, that is a plus! Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

From my limited time in the sport I have learned that Tandem, SL/IAD, and AFF have specific value for different types of students and different situations. I have spoke to people that would like to skydive and the idea of being solo on landing the first jump is not what they want. If that person knows their own self very well, then a tandem would be great for them to get experience while staying away from a situation that they know might not serve them well. I was slow to learn basic stability. AFF instructors didn't want to let me wobble around too much, which slowed my progress and made the costs go way up. I switched to SL so that I could learn at a different pace and so I would be more on my own. Many old timers insist that learning to fly the canopy well, before you start worrying about freefall skills has great advantages. (SL/IAD). "Not my first choice" might be a better reference to the method that is not your first choice. SL was not my first choice but ended up being the best solution for me. My wife is very supportive but doesn't jump. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

10,000 MSL ? Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

How did your jump(s) go Saturday? Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

If the canopy is inflated and stable but you have line twists.....with a wingsuit, this is what you can easily do. Look up and make sure you know where the nose is, relative to the direction that you are facing. In this example, you are flying backwards and you need to untwist by turning clockwise. You throw out your right arm. The air that you are flying through hits it at your forward canopy speed. Very quickly your right arm is now trailing you, as you have turned some 90 degrees. Pull in your right arm and thrust out your left arm, but be sure to extend it out and back a little so the wind will hit the front part of your wing to continue to drive you in the direction that you want to turn. It requires a bit of timing but it is not difficult. After two revolutions, you have enough rotation speed to stop with the arm thing and just let it unwind. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

The Foghead is rooted in the R Bird which in turn is a modified Raptor, they all are in the same family. If you are current and confident on a Raptor then a move to a Foghead should be pretty seamless. my problem is I'm 6 foot 4" 260 pounds without gear. I just get left in the dust on the Raptor. am I going to see enough performance increase with a fog is to make it worthwhile The Foghead has slightly bigger arm wings than the R Bird to balance it out. Travis dominates in it and he is shorter and only slightly lighter than you, which means with the extra surface area you would have from your height it should work our nicely. The Raptor just isn't a modern wingsuit anymore and a new generation suit of the same scale will perform a lot more. Agree with everything Simon said. There is another TS option though that might fit your needs. Instead of the Foghead get the R-Bird Pro. Same leg wing, larger arm wing. Big suit but easier to fly than those suits you see being worn by lots of the world class performance folks, Jedei, etc. The R-Bird Pro is big for general flocking however... And what Simon says about the Raptor is right on, I have finally put mine away for good because there are much better performing smaller suits. As an example, I have a Squirrel Swift with smaller wings than my Raptor that easily outperforms it... A friend of mine was flying his Rbird-Pro in a bigway flock which has a fairly slow forward speed. On those suits where the large wing is affected by bending your knees, slowing it down appears to be a challenge. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I would guess that a lot of people have no concrete way to evaluate their tracking skills, nor how to measure improvement. I did a couple of belly jumps last weekend, the first in many months. After I was home I was looking at my Flysight GPS data to evaluate my tracking. I wish more people had access to such data for training. I recently ordered a second unit so I could let friends use it. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Somehow my wife believes that I am better off happy. What a treasure! Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I was under a very stable canopy, that was twisted, and in a very slow turn. I didn't have experience enough to know to use the arm wings as leverage to get out of the twist. I unzipped my legs and tried to kick out. That didn't work because the drag of the tailwing then acted like a rudder. At 2000 I cut away (hating to because of a line twist) as trained. I had given it my best shot and was getting tired. That made it clear that it was not going to get better if I just kept trying. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I wanted a 190, which would put me at about 1.05. I wanted my own gear very badly. I found a used rig with a 210 when I had about 20 jumps. It was a good deal so I bought it and started jumping it right away. With the 210 I am at 0.93. I thought about trading it for a smaller one but you know, it has never let me down and has pulled me from not good situations several times. That is the only parachute that I have had. It still works very well for me and is very, very forgiving. I made a choice to fly lighter than most people. I wingsuit fly so I can put myself upwind on most jumps. If I did other type jumps that might put me downwind, my choice might be different. It is up to you but remember, it is up to you. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

DtHames What exactly is that software that you have? Looks interesting. Next time I jump I will try the brake challenge. Its just one more thing that I need to learn about my canopy. I only w/l at a 1.03 but I'm curiuos to see what it does. Starting with data from a Flysight, I use the Excel macro from http://hellis.me/ which does several things including creating a .KML file that can be opened in GoogleEarth. The image is from viewing the data on GoogleEarth. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Yes, 210 Pilot and very lightly loaded. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Maybe you should say, "all but the most docile...". I took the brake fire challenge. Nothing interesting happened. My "set" brakes do seem very shallow. It took about 20 seconds to come close to making one revolution. Min vertical speed was 2 MPH going into the wind and 8 MPH going with the wind in the spin. I gave up and headed to the landing pattern. [inline brake-fire.jpg] Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I will have to give that a try. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Just curious. I am at Dallas fairly often. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Where in Texas are you jumping? Welcome. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Someone mentioned TK's seminar, which I agree is helpful. You think you might need to sharpen up your turns, but too sharp or not sharp enough should be considered related to the local canopy traffic on each jump. On any given jump even the best canopy pilot will be landing in different places as a way to help accommodate those around him/her. Learning to be accurate without setting up over specific turn points and without turning at specific altitudes will help you be better when the sky is full of canopies. It is often like, "Based on where I am right now and where everyone else is, where do I need to go and how do I get there without being a problem for others?" It sounds like you are on the right track. More practice never hurts. The C license requirement is 25 landings within 2 meters. It is never too early to make your average closer to the target and you can start counting those now. Just be sure to log them. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Me too. I already knew my night vision wasn't very good, so I wanted to make sure I had as many things working in my favor as I could (more experience, VERY familiar DZ, incredibly well-lit landing area). As it was I had no trouble, but the DZ where I did mine brought in stadium lights, which are quite the beacon in an otherwise-dark area. I still only did the two for my D (having already completed the other requirements) and when I got down I said "Okay. Done. Never again. Can I have my fucking D license now?" Our jumpmaster said the same thing (2 is enough). She did a great job and then rode the plane down. I actually enjoyed it and want to do it again. I also have a more powerful headlight now too :) Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

I waited a long time before doing the night jumps that are needed for the D license. I saw people get hurt and I heard several stories that demonstrated how easy it is to end up landing somewhere you don't want to land and under conditions where you can't see well. So I cheated. I have a FlySight GPS unit that I set up with the FlyBlind feature to guide me to the DZ if I could not visually identify it. I put a head light on that would allow me to see the ground in case I was away from the lighted area. I was able to see the DZ for both jumps without issue. On the second jump someone was on a long/early base leg when I was on my downwind. It looked like we would come close to each other. As I move over and behind him, I put myself out of position to land in the lighted area. With the moon behind clouds, the headlight came to the rescue. It kept me out of a tree line that was close to where I landed. Be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

Come back after 3 weeks and have... 50 jumps, pretty rusty 100 jumps, less rusty 200 jumps, not too bad etc It is hard to say when a given person will be "better" or good. You should see some fair improvement by 70 or so....just guessing. Unless it takes you 4 years to get 70 and then you will be rusty 100% of the time. Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”