skr

>I still have a hard time sleeping at night

I think this indicates that you are not drinking
enough beer. Keep practicing.


I'm not sure about this:
>and concentrating at work...

but this only lasts a couple decades:
>At first - skydiving was on my mind 24-7


>It is as if my body chemically changed...

Yeah, pretty cool, huh?

You'll be OK, tdog ...
(but keep practicing on that beer :-) :-)

Skr

This is not an answer to the original poster's
situation but every time I have dealt with PD
they have been really helpful.

Skr

>After this, I forgot what to do up until around 1500 feet

I think at this very early stage you should start learning
how to think ahead.

By that I mean keep asking yourself questions like:

- If I keep going like I'm going now where will I land?

- Where's the beginning, the "onramp" to my landing pattern?

- What do I do between now and later to get there?

You won't know the answers but keeping those questions
in mind while making jumps and gathering experience
will help you start to learn.

Along with this is to remember that canopies fly really
fast and other people seem to appear out of nowhere,
so keep your scan going rather than fixating on any one
thing.


>The canopy part scares me the most out of the whole jump!!!

Good! :-) :-)

The canopy phase is a complex situation with a lot of
factors and it takes a couple hundred jumps worth of
persistent effort and attention to start sorting it out.

Here's something I wrote once for new jumpers called
Wings Level

http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/c_wings_level.html


The physics and psychology of learning and toggle
techniques and large scale thinking for canopy flying
are the same everywhere, but local customs and situations
vary so latch on to a couple instructors you feel comfortable
with and learn from them.

Skr

>You can find it by doing a username search

How do you do a username search?

I remember when I first came here there was
a search like that over in the left column of
the main home page.

Skr

> has anyone ever seen or been in one of these?

Now why would anybody ... ??

Well, as G'Kar said, we all do things for the same
reason - it seemed like a good idea at the time.


I remember, 1964 I believe, we had cloud cover
at 2,000 ft so we were doing quick two ways and
separating and opening.

You could do that because those rounds opened
faster than today's long snivel squares, and also
you didn't need as much horizontal separation.

On one jump we rigged the other guy's rig as a
static line, hooked it to my left D-ring, climbed out
on the strut of the 182, and left side by side.

There was a brief moment of interesting facial
expressions as I started to sink below him :-) :-)

I grabbed air, he tucked up, I pulled and it worked.


I'm glad I was young once.

I'm glad I'm not that young any more :-) :-)

Skr

>when (general jump #s) do most new skydivers start
>a skydivind discipline

I don't know, it seems to vary quite a bit with the
personality of the jumper and the environment they
are hanging out in.

I don't find all these artificial categories and boundaries
very helpful anyway. People just make them up and
then somehow they get set in consensus reality concrete.


I think it makes more sense to spend a few hundred
jumps developing a good parachuting foundation
while traveling around trying a little of everything.

That way you can make a more accurate choice
if you feel moved to focus on one thing for a while.

And if none of it moves you you can always make
up something new. There's plenty of stuff that hasn't
been thought of yet.

Skr

> Uh. Yeah. How do you think I got here?

:-) :-)

I knew you were a goner when you told us
about delta-ing down the hill from Coit Tower
after your first jump.

Skr

> It took you all of eternity to arrive on this planet.
>When you exit, you're never coming back - ever.

>At best, with a lot of luck and good grace - you
>might get 75 years on this planet.

>Whatchya gonna do with it?


Eeeeeeee ... That's the question all right :-) :-)

Skr

>comments you might have about "market trends"

>How have things changed in the last few months,
>the last year, and the last few years.


I think each generation comes along and changes
the form, the surface appearance, of the activity
while the underlying essence, the human experience,
hasn't changed at all.

Right now the current thing is to divide the world up
according to body position, but you can come at it
from a different angle, like this:

http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/soc_ev_skydiving.html


Here's a short quote from that:

All this confirmed and enhanced some opinions and viewpoints that I have:


1 - We are now teaching people how to do Freefall

before they know how to make a Parachute Jump.


That's like teaching people how to scuba dive

before they know how to swim.


-----------------------------


2 - Skydiving has become main stream and the commercialization

of it is remaking the landscape. We now have a fifth kind

of person coming out to jump.


Many people divide the world according to body position or

type of activity, but I see five main categories:


#1 The artist, explorer, pioneer, innovator, questor.


#2 The recreational but totally hooked every weekender.


#3 The professional - movies, demos, jumpmaster, livlihood.


#4 The competitor - numbers/comparison in a restricted format.


#5 The mainstreamer - comes out 5, 10, 20 times a year,

maybe takes a week long skydiving vacation.


-----------------------------


3 - The question of exit order and separaton of groups is

complicated and will require training and education but

is within our reach.


Because the situation is complex the answer will not be

a simplistic, one size fits all answer.


The effort to create an informed consensus reality on this

really, really, really needs to be done.

I think competition and record setting is what causes
a particular form to ossify. Here's a post on that idea:

http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/fr_ref4_freedom.html

And here's the beginning of that article:

Freedom is not a body position.


It is not a maneuver either.


Freedom - discovery, play, exploration, innovation, fantasy

and

Body Position - sit, stand, face down, head down

are two orthogonal discussions.


Expressing freedom through the mechanism of new body position

or new maneuver has been tried several times before.


And it works for a while.


But then the forces of ego and competition step in and go through

a very predictable process.


First strip out all the interesting and meaningful but non

measurable stuff.


Then create a standard set of compulsory moves.


Then start promoting these events called meets, where the

competition is more important than the skydiving, and the

skydivers perform these compulsory moves for people on the

ground called judges.

I got pulled in other directions and haven't touched
that web site in years, but I still agree with those two
articles.

Skr

>I met Richard Petty once....

Ha! When I was in grades 5-12 my father's job
moved us to North Carolina and for us guys some
of our most admired role model / heroes were those
guys driving those funny looking cars whose back
ends stood way up when they were empty.

I never met any of them, but I did manage to drink
some really fiery, clear as water, cargo a few times.

Skr

> So, I've been busy articulating a new event

>What do you think?

Maybe while it's still experimental and not set
in concrete (funny word to find in a freefly forum)
you could let yourself be not so constrained by
the forms of the past.

The only reason it was 4 was to accomodate the
prevalence of C-182s.

The only reason it was restricted to such a rigid
pattern (hookup, transition, hookup, transition ...)
was the totally inadequate equipment used for
judging (telemeters).

You had to have really large, easy to identify events
(hookups) to call points because you couldn't see
anything smaller.


Maybe various forms of dance would be a better
model to take inspiration from.


Then again, if you are trying to create an FAI event
it may be easier to get it through if it looks familiar
to them (it looks just like 4 way except they are standing
on their heads).


But, since you asked, I'd rather see you guys set
yourselves free from your parents generation and do
what's possible today.

Give vent to your inner artist! :-) :-)

Skr

>a 752 way formation that it would go slow enough to land it

When I first heard this (mid 70s) the number was 172.

And the best comeback I heard was that if the rate of
fall gets slower and slower as the formation gets bigger,
until it's finally so slow that you could land a 172 way,
then why not dirt dive a 200 way and float up to altitude?

Skr

>That's SIR Roger Penrose

I know, but we're over here in the colonies you know.

Actually, while I was at Caltech I got to see Richard
Feynman talk a couple times, and once got to see
Paul Dirac standing there looking like nobody in
particular.

I'm not moved to say sir to anybody because of their
position, but I would say sir to these guys any time.


>Only one weak point in his resume - he left Cambridge to go to Oxford.

:-) :-)

I shall savor the full esoteric flavor of that remark.

Skr

> Gotta link to his touring schedule?

No, I looked around in google a little bit,
it must be out there somewhere.

If you do find it and go, go early. I went
a couple hours early so I could hang out
and look at books.

An hour and a half before the start I heard
them setting up so I went and looked. The
first row was already full and the second
row was half full.

It was worth the wait.

Skr

If you are interested in that sort of stuff he is
doing a book tour and he is a *great* speaker.

( OK, minor sanity check, I'm a 63 year old
( guy on a skydiving web site gushing about
( a mathematician .. glancing cautiously around ..
(
( is that OK? Is anybody going for a monitor
( with a butterfly net?
(
( No, couple strange looks, but I think I'm OK.


He's funny as hell and he does a really good
job of conveying something of his inner, intuitive
process.

That's interesting to me because I was a math
major long ago and have had an off and on
lifetime hobby of mulling Relativity and a couple
other things.

One thing that gets me is how unbelievably smart
these guys are. I can take something they have
done, and after a lot of thought and mull and pondering
I may get it at some level, but to have figured it
out in the first place ... it's just beyond me.

Skr

Yes, my first few jumps were from a Piper Cub,
and it *was* quite a journey climbing from the
back seat, over the pilot and out the door.

Wearing modern gear and sitting in front like
Derek said should be pretty easy.

Skr

On the conspiracy theory:

The two owners of Brush are in a fight about who is
going to end up with the dropzone.

There seems to be a view that USPA is taking sides
with one owner and using this base rig and airplane
situation to hurt the other one.

But it's not true.

That fight has been going on for a year or two and
whatever stage it's at now is where it would have
been anyway.

I believe people are taking the juxtaposition of
two unrelated situations as proof of some kind of
cause and effect relationship.

----

On the farmer question:

>kelpdiver
>
>Is this farmer so intractable that the offer of a $20 every time
>someone screws up and lands there wouldn't do it?

Yes.

When Steve and Maria started the dropzone the Brush airport
was on the verge of being closed from lack of use. Brush was
glad to have the dropzone for the usual federal funding and
jumpers spending money at local businesses type reasons.

The farmer had fenced off a large part of the airport property
so his cattle could roam there. The fence went right through
what would become the landing area.

Shortly after opening Steve took the fence down and started
cleaning up the landing area, which had become a dumping area
full of old machinery, big chunks of concrete with the steel
sticking out, and other stuff.

The farmer didn't like that.

Over the next weeks and months both the police and some of
the other neighbors told Steve that this farmer had always
been an extremely difficult person and his going after the
jumpers was just how he was.

"Farmer" is probably not the right word as Brush has only
sagebrush and cattle.

Students are strongly trained not to go there and it's
practically the first thing any experienced jumper
is told about.



>flyangel2
>
>Have you contacted USPA and asked for assistance? What do you expect
>from USPA, to attend court with you for breaking the law?

I don't know what USPA could do anyway. I drove out once
and went to court with a student who had landed there.
I wasn't going to do anything, I was just moral support
for the student.

It was totally cut and dried. After a few hours watching
other cases scheduled that day it was her turn.

The judge said "Did you land there?", and she said "Yes,
I'm sorry, I'm just a student and didn't know any better."

And the judge said "Well, don't do it again, and I'm tired
of getting these cases. Case dismissed." Bang!


I'm trying to picture DJan like in Ghostbusters standing up
and saying to the judge "Back off man, I'm a Regional Director!",
but it's not working.

Skr

I've realized that I can't say some of the things I said
and it's too complicated to untangle it so I'm deleting
all but the last line of this post.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I will tackle the conspiracy theory and the unhappy farmer
in the next post.

Skr

> I need some tips to get this fear thing out of my system

I'm not sure you can do that in any once and for all sense.

I remember on my second jump I was so scared on the
ride up that had I been able to talk I think I would have
said take me down.

Last year, 40 odd years later, I got a new canopy, and
spent about 60 jumps working my way through assorted
scary openings. I found myself riding up with a mixture
of fear, dread, reluctance, determination, and what not.


One thing that really helps me is what I focus on.

My mind is like a magnifying glass and whatever I focus
on looms large while other, equally true, stuff recedes
into the background.

There is plenty of perfectly reasonable stuff to be afraid
of: you can get hurt, get killed, go broke, lose relationships,
make social blunders, say stupid stuff, and so on.

And if you let your mind focus on that, then the fear and
dread of it is what you experience.


My mind goes there easily, but I'm wise to it now, and
one thing I sometimes do is take it by the scruff of the
neck and say: Right, thanks for sharing that, now let's
go over here and focus equally on how I know my gear
is right, I know how to be stable, and pull, and on this
jump I'm going to go like this, and then like that and ...


Sometimes all that sports psychology stuff doesn't quite
do it and I will do a physical thing that puts my energy
state in a more taking care of business mode.

My version is to squeeze/contract a sequence of muscle
groups: left foot, right foot, left calf, right calf, thigh, thigh,
butt, butt, stomach, chest, forearms, upper arms, neck.

I go through that sequence several times.


Maybe a better question is not how to get rid of the fear,
a negative formulation, but how to be in the best possible
state when you go out the door, so that if any of that
scary stuff actually does happen you're in the best
position to deal with it.

Skr

>I have my A. What will I need to do with almost a year out?
>I think I may want to do a tandem before my refresher.
>Does that make me a wimp?

:-)

No, I think it means, number one, that you recognize that
skydiving is dangerous as hell and you need to get all
the ways to go about it safely back at your finger tips,
and number two, that you listen to yourself and don't just
do what someone might say.

Those are good qualities.

If there's a coach or experienced jumper that you have
good rapport with who can give you a good review and
make you feel OK, then go that way.

Lots of dropzones do some version of a level four AFF
jump for this.

If you don't have such a person and want to do a tandem,
then do a tandem, but you're not a brand new student
anymore, and being a passenger may not be as helpful
as you think.


Which ever way you go come back to this thread and
tell us the rest of the story.

Skr

>I would like to know what are the cues that most of you use

Some are universal like the size of cars or the way
the horizon looks.

Others are specific to each DZ, the size of the runway,
other features that you learn.

But even at the same dropzone there are variations,
bright sunlight, clear air, haze, clouds, sun setting.

Even I seem to be different on different days.

I find it much easier to see when I'm tracking than when
I'm falling straight down.


It takes a lot of effort to develop and if you're doing
busy type jumps like four way I'm not sure you can
take your eyes off what you're doing long enough
to get a reading anyway (which to me is a statement
about doing busy jumps, but that's a different discussion).

I think it's worth developing a certain degree of eye
for altitude.

Like the first distinction is to be able to look down
and know: am I safe, or not?

And the useful degree of this is being able to recognize
four regions: I'm way up there, I'm safe but near the
bottom end of the freefall, I'm low but just barely, and
I'm really low and I need to pull my reserve right now
right out of the middle of this four way.

I think all students should be taught to see those four
distinctions.

Skr

I got an altimeter at around 1,500 jumps.

I used to practice a lot looking at the plane's
altimeter and then looking at how stuff on the
ground looked.

Cars were a good constant feature, but trees
vs desert vs over town took practice.

Some dropzones had helpful features like the
meadow on the hills at Elsinore.

Every time I got new glasses I would have to
re-calibrate my eyes :-) :-)

Skr

> Great stuff, thanks

:-)

Thanks. I reread some of it and there is one thing
I need to change some time. There are several
mentions of "the 45 degree rule".

I always used that phrase to mean watch the previous
group fall behind the plane, and when they are far enough
back, go.

That works when there are no uppers, and in the context
of people being taught to stare at the green light and
count 5 seconds, getting people to stick their heads out
the door seemed like progress.

In the last few years that phrase has taken on a more
rigid and deservedly discredited meaning, so I should
replace it with some other phrase like " the fall far enough
behind the plane rule" or something.


This is the wrong place to start an exit separation discussion
but just below the coach program stuff is a section that
starts with "Dealing with Uppers". It's at

http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/sg_skr_dealing_1_uppers.html

I think (I hope :-) :-) that's the last thing I'll ever say on
the subject.



I think USPA tried to cram too much into the A license.

What people really need in their early jumps are all the
parachuting skills. There is plenty of room in the B and C
license to develop all the other stuff.

Skr

> I would like help converting DZ to ISP. Any help would be nice.

Here's how I went about it:

http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/index.html#learning

The only real changes I made were to emphasize
the parachuting skills more heavily up front and
push the freefall skills more into the last half, and
to add a little room for enjoyment so it wasn't all
grim requirements.

Skr

For me it is many years of close observation
about what I like, what I want, what has meaning.

That gives me some idea of what "quality" might
mean, and involves a lot of shedding of false
shoulds and oughts that I've picked up, or made
up and inflicted on myself.

At one time technical quality was an aspect, but
that faded in the late 70s and other facets, like
vibes and sharing and art and human experience
and turning people on became dominant.

I think that is why I mostly jump with new jumpers
now, it is rich in the aspects that I experience as
"quality".

Skr