bochen280

Most of the DZ in my area has a weight surcharge, it is just like how Fedex/UPS has fuel surcharge these days. With gas prices so high aviation fuel isn't cheap either so I understand why they have that in place. Plus when the government puts in place the 100 dollar per flight tax all skydiving is suddenly going to get a heck of a lot more expensive. In my logbook I think the equipment used was a 366. Maybe they didn't have a 400? It would have given me a slower fall rate for sure... but then again my feet were still not positioned correctly... I think towards the last few seconds before impact the TM had stressed so much about getting my feet up in the air to avoid faceplants that all I was thinking about and preoccupied about was using my arms to grab on to the leg grabbers on the side and pull up as much and for as long as possible... mentally I just "froze" (not as in panic, more like idling) in that state... On retrospect, I don't know what I was thinking would happen, that he'd do a stand up landing and hold a 200 lb person in his front kangaroo pouch? Of course not... it is obvious that laws of physics dictate we (at the very least ME) would either topple over hard or butt hit the ground the last few feet... I'm lucky I didn't break any back bones... The thing is I was not briefed what to do in the above situation... all I was told is to wait for his signal to "standup"... but that call never came, and by the time he told me we were doing sit down, already splat... and I had no time to even think about getting my feet in a better position to absorb forces on impact. Being a guy that is the reason I don't want to do tandem in the first place. I wouldn't mind doing it if I was a small petite girl... but seriously tandem is kinda gay for a guy to do... and it is not even a real skydiving... I know control is an illusion, but if I'm going to get hurt I want to be responsible for hurting myself... not put my fate in some TM - no matter his level of experience. I've seen some very soft tiptoe landings on Youtube... it almost seems like they were literally stepping off an escalator... that is a real ideal landing.

I just did my first jump (tandem) this Monday so I can understand what you must have went through... For me, the jumping out wasn't so scary as it was the anticipation of jumping out. Frankly, I think jumping out of the plane myself as opposed to with a tandem instructor is actually less apprehensive. Went he placed me on the edge of the plane with my feet sliding out it felt like I had nothing to hold on to and could prematurely slip out of the plane before we were all mentally ready. My arms were told to be crossed across my chest, my feet were dangling out the aircraft, being blown backwards by the 90mph winds, and the tandem instructor deliberately set me RIGHT on the edge.... almost like the slightest nudge could trip me over.... it is the same feeling you get when you are standing unbalanced at the very edge of a swimming pool, just waiting for your friend to give you a gentle nudge to push you over the edge.... whereas opposed to you deliberately jumping into the pool when you are mentally and physically ready... All things considered, I think jumping out of the plane yourself is MUCH less apprehensive... simply because you are in control of your own emotions, the timing, and there is nothing unexpected. The anticipation is removed from the equation, because you know when you are ready. As we all know actual free fall at terminal velocity feels like floating on top of a cushion of air with a wind tunnel being blown at you, hardly "scary" at all... and the scenery below is so miniature, so far away and so seemingly abstract, distant and removed that you don't have any sensation of height or fear of falling... For me as a first time jumper, I had imagined that second only to the actual act of jumping out of the plane, that the few seconds of "falling" (before reaching terminal velocity and stabilizing into an arch position) would be most scariest.... in that it would feel dizzy, disorientating, and like that empty stomach feeling you get when on a roller coaster ride that suddenly plunges down or even in fast elevator that goes "down"ward.... Surprisingly, I didn't experience this unpleasant "falling" (zero-g) sensation... I think this can be attributed to the fact that unlike jumping off a building or in one of those roller-coaster rides that drop straight downwards, the moment you exit the plane there is already 90mph winds blowing at you, and that lateral wind creates a vector g-force that eliminates the unpleasant effects of "zero-g" and the empty stomach feeling that comes with it all... And before you realize what happened you are already a terminal velocity in freefall anyway... For me at least, it was actually LESS disorientating/dizzy than some of the batman rides at Six flags that I've been on. If you are scared about jumping out of the airplane do some visualizations... think of it less like falling off a tall ladder and plunging towards the ground (I'm more scare of heights than anyone I know) and more like you are an astronaut in orbit around the earth and doing an extravehicular excursion. Pretend you are in the confines of very high altitude or "outer space" and you are leaving your space capsule to do a spacewalk, and that the freefall is simply you are doing a reentry back into the atmosphere in your heat-shield enhanced spacesuit. Once the chute opens just think of yourself as a glider coming in for a landing. After all, altitude is just a matter of attitude. It all depends on your perspective and frame of reference anyway.

normiss, my legs didn't really go to sleep. I could get them up, just not up enough to the point that my instructor would have liked. I felt and saw them pulling up, but he kept telling me he couldn't "see them"... I know the sensation of legs going to sleep, but this was not the case. I think the tight straps and the fact that I was suspended in the air with those straps that were seperating my legs made it very hard to keep them together... and pulling my legs up to that extend and with that duration required stronger abdominal muscles than I had. For solo landings, how does one "know" the timing of the flare, how much to brake, and when to start "running"? I guess it all comes with real life practice and runs a risk no matter what? Are there any water landing DZ for AFF? There is nothing safer than a soft water landing right? Though, being in Texas that is probably not practical... we dont' have any oceans around here...

peregrinerose, no I'm not an engineer. I work in IT but definitely not a geek. This is going to sound weird, but even though I purchased the packaged that included everything, I specifically told them to put away the cameras and that I didn't want the camera man. I didn't go there to make "memories", and I don't think the "first time" is any different than the nth time... I just wanted a jump experience. I've always been camera shy and didn't want the annoying camera jumper to be distracting me from the already short free fall time that I did have. So no, nothing was captured on video or photo. The reason I purchased the highest level package is because I didn't want to get stuck in "classroom" for long periods or wait after everyone else (this was a last moment thing where I scheduled the day before, so I would have been LAST on the list to jump)... in actuality had I known Monday's would be so light in terms of tandem passengers then a standard jump would be just the same. Yeah I didn't even think about the tripping over each other's leg component of that... if we were both doing running landings at the same time, that very well might have happened. Tandem is definitely not a passive roller coaster ride. It just seems if there are pros and cons and risks with both methods involved I'd rather do solo on my own.

I'm from the TX area and earlier this week was my first time skydiving. I wanted to do my first jump solo but unfortunately was told by the DZ that that was only offered on the weekends. So I went with a tandem jump instead. When I got there, winds were calm, clear skies all around, absolutely beautiful weather and temperatures. The tandem instructor I was paired with happened to be one of the more experienced, with I think 5,000+ jumps. He briefed me on the basics, put me in a blue jumpsuit, and I had to put on that silly looking hat... basically it was pretty fast paced in less than half an hour after I got to the DZ we were already up in the air (not a lot of other tandem jumpers that day, so loading went quick) The jump itself went perfect. I arched when I was supposed to... everything was stabilized. The instructor didn't forget to deploy the drogue chute or miss a strap or d-link. Freefall was by far the best part... but I honestly felt it was way too short. I understand for safety reasons (in case he had to cutaway) tandem pulls happen at 5,500ft... but I don't think our airplane ever reached the max of 13,500 ft when we jumped out... barely even 13,000ft... I would have liked longer freefall experience. But oh well. Even though I had those goggles on and was wearing them correctly, I lost a contact lenses on the way down during free fall shortly after we reached terminal velocity. I have no idea how that could have happened but I guess the wind must have went in on the sides. During the glide down to earth the straps felt way too tight for comfort... The instructor said that was to prevent me from falling out... I didn't believe him until I got home and researched this and found out there were passengers that have fallen out of their tandem suits/harness before.. Landing didn't seem a big deal at all until I hit the ground and broken/sprained/fractured my ankle really badly... I've been basically resting the last couple of days and had some time to think about how this incident might have happened and how it could be or could have been avoided or mitigated. At only 5'11" I'm actually at least three if not four inches TALLER than my tandem instructor. I didn't weight him but they DID weight me, and I was at 199lbs (just under the 200 limit were I would be fined extra for the jump, and 11+ more lbs I wouldn't have been able to jump at all) I'm not fat or rotund, just heavy. I mean it doesn't help matters that I was both taller and heavier than my instructor by a significant amount... not only does that tilt the center of gravity, it also means a faster fall rate (harder landing) and who knows I have a big head (no kidding, they had to get me the largest hat and even then it barely fit) and I might have blocked some of his visibility... Between the tight straps, the jump suit and just the overall position of being suspended in the air during the glide to final approach I really had a very hard time of "bringing my knees up", or "bringing my legs up" and then "pointing my toes towards the ground"... During the brief classroom instruction I was told to keep both my feet and knees together, bring legs up during landing, and keep toes pointing forward... That was easy to do under normal circumstances, but in that suit and with those death grip straps it was nearly impossible to do... I told the instructor this prior to final approach and he told me to use my hands and grab onto those funky looking green tube-like things on the sides of my leg/thigh on the blue suit itself to basically "pull myself/my legs Up" ... I did this during his flare and I thought everything would go smoothly... Then he surprised me by saying that we are doing a sit down, at the very last moment.... next thing I know my butt slams the ground, and seemingly at the same moment my right foot/ankle got hurt really bad. On our way down I chatted with him a bit about the accuracy of his landing ability... he told me he had a stadium rating or something like that and could land within meters of where he intended to land.... I took that to mean he could also provide the softest landing possible... I was less concerned about accuracy and more about gentleness on impact with ground. During classroom he briefed me on the procedure for a standup landing, but not a PLC (I didn't even know what that term was until much later when I read the SIM about types of landing techniques) ... so went he told me we were during a sit down at the very last possible moment, I had no time to react, and even if I did have time, I wouldn't have know what exactly to do.... I think all that coupled with the fact that I've never been a very flexible person (in terms of legs, stretching, arms, etc) meant that under those tight straps it was not possible for me to keep my feet closely together, and I could only bring up my legs with the help of my arms, and when pulling up by the side of my jumpsuit on each side of the thigh, this caused my feet to orient outwards/split.... (as opposed to ideally be straight and pointed directly forward) and on impact that was what strained/fractured my ankle/foot.... The instructor was so concerned about a possible "face plant" (that was what he called it) if my feet hit the ground first and we toppled over, that he obsessed about getting my feet up to the point where I forgot the actual landing/impact and the position/angle of my feet upon impact. There was a girl beside me doing tandem with another instructor and she had a stand up landing and I felt really bad about myself. I never intend on doing tandem again (in fact I never wanted to do tandem in the first place, but it was the only option under those circumstances) Is solo landing any easier? I see others doing perfect running landings, stand up landings at the DZ all the time that morning when I first drove in..... it doesn't seem that difficult at all.... Ironically, is tandem landings more dangerous than solo landings if the passenger is both taller and heavier than the instructor? I see videos on the net all the time when this petite lady just rests on top of her bigger, taller male tandem instructor and she just lands as light as a feather..... in my case it was lopsided and I was larger than my instructor, and believe me it was NOT a soft landing by any means. Would landing have been easier had I done this on my own instead of worrying about making sure my instructors feet landed first before I was allowed to make contact with the ground?