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Thanks everybody! We checked our reservations and realized we were able to get a complete refund on everything so we've decided to reschedule. We'll likely wander out in February.

I'd be flying out Friday (4 days from now) and be there for 2 weeks. Thanks SO much for checking, it means a lot, I really appreciate it. That's reassuring news - I'd be curious to know where they plan on sending that 1 plane, probably to the dessert would be my guess, but that's a pretty uneducated guess.

Morning all - I've had a trip planned to Dubai (almost exclusively to jump the Palm) for almost a year now and you can imagine my reaction when I heard about the plane crash and that they're currently closed to fun jumpers. I'm doing my best to triage my trip right now - does anybody here know when they might start letting fun jumpers jump again or when they may get the plane repaired and flying again? I'm waiting on a response from the DZ but I just wanted to reach out to as many people as possible to try to figure this all out. Thanks everybody :)

Maybe I just had a bad experience, based on all the 5-star reviews, but Skydive Hollister sketched me out enough that I did two jumps and left. Here were my concerns: 1) During the briefing they completely neglected to inform me of the altitude offset between takeoff and landing areas. The landing area is significantly higher than takeoff area and could have resulted in dangerous AAD malfunction, pull altitude compensation, or landing pattern discrepancy. They only remembered to tell me when I specifically asked. 2) There was hardly any area for fun-jumpers to pack. It was the first dropzone I'd found that really made me say to myself "So this is what a tandem farm is like." It took forever to get manifested and I was clearly less important than the tandems. 3) Their attitude towards exit order terrified me. I was going to do a solo sit and two AFF instructors were taking an AFF student out. They argued that, since they were belly, they were going to get out before me. I explained that since the student would be pulling quite high it would make more sense for them to get out after me. They totally ignored me and said "We're belly, we get out first." I ended up giving them almost 20 seconds of space - I'd rather land out than hit a student under canopy. 4) The tandem instructor who happened to be on my load and road back to the DZ in the same car was super rude and unprofessional. He left a really bad taste in my mouth and I can't believe the tandem students in the car as well would have nice things to say. This was all in July of 2013, I don't know if anything has changed since then, but those were my impressions.

I have a wings as well but I'm not sure it matters a whole ton. I've always been told to "sit" in my rig but end up just kinda hanging on my leg straps. The other day, just because I had some extra altitude to play with, I pulled down on both of my front risers and when I let off and came out of the dive my leg straps had slid forward just enough to finally achieve that "sitting" position. Ordinarily I have a difficult time shimmying and repositioning to do it properly but if you can get your weight off your leg straps and slide them forward a bit I think you'll find them more comfortable.

Just weighed mine (same container, same reserve, Safire 2 189 for my main) using a digital luggage scale. 24lb 7oz

Are you even remotely close to a wind tunnel? If your big problem is stability then wind tunnel time is going to be the perfect solution for you, and WAY cheaper than all the jumps you're repeating.

Just a question.... with 152 jumps, if that is up to date.... do you not consider that "low jump numbers"? That jump number's up to date. When it comes to doing a barrel roll, no, I don't consider it a low jump number. When it comes to the grand scheme of life, sure, it's a low jump number. I'm a pretty humble jumper but I'd get a little offended if somebody looked at me and said "do you feel comfortable doing a barrel roll at the end of the jump?" Um, yeah, I've been able to do a barrel roll since AFF. Anybody with 50+ jumps should be competent enough to be looking around (left, right, and down) while tracking and capable of a barrel roll at the end. If that's truly your concern, that lower jump number people would have a hard time with it, then I don't think it's much of a concern. If the concern lies elsewhere, like messing with peoples' trackoff routines or it being unnecessary etc, then that's another story.

Hmm, I didn't realize this was controversial, interesting. Sunset tracking dives at my DZ always include a big long track and a barrel roll at the end but that's because we're dealing with 15-20 people. There also aren't any "lower jump number" jumpers that would be incapable of executing a barrel roll. We stop the track a bit early, do a roll, big wave, then pull. What would I have done in that situation? I'd have stayed on the jump, not corrected the LO, and done a barrel roll. Organizer is the organizer, what they say goes, and if somebody doesn't feel comfortable doing a roll at the end then they can scratch. I don't mind doing a roll.

Did my jump!!! It was awesome! The ride up was terrifying. Seriously. I was shaking and had TONS of adrenaline, I had no idea it'd be that scary. Once I climbed on to the edge, however, it became "skydive time" and I instantly calmed. Perfect backwards swan dive gainer :) Thanks for the advice, guys, it was a wonderful day.

I have my very first balloon jump coming up and I can't help but think about how I'm going to exit. Sure, I could just jump off, but I'm sure there's a better option. Right now I'm leaning towards standing on the edge, sticking my arms out (I caught a fish that was this big) and just falling over backwards. Anybody have any awesome exit ideas? I don't know when I'm going to get to do another one of these so I want this one to be muy excelente :)

It definitely fugulys up material. I bought a kit the other day and sprayed it on my shoes as a test. The shoes were black, now they're gray, which is fine because they still look nice, but any thoughts I had of putting it on my rig are gone. It's great stuff, works just like they say, but you'll want to put it on white stuff, not black stuff.

:( I'm beginning to warm up to -Joey-

Typically you'd look at your altimeter on your way from A to B, see that it wasn't dropping, and swing super wide away from the DZ to lengthen the leg. Also, knowing how little descent you're getting, you'd likely want to swing wide and adjust your altitudes for the other legs. Looping the pattern is definitely not the worst thing you could have done, but swinging wide is usually standard procedure (at least at my DZ)

Fantastic, the blind leading the blind. When your done advising over here maybe you can head over to the two instructors forums, I am sure we could use some insight on lots of things. I shouldn't be offended because hey, it's the internet, but I'm getting a little irked here and on DZ.com in general. I shouldn't have to provide my complete skydiving history and justification for every post in order to avoid being misconstrued as reckless and incompetent. I plan on jumping a camera at 200 jumps. I plan on having 200 jumps in August. Square 1 has discontinued their GoPro visor so supplies are extremely limited. Square 1 has no inventory, Chutingstar has limited inventory. If I'm going to buy it I have to buy it now, retailers are selling out their stock. Just because people with less than 200 jumps ask about cameras doesn't mean they're "blind," maybe it means that they're doing research and making sure that they don't rush into a foolish purchase without considering all of the ramifications. Perhaps, instead of jumping to the "he's an idiot and is going to kill himself and others" conclusion people should ask why the poster is inquiring?

That's actually what I ended up getting... ...for now. I FLY THE SAME CANOPY AS SKYGOD -JOEY-? I'M NOT WORTHY!!!

No secrets, you posted your own Cayenne 150 for sale in the non-secret classifieds, Then they aren't very classified, are they?

ITT: People voting with the aim of killing off -Joey-

You're my hero! That works great, I just used a Dremel and sanded a little half-circle into the polycarb right where the spring plungers are. Thank you so much!

Really!? I'll check this out tonight, that'd be a deal-killer-killer!

Lens won't stay up is a deal killer for me :( Thanks for the pros/cons list! I'm toying with something like this. The visor would open up under the camera. It looks like a snag hazard but the lever arm is so long that I'm thinking, if it does snag, it'd rip the mount right off the helmet.

Chill dude. I'm researching.

I'm trying to decide whether to get the Phantom X GoPro visor or to just put the mount on the top of my helmet. The visor looks great but my primary concern is that the weight of the camera/bracket would cause the visor to fall/slip down. The visor already tends to fall halfway down just by its own weight, I can't imagine the camera would help at all. I'm also concerned about footage under canopy - I imagine the camera points up at my canopy once I open it which isn't very compelling footage. So, what do you do with your Phantom X and GoPro? Thanks!

My case was similar - sitting in my apartment one weekend I realized I should probably be doing something other than just sitting in my apartment. "Wouldn't it be cool if I was a licensed skydiver? Not a lot of people can say that!" So, I signed up for AFF and did it. My first several skydives didn't give me that life-changing feeling a lot of people have, that sense of calm or fulfillment other people experience, but it was fun and I enjoyed learning more and more about just how many things were involved. It was the people that really made me stick with it, the sense of community. Now it's really just trying to get better, trying new things, and goofing around in the sky :)

I remember one of Joey's very first posts!!! http://tinyurl.com/Joye-SoFPiDaRF