melanie91

At my dz beer light is on when the last lift has landedand the plane hhas been brought into the hangar... I think this makes sense because it's still an active airfield until everyone and the plane has landed. If an incident occurred on the last lift or while the plane is landing it would be better that the beers weren't already out.

Since you're going to be there before your 40th birthday then it really isn't going to be hassle.... And I definitely agree with the above post - our regulations may seem pretty strict but they are proven... I personally like the extra safety, and we still manage to have fun!

Yeah, you have the right attitude. Just remember if you're not comfortable with something, ask BEFORE you jump. This is especially important if you're not jumping every single week. When I was a student I made the mistake of not asking my instructors to go over canopy flight again before one of my jumps. Luckily my radio worked and I didn't have an incident, but it could have been different. . The feeling of being under canopy not knowing what I should be doing, and having to wait for the radio to instruct me was terrifying and after that jump I made sure that I was 100% comfortable before deciding to get in the plane. Good luck on your next jump :)

You should have been trained not to rely on the radio and your training should have included plenty of time spent on how to fly your canopy, your pattern, how to land safely, how to deal with challenging conditions etc... It can be overwhelming on your first jump but you should go back to your instructors and ask them to go over the canopy control lessons again so that if you're caught without a working radio again it won't be a big deal. Glad you enjoyed your jump :)

Dare you to tell your instructor you're not taking his advice because you read some comments on dz.com ;)

Skydivers in Britain jump all year round and our summertime is colder than plenty places in the US at winter (some places even jump all year round using doorless c206s!) :)

No offence to Brian, but I was also wondering what the message was.......

What's with the past tense? Static line is still used, and I've seen quite a few instances of radios failing/students not hearing them and at least 75% of them landed safely on the dz. Just about all of the rest landed safely but off the dz; and a very small number sustained minor injuries on landing either on or off the dz. This has been in the past 5 years and it's a reasonably small landing area.

Are you not able to jump between now and Christmas? I'm just thinking you could easily get your ch2 and jm1 before then in the UK.... I'd definitely recommend going abroad over your Christmas break as it does get really cold here, and going abroad tends to be fun anyway! How about skydive algarve? I don't actually know of they're open over Christmas but it's worth a look....

Am I right in thinking you're encouraging potentially very inexperienced jumpers who have just gone through the trauma of a malfunction, now under a reserve which could fly quite different to their main, to then deliberately land off the dz?! I'm not gonna bother listing the hazards and dangers of this, but surely the priority should be to land safely, not to recover gear....

My old spectre 150 had packing tabs. I always wondered why since it was recommended to pro pack the canopy.

To give yourself a year and a half to save for a new one....?! I did exactly that not so long ago.

Have a chat with your instructors :)

Ah OK, I'll let you off then :P

Am I interpreting this correctly? It sounds like you're saying you're holding off jumping until you come up with something good to do for your 100th..... I you think of something cool to do it's gonna be an awesome and memorable jump anyway - the number 100 is gonna have nothing to do with it! My favourite jump so far has been doing a Mr Bill - this was supposed to be for my 200th jump but it was perfect weather, I wanted to jump all day and my mate I was gonna jump with wasn't around until later so I think I actually did it on 204. But what does it matter - it wouldn't have been a better jump just because it was done right on 200! Sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick, but I've seen quite a few people holding off so they can do something different on a "milestone jump" and I personally don't really get it.....