FlyingRhenquest

Yadda Yadda not a doctor yadda yadda _> You can still get Primatine tablets over the counter, and they seem remarkably good at clearing out your sinuses, despite the warning about being for asthma only. Assuming you're not too picky about running the risk of having a stroke. Just sayin'... If I were giving medical advice, this would be HORRIBLE advice which you should COMPLETELY IGNORE. Yup. I imagine you COULD clear your ears in freefall. I don't know if I've ever done it. I picked up the habit of doing it instinctively while snorkling in Hawaii as a boy. I don't swallow or anything, I just kind of hold my breath and force the pressure to equalize. I can't quite figure out what I'm doing in my sinuses to make that happen, but I can't do it without holding my breath. I think I'm making part of the motion of a swallow without actually swallowing. Lucky you, I've had to land twice now. First time we were at 5000 feet, a hop and pop just jumped out and the wind gusted to 30 mph. The pilot turned us around and landed. Apparently the hop and pop had a rather... exciting... landing. The second time I was at 9K feet on my own pack job for my A license requirements and the wind gusted to 30 mph, and stayed that way for the rest of the day. So the packers had to unpack and repack my parachute, and I had to pack another one the next day! Both times I kind of dodged a bullet and was told by the people who did jump that I really didn't want to land in those conditions, so I don't mind so much. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I'd have demanded extra credit for that one! "Well I pulled when you told me to!" I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I spent 6 minutes in the tunnel after failing my level 2. It definitely helped me with turning and holding a heading, although it still took some time for my eyes to adapt to the big blue sky instead of the guy 10 feet away in the video booth. It's also pretty fun in its own right. Up to you, though. Planning a house purchase next to the dropzone: priceless! There are a few places here where you could walk over to the dropzone in your bunny slippers and bathrobe, while sipping on your morning jo, and all the people who own them seem to hate the airport. I wonder if any of them would be interested in a trade... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

How is that possible? If you wave off at 'X' altitude, and then have 1000ft opening, then it would be the altitude you burned waving off + 1000ft showing on your Neptune. You're doing something like 150/160 feet per second at terminal (conservatively). So if you take 2 seconds to wave off, you'll burn through 300 ft right there. If you're seeing 1000ft lower, that's a 700ft opening. If you're seeing 750 ft, that's a 450ft opening. A 1000ft opening is very, very slow, and very long for an opening. It's abnormal, and as mentioned above, much more scientific or standardized means of measurement is needed to make this thread worthwhile. Sorry, Neptune's all I got and it doesn't tell me when the parachute starts to deploy. It also clocks my average fall speed on my average freefall at around 140 mph. My instructors verify that they've seen me falling that fast or faster (I've had a couple say 170, still not sure if I believe that.) I could always check the Neptune again right before I pull and right after the parachute deploys and that might shave a few hundred feet off my estimate. Hmm, and they ARE open tomorrow... Yes... I MUST jump... FOR SCIENCE! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

According to my Neptune, I'm usually in the saddle around 1000 feet lower than when I wave off. So I'd guesstimate 750-1000 feet maybe. No sub-1K openings for me! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

There are a couple of 175s and 180 canopies for sale on the dropzone bulletin board, if I recall correctly. Check there. You'd still need a container for it, though, reserve, AAD, all that good stuff. You should have an easier time finding gear than I will. I'm pretty happy jumping a 280 on the low end of its suggested wing loading, and don't really feel an urge to downsize. I never see too many of those for sale. If you opt for used gear, make sure to get a rigger at the dropzone to check it out for you before you agree to buy it. And check it against the stolen gear databases. They never really tell you to breathe in those early AFF jumps. Well they probably do but I was too busy being distracted by adrenaline and stuff to notice. I'm pretty sure my first 3 or 4 AFF jumps were done entirely without breathing! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I'm still a fairly new jumper and a bit paranoid about that, so I usually turn 90 degrees to the jump run and head south. I'm usually pretty well out of the way when I pull. I have seen planes cross a couple miles south of where I usually end up, but they seem to give us a good bit of breathing room. Since I'm coming back from the south for my descent, I can kind of chill over there and give the faster canopies time and space to get on their approaches. I've pushed my holding pattern pretty wide and still managed to make it back without too much effort. A couple of times I've come uncomfortably close to the edge of the landing zone, but I know better to push it that far when the wind's blowing that way, now. We're a busy airport though, so I do have to be wary of other air traffic and potentially up to three aircraft worth of skydivers. Occasionally even more than that if we have visitors. There are a number of ultralight aircraft about, including one of those oversized lawnmowers someone mentioned. I might have to branch out to ultralight piloting at some point, I guess. Like I need another super-expensive hobby right now... heh heh heh! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Sweet! Well the sport has come a long way in the last 30 years. I've looked in on it from time to time over the years -- I was an Air Force brat and was always curious. Seems like early on it wasn't forgiving at all, and broken bones on landing were all too common. The square parachutes and automatic activation devices came as a bit of a surprise to me when I finally took an AFF course in July. I've made some pretty atrocious landings without any major harm done. Not that I'd encourage doing that. 15 years ago I probably would have broken some things. Don't they make you learn how to jump out of an airplane in the Navy? Some Navy guys were jumping at my home drop zone a couple of weeks ago. The dropzone staff was working with them on whatever they were doing. I didn't ask too many questions. No "need to know." I saw them coming down one day and thought "Well those guys couldn't be our fun jumpers! They're all following the same pattern!" Stay safe on your deployment, and jumping out of airplanes too! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Beer! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

You definitely don't need tandems or anything else to enroll in AFF. The dropzone here suggests doing a tandem first just to see if you'll like it, but you can just walk right in and start AFF. That's what I did! It takes a while for your eyes to adjust to seeing things at altitude. It felt very much like going from a car I'd been driving for 5 years with a digital speedometer to going back to an analog. For a while I didn't know where to look or what to look for. It took me a while to get to the point where I could pick out landmarks at 12000 feet, or find something decent to lock onto on the horizon so that I could hold a heading. I'm not sure all the anxiety ever goes away. Friend of mine has a D license with over a thousand jumps and he told me he still gets nervous on the plane. I had an instructor who's been in the sport for decades tell me the same thing. It does get better, though. As for the risk, a bit of googling reveals that about 1 in 140000 skydives results in a fatality. Comparatively, in the USA about 13 cars per 100000 are involved in fatal car crashes (Driving to the airport about 10x more dangerous than jumping out of an airplane!) Fatality rates for motorcycles are around 72 per 100000 registered motorcycles. So really, if you think about it, it's the safest thing you can do! Ok not really, but we do a lot more dangerous things without even thinking about it. It's not like there's anything we can do that will make us live forever! There's certainly no reason why you couldn't freefly AND swoop! A lot of people at my dropzone seem to do both quite happily! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Aldof Hitler doesn't have a bacon number in Google, although it's supposed to be 3. Jon Stewart proved this on The Daily Show some time back. I haven't been able to come up with anything over a 3, even with some silent film actors I was sure would be higher. There's not a number for Gandhi either, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone was in a film with someone playing him, and they could be linked to Kevin Bacon. Of course if you play it like that, Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra, and her bacon number is 2! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I only have 37 jumps and started AFF back in July. I did AFF because I didn't want to be strapped to some dude. I'm pretty fearless getting out of a plane now... but I think I'd have an even harder time doing a tandem now than I would have back in July before my first AFF jump. Which is odd, because I put my life in the hands of my AFF instructors, dropzone packers and their pilots on a regular basis, without so much as a second thought. Ok, so actually I do realize that I'm doing that pretty regularly, but I don't let it worry me. So I'd have a really hard time doing one, but if a friend or one of the tandem instructors I know (Some of whom were also my AFF instructors) needed me to be a body for them, I'd do it, and I wouldn't let my fear stand in my way. Fortunately my fat ass will probably keep them from ever asking! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Sweet, another Mile Hi jumper! We'll probably bump into each other at some point. Or have already bumped into each other. I just got out of the program too. I have to hand it to the AFF program, it gets some great results! Could you have imagined after your AFF 1 jump that you'd be where you are now in so short a time? I found myself amazed around AFF 5 or 6 at how confident I was becoming the skills they were teaching me. By AFF 4 I felt no fear climbing around outside the plane. By AFF 7, my instructor's planned exit (Diving out, grabbing my ankles and flipping several times) made me grin like a maniac and not run screaming from the building as I would have just a few jumps earlier. I'm so not looking forward to winter, though... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Eeh, you'll spend about as much on an AFF class as a tandem, and less once you drop to one instructor. But whatever works for you, everyone's different! I wonder if you'll at least overcome the fear of the door monster doing tandems? I think that was probably the hardest thing about AFF. Something just clicked for me around my 4th or 5th jump and I realized that the worst possible thing that I could imagine happening as I approached the door was falling out early, and I was wearing a parachute and was going to do that anyway! Not so afraid of the door so much after that, though I don't think I'd be as comfortable as one of my instructors, sitting there with one leg hanging out for 4000 feet... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Worst case scenario you pay about the same as you would for a tandem for the AFF 1 safety briefing and jump, get a REAL skydive, decide you hate it and never come back. Odds are if you want to jump out of the airplane a second time, you'll probably be back. Most tandem students do it once, check "skydiving" off their list and we never hear from them again. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Hmm. An excuse to go traveling across the country jumping out of airplanes? But I was going to do that anyway!

Flying Atmo is fun and can be done by relatively low time jumpers, it would help greatly if you had someone who can already fly the position show you, as Video learning is difficult. You can fly quite tight formations with it, and as you have seen with the "High end" flyers it can get very dynamic. See if you can get to a DZ where some folks are flying Atmo already, you'll find it not to hard to begin with. Well see that's what I'm on about! And I suspect many people who don't really see a difference between this and tracking, for that matter! It doesn't seem so common in the USA, so there's no one to tell us how to do it, and all we have to go on are some videos where you really can't see what they're doing or how it's different. I'm either doing it when I'm tracking at an angle, or I'm not, and the folks who claim the do it disagree with the ones who claim they don't on that point. I've found some great videos for freeflying on youtube, that cover basic body positions, transitions and the skill level you should be at to approach that stuff. Given the number of experienced fliers who seem to be doing atmonauti in places other than the USA, I was really quite surprised to find so little additional information on it. I have two tools in my toolbox right now, belly flying and tracking. I'm just keeping an eye out to add more. From what I hear, no one can even reach consensus on whether at that level atmonauti is even something I should be looking at. The atmonauti people claim it's easy and even a newbie can learn to do it. Everyone else claims it's either not really all that or that it's something you should have some freeflying skills before attempting. I'm willing to have an open mind about stuff, but it seems I'll have to meet someone who actually does it and ask them to show me how it's done before I can really find out for myself. So I guess I can ask around my home dropzone and risk being whacked with a rake... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I'm still new to the sport, but from my first jump I realized that I really like sitting under canopy. The swoop crowd is telling me I should downsize, but the truth of the matter is if I could sit under canopy for an hour, I'd do that. I'm more than a little tempted to buy a vario and go looking for updrafts after pulling. Are there any particularly slow-falling canopies I should be looking at? Should I start jumping a tandem rig solo? Should I try to master the art of the 12K high pull? Or is all that just a little too odd? I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Ok, so I'm trying to figure out this atmonauti thing from a bunch of vague videos claiming to be that, a rather vague picture of a guy at a 45 degree angle and a couple of articles that don't seem vague but really don't provide a whole lot of detail either. Most of the videos where I see it being done are combining elements of freeflying with it. I have a feeling most of the people in those videos are trained professionals and are making it look easier than it really is. I have to wonder if you don't just fly like that once you're an uber-freeflyer or something. The atmonauti people claim it's easy and you can get started almost immediately, though. I don't suppose that anyone who actually does it has put anything like a tutorial "Getting Started" type video up on youtube or anything? For some reason I feel like if the word "Atmonauti" comes out of my mouth at my dropzone, someone will hit me with a rake or something. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I just did jump 35 the other day and the canopy course I took while in coaching really helped a LOT! It made my pattern a lot more accurate -- No more landing at the edge of the landing zone (Or in the junk pile over there...) taking crosswind landings to avoid crossing the runway (Because I'm not in danger of crossing the runway anymore) or any of the other bad stuff I was doing before I took the course. Flare and landing got a lot better too. So yeah, if you haven't done it yet, I highly recommend the canopy course. Also make sure you're flying the right sized canopy for you, and that your brake lines are the right length. If you're on student rental gear, it could be the brake lines are just longer than they should be to make it harder to stall the canopy, so you just have to flare like a... something that flares REALLY HARD... to get everything out of your flare. If you don't want to do the canopy course after everyone here told you to then at least try to get your landings on video and maybe have one of the coaches that lurk around the DZ take a look at it and give you some pointers. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Nah, just in your eyes. If you're going to care what other people think, at least get it right! I had one of the older instructors asking me why I was doing this given my age and weight. They didn't think I'd get all the way through AFF with my fall speed, and they were very concerned that if I were in a situation where I had lost my instructors they wouldn't be able to save my life if I failed to act. Well I'm proud of the fact that no matter what else was going on, I've always pulled my own chute at the correct altitude. I've had a couple of instructors tell me I'm the fastest falling, most altitude aware students they've ever met. Everyone's a bit different. I failed every other jump before AFF 5 -- took me 12 jumps to get through the program. The ones where I failed usually felt like I learned more than the ones where I passed. I knew I wanted to do this, stood back up and tried again when I failed (Often laughing at myself in the process) and got my license! These were setbacks, nothing more, and minor ones at that. If you can get past this, no one will even remember, 50 jumps from now, that you even had this problem. Much less 100, 300 or 1000 jumps from now. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Oh, if anyone's interested, I have the video from my AFF 4 and 5 jumps from my instructor's gopro! That was quite a while ago now, but after the point where something clicked with me and I just stopped being afraid of the door. AFF 4 jump: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QgG4hwKbH4&feature=g-upl You can still see me potato chipping with my forward motion once he lets me go. My arch has gotten a good bit better since then. No I'm not the hot lady in the black jumpsuit. Sorry :-P You can watch my instructor's minty fresh swoop landing though... AFF 5 jump: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHdsUICa7zY&feature=g-upl I did so well on the 4 jump that he let me go without assistance on the exit on the 5 jump. With comical results! I was unstable past their student 5 second rule, but I knew I had time and I knew I could get stable! I didn't really check in with him before jumping either, but it was hot that day and I was stampeeding off the plane! That exit on the AFF 5 still makes me laugh. I don't think I could actually replicate it now. Best I can do is to ball up and do a cannonball out of the door, and even then, when I arch 5 seconds later and snap to stable flight, I'm still at 12K AGL. I still fall pretty fast though. I was trying to fall slowly (Really dearched, with arms and legs stretched out) and was still doing 140 MPH on average, according to my neptune. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Yeah I've seen some posts! The ones at Mile Hi seem fairly drama-free. Mostly they just look like they're having fun! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Do you mean on the way up? You could probably sit at the door! Just explain to them that you're terribly afraid of the door monster and want to get to know it better! At altitude you could probably also get them to go around for you. They did that for me in a King Air once. I'd had trouble on a previous jump getting all the way out the door with my rig, so they held me to last, circled around for another run and gave me plenty of time to climb out. I didn't need it that time around, as it turns out, but I did appreciate it nonetheless. It took a lot of pressure off on that jump. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I think they're down to 50 now. I ran across their instruction manual online somewhere. One place it still says 80, one says 50. I asked someone at my home dropzone who has one, and she said it's 50 now. Maybe just go right to the source and ask Phoenix-fly!