sammielu

Our student canopies are red on the right side, blue on the left. Helps identify which direction they are flying and left/right issues as well.

If American made (and serviced if there are problems or modifications in the future) is important to you, go Infinity. If time or $ is most important, compare and that's your answer. You get what you pay for and companies with long lead times have high demand. Most jumpers go with what is easit to order (available dealers when they're looking at options and measuring, or available used containers) - and then love their container and say it's the "best". Very few people have put lots of jumps on more than one container to compare. Good on you for doing some research.

A friend just went through this, the factory brake line length was way too short; using front risers with the toggles in hand would pull down the tail as well and cause bucking. Rigger lengthened the brake lines a little at a time, my friend ended up with 8" longer to be able to use front risers.

"Relative work" includes both FS and VFS formations. You left out belly fliers.

What about VFS and (team) training/competition jumps? FWIW, 34, Instructor most of the time, then FS and CRW when I'm not working.

Start your pattern the same distance from the target and at the same altitude every time. Don't use your altimeter once you've started the pattern. You're training yourself to read the winds by looking at the wind flag or indicator and by feeling it out during your downwind and base legs. You're also working on that sight picture to be able to recognize where you will land once you turn on final. Winds will be different every time, if you keep every other part of your pattern the same (canopy & entry point) the same, you can compare them. Make sure you're looking at the wind indicators several times, and for several seconds as traffic allows, to get a real read on what it's doing and how strong it is. Every time you land, look at what the wind is doing, compare it to what you thought it was doing when you turned from base to final, and go from there.

Listen to your instructors, take everyone else's advice with a grain of salt, don't seek advice on the interwebs (who knows who is going to tell you what or what kind of bad example videos you will find). Practice on the ground, you can never practice enough. Freefall costs by the second. Practice on the ground is free. Arch more. From your butt, not your back. From lying on the ground, shoulders and legs are off the ground to arch. To arch more, get your legs higher off the ground. You can always arch more. Breathe. If you're not breathing, you're not arching (or anything else). Take a moment, a deep breath, before you start your exit count.

Are you jumping with people who are also new or infrequent jumpers? Thats 2 people working on fall rate. Double trouble. Keep your dive flows simple, have backup plans for if things don't go well, and discuss what worked/didn't after the jump. If possible, do the same jump with the same person twice - give yourselves a chance to learn and improve!! Most important: just keep jumping.

Students come up with all kinds of things as they're learning. As long as we give them good coaching, explain why S turns don't work, give them tools that will work (predictable landing patterns with accuracy), and at some point enforce good canopy flight as required to complete student jumps, they will learn. For licensed jumpers, S turns are unpredictable, so are a No when sharing airspace.

Used containers can have the harness resized to fit your body, for less $ and less time than a completely custom built rig. Find a container that fits the canopies you want that has the yoke (width across the top) to fit your broad or not shoulders. Have a rigger or dealer measure you for the rest and send it in for resizing. UPT resized my Vector 3 harness and leg straps in 4 weeks for $500. That's a significant cost and time savings (new Vectors were 26 weeks out at the time, longer now I think).

Crap am I over thinking this! Look, reach, look, pull, pull is faster that 5 sec, and my entire count is faster as well - it might take a whole second for that first reach, but the rest of the steps are faster. I'm going to keep counting because it's a good reminder to keep the process moving and not get stuck on one handle if I can't find it. Thanks for bearing with me! I deleted a whole book of a reply trying to work out scenarios with seconds and altitudes before I realized that either my count was off or all of you trying to help me (and my altimeter's record of opening altitudes for all my jumps and my one malfunction) were off. :)

How do you maintain altitude awareness during deployment? I've started counting to 10 when I reach. My thinking is if I can't find a handle or can't pull it, move on to the next handle. I'm training myself to start "look, reach, look, pull, pull" at 5 seconds if I don't have canopy deployment (like in a combination of two tries to find/pull the handle, then I finally deploy and have a pilot chute in tow). I've done some hanging harness practice to skip handles if I can't find or pull them (since the only one I HAVE to pull is reserve). After 5 sec, if I am working out line twists or any other issue, the count tells me where I'm at on the way to my decision altitude. Just in case you care: I'm a full time static line instructor, jumping 20+ jumps per week, plenty of experience with students counting for their altitude awareness during 5 and 10 second delays and the static line jumps leading up to it (with me in the plane, counting along with them, I count ALL DAY LONG). I deploy above 3k and my personal decision altitude is 2k - I figure a 5 sec takes me from 3k to 2.5k, if I don't have a deployed canopy it's time to get one, and the full 10 sec gets me to 2k, when I would be finishing the "look reach look pull pull" part of my EPs and be pulling my reserve handle. I discuss altitude awareness all day and student EPs... I want make sure to think through my personal processes while I jump my butt off too - so thanks any feedback and your own methods of keeping track!!

The "beer rule" is less about alcohol than a gesture of camaraderie. Pizza, cookies, popsicles, root beer floats, ice cold water on a sweaty day, back rubs, homemade whatever - anything is appreciated. The tradition is to contribute something after a First, or whenever you want to discuss something. Our lives are busy! Experienced jumpers have already done all/most of that stuff! But if you offer a beer or lemonade or a slice of watermelon, they will happily hang out for a few minutes to hear about the first time you did ______ or your questions about _____. Within reason. An hour long conversation with a rigger about purchasing gear is worth more than a beer. After a reserve ride that saves your life, there is a tradition of gifting the rigger that inspected and packed that reserve a bottle of nice liquor - but I've also seen people make a nice donation to a food bank or charity as a substitute for the booze. Again, it's the gesture, and the camraderie, not the hooch (and just be up front about what works for you, we'll love you anyway).

AAD-saveable deaths are preventable. I think they should be mandatory, with exceptions for pro swoopers that go too damn fast... Kind of like the canopies and lines those swoopers jump that no one else gets to purchase. (I know that's not quite mandatory, BUT, those top level swoopers already need specialized landing areas with enough clear distance, and clear skies to swoop it up). I also think more dealers should start rental programs to encourage AAD use for people who can spend some monthly $ but not over $1k up front. If set up appropriately, the dealer makes a bit of $ as well.

Congratulations on your first student jump! The goos news is that whats next for you is: more skydives! Every jump has things that went well and things that can be improved- at every experience level. Smile, make another jump, repeat.

The most annoying come from new jumpers who ask questions and then don't listen to the answer, or who post to a forum or facebook "I need help with ______ but I'm not going to search for the answer or ask my instructors, just tell me what I want to hear". Whuffos are fine, questions boil down to: nothing is like flight you don't know what you will like until you try it try new things - whatever things you want to try.

My dz uses it for a small discount ($35 off of $225) on weekdays only. Its discount amount that is financially comfortable for the business, doesn't change employee pay, and drives additional business to slower days. I've seen many types of businesses try groupon and dislike it (discourages customers to return and pay full price), but dzs are rarer than restaurants.

The idea of waiting until you hear some beeps to do something - on every skydive - is training your body for complacency. It freaks me out!

"Lift your package out of the way and tighten the leg straps enough that no part of your anatomy can get under there during the plane ride or skydive." Standard instruction for all male students (tandem and static line). Ladies get the chest strap talk as needed (not tight enough to chop off the girls).

The student helmet has a snag-free radio setup (for canopy talk down instruction). At least the student is set up snag-free.

Get a riggers input on the reasons to do or don't do different packing techniques so you are making an informed decision. A sloppy attempt learned from a video (because you're new and your canopy is brand-new-slippery) can give you bad habits and potentially cause canopy damage or malfunctions. Supervised practice should be required when learning. Paying (extra!!) for the first 5 pack jobs is ideal. Paying (still extra for that slippery thing) for the first 30 pack jobs will save you a lot of frustration. Buying a carpet remnant to lay on your canopy (soft side to canopy) to help squeeze the air out will help. Jumping it as much as possible, ideally landing where dirt can help break it in will help more.

Yes. You should arch through your entire skydive. Part of what you are learning is to fly your body stable and predictable. At this point in your training I'd say you just need to jump more :)

"Plenty" of extra altitude is a stretch. Students also make more mistakes while they are learning, take longer to recognize and to react to problems - and take several jumps to get used to reading an altimeter. I second the reasoning regarding student body position: unstable or about to be unstable!!

Practice on the ground 100x a day. Practice is free! If you really want to get this down, 10 min of practice every day is not much of a commitment - how about practicing for an hour evey day (10 min, 6 times a day). Also: listen to your instructors, not the internet.

Cost-prohibitive is the key issue here. Does it make more sense to start with a $500 container than add $500 modifications to a free container? Assuming that the 1980's container is in very good condition to begin with...