talkingfrog

Thanks for the suggestion to call the various gear stores. I hadn't thought of that. Will do that tomorrow. Putting it all together from pieces is where I will end up if this rig does not pan out. There ain't no devil, only God when he is drunk--Tom Waits

Good advice. The rigger at my DZ wil measure me and ensure that the yoke fits. I do not recall if the harness was overall too small or too small in the torso--but the leg straps were particularly annoying. I suppose someone might swoop in and pick up the rig while I make up my mind but that is just the way it goes. There ain't no devil, only God when he is drunk--Tom Waits

Boring, I know. 51 jumps in. Enjoying the sport immensely. Time to purchase a rig since I can easily see jumping another 200 times. My DZ has a very lightly used Mirage G4 container with a 210 Saber 2. I jumped it and the landing was fine in light wind. But the freaking harness feels like it was made for a much smaller person (I am 6'2" and 200lbs). Felt like I was trying to put on my daughter's rig :) Anyway, since it seems rather difficult to find containers/canopies rigs sized for me (210-230) and the main and I got along very well I am looking into seeing if the harness can be modified even slightly so I don't feel like 5lbs stuffed into a 1lb bag. If I were a 170lb 5'10" person I could have a number of options but this is only the second complete used rig appropriate for me that I have seen all summer. I know that Mirage will refit the harness and this may well mean replacing quite a bit of gear. But given the price of a new Mirage container anything under ~$600 sounds pretty good. The container will go down to a 190 so this system should be good for another 200+ jumps for me. Thoughts? Am I completely full of shit here? It would not be the first time... There ain't no devil, only God when he is drunk--Tom Waits

I was constantly amazed at how the AFF progression seemed to match so well my readiness for each step (no matter how unready I thought I was). Those were some smart folks that invented AFF. It really does keep getting better and better! There ain't no devil, only God when he is drunk--Tom Waits

So we have our A licenses now. Wife got hers a few weeks ago and I did 7 jumps over 2 days to wrap up mine. So now we are ready to do some jumps together. At least until winter completely closes in and we shift to skiing. Since I started jumping in 1976 (round chutes, ripcords and all that), stopped for 37 years (minor malfunction scared me off), then started again I probably have the record for the longest time to earn an A license. If I go for a B license it will take less than 37 years--absent dramatic improvements in longevity treatment I doubt I could get into a Caravan when I am 100! There ain't no devil, only God when he is drunk--Tom Waits

Wifey did her hop n' pop and four coach jumps last week. I had to work during the beautiful weather . But I did get in 3 jumps this weekend. One was a jump right at sunset. Clear skies, jagged mountains, ground terrain wormed by the different channels of lower Puget Sound. Landing at near-dusk. Beautiful. One interesting thing happened on my last jump. There were about a dozen freeflyers before me and the AFF instructor next to me told me to wait a full 7 seconds before jumping to ensure they were clear (incredibly long 7 seconds) just in case one jumper had a malfunction. And, wouldn't you know it, one jumper had a premature deployment at 8K. Saw her chute in the distance and mentally gave the instructor a big hug. My tracking is getting much better but I would rather not put it to the test yet. Just another day in heaven. There ain't no devil, only God when he is drunk--Tom Waits

True, we must be rather cute to jumpers with hundreds or thousands of jumps. I have plenty to work on so I am not going to get overly frantic; just do one or two things at a time. And on weather hold days I can either do hop n' pops, learn how to pack a chute, or other ground training stuff. My wife has at least 7-8 more jumps to get her A and I have about 15. But our season here goes year-round so we should have our A's by end of October. There ain't no devil, only God when he is drunk--Tom Waits

Skydive Kapowsin in Shelton, Washington is our home dz. When we jump we can see Mt Rainier, Olympics, Cascades, and lower Puget Sound. Just awesome. Very lucky that this is a family affair. Daughter is coming in this week and hope to load up with her at least once. And she gets to give Dad advice too--everyone wins! There ain't no devil, only God when he is drunk--Tom Waits

Wife and I just finished our AFF and solo (well, she finished a few weeks ago and has been merrily soloing since then). Just cute little jumpers leaving the walkers! Makes it nearly a family affair since my daughter jumps as well. Now it is on to the A license. Coach jumps, docking, hop n' pops, canopy piloting and tests, oh my! Really enjoy the community so far and looking forward to years of fun. There ain't no devil, only God when he is drunk--Tom Waits