majormajors

Yeah, we packed up our gear for the 2+ years we lived there. It just wasn't worth the time or money (two skydivers on one income in Korea just wasn't going to work for us). There is a LOT to do in Seoul, though

Thanks. I'm only going for a two-week visit, so an annual membership seems a little pricey. I'll try giving them a call to see what I can find out.

Has anyone here had experience jumping at the Seoul Skydiving School? I'm going to Korea in two months and I'd like to get some jumps there if I can. I found a couple of old threads on here about it, but they have limited information and might be way out-of-date. They have a website, but it's all in Hangul and my Korean is not nearly good enough to find the information I'm looking for. I mainly need to know... 1.) Are they jumping regularly? I assume mid-June won't be a problem. 2.) Can I jump there with a USPA A license? 3.) How much are jump tickets (in KRW)? 4.) What gear requirements do they have, if any? (AAD, RSL, etc.) This is the only dropzone I've found any information for. I'm willing to take recommendations for others if they exist. Thanks!

That's terrifying. Glad you're still here to tell us about it. As a new jumper, I always give my rig a thorough gear check if someone else packed it for me. If I packed it, I give it two thorough checks.

I live in SF and would be happy to give you a lift to the DZ where I jump. I'll be out of town this coming weekend, but I'll probably be jumping the following weekend (March 15/16). Send me a message if you're interested and we'll set something up.

I don't know much about the DZ down in Monterey, however... I live in SF and did my AFF at Norcal Skydiving in Cloverdale. It's a small dropzone, so I felt like I got a lot of personalized attention from instructors. Everyone there is really professional and knowledgable. I paid for my entire AFF up front and was able to complete all my jumps in 4 weekends. However, I was purposely taking it a little slow and could have easily finished it faster if I had wanted to. The views are not too bad. It's right in the middle of wine country and the coastline is easily visible from altitude. I'm still jumping there and will be wrapping up requirements for my A soon. I would love to visit some other DZs around the Bay Area once I have my license, though.

I jump there, but I have no idea who the GoPro belongs to. According to my logbook, I wasn't there the day this happened. I feel like I would have remembered something like this, though. :P

Getting stable "within a few seconds of exit" is not all you want. That's not good enough. Instant stability is what you are shooting for. Haha, I know. I was sort of trying to jocularly demonstrate that I'm really unprepared for a low altitude exit. :P

My last few AFF jumps, I managed to get into a stable arch within a few seconds of exit, but I definitely want a few more jumps from 13k before I even think about exiting at 5.5. :)

Well, I did it. After four consecutive weekends of AFF jumps, I've been signed off for solo jumping and I couldn't be more excited! I know that I still have a lot of skills to develop and tons of shit to learn, but I couldn't feel more accomplished. I had a really rough level 3 that had to be repeated and I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to make myself get back in the plane after that. Once I pushed those feelings aside and just focused on doing what I needed to do, my remaining jumps just got better and better as I went. I can't even describe the feeling I had during my grad jump. The diving exit and two clean backflips felt so natural and smooth. I don't even know what I was so worried about. I really appreciate how supportive and knowledgeable everyone on this forum is. Reading about the troubles of other students and seeing the helpful replies really helped me get my head into the right place when I started to doubt myself. For anyone else who is going through a student program or thinking about starting one, allow me to relay these words from one of my AFF instructors: "One bad jump is no big deal." It may seem obvious, but it really helped me a lot. Thanks.

Yes. I had so many things on my mind that I didn't focus on the very immediate task and I exited facing into the wind without an arch. The next few times I was at the door I just repeated "arch and legs, arch and legs" over and over and over to stop the other thoughts from taking over until I was stable. I had something similar happen to me last week on jump 3. My first two jumps had been out of a PAC, but it was unavailable that day and we ended up taking smaller loads in a 182. I was so terrified by the fact that I wasn't confident with the 182 exit that I forgot to focus on the task at hand. Long story short, I had to repeat level 3. This past weekend when I went back to the DZ to repeat level 3, I was back in the PAC but was still a bit shaken up from my previous jump that I found myself with another shitty exit, but I managed to recover quickly enough and get through my dive flow to pass level 3. It was such a lightbulb moment for me when I realized that remaining calm and getting into my arch as quickly as possible was all I needed to do. Of course, this is something my instructors had told me several times but I think I needed to experience that to really get it. A couple hours later, I was back in the sky for my level 4 and it was by far my smoothest yet. After the lightbulb moment on the previous jump, I suddenly had no fear on the ride up and exited like a boss. My instructors also went ahead and just let me do my landing pattern with no radio assistance because I was already in the correct spot and entering my downwind before they had a chance to tell me what to do. I'm psyched to head back to the DZ this weekend to wrap up my AFF. OP: I'm obviously not experienced enough to give you any sort of advice, but I know where you're coming from and I've definitely experienced the same thing very recently. I think you'll do well as long as you don't let the nervousness cloud your thinking and remember what your instructors have told you. Also, I assume from your username that you're from the SF Bay Area. Where do you jump? Have we met? I'm doing my AFF at Norcal.

Groups of people who walk five wide and really slowly on the sidewalk, blocking my path from A to B. I suppose this can be generally broadened to people who are inconsiderate toward others in public.

Not with one that prints in plastic. I suppose it's possible that a metal printer will make another printer someday, but we're certainly not anywhere near that with today's tech. While it's true that certain parts of an ABS printer (screws, extruder, servos, PCBs, etc) cannot be 3D printed, the structure/housing of many open source 3D printers can be 3D printed. Some manufacturers even release "upgrades" as simple 3D models that you can print to avoid the need to have parts shipped.

This Radiolab segment covers exactly what I think you're talking about, Trev_S. It's all about why time seems to slow down in certain situations. http://www.radiolab.org/2010/sep/20/letting-go/ Basically, under normal circumstances your brain discards a lot of unimportant details, but during freefall something causes your brain to commit a lot more detail to memory. This creates the perception that time was moving a lot more slowly than it actually was upon recalling the event.

Yeah, I just tend to get excited about things and want to absorb as much knowledge as I can. XD