eatfastnoodle

it was very much varied earlier in my experience but recently vector has become a lot more popular, new rigs have vector being the majority by far, especially for newer jumpers.

weren't US troops in Europe in quarantine and troops in Iraq stopped some training work and redeployed to larger bases? I doubt military in the US is in a hurry to do parachute training right now, soldiers are just as humans as the rest of us and of all training they must do, jumping is the least immediately useful and has one of the highest, given how densely packed soldiers would be, risk of spreading the infection.

Tunnel doesn't just exist for skydivers to get training. first timer goes to tunnel for a 2 minute fun experience, vast majority of them will never go again and would have no interest taking up skydiving as a hobby, therefore, they don't and shouldn't be asked to REALLY care about "proper" body position. As Ifly's customers, they expect and should be given as much fun as possible (safety first of course), if a proper pre-AFF training regimen were to be followed, ALL of the 2 minutes he/she would be essentially on the net and the customers didn't pay that much money to lay on a net. Insisting on teaching first timers to fly properly is the same as asking tandem passengers to sit through a 6 hour skydiving ground school before they step into a harness. Unnecessary and would end up killing the business.

3-6 a weekend for me. More than that not only exhausts me but also makes me feel skydiving has become a job, no, more like an addition since I don't get paid to jump, as awesome as skydiving is, it's only part of my life. I don't want to be consumed by it.

looks like the growth rate of licensed jumpers seemed to accelerate quite a bit lately

WOW, I had EXACTLY the same experience as you did, I cut away because I only got a fraction of your jumps. So the whole landing with my rear risers only occurred to me for a split of a second, then I told myself: forget it, checked my altimeter and cut away. A couple of my friends got similar experiences: looks like you should really be careful with your toggles and lines.....

I don't see many either. I don't think many practice PLF after AFF, especially for fairly experienced but not so experienced that you know everything and anything jumpers, I think most would mentally be prepared for a PLF if he knew it's gonna be a rough landing, say, he's jumping a round canopy. But if something unexpected happened right before touchdown, say, wind direction change forces a crosswind landing, probably the muscle memory isn't there to PLF solely on instinct.

Thanks.

Thanks. It helps a lot.

But this is really dangerous if screwed up. Somebody talked to me one day and really scared me, hence the post. (being crippled from neck down for the rest of my life, to me, is way scarier than slamming into earth at terminal velocity.)

Hi, I'm a newly licensed jumper. I'm still working hard to improve my landing quality/consistency. I have some questions: We all know you should always be prepared for PLF every time you jump. It's been taught and repeated endlessly during AFF and solo training. but for novice jumpers, first few jumps are far more likely to end up on your butt than standing up or actually attempting a PLF (as least as far as my experience watching AFF students goes). We all know a screwed up butt landing could leave you paralyzed for the rest of your life while a PLF, more often than not, leaves you with broken legs, if any injury at all. Even for intermediate or even highly experienced jumpers, I personally saw more butt landing comparing to PLFs when landings don't get smooth enough for a stand-up soft-landing. And when I was still a student, for a while, I thought butt landing/surfing is ugly, but still better than PLF as it happens so frequently (saw it all the time, not to mention all the tandem landings), so a few times I actually went for a butt sliding as opposed to preparing myself for PLF when it's clear I wasn't going to land standing-up. So my question: why are so many people butt landing for so long (I'm discounting tandem instructors as they're often the most experienced group) when the consequence of a bad butt landing is so devastating? And why are people not treating it as serious as, say, low turn (you're guaranteed to a stern "chat" if you turned low no matter your skill level)?