Fogest

You mention getting a trusted rigger to conduct a pre-purchase inspection. Can you explain more how this works? If I am buying off of the classifieds here that means I am likely getting the gear shipped. Does that mean I am suppose to ask the seller to ship the gear to the DZ before you have actually paid for it? Couldn't that be risky for the seller?

Thanks! I thought when I posted the review that a message had appeared briefly stating that it had to be reviewed before appearing, but after I had clicked the submit button I looked away and only caught a glimpse of the message and saw "review" in it so I thought that may have been the case.

My review is not appearing on a Dropzone I reviewed however when I hit the button to write a review on it it says I already have made one there. Is there some kind of review process before my review appears there? My account should be valid and active.

I am a student skydiver with 3 jumps (all at Skydive Toronto) and even I know this is a terrible place to go. Students are there lowest priority. All 3 times I jumped (3 separate days) I arrived in the morning at 9-10am and had giving them warning days in advance saying I'd be coming. Despite this I still did not get in the air until 2-3pm on every one of these days. They are always packed with people doing tandems and they put ALL of their instructors on the tandems. The only time they use instructors for students is when there are no tandems to go. This is normally near the end of the day. Not only this but even doing a mere thing like waiting in line to buy a lift ticket took me almost an hour of waiting. Not even exgerating this. I arrived at a little before 10am and it was almost 11am before I even go to the counter to pay for a ticket. I was then told I had to come back in check with them in an hour and only at that point would they try to find an instructor. Despite being told over the phone numerous times prior to visits to come in the morning and them even saying they left a note saying I was coming, they still did not care to serve me. I understand waiting your turn to go up in the plane, but this is not the case here. They are just scheduling tandems all day and won't let students schedule. Students have to work around tandems. This doesn't even get to the money part. You are going to be paying more here than a lot of places. While their site may not look like it is a lot, don't be fooled. You are very likely to be told that you have to redo a jump meaning you have to pay full price again for the jump. Their GFP program is very dumb. You have to do a lot of static line jumps to start with. Again, good luck with this. You'll be waiting most of the day. They usually only have one pilot and of course that pilot is flying the larger plane up to 12500 and does not do the 4500 static line jumps. You have to wait for the pilot to switch over to the smaller cessna plane. Again, you'll have to wait till the tandems die down for this. I suggest going somewhere else. Most places cost about the same, if not cheaper and will likely care more about you than this place. Even when I talked to the owner I didn't get treated any better until I said I wanted a refund. Only after saying that would he try to help me out and find me an instructor. It is all about money there. Save your time and money and go to a better place. Somewhere that has a nice community and wants to actually see students get certified.

There was only myself and another student plus the jumpmaster for me and it was pretty tight. For our training the instructor does not jump with us. I jumped, then the plane circles back around and drops the other student and then the jump master jumps out after. We then communicate with someone on the ground via walkie talkie. If I took the progressive free fall course instead of the gradual one then I would have had instructors jumping with me. Luckily despite my foot being asleep I could still feel the step however I was pretty shakey due to the wind and my nerves. I don't think the pilot I had cut the throttle as much as he did for yours, at least from what I could tell from your video. I wish he cut it more :P.

I am in Canada doing a "gradual freefall" course so it may be a little different than the levels you are referring to but I'm sure it is a similar idea. From watching the video it does look like the same kind of progression. Eventually I'll have to do some flips mid air and a wave off like it looks like you had to do. And the aircraft does look the same. I was sitting in the same spot as you, except you luckily were allowed to sit in a more comfortable position. I had to be facing the other way, and had to sit with my butt on my feet which is quite uncomfortable, but I'll manage :). It looks like you also get to step fully out with both feet! Our exit position looks kinda similar to yours except that our right foot is suppose to be against the side of the door opening and then we kinda stick our butt out a little. So in ours we are still slightly in the plane, make it a lot harder for me. It looks like the way you got to do it would possibly make it a little easier for me. Yeah, my feet were definitely going to sleep, and my legs were starting too. I was glad I could be the first one out! With being a student at the dropzone I'm going to we can't just roll out of the plane yet, though that would make it a lot easier with my height if I could. It does make sense that for right now we need to be facing the wind, especially with the static line, however the position I need to go out in is very awkward for a person of my height.

I'm 6' 3" and have similar issues. You were on a Cessna 182 correct? It's not easy getting out on the peg under the wing, you need to stay in a crouched position but not so low you can't push off with your leg. Basically crouched, knees slightly bent but keep your ass up. As you release push out away from the plane, no need to push back and definitely not up into the door where you could catch your container. Yes, that is the plane I was in. We are sitting in the plane in the position where our butts are sitting on our feet (really uncomfortable), and due to my height/weight I am the first to jump. I have to stick my left arm and foot out, hand on the wing support, and foot in the step, and then I am suppose to stick my butt out awkwardly at an angle and go. It is hard to actually do this though due to the size of the frame, and the door at the top. With my height I am really squished and can't really do it properly. I believe most people either would jump right out, or jump out facing backwards, however as we are in training we are doing this way. I feel like how I released from the plane made the wind catch me on my right side first pulling me into a short spin before the static line pulled the chute. I just feel like the way I am going out doesn't work at all for me.

I finally got to go today! It was great weather out with very little wind! I really enjoyed my first jump. My only problem was exiting the plane. This was one of the smaller planes used for static line and it has a step and a 45 degree beam from the wing that you hold onto. Due to my height it was hard to properly exit the plane and as such when I exited the plane I was in a tumble. Luckily I only had a few line twists to kick out and I was good to go, but I guess it could have been worse. My jump master suggested that next time I come I ask whichever instructor I am with on an alternate exit position due to being 6'5". Do any taller folks here know of a good position to use when jumping out of a plane like I described? The plane was a C182.

It all sounds really fun. I'm sure I may get some sensory overload as well and not be able to remember some parts too. Does AFF stand for Accelerated Freefall program or something? Just never heard the term. The program I am doing is called GFP for gradual freefall program.

There is actually now a lot of snow on the ground today. Just yesterday no snow and it was seeming like spring weather was finally coming, but now today it seems just like winter again. So it looks like I may have to wait a weekend or two before I can even think about trying to go again. The program I am in is called the Gradual Freefall program. The idea with it is that we slowly go higher and higher up. The point is to ensure good canopy skills first, over gaining the freefall skills first. I believe I do 2-4 static line jumps first then move up to 4500 ft and I deploy myself. After a couple of those jumps I move up a little higher and work on other skills. We just keep progressing like that until eventually I'm doing things at 10000 ft. I feel like I'll love freefall more than the canopy, but I haven't done it yet so I honestly can't say if that will be true until I get to jump! Welcome aboard! If you've flown in the tunnel, you have an idea of what freefall is like. I had some time in the tunnel before I jumped the first time and it was by far the most fun thing I'd ever done. The actual feeling of freefall is AMAZING. Canopy flight is fun too, but for me freeflying is where it's at. Have fun, stay safe, and keep us posted on the progress! Thanks for the welcome! I have been in a tunnel once before, however it was kinda crappy one where they didn't give me much freedom and it wasn't very powerful so it wasn't all that fun. I'm sure I will definitely enjoy freefall. It just seems so much more intense to have that feeling of falling at such an intense speed. I'm sure I will enjoy both, just maybe one a little more than the other.

There is actually now a lot of snow on the ground today. Just yesterday no snow and it was seeming like spring weather was finally coming, but now today it seems just like winter again. So it looks like I may have to wait a weekend or two before I can even think about trying to go again. The program I am in is called the Gradual Freefall program. The idea with it is that we slowly go higher and higher up. The point is to ensure good canopy skills first, over gaining the freefall skills first. I believe I do 2-4 static line jumps first then move up to 4500 ft and I deploy myself. After a couple of those jumps I move up a little higher and work on other skills. We just keep progressing like that until eventually I'm doing things at 10000 ft. I feel like I'll love freefall more than the canopy, but I haven't done it yet so I honestly can't say if that will be true until I get to jump!

Well I wasn't able to do my first jump today :(. I completed my required training however so I am ready to do my first jump once the weather is better. The winds were greater than 15 km/h as well as the ground temperature was around 0 degrees celsius so it wouldn't have been a very comfortable jump. Sucks that I had to drive 3 hours total just to do some training, but I'm still looking forward to eventually getting to jump on a better, warmer day!

Thanks! I am definitely excited about it! Hopefully the weather holds. I'm booked in for the opening weekend. I will be sure to let everyone know how it went.

I look forward to this adventure! Thanks! I'm sure it should be memorable! I plan to keep doing it after! I just think the feeling of floating through the air at such a height will be amazing!

Hello everyone, I found this forum a little while ago and thought I should make a post! I am going to be going on my first jump April 4th at Skydive Toronto! For my first jump I'm doing a solo jump from a static line at 4000'. I look forward to working towards becoming a certified Skydiver! I've been in a wind tunnel before and I enjoyed that so I hope I will enjoy this even more!