kat00

Skydiving gear sales is kind of out of sync with other services that are common these days. You can customize an iphone and get charged when it ships and the same goes with laptops and many electronics. Part of this is ordering direct from apple or samsung. There is no real middle man. I would rather see more direct sales from manufacturers and less reliance on sales through shops. Sales through shops is good for newer people who need the help but experienced skydivers can usually pick the gear out and do their customizations without the need to worry about a middle man.

AFF is frustrating. Don't get down on failing it twice. The tunnel will help out but make sure you tell them you want to work on turns and basic skydiving skills. Every jump counts and if you land safely, then it was a good jump. Little mistakes can always be corrected.

once you have the basic head down and can fly with others you can share some of that time. Like a 4 way vfs can be split 4 ways for the time. You can also find camps that buy a lot of bulk time which brings costs down Standby time is also usually cheaper but harder to work with a coach in that case. A lot depends on your goals as well. Freeflying with friends doesn't take as much perfection as say a vfs team or vertical big way. So if you want to fly in the sky then first focus on AFF and the license. Then start to look at freeflying in the tunnel if that is what you want to do.

Perris usually runs an otter or two with the occasional skyvan on weekends. You will find wingsuiters at both dropzones since Lightning Flight has an office at both. Either is good on a weekend but you are more likely to find consistent turns at perris on a weekday. The perris flight pattern for winsuiting is weird according to some. So if you go there make sure you know jump run. There are signs which show the pattern and you can find the landmarks easily in the sky, especially the tip of the triangle. The only thing sketchy is the winds usually. If it is warm the dust devils can kick up in the afternoon at either DZ. They are easy to spot usually but people new to the area might find them a little frightening.

I think it comes down to the fact that you are in a 12-14 foot tunnel usually. This is actually a pretty big constraint. The other is that the sky often promotes bad form in general. This is because again you have a wide open space to move in. In the tunnel, you really learn to fly your body better and control it in the confined space. You know how you are moving versus the wall and net where in the sky you can move 1,000 ft and barely tell. If you want skills to translate to the tunnel than learn to fly a slot while sitting or head down. This keeps your movements more to a confined space. Things like docking, flying close, maintaining levels, etc are skills that help with tunnel. Rigs could help if you use those for lift in the sky but again its not the right technique which is what is crucial in the tunnel.

In my opinion, if you get a reserve over your head and lose the handle then you did a good job. 100 bucks to replace a handle is nothing compared to what could have been. In regards to 1 vs 2 hand, I found the velcro on new rigs is extra grippy. So its best to keep practicing with 2 hands. Rental and student rigs have a lot of wear and tear which makes it seem like one hand is ok. I will check its in place with one hand but practice with 2.

http://www.icaruscanopies.aero/ they have the sfire and xfire which are both branches from the previous safire and crossfire design. The whole icarus and nzaerosports thing can be confusing at times!

The sfire and safire 3 are very close. I've flown both and have a slight preference for my safire 3. They both have a nice snivel and open softly. The flare is nice and easy on both. Turns recover fast and both are really docile. Personally, I wouldn't focus on terms like elliptical and stuff. Find a canopy that is designed to fly well at lower wingloadings. These are the safires, pilots, sabres and various others. In the end, it really turns into personal preference. As a fellow newbish jumper, its really hard to find much of a difference in a pilot, sfire or safire 3 at the same 1.0 wingloading. Try and demo some out if possible. All the canopies on the advised 1.0ish wingloading are tried and true canopies. It's just finding your personal preference.

sit fly takes a long time to do in the tunnel. There is no magic time amount or jump numbers. Just be prepared to spend a lot of time on tunnel work to get good. Tunnel makes you learn to fly your body really well. On splitting time, you have to be cleared through those skills to be able to share. You can't just hop in there with people and sit fly. Keep a level head about your skill level. 50 jumps is more than 99.999% of people but its still low. I get told all the time by guys with 10k+ jumps they are still learning things about belly jumps.

I would still recommend a good belly suit designed for 4 way to use in the tunnel and sky. If you can't do that then weight will help the most if your friends can loan you some. Other than that watch video. Always looking through the formation at your partner will help to keep you level. 4 way is all about efficiency. A simple star you probably keep levels fine. Something more complicated like an adder or unipod might cause you to reach for grips. Reaching for grips means you put an arm out which in turn gives you lift. Let the grip come to you because you should never have to move far unless doing some of the more complicated blocks.

My safire 3 was already in but I was waiting on my Icon V rig at the time. Both the SFire and safire 3 are very comparable. I can't really tell much of a difference in them.

Well the airbag comparison might be a bad analogy with all the takata airbags being recalled. Yes the technology is really similar but you know vigil and cypress are trusted and have been around for years. It's also easy to get cutters or parts for them if they do fire. It sounds like rig manufacturers like mirage, sunpath, aerodyne, etc approve them for use with their rigs. I would check with your DZ though just to make sure since they ultimately do the gear check to allow you to jump.

If you want to fly well in your slot for RW just get signed off on level one tunnel skills and then fly with 4 way people. Tunnel coaches can't really teach RW slot flying very well. Once you get checked off on belly, then you can start to progress to backflying. Backflying is the foundation for sit and sit is the foundation for head. So you need to become proficient in each before moving on. When they teach back they do throw in some really basic sit drills but the progression takes time. Some of the dynamic stuff like carving is also good for fun in the sky. One thing I would stress is don't put a time restriction on learning the tunnel. To be proficient just takes awhile and is different for everyone. I know some good sky sitflyers who can't do it in the tunnel. So if you are even semi proficient you probably can do ok in the sky. Another tip for tunnel is try to find a tunnel camp or coach who can do multiple sessions in a day. if you can manage 4 15 min blocks in a day you will make some good progress compared to doing that over 4 weeks.

I jumped one for a few weekends through the square one demo program while I was waiting for my gear to come in. I've jumped safire 2s, safire 3 and sfire. They are all fairly similar. I think the sfire opened a bit faster with less snivel time than a safire 3. I don't really push the envelope much on flying but coming back from a long spot was pretty easy on the sfire. Landing has a nice flare but the most power is deep in the flare. I don't have any videos but like the safire 3 its an incremental improvement over a safire 2 if you have jumped that. I don't think you could go wrong with either.

Definitely look at it this way with a broader perspective and maybe towards the future. AFF clears you for solo but you want to fly with people which means you need to get your A license. An A license packages include coach jumps, packing class, hop n pop, and solo jumps. You might also want to factor in gear rentals, altimeter, helmet, logbook, etc which add up quickly right after AFF. An hour of tunnel will likely cost you $~1k. Put that towards gear and only use the tunnel if you are having troubles with AFF. Then try and get an instructor who knows your issues to help you in the tunnel. If you can't get your instructor to help then make sure you tell the tunnel you want to work on belly skills so you don't waste time on first time flyer stuff. Then once you get your A license, you can think about tunnel time for freeflying, gear, canopy course and many other little things.

It's on the front page of their website now. http://www.flyaerodyne.com/ they are replacing pre november 2017 semi stowless bags with upgraded ones but you can read all the specifics on the site.

Don't rush to downsize. I've only been in the sport 8 months and 175 jumps but I've already seen my fair share of incidents and heard stories about downsizing too fast. I would take a look at Brian Germain's downsize charts. You will likely go to a smaller parachute yes but take your time, it's not a race. Also, look at what you want to do with skydiving. If you want to become a wingsuiter you might want to keep with a more docile and lower wingloading which means not downsizing so fast. If you want to become a swooper then start taking some canopy coaching. If you are just having fun then there is no rule that you have to downsize.

Don't discredit renting as having nothing to show for it. You learn from doing and rentals help you to fill in that gap and figure out what is right. I know its a little costly but it lets you develop into the right size. It's also worth doing the B license canopy class then talking to the instructor where you are going to be in 50 more jumps.

if you want to Freefly I would go for the Vortex because the other two are tuck tabs and not as freefly friendly. Also the custom tailoring to fit would be nice especially at that price.

Most companies that make RW suits have a brandi belt or swoop cord system. When you put your arms out wide they act like winglets helping to slow you down. I think the people who do big ways often use it along with slower falling suits in general.

The 360 cameras look neat in general. However the gopro one looks kinda big compared to others like the garmin virb. There are a few cool wingsuit videos on youtube with the virb but it will be interesting to see how the gopro compares. *I know I am short 200 jumps required for a camera but I'm allowed to look :)

its mixed formation skydiving. It looks like a lot of fun combining all the skills from belly to head down. The videos are pretty cool I think when they really combine belly/back with headdown/sit. http://drawgenerator.axis.tools/pdf/DivePool2017_MFS_2Way_USPA.pdf

I like the skyvan exits personally. You can stand up rather than hunch over in the otter door. Regardless of the plane, you just need to arch hard on exit. Arch, watch the plane fly away and you will come off the hill really nice. I personally had to repeat 2, 3 and 4 multiple times at perris. I had exit issues from the otter since I am tall. I would tumble and all sorts of stuff on exit. Once I started to trust the arch more the exits improved. Don't take it as a failure though. 7 jumps is less than 7 mins of total freefall time and 7 more jumps than most people will do. It will come so don't feel bad about having to repeat some levels.

Since you have Perris listed as your DZ, I would side with the KISS just because you have square one on site and you can get a discount on it once you finish AFF. Like people have said both are nice but it does help if you have any problems that they have the parts right there to swap between loads.

Relative Work Its belly flying with another person like docking and completing various formations.