neilmck

The only comment I have made on this subject is on the difficultly I am having receiving the program in France. However I have read the contents of this thread and I consider the good points to be good points. I do not see how someone's perceived opinion of any association could change a good point into a bad one.

For me, if you are one of the few who is going to stick with the sport then you will stay to the end of the static line course. Static line is a hell of a lot cheaper for the vast majority who do not stick with the sport.

I agree, unless you still doing loads of sport you need to go to the gym to work on upper-body strength. Also I found the under-carriage isn't what it once was and had to take up jogging as well.

The drop out rate depends how you look at it. How many AFF jumpers are still in the sport 3 months after they complete their course? The drop-out rate is huge, if it wasn't parachute centres would very quickly be over-run when you see how many are trained each week.

Jumping with a wingsuit is far cooler. And the great thing is that instead of doing it alone you can do it with plenty of other parachutists.

Stick with it. Before AFF you would jump with a static line, then 3 second freefall before pulling, then 5 second, 10, 15... Each time it would take about 10 jumps before you could progress. So to get 7 minutes freefall experience took about 50 jumps and even then you were only doing 20 seconds of stable falling before pulling. Freefalling is like nothing else your body has ever experienced, it takes time to learn it and for it to become second nature. Don't get disheartened, stick with it, it is definitely worth it.

Depends on the DZ. If you live near the sea there is no such thing as a good or bad weather day as the weather can change in an hour. Here where I live, if the weather is bad in the morning it will be bad all day and the DZ might not even open. When you are a beginner a bad weather day is a good day to learn/practice packing...

In France there is a 20 year limit on reserves.

If I had waited until I could afford it I would never have started. However when I started there was only static line so you could do it very cheaply and it was okay to have slow progress (it took me over a year to get my first 3 seconds of freefall). These days it is probably a good idea to have saved up enough money to be able to complete your AFF ( with a few extra jumps) quickly otherwise you will not progress enough and will have to retake expensive jumps. After you can do cheaper jumps to keep current. You probably won't progress much until you have a job and a decent salary, but what the hell, you're still skydiving. Most DZs will rent you all the gear you need. I'm not the best guy to give advice on talking your parents around. 30 years later and my father who is 88 years old is still trying to talk me out if it.

Have you tried calling your local DZ.

After coming back from a 25-year break one of the big differences I see is the skill level required. 30 years ago there was only belly flying, so you could easily get to a reasonable level just jumping with experienced skydivers for free, which is what everybody did. And that was enough to really enjoy yourself and jump with everyone on the DZ. Why people wanted to complicate everything by inventing free flying, I'll never understand. Now if you want to jump with everyone else you have to free fly and spend God knows how much time in a tunnel. At some point you will get fed-up of jumping by yourself, trying to figure it out and spending $$$ per jump and getting no better at it. It is at this point you decide it is cheaper to pay for coaching either in the sky or at your local tunnel.

For anyone in France, it is currently being shown on the Planete+ TV channel. However this channel is a PayTV channel and I don't have a subscription, so I guess I will have to wait.

I can't see the benefit of the power tool compared to a normal closing cord. I guess it might come in handy for removing broken rubber bands from your bag if you have recently cut your nails, but I just use the closing pin for that.

There is no doubt that skydiving is a great way of removing stress however I'm not so sure it is a great treatment for depression. Depression isn't just about feeling down but can affect brain function impacting reaction times and decision making.

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This is cultural. That was the type of reaction people in my office had. After a merger at work we had a training on how to work with Indians. Apparently, as opposed to many people here, Indians do give a fuck about you and if you want to work with them then is a good idea to show them that you give a fuck about them too. Since we started working with the teams in Indian the work environment here has totally changed. Colleagues take a genuine interest the lives of others and our bosses are starting to think about what work interests us instead of just blindly giving us orders.

In terms of protection in case of impact how do the G3 and G4 compare with the old fashioned and infinitely cheaper open-faced Protec?

I've never suffered from nausea but there were two tandem passengers vomiting under canopy at the DZ last Sunday. The weather was particularly hot and it was put down to dehydration. On very hot days we have regular tannoy announcements reminding everyone to stay hydrated.

I'd recommend you speak with the Student's Union at your university, they will know if there are any regulations you need to follow. Thirty odd years ago I started the Parachute club at Birmingham University in the UK. I arrived at the University as a post-grad and didn't know anyone so during the first week of term I went into the room in the Students Union where the different societies had their stands, found an empty desk and a piece of paper and wrote "Parachute Club" on it. It was free to join and I told everyone interested to meet me somewhere for the first meeting the following Wednesday. About ten people turned-up and we managed to find a place for everyone on the committee. The club started off informally, basically helping people get organised for courses and getting to and from the local DZ, sharing cars, etc. We met up once a week for a drink. I believe the club is still running I guess laws and liabilities have changed and are different from country to country. Recently my daughter started an association at her Uni in France and boy was that legally heavy with significant personal liability for the president of the association. So I recommend to see with your student's union what you need to do (and if you can get some money off them) and also find out what personal liability you may be taking on.

I recently came back after a 25-year break. I had previously 250 jumps. I found the free-fall bit is like riding a bike, I just picked-up were I left off. However flying the canopy was not the same story, I needed some help with that. I'd go with sundevil777's advice, that is pretty much what I did. I called the DZ told them the story and asked when would be a good time to pop down to speak with the DZO and what documentation I needed (medical certificate, etc). I arrived early at the DZ one Saturday morning with my logbook, license and old kit I was hoping to jump (that gave them a laugh), spent some time with an instructor and jumped the same day. Take it easy, start slow - there'll be some stuff you will have forgotten, other stuff has changed - stay safe. Above all enjoy yourself and welcome back.

This is true, even now if I listen to what he said, one time in three I hear it incorrectly even though I now know what he really said. Besides if I was trolling I wouldn't have replied to your post.

As much as I loathe the way Trump conducts himself, I doubt very much that you have any evidence of that. You are right, I didn't hear him correctly, I did find it hard to believe I was they only one who picked up on it. Earlier I listened several times to what he said and I was sure he said this. However now just before posting the link I listened again and he never said it, I can only put it down to me misunderstanding the American accent. I apologize for saying this about Donald Trump. Also I can assure you it was not my intention to troll.

Not correct.

Small canopies is probably the major cause of death and injury in skydiving today. Tightly regulating them in France has drastically reduced the death and injury rate here. Everyone knows gun control will drastically reduce the murder rate in the USA. Criminals will still have a reduced access to illegal guns but when your average guy flips he will not have the material at hand nor the ability to access it to do a mass killing. The big problem in the US is even with gun control how do you remove the large number of guns already out there.

How did you do the video? From the final frames I can see in a shadow that you have the camera on the end of a stick on the front of your helmet, but how is the image of the stick removed from the video itself?