GroundRush1

Thats great, you got passed it! When I get my A license Im going to give up skydiving and start on hang gliding, try to get a hang-2. Ill probably do just enough skydiving to keep the license current. My big thing is surfing so Id say thats already too many hobbies. I should be working on that and nothing else but I guess Im just to thick headed to devote to one cause. Hoping to get sponsored one day by Rip Curl, thats my life ambition. Congratulations on the license dude!

If you see a ParaCop diving at you with a flashing siren on top of his helmet, you know what to do. Pull over, roll down your goggles, and have your A license ready...

I need to put my input here because I can identify with this. This anxiety youre feeling is mood dependant, like its there now but will probably go away in the near future. I go rock climbing from 2000 ft every weekend, balance myself on the very tip of a rock at the edge of a cliff, for relaxation. Ill stay up in that position for 30 minutes at a time, it was no big deal. Then, one weekend, I tried rock climbing and felt extremely insecure, really got nervous and started sweating, cant explain it. When youre dealing with heights, its something that seems to come and go. Its the heights thing thats getting to you, not skydiving. Do some more instructor assisted jumps until you feel like youre ready, and youll know when youre ready. I used to get real nervous on static line jumps for some reason, got nervous last time at the DZ, on the way up I wanted to abort, but when I got outside of the plane, there was no problem at all and I was looking forward to a good exit, nervousness went away. After exiting, I arched hard, had a great exit, and started thinking "big deal" Anyway, its the heights that are getting to you, after you jump you are on your way down so you worry about it less because youre comming down. Works the same way with high altitude mountain climbing, nervous on the way up, but everything trivial on the way down. Dont try to explain it, its acrophobia and thats the way acrophobia works. What always helped me in severe mountain situations is to tell myself, "this is no big deal, so what?" and it usually goes away. And these are situations that are sure to scare the awful crap out of anyone, acrophobia or not.

Theyll have to invent the SWI, then the parachute cops who swoop down on you with a ticket pad and a breathalyzer. Then youll have those people who try to cutaway to try to outrun them. This could be the beginning of a new TV series: ParaCops...whatcha gonna do when they dive at you...

I have a few questions here, why did you flip over? I know you were spinning because of the line twists, so having an RSL would have put line twists in that too, but from what I understand, if you cut away in an upright position you shoud still be in an upright position, but still spinning in your case. The second thing is, well that could have happened with your reserve, severe line twists that you would have to ride down with. On line twists that are really, really severe, I wonder if they would still clear themselves. Another question, knowing you didnt have an RSL, did you have one hand on the cutaway and the other on the reserve handle, or did you use the two hand method? Looks to me like if you have an RSL, its a good idea to cutaway right when you start spinning, but then again, that may be on minor line twists, right? Something that can be cleared right away.

No man, its relaxing, right along with rock climbing and balancing yourself on the tip of a rock on the edge of a 2000 ft cliff, do that every weekend and wouldnt miss it for anything. Hanging out on that bar is alot like that, but you have something to hold on to, like skydiving it requires no sense of balance. You dont need to drink to have fun!!! You may need to driink if you get too sore from doing things like that.

I did, maybe not enough. He is wearing the parachute so the ripcord is on him. Im going to be doing a lot of tandem jumps if I dont find it next time. I think this thing moves around or something when youre in mid air.

First of all, I want to thank everyone for all of the initial cutaway input I asked about, has been very helpful. I planning on harrassing the instructors about it until I know the fine details. Im the one who had the bad experience on a second static line jump, and didnt know whether to continue skydiving. Well, I did a tandem-2 jump at another DZ (Eloy), and found it pretty relaxing. I had to wonder where the adrenaline went! Found myself daydreaming, with the cool air rushing past on a hot day, view over the moutains fantastic, lost altitude awareness, so the instructor had to throw the ripcord. After three previous simulations, I couldnt find the ripcord! I was all over the place trying to feel for it and wasnt finding it. Im probably going to have to do two more tandem-2 jumps before Im confident enough on that end, before continuing on with AFF. Everything else went fine, was complemented on a great exit, hard arch, stable position all the way down. That comes from my 2nd static line jump, where I had my chest out but waist in, causing me to flip forward twice on a static line. He said I arched so hard during this last one that I almost broke his back. You learn from experience, right? Need advice on finding the ripcord a little qucker, any suggestions? He told me I was not keeping my hand flat while lookig for it, I wasnt aware of that. I sure would hate to have to do a cutaway for that reason. Its funny, that first tandem was horrfying, this last one, I was expecting this wild ground rush, so I was totally nervous going up. When I was hanging out on the bar, Im thinking, Im totally okay with this, no problem. After exiting and rolling into position, Im thinking, "big deal", I just totally relaxed, maybe a little too much, and was having a great time dropping. This time, it seemed a lot more like floating. I have to keep telling myself during these next ones, "youre not floating, youre dropping, dont forget the ripcord". Got more work to do on finding the ripcord and keeping altitude awareness. No problem, skydiving is skydiving, and its all fun, cant wait till next Sunday!

What Im doing is tandem-2 jumps until I learn how to find the ripcord. Thats really importand before you go to AFF. Do the tandems first, get that down, then go to AFF. Being able to execute everything with confidence makes averything go more smoothly. On my first tandem jump, I was horrified at dropping down thru mid air, that was a major adrenaline rush, heart beating at 140 bpm, shallow breathing, ect. That was tandem-1, no rip cord simulations, excersises, ect. On the second tandem, tandem-2 jump where you are doing excersises, there was no adrenaline rush at all. I was completely relaxed during the freefall, as a matter of fact, so relaxed, I started daydreaming and lost altitude awareness. I became much more aware when the instructor started banging on my altimeter, to say "wake up, youre supposed to be doing ripcord simulations". When we got down, he kept saying "I dont know where your mind was". It was on the nice, cool air rushing past me on a hot day, the fantastic scenery over the mountains, and wishing that freefall would never end. He had to pull the ripcord because I decided I was tired of trying to find it and wanted to enjoy the ride. Then that chute opened and ruined everything, that always sucks when that happens. He throws the ripcord at 4500, after it blew open we were at 3000. Not much time for relaxation! When you exit from the plane, just worry about getting your waist forward and your head up, everything else will follow. That is the most importand thing, if you can arch hard in mid air, you have nothing to worry about. Arch, waist out, head up, exit into the wind, arch hard and count to 5. You will slowly roll into a nice smooth position, nothing scary about it. Just dont start daydreaming. Dont waste time with static lines, it is easy to get wrapped up in one if you dont exit right. Save the Cessna wing strut routine for when you have more experience, if I were you. Whats really a good rush is hanging off the wing strut, then looking down, that is really cool. If your DZ teaches poised exits instead of hanging exits, I suggest you go to another DZ, poised exits are easy to slip off the wheel. My two cents worth. Im not experienced skydiver, but I learn quckly from experience.

I had two static lines. The first, I started to roll onto my back the same as you were, but by throwing my waist furthur forward, the position was corrected and I rolled back forward. The second, again didnt get my waist forward, even though back was arched, waist too far in caused me to forward flip twice while on the static line. DONT DO THAT! That was really scary.

I went through the same thing you are going through a few weeks ago, I had to ask if it was a good idea to be skydiving. I had already had one tandem and two static line jumps. So just to let you know, you are not alone. The fact is, there is a lot of scary stuff about you can do everythihg right and still die. The thing to do is to minimize the risk, they have to tools for doing that, but not everyone uses them. I think the best way to stay out of trouble is to take all precautions until you feel confident, and go with those. Dont let your ego ever get in the way, or dont try to be cool, if your mind says take this many precautions, then take that many. The idea is to be successful at skydiving, not to see how much risk youre willing to take. This is a sport, not a battle with courage. Stick to the big chutes, RSLs, and AADs, dont trust your equipment to save you, trust yourself, practice emergency procedures before going up, know everything that can happen and be ready to react. Knowing how to react, my friend, is EVERYTHING. Its all about knowing what to do. When you are unsure of how to deal with an emergency situation, that will cause you to panic, then things go really wrong. Its this you want to avoid. You cant ask too many questions in skydiving, and if your instructors treat you like you are asking too many, then its time for you to walk away from that DZ. Its your butt up there, and you have every right to protect it with as many saftey measures as are available. In the long run, I think you will find out that the most dangerous thing about skydiving is what one poster said: If you need to stay productive at work, and don't want to spend the rest of your life obsessed, you're better off not learning to skydive. They need to come up with a safety measure for that!

That clears things up a bit. Thanks!

Not much, just talking alot about cutaways. Every time I just so much as talk about it, my palms start to sweat, keyboard here is starting to look pretty messy. Im starting to think this is a way to burn off a little more body fat.

Thanks for the info, that is a good idea. Shold give me some conception of what to expect when using the one handed method of pulling the cutaway. I was just worried about pulling with one hand, hand slipping off the handle or something like that. I was familiar with those pillow type handles. When you strip the line, assuming you cant pull the handle far out enough, should you just wrap your hand around the cable and keep pulling? Also, should you not pull the reserve until the line is stripped completely out? I am going to ask the DZ to let me do that with a student rig fixing to be repacked. Id go all the way down there just for that. When it comes to time constraint, I like to act fast as possible and not waste time. Same thing goes with most all extreme sports. Thanks for the suggestion. Actually, about the old days, I hear they used to cutaway the main with a pocket knife. Now thats old fashioned. So, I guess by tradition, everyone still uses the term cutaway instead of breakaway. I dont know how reliable the pocket knife routine would be, but I wouldnt want to find out! Wonder what happens if you drop the knife.

Ok Andrea, thanks.