Hi, This site and particularly people's comments on all the forums has been a great source of reassurance/motivation/support during my sadly patchy flight career... Read on if you fancy a laugh... My skydiving career is akin to a kid staring through the window of a toy shop, too scared to enter. The only thing that ever stopped me, or held me back was/is me trying to convince myself I'm not good enough. I did 3 X static line jumps while at uni in 2000 (Hinton, UK) but after seeing someone exit first (which I interpreted as falling to their death) and not feeling strong enough to do a seated push exit. I gave up. Despite absolutely loving being under canopy. My desire to skydive never went away. So, in 2017 I did a tandem. Sitting in the door and the exit absolutely terrified me, but free fall was incredible. So I was determined to do AFF. As a result of this I started flying in the wind tunnel and have probably clocked up about 40mins of tunnel time at iFly (Basingstoke, UK) over 2017-18. It's great, but it's different. I did my AFF 1 (Sept 2017, Netheravon UK) and performed fine once I was out the door. It just took me two (nearly three) times to actually get out. I struggled with the fear of falling, with the weight of the rig and my leg strength bending in the door (I'm 6'3"). My desire to fly never went away. So this is a hello and thank you, long may this site continue Blue skies Jon Kirby
