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"Life changed after that jump...I'd suddenly stepped to the highest level of daring, a level above even that which airplane pilots could attain." Charles Lindbergh, describing his first skydive

These are obviously favourable statistics however i am a strong beleiver that "There are three kind of lies, lies, damned lies and statistics" in short you can present most statistics that deal with little detail [deaths vs jumps] to make anycase you want. If we are going to rely on statistics surely it would be better to try and break it up a bit. Eg. Amount of deaths caused by driver error vs amount of death caused by pilot [body or canopy] error. Or compare mechanical failure. Also I think that it worth remembering that most car accidents involve more than one car as one has screwed up and hit someone else. Although there are incidents of mid air collisions there are consaiderble more where a lone person dies probably due to the fact that most deaths occur under canopy. I beleive that i am less liklely to have an accident/inccident skydiving than i am driving but if i do have one jumping i am sure it is much more likely that i will suffer serious injurys or die. As the parachute is you "safety net" after that you have no real protection. In a car you have seatbelts, multiple air bags, crumple zones etc.

I am with you on Calpton, in the UK they did a top 10 guitarsits and he was second to Hendrix, also he has been in the rock and roll hall of fame more times than any other musician.

I have bad sinuses but found that once i did a few jumps i did not notice the pressure that much. The bad headache and nausia sounds like it could be down to a the Eustachian tube which can become sticky and prevent equalisation of the pressure. It is worth going to see your GP but there is often little that can be done for sinus problems. Otrivine is a good decongestiant but it is not good to use those steroid based sprays too much instead smelling olbas oil is a less effectiv ebut more natural remedy. In short if you are concerned see your doctor because you do not want to damge your ear it can effect your balance as well as your hearing which will effect your ability to do all the things you take for granted. Blue skies

If money isnt an issue then what have you got to lose? If you feel like the experience isnt as pure with it than without it then sell it, they dont really depreciate that much in a short space of time, and who knows you may be able to allow an inexperienced skydiver who really wants one to have one in their rig. I personally always jump with one and i dont think it detracts from the experience, once i switch it on i never think about it again.

Hi I am Seb and am a Doctor specialising in emergency medicine. I currently work 60 hours a week in A & E [Brit version of ER] in a city hospital in the UK which is why i never have time to jump [I want to go back to being a student :) ]

But remember a US gallon is about 0.8 of a UK gallon. Petrol is still a rip off hear though

I do not wish to single out the author of the quote that i placed in this post i only use it to illustrate my point. I realise that coming from a country whci does not allow people to legally own weapons such as the ones on sale in the US i may seem a bit of an outsider but i cannot beleive that a gun can be compared to anything else not least a swimming pool. I have heard guns being compared to knives and other such potentially dangerous things, however there is a crucial difference when talking about a fire arm. A knife [to take the common example] is a tool it is a practical device that can be used to perform multiple construcutve tasks, a gun is a weapon which is designed to be destrucutive, regardless of what the owner uses it for it has been created to take life and one day under the ownership of the original owner or a subsequent one in may well do that. To say that it may defend someones life is possibly true but again IMHO it is far more liley to be used for the opposite, there is a military tradition in my family [though i did not follow it] and i beleive that those whoi carry/own guns should a] need to b] be trained to do so. In the army people are trained to use their judgement as tp when it is necessary to fire their weapon civilians do not have this sort of training, firing rounds at a paper cut out is not enough. I think that owning a gun is far more likley to get you or a loved one hurt more than anyone else.

Yep absolutley, when i was at university i used to have a friend that went out on his bicycle the day before exams in the hope that he might get hit by a car and not have to take the paper, taking procrastination to all new levels.

Lets not brand the whole nation because of the actions of a few individuals. There are nazis in most countries and despite these racist comments we shouldnt jump to the concluision that these reflect the opinions of all the French. I am Britsh and lost family in WWII i am appalled but i will direct my contempt towards those who support the Nazi ideal and not an entire country or race. In addition, i dont know how much those non-British people on this thread know about The Sun newspaper but its a trashy gutter press publication which tries to provoke a reaction from the public and I implore you to take what it says with a good pinch of salt. I am ashamed to say that it is the most popular newspaper in Britain but it might give weight to my argument to say that it is written at the level of 9 year old, no that isnt me being sarcastic it is a fact! The paper has many court cases against it for various breaches of the law. If you take out the inflamortary language it uses you can find very little fact in its articles. A A

I am English and have a very pronounced English accent, but last time i was in New England someone asked me where abouts in Australia I was from??? Does English sound like Australian to anyone else out there?