Spike

N/A

Your lowest natural skill team member needs to "catch up". Jump numbers isn't necessarily a guide, so... I'd do a 1 on 1 with your coach and let him/her work out an airtime rota based on who needs the most work=needs the most tunnel time. As individuals/cost this may not seem fair but as a team its the best way to get the best result. Your weakest link is what will hold you back. Moral of the story, be a low timer and join a team keen to invest in improving.

Hi Beth, There is a group from Nethers going out a little later this year. Drop me a line if you want to know more and I'll put you in touch with those that know. Cya

13. Seeing the visor on your Factory Diver frost over on a frosty day and not being able to see your 4way partners, or your alti, or the ground. 14. Watching the prop turn.

anyone want to be my valentine?? QuoteYou mean there's a vacancy Happy birthday sweety

Here's my story and why I posted the question. Very, very newly rated. During TI training I and my instructor experienced a mal. We're both still alive and I have the rating so I guess I did the right thing. I also experienced a side spin. Partly down to the passengers body position, but also to my poor presentation and a feeble attempt to outfly my passenger. Luckily I was drogue side up and recognised instantly the nature of the problem and a few seconds later that I was not going to be able to fly us out of the spin. Quite frankly I found the sidespin the most frightening experience of my skydiving career. However I took a deep breath, saddled up and got back on with the job. It didn't kill me and I won't make that mistake again (I hope). But it did make me realise that as a newly qualified TM I was severely low on experience. This got me to thinking about the level of risk and people's awareness of risk. I too as an A+ licenced jumper have done several qualification jumps to help out newbie TM candidates get thier rating. However its only now that I've done the TM course that I realise the additional complexities and risks of a TM jump. Add to that the low experience level and your into a whole new danger zone. I'm not just talking about the freefall dangers either. Those canopies just don't fly like the sport rig that you (as a sport jumper) have spent hundreds of jumps getting used to. And the landing approach techniques, straight in/stall surge/turn to stand up, slide in or running/nose plant are again quite different to sport rig landing techniques. However as Aggie, said, as a rated TM, I now have the confidence to know I could at least help in most situations. If you don't have a TM rating and your on a qualification jump with a student TM. Don't fu€k around, arch hard and do what your told. Your TM pilot is probably nervous enough as it is and no-ones joking when they say a TM's work rate is high enough as it is. Gosh that sounds overly negative, just understand, whether your TM rated or not, a Tandem is not just another jump! I voted TM rated yes.

Well? PM me if you want my vote?

Hey Adam, Did Vicki really need an excuse to be rubbing linament on your chest! Hope the pain isn't around too long. Mend fast.

Hi Craig, I did my AFF at Brisbane Skydiving Centre, Queensland, run by Brian Scoffell and about 50 minutes drive from Brisbane. They will collect/drop off from the city or airport. Small very friendly DZ with a Cessna 206 and 182, bunkhouse, showers, kitchen and bar. I got 1 on 1 instruction and total attention, worked for me. There is also a much bigger DZ about an hour and 15' out from Brisbane at Ramblers. I was there at the Equinox boogie in October. Great facilities, but much busier. Both of these DZ's are 7 day operations. Have fun and good luck with the AFF wherever you go.

Zoter, these aren't fantasy costs, do the maths yourself. I left out the costs you mention because they're almost the same between Paris and the US and are in any case such a small component of the total that they have a negligible impact on the total cost of a trip. Just to make it clear, 3 hours of tunnel over a 5 night stay, including flights, taxes, transfers, hotels and tunnel time. Item Paris Orlando Flight £23.00 £291.00 Hotel £82.70 £64.80 Transfer £18.00 £13.97 Tunnel £3125.89 £951.14 ============================ Total £3249.59 £1320.91 Paris £3249.59 Orlando £1320.91 ================ Saving £1928.68 is that clear enough? The fact is that tunnel time in Paris is 3 times the cost of Orlando and thats a huge differential if your doing more than 30 minutes or so of tunnel time. The flight cost of £291 included tax. In the US you can catch the bus from the airport to International Drive for US$1.50 or you can splash out on a Mears Shuttle for US$25 return. The equivalent would be EU€25 for a Paris shuttle. EU€25 / 1.3884 = GBP£18.00 US$25 / 1.8136 = GBP£13.79, cheaper in the US by GBP£4 odd. Hotels, well Lemonjelly quoted EU€18 a night so we'll take that figure for the Paris hotel. The Super6 motel (walking distance to the tunnel) in the US costs US$30 US$30 / 1.8136 = GBP£16.54 EU€18 / 1.3884 = GBP£12.96, cheaper in Paris by a whopping GBP£3.58 per night. So if you stay for 5 nights, the difference in hotel costs is going to be a massive saving of GBP£18 odd if you stay in Paris rather than Orlando. As I said, the hotel and transfers costs are a negligble component of the total cost and do little to offset the fact that per minute Paris is 3 times dearer than Orlando. Personally I'd rather go to Orlando and save 1,000's than go Paris to save 10's! You may not like the time spent flying to Orlando. But there's nothing impractical about it for UK citizens. Have you seen how many Brits holiday in Orlando? Still dubious about the comparative costs? Shall we work out the difference in subsistence, the cost of a Big Mac against Le Mac Royale next?

You're clearly a natural at flying your body. Whereas I still find it a challenge after nearly 20 hours in 3 different tunnels around the world. Have you tried a solid walled tunnel? or what are you basing your comparison on? Your very words reveal you don't know what your talking about. How do you turn and go back when you've already fallen off the air column? Which is what happens when you get to the net. In the solid wall tunnels, this drop off in workable air just doesn't happen in the same way. Simple maths, Skyventure per minute is cheaper than Aerokart. GBPound to EU€ = 1:1.3884 GBPound to US$ = 1:1.8136 Aerokart costs one off discount registration €20 / 1.3884 = GBP£14.40 Discounted session cost = €48 (2 mins) / 1.3884 = GBP£34.57 Skyventure Orlando costs Block booking time = US$575 (60 mins) = US$19.17 (2 mins) / 1.8136 = GBP£10.57 If you book now for February via Expedia you can get a flight from Heathrow to Orlando for GBP£291. 24 minutes at Aerokart will cost you GBP£429.24 24 minutes at Skyventure Orlando will cost you GBP£126.82, leaving GBP£302.42, more than enough to cover the flight and I've excluded travel costs to Eurokart. The break even point where it costs about the same to fly at either Orlando or Paris is less than 30 minutes, any time over that and its cheaper to go to Orlando. No, not complete crap, complete fact actually. This was my experience at Aerokart. The fact is that if you call Orlando you can book your minutes exactly when you want them during the day. Paris doesn't operate a booking system in this way so you don't know when you will have your time during the day. I WAS at the Aerokart tunnel first thing in the morning waiting for the gates to open. I WAS there all day till closing time before I got all of my time in. I WAS left wondering when it was going to be my turn next. This was my experience, yours may have been different, but that doesn't give you the right to describe my experience as complete crap. You will note that I made no criticism of the coaches at Aerokart. I agree that they have some excellent coaches there, but this equally applies to those available at Orlando. Politeness costs nothing and working out the best deal sometimes takes a little effort. But niether is hard.

Cancel the booking. If you liked the Orlando tunnel then you won't like Aerokart. The Paris tunnel is of a different design with an open mesh sided chamber. My experience was that at Orlando you can just push off the wall, at Paris when you get to the edge you fall of the column and onto the padding. At Orlando you can talk (or at least shout) and be heard, in Paris "no one can hear you scream" as they say in the movies. I found the digital video debriefing facilities at Orlando far better than what they have at Paris. At Orlando they have a creepers and a creeper area. If you take your own creepers to Paris, try using them and you'll be asked to stop. If your booking an hour at Orlando you'll break even on the Paris costs (including flight expenses). Orlando you make your booking, you know when your in the tunnel and for how long. At Paris, its all a bit vague. You know how much time you've bought, but the operators decide when to put you in and for how long. So you might have 2 minutes at the start of the day and two minutes at the end of the day, but you won't be able to plan ahead. As you can tell I didn't enjoy my time at the Paris tunnel. I won't be going a second time. If you want a really cheap alternative to Orlando, try the Skyventure tunnel in Malaysia.

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I passed my AFFI rating,

Hey thanks for the link, I picked up some good usefull info, cheers.

Indeed, and my thanks go to you and everyone else who has contributed so far. But I was hoping to get some opinions on when and how instructors decide a student isn't up to making a jump, be it AFF/SL/Tandem or any other variant, rather than turning it into an AFF v S/L discussion. In summary it seems to me that most instructors make the decision on the following criteria. Physical capability Mental capability, and by this I mean :- Ability to recognise EP situations Proficiency to demonstrate correctly executed EPs during ground school And then other stuff like :- Demonstrating poor body form (dearching in AFF and poor exit practice in S/L) Bad attitude during ground school Lack of attention during class Reputation Second opinions from another instructor And lastly the difficult one:- Gut feelings Anyone care to add or debate?

Sounds like spotting the "challenged/ing" student before they get in the air is tough. That being the case, do you err on caution, or go for it and deal with it when it goes pear shaped?

Hi Alex, I went to the tunnel back in October. I spent about 40 minutes in there. I've done 12+ hours in Orlando and 2+ in Paris. The Paris tunnel is a different design to the Orlando and Genting tunnels and I really don't like the Paris tunnel. The difference being that Paris has open mesh walls while the other two have solid walls. Not sure what you mean by this because Genting has a closed wall design just like Orlando, it isn't open or are you refering to air re-circulation? I'll restrict my comments to a comparison of Genting and Orlando, a) because they're of a closer design and b) I just don't like the Paris tunnel. I did mostly solo or one on one in the tunnel and found absolutely no problem with the power using my normal flat FS suit. I weigh 80Kg and was able to get well up out of sight of the people in viewing bay. Equally stopping just before hitting the bottom net was no problem. The structure of the Orlando tunnel is outdoors and if there are changes in the wind external to the tunnel, you will rise up and down in the column of air. If you watch 4 way training at Orlando you'll see them moving up and down the column as a group. The Genting tunnel is built within the entertainment complex. This seems to provide some damping effect as I didn't notice any involuntary changes of hieght. I'm not a freeflyer, but I was quite able to Knee or booty fly, so that my knees where at the top of the glass windows. Criticisms... Orlando has an awesome digital debriefing system, Genting doesn't. Genting has a variety of camera positions, some high set and some low set. If you want to debrief 4 way work make sure you ask the rats to set the video to use the high level camera. Orlando has a high population of skydivers. When your at Orlando I've always found people to share time with or get advice from. At Genting I was the only skydiver there. I did a short session sharing my time with whuffo tourists and the rat. Once the tourists had done there time I was in the tunnel alone. Just me and the rat. I did two minutes, he did 1, turn and turnaround. On the plus side, you have to book Orlando weeks if not months ahead to be sure of getting time. This is important if your coming from far away (the UK). There have been times when I've wanted extra time and Orlando has just been booked out. On my trip to Genting, I arrived unanounced and they put me straight in. I couldn't ask for more than that. The rats at Orlando are typically skydivers, while those at Genting don't skydive, but don't let that put you off, they are awesome at body flight. As Craig said, they also welcome skydivers and they really looked after me over the whuffo tourists. And then there is cost. When I was there they did 2 minutes for 38 Malaysian Ringgit, which works out at about £6 a session. Thats cheaper than Orlando and way way cheaper than Paris. They also said they'd do discount rates for block bookings. So in short, yes I'd like more power. But the power there is, is adequate for flat flying. Having scouted the ground I'll be going back to Genting to do 4 way training. This is second hand, I have a friend who freeflys, she said sit was no problem, but the rats wouldn't let her try head down. Sadly as a woman travelling alone she got hassled by a man on her way back to KL, but if you read the women only forum, you'll see that happens at Orlando too. Nothing to do with the tunnel, just a sad reflection of our society and some mens bad attitude to women, and a heads up to girls to stay aware when travelling alone. On a happier note, Malaysia is awesome, I found the people to be very friendly and keen to try out their English. I can't speak Malaysian at all, had never been before and despite knowing nothing except that I wanted to go to Genting, I got there and back with no problems and for as cheap as chips. Prices for hotels, goods and food are very very low. I missed the last train back to KL and got a taxi back. It was an 90 minute drive for £12 including a decent tip. Back home £12 would get you about 10 minutes in a taxi. If you catch the bus it costs about £1.20. I found the bus ride there a hoot. Once you are out of the city the road is a good wide dual carraigeway and the bus used all three lanes! Even wilder was the ride down the mountain in the taxi. My taxi driver, using the other traffic as mobile chicanes, again inventing a "third" lane as required. But the best laugh of all are the advertising hoardings. Adverts for Ferodo brake pads and discs perched next to the most precipitous bends. I love white nuckle rides and this was for real... Love it, love it, love it. Hope this was helpfull.

Thanks Foggy, I hadn't come across the skydiveratings website before. Cheers

I was also thinking along the lines of tricky "students" experiences. I was told by a recent AFFI candidate of a jump where right at the bottom end the "student" did a perfect 180, so now the mainside and reserve side JM's are switched. Wow, both JM's now had fractions of a second to reset and figure out the diveflow and there "new" responsibilities. Is this normal for the kind of "unexpected" stuff I'll see an examiner throw into a certification dive?

Kelly thanks for the ProTrack tip.

Either send them packing or convert them to something else, maybe a tandem. Here's an example, there was a student on a static line FJC and she just couldn't PLF. The course instructor and myself spent about an hour after the other students were done trying to get her to PLF properly. She'd either land forward on her knees or put an arm out if she did roll. The instructor tried several different instruction methods and I learned a lot that day, but she didn't get it. Eventually the instructor said he thought she'd be better doing a tandem. I also saw a student who kept on talking to me during the breaks in the course about how nervous she was. She seemed to do Ok on the FJC but in the door she refused. Came back the following week, did her refresher and spent the next couple of hours looking terrified but this time she did two reasonable jumps. The last thing I want to do is put someone out who just isn't up to it. I know how I'd make that decision, but I'm interested in what signs anyone else uses to make that decision.

Thanks Aggie, Rob, I've already downloaded the TI and USPA manuals and the APF Ops Regs and Training Manuals. And I've trawled the net for any other AFF related stuff, I found the pre-course guide by Rick Horn, but there's not much else. I've done not hundreds, but a lot of jumps with low timers. I've also done a lot of coached jumps and tunnel time with Sebastian XL to improve my own skills, so I'd say my proximity was Ok. Recall is Ok and learning the manuals is what I'm doing right now. As for lesson plans, thats the kind of thing I could do with advice on, or even better an example. And practice teaching those lessons, yeah I need to work on that. Any chance of an example of a lesson plan?

I've sat in on ground school classes with different instructors and seen way more students binned before they get in the air than I've seen students refuse at the door. I think this is a good thing and a tribute to the skill of the instructors. I think binning a student is a difficult choice for an instructor to make. After all everyone in the class wants to jump, don't they? My experience tells me this assumption is incorrect as of the students I've seen binned, all I've ever seen is a look of relief. What factors or observed behaviours do you use when deciding to bin a student?