tbrown

One of the drawbacks to AFF is that you start out at altitude and then come DOWN to make your first hop & pop. I've seen more jumpers, on the plane for their first hop & pop, who were so nervous about it, and I've always tried to give them encouragement that they would not only do just fine, but enjoy themselves. My first hop & pop, forty years ago, was also my first freefall. Also my first pack job (under the close supervision of an instructor). I'd been making static lines from 2800 ft and now was moving UP to 3200 for the freefall. I could see the difference in the landscape that we were higher. Everything went fine, I was stable, the canopy even opened, and when I landed the beer never tasted better. Stand in the door, step out sideways, facing forward, and watch the plane rise up away from you. Tilting your head back will cause your spine to curve into a perfect arch. Once you're clear of the plane, go for your pull. If you really want to have some fun, pull while you're still on the hill, before you flatten out. Your pilot chute will go straight out behind you and the opening will swing you back under the canopy as it inflates. It WILL seem like it's taking a long time to open and the opening will look sloppier than what you're used to, but only because you're not terminal yet. It does take longer, but you haven't fallen as far either. Once you're open, everything's the same as usual. So take a deep breath and enjoy yourself - because you will ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Your doubts, and even any fears you may have, are completely normal. Skydiving is not a natural activity, all your basic instincts are telling you not to do it. Plus it's full of completely new and different sensations that can even be disorienting. That's why there's a student progression, it's to help you deal with things one at a time. It does get easier, and it gets a whole lot better. So don't worry if you feel like an ugly duckling for a while. Most of us, even a lot of world champion class skydivers, have all had to deal with it. If anybody could just do it what fun would it be ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I really have no idea whether or not Knox is actually guilty. She might even be another OJ. But OJ walked, like it or not, because he was acquitted in a court of law. What kind of a judiciary overturns a conviction, releases someone from prison, allows them to leave the country, and then decides they want to change their mind - again ? It wouldn't happen here in America. So even though Italy has an extradition treaty with the U.S., I believe the U.S. has the right to refuse on the grounds of double jeopardy. Because if we let Knox be extradited back to Italy, then we set a precedent for any country with a halfass court system to haul away any American citizen from American soil on any pretense. They had their chance and they BLEW it. End of story. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

My "default" settings for most skydives are at 4500/3000/2000 ft. for breakoff, pull, and hard deck. For things like larger formations I'll reset to assigned breakoff (like 5500). I leave the hard deck at 2000. If I'm still humming thru 2 grand I want to know in every possible way. Usually I'll get clear and toss before the pull alarm goes off, which it usually does while I'm at line stretch. If I'm on a bigway and been told to pull lower, I'll track through the pull alarm and will still be sitting in without the hard deck going off. If the hard deck goes off at line stretch, I'm not going to try to fix anything like line twists, it's all good or it's gone. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

This little bit of news is so ghastly I almost don't want to think about it. Dennis Rodman's buddy Kim Jong Un didn't have his uncle shot. No, no, no. He had uncs, along with five of his associates, thrown to a pack of 120 hunting dogs that had been intentionally starved for 5 days. According to reports, he supervised the whole thing. Wow.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Mike, do you have the '79 Rumbleseat t-shirt ? It was black and had a Lodestall with a Joe Morgan face flying through "Perrish Valley". Only had that one for about two months and I think an old girlfriend threw it away behind my back. Also, the famous orange Terminal Research shirt. You were supposed to smell it and say "aaaaah!" when you bought it from the team. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

You'll be just fine at Skydive San Diego. I visited there a couple years ago, and even with over a thousand jumps, got a thorough briefing on the terrain and pattern from one of the owners. As a student, you're sure to get even more thorough briefings from the instructors as they work with you. SDSA is a larger dropzone, but by no means a gigantic one either. It will make for a very nice transition to help you get used to larger dropzones with turbos. It's a beautiful location, close to sea level, with a steady wind from the ocean that makes for lovely landings. You're going to LIKE it. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Not an adrenaline junkie either. I do it because it's so profoundly beautiful. Back in the day (1970's), skydiving weaned me away from LSD because it was every bit as exploratory and not half as scary. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Women, speaking in Brazilian Portuguese. Leaves me utterly helpless. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Easily "hashtag", which I don't even know what the fuck it means. So, taking a few liberties and paraphrasing from Dave Barry, "Hashtag, shut the fuck up !" Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

*** So remarkably like your story Phil, third grade in Catholic school. I remember those hallway air raid drills too in second grade. What disturbed me the most as an 8 year old boy was how upset all the adults looked. Many of the women were crying, the men were choked up and red around the eyes. Jan. 1986 I'd just got into work (on the west coast) when there was a big uproar for whoever had a radio to turn it on because the Challenger had just exploded. I also remember Saturday morning, 2/1/2003, waking up to Scott Simon on NPR saying that NASA had lost touch with Columbia for over twenty minutes and that reports of debris falling from the sky were coming in from all over Texas. Finally, on 9/11/01, I was on an upstairs balcony overlooking the factory floor at the Boeing plant in Everett, WA. I was directly overhead of the 777 assembly line and could see over into the next bay where the 767 line was. I simply couldn't believe anyone would fly one of these beautiful machines, filled with people, into a building full of people. Boeing workers take the loss of any plane very personally. I saw a lot of grown men & women cry. Some locked up their tools and went home Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Interesting, in the old South this dude would have been a slave. Probably a house slave. In New Orleans, slave women who were only 1/8 black were known as Octaroons and were prized as "exotic" in the city's brothels. Where they had to whore as slaves. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Perris Valley Skydiving will be putting on their Holiday Boogie, as they do every year ! NO registration fees, $22 jumps, a fleet of Twin Otters and two Skyvans, and Load Organizing by the likes of Dan BC and Perris' famed crew of LO's ! Parties every night at the Bombshelter, including a guaranteed blowout on New Year's Eve. Onsite accomodations at the Int'l House of Parachutists, the Bunkhouse, and plenty of local hotels & motels. The weather's not completely guaranteed, but has been generally really nice for the last several years - this is So Cal after all ! And if it rains - hell, there's always Disneyland.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

WTF ?! Why would anyone want to neutralize a good foul ripper ? Doesn't anyone have good American values anymore ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

But at the risk of being a negative old fart......Maybe everything isn't better today. I really think there were fewer jumpers who thought they were too good to jump with a newbie, back then. More experienced jumpers often jumped with the less experienced jumpers to help train them. They didn't consider it a wasted jump. They didn't expect to get paid for it. I think things have become a lot more clickish today, and that may be one thing that is a detriment to modern day skydiving. I know of many who have quit the sport because of this factor alone..... Back in the day, we all jumped together, and we partied together. Being a Newbie was nothing to be embarrassed by. You didn't have to be a sky-god to hang out with more experienced jumpers. There just seemed to be a different attitude then...... Am I the only one who feels that? __________________________________________________ With all due respect, I guess I must have jumped at a different dropzone than yours, as I have to disagree. Where I came up, in the mid 1970's, the gods wouldn't touch us with a ten foot pole. I even remember once going up for a 6 Way, and halfway to altitude the gods told me and a friend they'd changed their mind and would be doing a 4 Way and my friend & I were on our own. There was also an ingredient of working class resentment against us college kids that belied the "no matter who you are or what you do for a living" myth. Definitely helped me grow a thick skin, the only reason I kept jumping was because I refused to quit in the face of some real hostility. On the plus side, this bonded the newbies together in lifelong friendships, but we sure beat the crap out of each other and picked up all kinds of bad habits while learning to fly with each other. I have fellow newbie friends from those days I still keep in touch with - and a list of gods who I wouldn't give the time of day to if I met them on the street. Cliques have always been a problem, and there have always been people who get pissed off and quit. But then again, some of those people just like to get pissed off or else they don't feel right (we all know someone like this). Where I jump now, we have LO's who bend over backwards to bring the newbies up and to make visiting jumpers welcome. In my experience, things are much better thhat way. Guess our mileage just varies.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Believe it or not, simple vanilla often does the trick, though lately I'm really loving cookies & cream. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Perris offers a monthly event called the Mark & Darryld Bigways. This group meets one Sunday a month for 5 jumps. There is no charge beyond your jumps and a $10 fee for video. The object of the group is to introduce up and coming skydivers to safe and sane bigway flying, from two aircraft. There is a limit of 44 people, but the group is usually somewhere between mid twenties to mid thirties. It's not unusual for some highly experienced bigway fliers (like Dan BC) to join the group, both for the fun of it and to help out. For more information, go to the Perris website and follow links from the Experienced Jumpers page. There is also a link to their written piece on bigway fundamentals, which IS required reading before you join the group. It's such a good read that P3 has adopted it for their bigway camps. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I was in the first grade when those Mercury guys were going up on their missions. I vaguely remember Carpenter, who was sort of in the shadow of the great John Glenn (my earliest hero). Read a pretty cool quote from him though. He said he was looking at an altimeter that read 90,000 ft, looked up and saw only blackness and knew he was still going straight up. For a moment he thought "what the hell am I doing here ?". Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Both places have excellent schools with dedicated and friendly instructors. Both places can be a real zoo on the weekends if you're a student. If you're going to be jumping on weekdays, I've found that Perris has a steadier flow because it's a larger and busier operation. I once jumped on a weekday 4 Way clinic at Elsinore where we had to quit after 4 jumps because there weren't enough people to get a plane in the air. But, Elsinore has since acquired a Caravan, so that may not be such an issue anymore. Perris definitely has more facilities (restaurant, pool, etc). What it comes down to is the two places offer two different "flavors" of skydiving. Personally, I prefer Perris. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Is true but defeats the objective of trying achieve forward movement over the ground into strong winds. A pull on the brakes will slow the canopy in the air and so increase the backward speed over the ground. The subsequent pull on the front risers while it will cause the canopy to speed up a little if she can deflect it, will not make the ground lost by applying the brakes. I am only talking here about the student canopy loaded at 0.65, other canopies have different characteristics. You needn't hold 1/4 to 1/2 brakes for more than a few seconds. The object is to reduce wind speed, and thus the pressure on the front risers. Makes for a much easier pull. Of course as the canopy speeds up, the pressure returns and increases - rapidly. But with an aggressive chin up maneuver, it's easier to hold yourself up (risers down) once you're already there. NEVER take your hands out of the toggles, just use your first two fingers like claws in the dive loops. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Sparrow was a very nice little canopy that was built in two sizes, 21 ft and 19 ft. They were made by Don Whillden Parachutes, of El Cajon, CA. I jumped a 21 ft. Sparrow for most of 1978 before I went square. Bought it used from a guy named Bob Elliot in MA for $225 to go with my brand new Hanbury system. Also packed it in a d-bag just like the one you describe and which is pictured, stowing the crown lines on top to the bag. It was made of some really thin light ripstop material and was probably the smallest packing, lightest canopy I ever owned. Opened quick but soft and I'd throw out the p/c at 2 grand with complete confidence. The landings weren't quite as soft as a Paracommander though, it was a smaller canopy. But a good hard flare with the rear risers would usually be sufficient and I was comfortable jumping it in sneakers. Of course I only weighed about 160 lbs in those days. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Burning leaves in the fall. Not allowed to do that anymore, but fifty years ago when we were kids, we couldn't wait to rake up the front lawns (I'm not making this up....because...). We'd rake the leaves into the gutter and then we'd light them with matches and let 'em burn ! And we did this with our moms' blessing ! It was a pyro's dream come true as leaves burned up and down the streets, block after block as all the good little pyro children put them to the torch. It must have made for horrible air quality, but we thought the smell of the smoke was lovely, especially the way it permeated our clothes. I wish we could still do that now, even if I do know better. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

On most skydives, with 8 or less people, I'll pull as I get good seperation. My pull alarm is set for 3 grand and it usually goes off at line stretch. If I'm jumping with more people, 10 or more, or escaping from a funnel situation, I'll usually track thru 3 grand before waving off. Even so, I'm still reliably sitting in above 2 grand without triggering my hard deck alarm. With all the criticism of USPA for raising the limit, I've thought for a while that 2 grand is just too low for a lot of today's canopies. The fact that most people with those canopies choose to pull higher speaks for itself. I am old shool, so I don't rely on backups (though I use them). The sport today IS safer because of better gear, backups included. I don't think USPA is enslaved or beholden to the parachute industry for seeking their input on the subject. I think an extra 200 ft. or so on an AAD fire could give some poor soul a chance to land off a busy freeway,cornfield, or the local woods. As always, those who sit back and take cheap shots at USPA are welcome to run for the Board in the next election, but that might involve doing some real work beyond excercising their jawbones. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Depends on the jump. Usual default is 4500 breakoff, 3000 pull, and 2000 hard deck. On some dives, I may set breakoff for 4000, 5000 or 5500, sometimes I'll set the pull for 3500. Hard deck is always 2000. On the pull alarm, I'll usually pull beforehand and hear it go off at line stretch. At a higher setting, I'll wait for it to go off first, or if I'm in the air with a lot of people I'll stay in a track all the way through 3 grand. Almost never hear the hard deck and when I do the canopy's already opening. In that case it's telling me I have ZERO time to mess with anything like line twists. At that point the canopy has to be good or it's gone. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I opened up at about 4000' and my canopy CRACKED open. It was an insanely hard opening. My first thought after was "Holy sh*t! Am I ok?" I was a bit disoriented to say the least. Anyway, I went to release the toggles, and I ended up pulling them the whole way down to my sides without any resistance. I was confused, so I looked around and noticed that I was holding my toggles in each hand with the lines trailing behind, like streamers. ____________________________________________________ You absolutely did the right thing. I had a very similar slammer opening (also with a 210 Pilot) six years ago, with a bit more apparent damage than you seem to have had, but otherwise pretty much the same as you. It hurt like hell and I was stunned, I really wasn't bangin' on all six cylinders mentally from the force of the opening. I also chopped and had a pleasant reserve ride and landing. It never ceases to amaze me how many jumpers who ought to know better will tell you that you should have kept a bad canopy. I've heard every lame excuse in the book, from "you could have used your rear risers" to "reserves can malfunction too". The handles and reserve are their to save YOUR life if you don't have a controllable canopy. Lately we've seen too many fatalities where people have tried to limp in with a bad canopy, then they get below 500 ft. and see how fast they're really falling. Then they cutaway in a panic, too low for their reserve to open. You did the right thing and don't let ANYONE tell you otherwise. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !