Joellercoaster

I never have, but I feel like I have enough friends who have that... well, if not simply a matter of time, then something that should be taken as fairly likely. Buckle up good, helmets on...

I've had one drew-the-short-straw exit in crappy conditions so the plane was able to be landed, but that doesn't really count :P

I wonder how many folks on here can name both of those people?

And yet thousands of people jump here for fun (and not profit), despite the obvious nearness and relative cheapness of Spain, Portugal, Czech and so on, and despite the incompetent, officious BPA and the bloodsucking British DZOs.

We must all be insane.

In short, they are fussy about that kind of thing. Some of them are fussier than others, but if you intend to jump in the UK and you're a UK resident, you will need a BPA A licence.

A BPA A licence, in turn, needs to be signed off by a BPA Advanced Instructor. You can either convert another association's licence (sometimes painful), or train at a dropzone that has one of these people.

The good news is that there are places around that do, including (but certainly not limited to) Skydive Spain, Skydive Empuriabrava (both Spain), Skydive Algarve (Portugal), Perris (USA)... I am pretty sure that France and Germany also have dropzones with BPA AIs.

There are other options - you can train abroad and then come home to get licenced with your logbook and video (somewhat painful but it's what I did), or get a USPA licence and jump abroad exclusively (there are people who do this, but I feel like they miss out on the local community part).

You'll have to do some research.

[edit: outside the UK, the USPA qualification (and actually most national associations' qualification) is/are generally recognised and you can get one in many places. Even in the UK, USPA members who aren't UK residents can jump. The difficulty starts when you live there; they tend to require you to be in the BPA system. You'll need a good idea from the dropzone you intend to train at, as to what you will end up with. And then you should talk to the DZ you plan to jump at in the UK (if any) and see what they will want. People training overseas is common, don't get me wrong, but in the end it's up to the CI where you'll be jumping.]

It depends on how tall you all are :P

(Are you doing single A (2 4 6 7 8 9 19 21)? Or the whole dive pool?)

It's not the only picture on that site stolen directly from Intrudair.

Sketchy as fuck.

Di0

If you want to improve your technique for accuracy, a basic canopy class, like flight 1 101 and 102, has a big part that is focused mainly at that

Seconded. Your canopy is not the thing you need to address here

Accuracy is one of those things, some people just need a little more practice or maybe some coaching (if it helps, I didn't really start landing accurately (consistently!) until I got some coaching either).

Stick with it! This is a fundamental skill that will serve you well throughout your jumping career, rather than a hoop you need to jump through once to get your B. It will click soon enough.

[edit: the one thing the coaches told me that helped the most, was to plan a pattern and then fly it, and not try to crib or cheat (or sink or plane or...) if I thought I was going to miss my target. Rather to get down and see how much I had missed by, then go back up and fly the same pattern as before, but with the turn points moved accordingly. And repeat. The point being that your pattern is the most important thing! Get coaching though, it's absolutely worth it.]

Not to mention the other video where one of those little plastic knives leaves its blade stuck in the line. Places should seriously stop selling those things.

longmont compass

the awful, grating noise of children’s laughter

grantunderland

Packing for Nationals, "Oh, honey. So. I haven't logged since we started training. Mind signing these 200 jumps quick so they'll let me register?"

Pretty much. But we were in the car on the way up

Level up: Not even the first time!

I have signed over a hundred jumps in one go in my wife's logbook. Legitimately too; I was on all of them

If you look at FS competitors' jumpsuits, you'll see that forearm altimeter pockets are very common, placed at an angle where a neutral grip presentation will have it facing towards the eyes.

Your arm mount can do the same thing. The wristwatch position is not so good for a couple of reasons, as you have discovered

dve, reading between the lines I take it you're in the UK?

I don't see a specific currency requirement in the ops manual, but I only had a quick glance through it. I suspect this stuff is at the chief instructor's discretion, so it might be a question of finding a dropzone that feels differently. At least a truncated AFF with a single instructor might be on the cards? (Disclaimer: I am not an AFFI or a BPA rules lawyer, nor do I play one on television.)

The thing that they will first see is your lack of licence - you were technically a student when you stopped, although you had quite a few jumps, and skydiving can be very conservative about students. Other than that, do you at least have a logbook?

w00t! Looks like it's going really well

So, there is another option. It might not fit in with your life, but who knows? It might.

Very occasionally, I have known broke-but-driven people to be taken on by kind dropzones as packers. Not often, but I can think of a few - people who have been taught to pack and put on as part-time packers and in return, worked their way through AFF.

This depends on having a compatible lifestyle, good timing (luck!) and a helpful DZO. But it's a thing.

[edit: this seems like it doesn't help, since you still don't get to do AFF right now. But the value of being part of the furniture at a DZ, especially as a new skydiver, cannot be overstated.]

Never - and certainly not from some random flyer or a sticker.

The problem is they're not human readable. That link could take me anywhere - malware being the first thing that jumps to mind.

I realise this is paranoia and that the state of the art in QR codes and reading has probably moved on to make my worries less real, but this is the way I've always felt about them.

On the gripping hand: it's quicker and less fiddly to just Google the business on the flyer most of the time.

lyosha

In all seriousness the OP says he likes wingsuitting.

That is an excellent point. It's a very awesome canopy, but I wouldn't be happy wingsuiting on it and am looking for something else for that too.

Interesting that you mention a loaded-up Sabre2 as a bad idea - annoyingly I have a spare one in the house that I'd be loading at 1.7+ and enjoy flying. The search continues (actually we have a Pilot 132 as well that might be better - does everyone else's house fill with canopies like this over the years?).

Terribly unfashionable suggestion, but: Stiletto 135? Still made for a reason, and hella fun.

Baksteen

While you are absolutely right, I sometimes wonder why some experienced jumpers feel the need for speed... especially that specialised part of [insert favourite discipline]-oriented jumpers who consider their parachute nothing more than 'a necessity to survive the freefall' and who have no interest in building any canopy skills whatsoever.

I'm not sure those groups overlap too much - someone who just deploys a canopy to end the freefall also wanting that canopy to go faster seems contradictory. wanting to go faster sounds a bit like caring about the flight! Wanting to go faster without wanting to bust a fat 270 is, we all seem to agree, not a contradiction.

There's a lot of stuff to learn about flying, a lot of skill to gain, without necessarily doing super high performance landings. Faster canopies are still fun for their own sake, assuming you like that kind of thing.

This is an interesting discussion from a personal standpoint. I've been idly thinking about something slightly faster for a while and so far not been bothered to actually do anything about it (and may not ever) - but I've been eating a lot, which ends up similar and is a lot less expensive

There are some (many?) dropzones who operate on a policy of, if they can fit in the tandem harness securely, then they can skydive.

So unless your 14-year-old is particularly tiny, you're good to go as long as you're outside the UK. I vote for Spain

gunsmokex

the obvious one would be the one that is closest so you don't have to drive 5hrs when the clouds blow in or the winds come up.

Without knowing anything about their training program, this is a really good point.

I can say from experience that a longer journey to the DZ during AFF is a major impediment - if you like the people and they have a training program, go there.

There is actually a lot to be said for a small DZ as a new skydiver. You will quickly become known, and people will take you under their wing and into the family a lot quicker. It may take you a little longer in terms of days spent on the DZ, but that is no bad thing. You learn just as much from being in the environment as you do from your AFFIs.

You can't really go wrong, but without knowing any more that you've posted, I'd say go with your locals and do it over weekends.

[edit to add: I actually did mine in a few days on holiday at a bigger place. This isn't wrong either, but I don't think I really gained anything from blitzing through my AFF other than a cool holiday in Spain.]

I think this smells funny.

There's a whole bunch of canopies being jumped in the UK right now that were not designed by anything like an "engineer", and gear that is manufactured and designed by explicitly uninsured entities. It seems like they've invented a new rule just for you, which while not unprecedented, seems pretty shitty.

The minutes from the STC and Riggers are not published yet, I'll be pretty interested to see what they say. If anything.

Quagmirian

The way it was explained is that since I have no insurance, if there was ever an incident the lawyers would then go to the BPA. They would then have to explain why they let an 'unqualified' person make and distribute gear.

There's a lot of people over here jumping Vectors. They don't have insurance or Engineers.

EVERYBODY PANIC

[edit: I also thought the top rigging qualification over here involved building your own container and shit. I've definitely seen one home-made container... maybe you can just get your BPA Advanced Rigger rating?]

gowlerk

It's not legal to jump in GB unless you do it at a facility that has BPA blessing.

This is not actually true.

Long story short: It's illegal to jump (or throw anything) from aircraft here. You need a CAA special-case permission to get around that law. In order to get this, you need to provide a bunch of documentation and procedures showing that you will do it safely.

The BPA already has all of this, so generally joining it and using its Ops Manual is what dropzones do. But it has not always been like that, and does not have to be in the future.

The waiving could for be an entire dropzone (it's happened, now closed), or a one-off event like the wingsuit landing or the jump into the Olympic stadium.

This does not really help the OP unless he wants to fill out even more paperwork. Like, a lot more

Cinderella: teenager sneaks out to a party then has trouble getting her shoe back.

Predator: obnoxious tourist violates poaching laws and takes illegal trophies, but is ironically killed by wildlife.

Alien: woman wakes up early with bad hangover, faces computer problems but rescues her cat.