Joellercoaster

Heh. Thought you might like a fellow-student's perspective - I've only ever jumped out of a Caravan (17 jumpers). It's roomy, and crawling backwards towards the door can feel like quite a long way.

Sitting at the front of the plane (door at the rear starboard on this one), watching a dozen other people exit first is pretty cool, though feeling the plane lose so much weight all at once was disconcerting the first time.

The door is big, and there's no step, so exits are simple. I haven't quite got the hang of going out headfirst (the wind seems to catch me and spin me around) but the crouching exit is really, really easy. Put your hands on the doorframe facing forward, head out, step sideways... very easy to do stably.

So. I've never jumped anything else, but after I get my 'A' I want to head to South Australia to visit my parent, and there are small DZs near where they live. What's it like jumping out of a 182 or 206 for the first time?

[edit: speling]

A mate of mine chose to do his AFF 1 jump when I probably would have stayed in the plane.

The weather was OK on the ground, though there were threatening dark clouds overhead... as the Caravan took off, we felt a gentle sprinkling of rain start up. It got heavier as they disappeared, and we thought, "that's not going to be comfortable".

Turns out it was hailing for several thousand feet of his jump. Cookies had been involuntarily grounded for a big chunk of the day (after my GF was on the last load before) by the weather, and refused the option of not jumping. He and his AFF/Is were red raw and very pissed-off when they landed (I wish I had a photo of him with pale goggles on a very red face) but he'll be back.

That's not a washer... it's a nut.

Bastards. That's not fair putting it in there when they *know* we're all reading the waiver like the whuffos we are, freaking out about every little thing.

Funnily enough, I nearly did end up in the lake on AFF 7. High winds at altitude took me, another student and my AFF/I a long way off target:

I'm headed for my second out (first one was a bad idea) when I realise I'm flying backwards and ooh look, there's the edge of the lake directly underneath me...

Fortunately after my initial panic (not worried about the water any more after the "stand up" comment, just about the utter humiliation) I worked it out and ran downwind to the other side.

Mine play the odds - they figure it's better than riding motorcycles and concentrate on that.

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"Me? FJC, fine. Got a little fixated about landing on a snake, but fine.

LOL - the things we come up with in FJC... and I thought my paranoia about not knowing how to activate the flotation device properly was weird after the fact (the instructor's advice? If you land in the lake... stand up and wade out).

[edit: tag closure ]

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i LOVE kendo..it remembers there is a martial component to the sport of "tag" that modern fencing has become..

Yeah. Apart from the fact that arguing with your opponent would never happen even in training (love all that respectful behaviour before the screaming starts), in competition, if the judges don't think you really would have split the guy's head like a melon *and* looked cool doing it *and* were ready to fillet him afterwards if necessary... you don't get the point.

Which is why kendo matches often end 1-0 after double extra time, both fighters covered in bruises and near collapse

Ah yes. I miss kendo. Training six times a week was a bitch, but hey - I was in school, I had no need for a life.

[edit: speling]

Huh.

Since this thread started, mine has been hurting like hell. I put a soft plastic bar in it, and it's not happy... back to the steel it is.

It's not infected or anything, just really sore. Go figure.

Eight years of kendo or so, but it's pretty unforgiving of injuries you sustain in other sports (even though it's pretty hart to get hurt beyond bruises and the odd fractured finger). I started having to take too much time off every time I pulled a shoulder or whatever playing other sports, and wasn't willing to just do kendo exclusively any more.

A fair amount of karate too, but always as a sort of lefthanded thing to keep my kendo balanced out.

Just as I found the best kendo students were ones who had done intensive training in something physical (ballet comes to mind as a good indicator of a student's likely progress rate), the converse is true. Martial arts have helped me get good at other sports pretty quickly, and it's making skydiving come pretty easily too (FWIW, this is eight jumps to date, but it *seems* easy heh).

This was on our fileserver at work for weeks... the engineers loved it.

A couple of bits look a tiny bit fake, but who cares? Time to buy a Honda so they make more ads like this, obviously.

Yup.

I've had mine for about four years, never even considered having it taken out. Had to get re-pierced once, which hurt like hell (first time was fine, what's up with that?) and made me paranoid about taking it out for a long time.

My girlfriend has hers done, as have a couple before. Kissing when you've both got them is definitely fun (*clink*). As for, uh, other stuff... an old girlfriend did the scientific thing and experimented both ways. My stud was back in about twenty seconds into the second phase...

Around here (Melbourne, Australia) it's a raver thing even more than with other groups. My entire netball team "Scattered", recruited from the dancefloors around town, at one point had pierced tongues. Made for some pretty funny moments on court as other teams realised just what they were dealing with...

[edit: clarity]

I feel your pain, brother.

Being still a student (you have four more jumps than I do), it's somehow even worse. You still have the full-throttle joy of discovering something new and wild to do with your life, but when the break comes, you don't have the hundreds of jumps' worth of memories to tide you over until the time you can jump again.

The dreams are maybe the worst. Some of mine are freefall or canopy, but the majority seem to be shuffling backwards on my knees to the door of the Caravan, smelling the cold air coming through the door and that sudden drop in the stomach when the four-way behind me exits and the plane is suddenly lighter... that feeling of uncontrollable anticipation knowing that there are no more jumpers and I'm next out.

Arrr...

Still. At least you know you're motivated now and it's not some flash-in-the-pan thing. The break has given your imagination time to go to work, and skydiving to really sink its hooks (sorry) into you.

We'll get there mate. Just probably not tomorrow.

Yeah, do that. I had a way off-DZ landing on AFF 7 and was quite pleased with my choice of out... until I got a little closer and noticed the power lines (I'm a little shortsighted, apparently) on two sides.

Had to flee across the lake and land with some sheep. Next time, I'm taking a drive around the whole area and working out where all the power lines are. Of course, I seem to have found the best ones for myself already...

Lay it down first, otherwise it could get hurty.

Ours is pretty much the same, except level 8 is one jump (like 7, but with fall-rate variation and S-tracking), and there's a two-jump stage 9 (hop-n-pops from 3500).

After that, I don't think there's a set number of jumps for the license, but you have to hit 10 landings within 25m of the "x" (AFF stages count, as long as you didn't have a TA) and be cleared to pack your own main.

*shrug* I'm not in that much of a hurry to get licensed. I just want to make sure I have everything I need by the end of it. If that means passing stages multiple times, that's OK.

Of course, getting jump cost down is a factor too... curse my busy weekends!

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The longer you put it off due to money concerns, the more it is going to cost you. It's a vicious cycle, but it promotes getting you to that "safe" level in a timely manner.

This is very true. It doesn't sound fair at first glance, but then, it doesn't have to.

I'll plan around having to repeat stage 7 (cool, more backloops ), and budget for the last four jumps including that one over a weekend. This will get me off AFF, and hopefully time and money will be at less of a premium after that.

Just out of interest, if I don't jump for another month after that - is there any practical difference between a currency jump (if I had to do one) and the jumps I'd be doing between AFF and A-license qualification?

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i recommend doing a tandem first. i had total sensory overload on my first

Yeah. My girlfriend did AFF 1 straight away, since she wanted to get licensed and thought tandem would just be a delay (and funds are an issue), but says she really doesn't remember much about it.

I had one tandem jump before I started AFF, and the stage 1 jump was really good fun (though still a bit overloady). And for the first half-dozen stages, I kept thinking I wanted to do another tandem just so I could enjoy it without concentrating so hard on what I had to learn this dive.

My last stage (7) was OK though... I felt very comfortable and more like I was just up there for fun, though I had to jump through a couple of hoops still. I don't have the urge to do another tandem any more, but I'd definitely recommend it for anyone's first time. It's a *lot* more fun than AFF 1.

Can't comment on S/L, since they don't offer it at my DZ.

Hey all...

I did my FJC last year, some time around July (at Nagambie, Victoria, Australia). It's been hard for me to get down to the dropzone in the interim, to the point where I've only managed to make it to stage 7.

The instructors were keen for us to do stages 1 and 2 together, and 3 and 4, so I did. I had a few months off between 6 and 7, to the point where I was pretty apprehensive about jumping again for the last one. I've been nailing my stages, despite the gaps, but I'm wondering if I'm missing or losing things because of the big gaps - it'll have been a good four months since 7 before I can do stage 8.

(I'm not sure if AFF courses are the same everywhere - ours includes a two-jump stage 9 consisting of low-altitude hop-n-pops.)

In particular, I feel like I have no feel for spotting, and I haven't learned to pack (the DZ has packing classes seperately, and I haven't been able to get there on those nights).

So my question is, should I be worried? Should I delay coming off student status and repeat some stages, or just ask for more help between then and finishing my A license?

[finally delurk]

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as I've said, crudeness is everywhere, but finding a family like one can find on a DZ isn't.

My friends and I have been having pretty much this discussion regarding raving, and came to pretty much the same conclusion. Drugs and bad behaviour are everywhere, but the family we've found among the ravers isn't.

It came up because my fiancee and I got talking to this couple in their 40s who are still going to big parties, and they're impatient for their daughter to be old enough to come with them. Initially taken aback, we then realised we'll probably be thinking the same way when our kids are one day curious.

Back on-topic for a second, Emily recently did her AFF stage 1 and will be back for the rest. In exchange, I'm going to learn to ride a horse properly. Anything our partners love so much, we think, will inevitably become a family activity, even before there's more than just the two of us.