dninness

Hmmm, yeah, perhaps in my reply I was speaking more directly to "course preps." I am a coach, and I spent the last third of last season and all the coach jumps I did this season before the course treating them like "AFF" training. The problem was: I didn't really have a good clue how to treat them like "AFF" jumps, or perhaps more precisely: what kind of skills would have been more beneficial to use/sharpen on those jumps to help me in the AFF course. Which is another reason to either seek out a recent AFF-I grad, or an I/E or evaluator, to get a couple "this is is the flying that's required" jumps in, so you can then spend your "prep" time doing prep that's more highly relevant to the flying skills. I didn't have that, and thought I was "preparing" when in reality I could have turned the "AFF-I prep" knob up a couple-four notches. BTW, while I may be a recent AFF-I grad and definitely not an I/E or evaluator, its pretty solid in my head what the I/E or evaluator is looking for and what they're likely to do to you. Now, does that mean I should stand on my head right out the door all the way to pull time and then admonish the guy who asked me to play student "You, sir, suck."? No, that's not realistic. A few weeks back, I went up and played "coach target" for my girlfriend's brother who is considering becoming a coach. We briefed the jump, went and did it, and the whole way I did some fairly benign stuff: potato-chipping, a "faster than slow but not crazy out of control" continuous turn, a hot "swoop & dock" dock, etc. Same thing with a guy saying "What flying skills do I need as an AFF-I?" First, I'd send him to the evaluator we have here at the DZ, since he'll get a *more accurate* picture from him, but failing in that, I'd give him a fairly stable student who may have some body position things to fix, like say hands too far out, legs not symmetric, etc. If someone had said to me "Do all your coach jumps between now and the AFF course with only your legs as flying surfaces.." it would have given me a better set of skill targets than just "I'm going to treat these coach jumps like they're AFF prep jumps" and going out there with no clue what skills I needed to hone. No, not off base at all. Someone asked me during the course "Is it as tough as they say it is?" and I had to draw a parallel to explain it: When you're married and about to have a kid, everybody who finds out says "Ohhhh! I'll change your life.." (use a Betty White voice there if it helps you). And you nod and say "Oh yeah, I know.." But you _don't_ know. Why? Cuz you really don't have a frame of reference. So then the baby comes along and *poof* it changes your life, and it does so in ways that you just really were not able to understand "before" the baby. And you go "ooooh, *thats* what they were talking about.. " (this is why I refrain from saying that trite bullshit and just tell my friends "People will go around telling you 'Oh, its gonna change your life.' Well, no shit. Problem is, you don't have any idea at this moment what kind of life changing that is, so it really doesn't mean much. So I'll just tell you things are going to be different and congratulations.'.." Same thing with AFF: For the most part, a coach or non-instructional rating holder may say "oh, yeah, gonna require lots of flying, uh huh, got it." But they don't, because what it requires/entails may be way, way, way outside of their frame of reference. (sort of a "You don't know what you don't know" kind of thing) So you either have to show them, or they have to wait for the pre-course/course to have lightning hit them on the head and they go "oooooh, I see!!" Anyway, YMMV, and some folks have a very natural an innate skill that suits AFF well, so they may have ZERO trouble with the flying. That wasn't precisely me. Sorry to ramble on there. :) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Having just gotten my rating.... I *thought* I was a pretty good bellyflyer. Oh my, how wrong I was. Our I/E offered an opportunity to do practice jumps before the course, and I took him up on it. Our first "practice" jump was briefed as a "good" C-1. (we wound up doing it with just one "instructor" as my partner was not there that day) All I had to do was fly my slot. The slot I flew would have been fine for pickup 4-way RW, etc. It *sucked* for AFF-level flying. I was humbled. I had no idea. And all he did was fall straight down. Classroom stuff? Yeah, I had that dialed. Teaching? Yep, no sweat. Lots of experience there. But flying 6-8 inches from the student, while throwing signals, staying on level, watching body position to anticipate movement, keeping an eye on altitude, being ready for disaster... Uh, yeah, gonna need more practice there, dude. :) It took a *lot* of practice jumps to get to the point where I felt I was in control of the skydive (and I'm here to tell you, thats a false sense of security. If you're jumping with a student or a crafty evaluator, you're never *truly* "in control"..). Exits weren't too much of a problem for me. The bottom end? Yeah, nailed that pretty quick as well. But the ability to fly your slot, I mean *really* fly your slot (and I don't mean an arms length "open accordion" slot, either), is going to be key. Lots and lots of flying with people who are going to do unpredictable things will help you a lot. Of the next 100-150 jumps, if you do 30-50 as some form of training practice for AFF (ie. coach jumps, tight 4-way, real practice jumps with AFF-Is and evaluators) would be about right. Plus, do the majority of them closer to the course. A pre-course would help as well. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Throw it in the dishwasher, seriously. Then let it sit out in the sun to air out. Works like a champ. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Just to be clear: I'm certainly not pointing fingers (per se) at other DZ and calling anybody a "greedy bastard." I'm merely wanting to be sure that my student's progress is going to be accurately documented so that when the time comes, USPA can issue a license. Not being that familiar with AFP, its hard to gauge where a student should "slot in" to AFF, so that brings a whole new raft of issues with it that I won't specifically address here. I've also had students come up from southern DZs that do "7 Level AFF" and the student is standing there with his logbook and a "just pumped the neighbor's cat" look on his face, and we're scratching our collective heads to figure out how to document the progression and allow the student to continue jumping at our DZ with coaching and such. Yeah, I think the 2 page proficiency card is probably the first stop, vice the 4 page "ISP" card, at least in these circumstances. A handy guide might be an "AFP to AFF equivalence" cheat sheet for AFF DZs. Thanks for the replies. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Recently, I've worked with two students who came to our DZ from other DZ without USPA proficiency cards, and over the last two years as an instructional rating holder (coach, and now AFF) I've encountered several students in the same boat. In one instance, recently, a young lady has started jumping at a DZ out west, doing 2 tandems and then several one-instructor jumps (she kept saying "AFP"), and then went to another highly respected midwest DZ to make 2 more "AFP" jumps, then came to our DZ. No SIM, no proficiency card. Just an introductory logbook with very abbreviated entries. In another instance, same thing: student did several "AFP" jumps at another DZ near where he lived and showed up to us without a proficiency card. He said they kept his card in his student file for "safekeeping." I guess I'm a little shocked that there are still a lot of DZs not following the ISP (certainly, its optional), and then not taking care of their students by insuring that they can jump elsewhere and continue to be documented in their progression. So as an instructor, how do you handle student with 8-10 jumps and no proficiency card? Do you start one and sign off everything prior to the jumps you do with "See logbook" or similar, or do you only sign off the stuff you've done with them, period? Do you have them re-demonstrate things? Retake the category quizzes? NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I was sitting in the plane the other day and noticed that my housing on my Altitrack is doing exactly that! Mine has 2-3 cracks that appear to have started down by the rubber bezel and are migrating up toward the dial. I bought this Altitrack from one of our wingsuiters who wound up with two, so I got it at a great deal, but now that I'm reliant on its data-logging capabilities, I don't want to give the darn thing up. I was going to wait till the end of the season to drop a line on the L&B folks and see what can be done. Can they retrofit the new aluminum housing like they have for the military one on a sport alti, I wonder? NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

My girlfriend got one of their slow suits, then lost 50lbs over the winter (or as we say "six weight belts") and there was no way she could continue to fly it with all that fabric flapping around her handles. It was well constructed, very sharp design and price-wise competitive with the standard US suits. There was a production delay of some sort, but she still got it pretty darn quick. I'm researching suits for AFF, and I'm actually leaning toward a SkyLeno, but DeepSeed is still in the running. :) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Mother's Day, 1996, I think. I had probably 80 or 90 jumps. I tethered my cell phone to my chest strap, tucked it inside my jumpsuit and did a hop & pop from about 5,000 ft under some nasty clouds. Pulled out my cell phone (an old Nokia) and tried to call my mom. For some reason I couldn't get the phone to work reliably, but as I'm trying to dial it, there was snow from the squall cloud I was flying under collecting in the button indents. I decided "Hey, stupid, fly somewhere else!", put the phone away and landed. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I like the guys who didn't bother to find out what the ground speed/exit separation is before they got on the plane or on the ride to altitude, and who cannot seem to figure out that going "1234..Ok, that was 4 seconds" is not right. I was doing a practice AFF eval jump last week, and we were the last "belly" group out (our deployment was intended to be at a normal, non-student altitude) before the freeflyers. I did some figuring in my head and came up with 4 seconds before we should start our climb out (to give us time to get setup, etc) So the group before us goes, I begin to count (visibly) four seconds with a "one one-thousand, two one-thousand" count before we start our climbout. As I count "One one-thousand" this freeflyer behind me is shouting "GOGOGOGOGO!" I (rightly) concentrated on my "student" but the urge to turn around and say (loudly) "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" was huge. I had a discussion with said freeflyer about safe behavior in the plane. I don't think it sank in. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Nick, I gotta say that while I sort of agree with what you're saying, I'm not sure I'm down with the conclusion. I'm a "mid-90s" SL guy who cut his teeth doing "5, 10 and 15 second delays." I learned with 15-20 other suckers in a hot classroom and "pack shed" how to about the gear, PLFs, static lines, guarding your handles, how to climb out, hang, let go, clear malfunctions, etc. Then I went an did it, with essentially nobody helping me or there in the event I fucked up. (Once Mike Peters shouted "GO!" to me, it was 100% my ass) But then, after 6 or 7 SL jumps, I did 2 AFF levels in FL. And my approach was "While those JMs are there to give me feedback and guide me, nobody is here to help me in the event I fuck up, except me." (which is good, cuz on Level 2 I lost both JMs on exit.. Doom on me!) Then I went back to Michigan the next season and finished up, doing the 5s, 10s and 20s. You're right: If you have a problem like spins or bad pulls, you're not going up with a "guy who can save you" but instead you're repeating that level until you get it right. YOU get it right. And notwithstanding the bowling speech, that's my approach as a coach to my students: "I'm there to be your reference, your guide and to give you feedback so YOU can improve your performance. I'm not there to save you should you fuck up, and I don't do/make/break the skydive for you." This ain't Little League. I won't "pass" a student to the next level if until they can meet the objectives, just like I had to to go from 10 second delays to 20 second delays. (the method is different, the learning objectives and the need for the student to perform is not) That being said, I think that AFF imparts a LOT more in the way of survival skills to students sooner than SL did. And AFF immerses the student into the "future environment" sooner than SL can. To perhaps use a SCUBA analogy: SL is a lot more like snorkeling, whereas AFF is more like actual SCUBA. If you're there to learn about SCUBA, then you should do SCUBA. (that analogy is flawed, but my point is: As a skydiver, after I hit 45-second delays, nearly every jump thereafter was far more like an AFF jump than an SL jump. As a matter of fact, since jump number 10 or 11, I haven't EVER seen a static line. I will say this: I do hop-and-pops like a mo-fo due to SL!! But SL is not skydiving, precisely...) My girlfriend and later her brother are "AFF-babies" in our sport. I coached both of them last year. They are both very inquisitive, heads up-and-on-a-swivel skydivers. More so than most I see out of a lot of other new jumpers, in most ways. Not because of the instructional method, but moreso because thats just the kind of people they are. And they're both EXCELLENT skydivers, far, far better than I was at 200 jumps, with 150 and 180 jumps each. Is that all AFF? No. Some of it is wind tunnel, some of it is the modernization of the sport. But I would be hard pressed to pin it specifically on AFF with such a broad brush. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

We had a Casa boogie one year, and one of the Casa pilots had been our 182 pilot at the DZ I started at. The clouds were low and we were all standing around forlornly staring at the Casa, whining about the weather, when Josh (the pilot) says "Fuck it, what about some hop & pops? I have my rig with me!" Next thing you know, there's 4 of us in the 182 climbing to 2k. We're awfully close to the bottom of the clouds at 2k, and Josh climbs out, steps and pitches. Not to be outdone, I climb out, step & pitch. I'm counting "One... Two..." and nothing is going on. Look over my shoulder at my deflated pilot chute flapping in the breeze and suddenly realize "Yeah, dumbass, that's a bungee collapsible you have. 80kts or better.. We're probably doing 65 or 70.." I hit the magic airspeed, the pilot chute decided to open, did its thing, and I was in the saddle about 1500 ft. New hop & pop rule: 5 second delay, don't exit below 2500. Finally (this past year) replaced that pilot chute after owning it for at least 11 years. I watched two guys at the DZ I started at go out sub-2000 ft one day when I was but a young-un. One of our JMs was a style-and-accuracy guy, and he and I were sitting behind the pilot when these two yahoos decided that they'd take whatever we could get after trying to get above the deck. I looked at Jerry with that "what do we do?" look. He looked at me and shook his head. Message received. I got on my knees (as I customarily did when someone was getting out low) to watch, and sure as shit, one of them pitched while he was still on the step. I'll never forget that pilot chute on the bridle going to full extension past the aft window of the 182, pointed straight at the tail. I was happy to ride the plane down that day. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

[accidentally posted logged into DZ.com as my girlfriend.. deleted that post, now posting as me..] It appears that the homeowner group believes they have "won" with this injunction. http://www.skylakesairport.org/ NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Don happens to be my rigger, so if I buy something over the internet, I *always* ask if they prefer to do an escrow via Don. He's as honest as the day is long in my book (at least, as far as I know!) My girlfriend and her brother, who have both been trading in nylon a lot of late, have been very careful to avoid getting burned, and have suggested "rigger escrow" to a number of sellers who didn't know they could do that. We had one instance just a few weeks back where a guy bought a rig that was represented as being a certain container size and it wound up being the wrong size (simple error, not someone pulling a fast one) and *poof* we had everything sorted out to everybody's satisfaction with no drama for just the cost of shipping the rig back to the seller (don't recall who paid for that, but my guess is the seller did). Caveat emptor and all that. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I find that sometimes coach students get this idea that they need to get their hands back as quickly as possible, which usually leads to a fairly steep, non-flat track. When starting out, I tend to work with them on heading control and distance. I prefer a straight track that's 25-50 feet versus a 100 ft track that looks like a comet and its tail (ie. a big gigantic circle around the coach) because they don't have good heading control before they added a bunch of other elements to it. Once they demonstrate they can track straight, we start talking about the modifications to their tracking (arms back, dearching, rolling the shoulders, etc). I could be wrong (and frequently I am), but I tell them "Get your speed up with your toes first. Bring your hands back and in from the boxman position to about your shoulders, and eventually we'll start the transition to a more delta type position as you pick up speed going away.." Once the student shows he or she can track straight, I suggest, demonstrate and then have them practice the move to the delta, with emphasis on gaining horizontal speed first before bringing the hands all the way back smoothly. Then we talk about rolling the shoulders, dearching slightly, pressing down with the palms of the hands, etc. But a student getting into a nice dearched delta is worthless if they can't stay straight. (this is, BTW, a great example of the aforementioned "chaining" in instruction). I also tend to have my early coach students only turn 90 degrees and track when the whole jump is tracking. I emphasize that normally tracking is 180 degrees from the center, but for the purposes of instruction and for them to get the most out of the tracking practice, I'd prefer a shorter 90 degree turn before we progress to 180. Usually, they track about 30 ft the first time, turn 180, check altitude and realize (upon seeing my relative closeness) "Geez, I didn't track far at all!" and then track again (right past me) and its nearly always a LOT better and a LOT further. Then they turn 180 again and repeat. They're still making a 180 degree turn, but they're tracking past me so I can observe their body position, etc. Its a lot tougher to see how the student is doing when he's tracking away from you. (plus, if we've stayed on heading after exit, the student's track is perpendicular to jump run, not up and down it) Later, as we move away from tracking skills into docking and such, the end of the skydive is *always* a 180-and-track. But by then I'm far more assured that they can make a solid 180 and that they can track straight. YMMV, of course. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I read the whole thing in a couple of days you meant. Ouch. I suppose I deserve that. I must be related to Tolstoy... NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

No kidding. I was glad there wasn't a band! NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

[This is long. If you're not interested, read something else. You've been forewarned. Now go get a cookie and a cup of joe and read on..] About 2 weeks ago, I posted looking for a plane & pilot in Northern KY for a demo jump. Thanks to everybody who PM'd me on that. I'm writing this up as a cautionary tale to anybody who is considering doing a demo jump. If you're an experienced demo jumper, you'll probably read this nodding and saying "yep, uh huh.." to yourself. If you haven't done one, think hard about the preparation and factors that go into one. I work with an Army cadet organization that purchased a former military school last year and is in the process of turning it into sort of a "hub" for training for all sorts of cadet organizations in the US. The 25th of April was the activation ceremony for the new training center as part of the 100th anniversary of the organization. At the end of last year, when it was clear that we'd be doing this activation along with the 100th anniversary at the new facility, I spoke to our chief of staff about jumping the flag into the ceremony, and he was enthusiastic and gave me the go-ahead. By way of a little background, I've been in the sport about 15 years, I have a little over 700 jumps and about 5-6 of those have been demo jumps. Nothing requiring a PRO rating, but some nice, low-pressure demos, Open Field & Level I, some bordering on Level II. Starting out, I got a little photographic reconnaissance of the HQ facility from one of our officers, and we immediately determined that landing in the ceremony was out of the question. The ceremony area was in front of the HQ building, and would be surrounded by spectators, cadets in formation, wires, trees, other buildings and a gigantic flagpole. Yeah, no. On the other side of the buildings, however, was a good sized football field. Perfect. Make a nice pass by the ceremony with the flag, land in the football field. That works for me. I did a fair amount of research: terrain evaluations, historical wind direction & speeds, weather patterns, obstructions, outs, local Farmer McNastys, etc. As the HQ is nearly 1000 miles from home, the chances of me getting down to do a personal survey were slim, so I relied on one of our officers who had been to Air Assault School to give my DZ a good once over. He diagrammed the place out for me, and sent that along so I could include it for my request for a certificate of authorization. In March, I filed for the Certificate of Authorization with the Louisville FSDO. The ops inspector I worked with there, Matthew, was very professional and helped us out a lot. It didn't hurt that the request I'd filed included a 2 page narrative of the jump operation, complete diagrams of the DZ and likely approach paths based on estimated winds for that time of year, etc. As he said (and I've heard this from other ops inspectors, too): "We usually get something that was scratched on the back of a napkin.." At the same time, I started looking at building up a flag rig. I had a small 5 x 8 flag that I felt would be suitable for the demo. I wanted to "keep it simple, stupid." My first flag demo involved landing a Sabre 190 with a flag sewn into the bottom skin of the parachute dead center on a flight line for a graduation "pass-in-review" parade. What can be simpler than a flag like that, right? Unfortunately, I wouldn't have that rig available. I did some research and didn't want to deal with the complexities of a "drop" flag with a weight and all that. I'd read about drag from the flag changing flight characteristics and such, and decided that it probably was going to take more practice to be familiar with it than I was going to be able to come up with early in the season here in New England. After talking to my local rigger and a couple folks, I elected to build a simple rig that basically flew the flag directly behind me. Top of the hoist would be about shoulder level, and the bottom would be about 5 ft below, with a lanyard looped loosely over my boot. I had thought about somehow clipping the flag to a connector link on a riser, but I decided that in the event of an emergency, I'd want to be able to cut away and not be attached to the main in any way. (yeah, never mind going back into freefall with a 5x8 flag trailing behind you.. uh huh..) So I jimmied up this simple flag rig with a cutaway and test jumped it a couple times to see how it worked. First time out, I couldn't get the bottom lanyard over my shoe and I didn't want to get the flag out of my jumpsuit until I was sure it was secured, so I landed with the flag still stowed. Failure! After some more fooling with the setup, I took it up again and this time, after connecting the top lanyard, I accidentally let the flag stream behind me and realized that the drag created by the flag was actually fairly manageable. I was able to get the lanyard over my shoe easily and I flew the whole thing down. Win! Did it a second time, just to validate some procedures, but I felt I had a fair chance at success with this. Hell, I actually felt comfortable with the whole operation. If only we had a plane.... We had set about looking for a plane & pilot earlier in the year, and I exhausted a number of my avenues early on with no avail. I always say with these demo jumps that the *hardest* part is the plane. A member of the team putting together the activation ceremony knew a gent with a plane who might be willing to fly. So I emailed him and he was enthusiastic but guarded. He's an Air Force officer and an airshow pilot. Probably forgot more about risk assessment and risk management than I ever know. :) The reason for his guardedness became clear immediately: his aircraft was a Beech T-34 Mentor. Hmmm. Probably not the best jumpship I could find. Now like most skydivers, I look at a plane and go "Yeah, I can get out of that!" (or at least, look at it and say "How would I get out of that?"). I'd never flown in a T-34, but I knew the basics. Probably not the best plane to use, certainly has a few hazards to mitigate, and I sure wouldn't want to use it again and again, but as a "one-off," opportunity, sure! He was amenable, but after he'd spoken to a friend who is a DZO near where he lives, he was a little less enthusiastic, so we went looking for other aircraft. As I mentioned in my other post, we were trying to keep this "on the cheap," and it was a "proof of concept" for our budding demonstration parachute team idea. The HQ and training center renovations are really sucking the cash reserves of the organization, so anything we could do to keep the costs down for the jump, especially with all the costs surrounding the anniversary celebration & activation ceremony, was probably going to make our CO happy. We reached out to some of the nearby DZs and it was just going to be too darn expensive to ferry a plane in, etc. I felt uncomfortable asking a DZ to forgo a morning of tandem revenues for our gig and then asking for a price break, so we were still kind of stuck. (note: next time, we line the plane up first, and its just part of the cost of doing business. I'm done with the nickle & dime BS. No plane, no demo, no kidding.) By the first part of the week, we were still w/o a plane. Not fun. Finally, I spoke with the original pilot again, and after talking over the risks, potential issues with the aircraft, how the whole thing would be executed, etc, he said "hey, lets give it a whirl." *whew* We're back on. My CO was excited (and he hardly *ever* gets excited). We got the NOTAM filed within the 72-48hr prior window and we all felt pretty good. I arrived at the facility and checked over the DZ. What was not clear from some of my terrain analysis, or at least, was not entirely obvious, was that the football field was 60-80ft lower than the ceremony area. It was a huge hill down to the field. Bonus! I could screw up, go a little low on my flag pass, and still win. :) I briefed up the guys who would be my ground crew and then got a surprise: my girlfriend who is also a jumper had driven down with my buddy's wife for the gala ball the night before and to be my ground crew. Excellent, a jumper on the ground. The conditions approaching the ceremony, however, were not pretty. The winds the day before had been above marginal. 15-20 mph gusting to 25-30. Ick. Definite no-jump. I spoke with the pilot the night before and the forecast for the 25th was crap. Winds 15mph gusting to 30. (the whuffos on our staff were all saying "What? The weather is supposed to be clear and sunny tomorrow!" and then I'd say "Yeah, but the winds.." and they'd all go "uh, yeah, the color guards are not going to be happy.." Yeah, screw the color guards guys!) That morning, I spoke to him again. Still marginal, but at 8am it was fine, forecast to get worse by noon. I reminded the pilot of one of my golden rules: "Screw the forecast. Get to the DZ and look up." We both agreed to meet at the local airpatch at 1000 for the 1115 ceremony and give it a shot. It was going to be marginal, but it could be marginal to the good side, too! I had good eyes on the DZ for wind direction & speed, and even had good backup visual signals visible from the plane. Holy crap, we're on! I hung up the phone and dashed for the latrine to take care of some pre-jump issues. :) I consulted the available winds aloft, and quickly calculated the spot and figured out the jump run direction. Holy crap, at 3000 ft the predicted winds were 220 @ 42, and a shear at 2000 out of 230 at 30. Who am I kidding here? I figured for a little bit longer of a spot to accommodate the winds and cranked in a little fudge factor, too. My brain kept going back to the wind at 3000ft. 42. Crap! That's cross country winds! I don't want to wind up 3 miles downwind! I scribbled down the lat/long of my IP and spot and headed to the airport with my buddy's wife driving his Porsche 944. Sweet! The pilot & his steed arrived at the nearby airport at 1000 in fine style: high speed down the runway centerline, landing lights alternating, smoke on. Pitch up into a tight overhead, hang the gear, off with the smoke, squeak it on the mains like he'd landed there hundreds of times before. What a ham! We spent 20 minutes or so going over the airplane and the exit. The climbout didn't look too bad, and there was even a handle on the side of the plane. We briefed on timing, radio calls, the ground station at the DZ, configuration for jump run, airspeeds and emergency procedures. Winds at the airport 8 miles from the DZ were still under 15 kts with occasional short gusts above that, but not badly so. Very jumpable. We tried to put the GPS coordinates in for the IP and the spot, but I'd scribbled down degrees, minutes, seconds coordinates, and his GPS was in degrees, minutes and decimal minutes. Grrr. No worries, the Mark I, Mod 0 eyeball will do just fine. During the practice climbouts, the pilot hit me with a humble request: "Do you think you could close the canopy and lock it from outside?" He's limited to 130kts with the canopy open, and he was going to fly straight home after kicking me out, so if I couldn't close it, he'd have to return to our departure point, land, close the canopy and then take off again for home. I practiced that a couple times and agreed that I thought it could be done. At the appointed time, we hopped in the plane, tightened the straps, cranked and taxied for the end of the runway. The pre-jump jitters hit me at that point. I wasn't able to fully enjoy my first flight in a tandem-cockpit airplane because I was pretty amped up about not screwing up the jump. (mind you, the exit wasn't worrying me, but every-friggin-body was an expert. Once they knew what kind of plane, they all said "Oh, is he just going to fly upside down and you fall out?" Due to any number of factors, including being witness to a fatality a number of years ago where the jumper did not cleanly exit a bi-plane flying inverted, there was absolutely no way that kind of exit was even in my head. Zero.) Once airborne, we started talking to Indy Center, LEX tower, and ground. We made the necessary radio calls (a little late due to frequency changes) and finally it was time to get established on the jump run. We turned in for our pre-established initial point, a large water town just downwind of the DZ. As the aircraft slowed to under 100kts, I slid the canopy back and hung my head out for a look. Wow, the slipstream on this plane is tremendous. We were still way short of the IP and missing our timing mark by a little bit. Oh well, they're gonna have to wait. :) Finally, I saw the water tower, then the DZ with the visual markers laid out on the field. Man, there are some people down there, I need to make this look good. In the immortal words of Alan Shepard: "Please god, don't let me f**k up." I consulted the airspeed indicator. 80 kts. The plane lurched a little and I saw the gear indicators go to barber-pole, the green. Ah, yeah, a little more drag, just like we briefed. Behind the flap, I saw the first part of my spot. Time to get out. I stood up in the cockpit and was greeted by a 75 kt slipstream augmented by the prop blast. Darn it, I forgot to brief on the need for a cut. An experienced jump pilot would have done that automatically, but I neglected this bit of info. None of the hand holds I'd practiced on the ground worked with the relative wind trying to strip me off the plane. I even wound up pushing on the aft canopy frame, which we'd decided was a bad idea, but it was the only way to get 'forward' enough in the cockpit opening to get out. I got my leg over the side, Pappy Boyington-style, and marveled at just how damn much wind their was. I was reasonable sure that I wasn't going to be able to hang on well. My brain said "Get small, bonehead" so I did and found myself outside on the wing walkway, holding on for dear life. I reached up, grabbed the canopy handle and slid the canopy shut. Had to try twice to secure the handle, but the 2nd time was the charm. I leaned back, looked over the trailing edge of the flap. There's my spot. I'm a little long. That's fine. I turned back to the pilot, flashed him a thumbs up, let go of the handle and relaxed against the relative wind. Hey, look, that's the bottom of a T-34 with the gear extended. Neato! Stop gaping like a tourist and pull, idiot. The canopy, my girlfriend's Safire I 209, took its darn sweet time about getting open. Finally, the slider the size of Luigi Cani's main slid down to meet me. Quick altimeter glance. 3300 ft. Little lower than I expected. Riser tug to get into the wind while I dink with the flag. No need to wind up downwind 'cuz I'm not paying attention. The flag deployed with no hitches and the lanyard went on the boot with the first try. I stowed the slider and unstowed my brakes. 2800. Nice. Look straight down. I'm penetrating into the wind just fine. 42 knots @ 3000ft, my ass. I own this one. Following the old "half-way down, half-way back" guidance, I set myself up a little closer to the campus and the crowd. I'm looking to cross my windline at just below 1000ft to start my approach. I hit it nearly exactly, and I turn on my downwind, the most visual part of the demo, at around 750 ft, just outside of the crowd area. People are waving and I think I hear the crowd cheering. Not sure, maybe its just in my head. :) As I pass over the gym building, I realize that I wanted to pass on the upwind side of the HQ building and ceremony, not the downwind side. Whoops, lets hope my inattention doesn't screw me for landing Ceremony behind me, its time to land this mother. I'm turned toward the target now, crabbing hard, looking at the treeline below me with the power lines alongside. Oh, come on, you can't pull off a demo like this just to eat it in the power lines. There is a fenced ball diamond that's my pre-briefed out on this side, I can make that easy, if I decide now. I elect to crab a little harder and land on the field. Frickin' hero. That wind is really cooking down here and I'm going more down than forward. The power lines are getting bigger in the field of view, not sliding behind me. Too low to go for the ball diamond now, I'm committed to this little area just short of the goal post on the football field. A quick check down shows the powerlines have stopped getting bigger and have started moving behind me. *whew* Mind that stupid soccer goal post now, and put this thing down. I'm vaguely aware of a couple spectators outside my landing area, and my girlfriend is on a dead run toward me to grab the flag. I flare hard a little late and slide in, happy to be down and not busted up about 30 yards short of my intended target. Grrr, no PRO rating with accuracy like that! "Whoo hooo!" I shout, as I scoop the flag off the ground (sorry, Old Glory, but it happens. Can't always land right on your catchers). Off comes the rig, and my other buddy's wife is there with a big cup of water and my beret. I bolt up the hill past a photographer from the local paper to make it to the ceremony. As I landed, a cavalry trooper rode with a flag (not mine) up from the field to the awaiting ceremony, and then took that flag to the waiting color guard to raise it over the installation. Unfortunately, I made it to about 25 yards short of the ceremony when the cannon went off and the national anthem started to play. Oh well, next time. Overall a highly successful demo and a rather excited and impressed commanding general along with the entire town of Millersburg, KY. Lessons learned? Get the plane first. Pay attention on downwind. Get the command to cough for the plane. Find a more normal "flag rig." :) Thanks again to the folks who PM'd me with airplane help. (Attached is a photo from Janine Jordan shooting for the Bourbon County Citizen. I'm just about to land.) or http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs035.snc1/3277_72663107827_653742827_1827935_1583642_n.jpg NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I normally wouldn't post this on DZ.com, but I'm down to some serious "tree shaking" at the moment. :) Maybe someone knows of someone who has a plane, etc... I'm putting together a demo jump for the Army Cadet organization I belong to, a very simple flag jump into the activation ceremony of our new HQ & cadet training center in Millersburg, KY, for the end of the week. Already filed the 7711-2 with the FSDO, have the certificate of authorization, scoped out the DZ, etc. (the actual ceremony is in a very tight area surrounded by wires & buildings, so the flag jump will really be more of a a "flyby" with a landing in the sports field adjacent to the ceremony area. The flagpole area is more of a Golden Knights-style demo spot, definitely -not- my skill level) As seems to always be the case, the airplane is what trips us up. We started looking for someone who could fly this demo back in Feb, but I didn't contact the local DZs since I was trying to be a little cost conscious (the organization is a 501(c)3 non-profit, and we're in the middle of refurbishing the cadet training center in preparation for our summer training events, so as you can imagine, money is an object..). We had a gent who was willing to fly us, but his plane turned out to be "less than suitable" for a jump, and he's been unable to find a plane we can use. So faced with the loss of the plane, I reached out to both of the DZs in the area. They have both gotten back to me and we've had a couple emails back and forth on the subject. One DZ sent me their demo pricelist and based on ferry time & the time for the jump op, its going to be way too expensive for us. I'm still waiting to hear from the other DZ as to whether or not they can help us out. The DZs are both doing what they can to help us out, but at the end of the day, they have jumpers, tandem revenue, etc, and they can only go so far to "give us a break" and take their plane away in the middle of a busy Saturday. Totally understood and absolutely no ding on either of these DZs. Given the opportunity to make, say, $1000 in guaranteed tandem revenue, or $700 flying a demo, I'd opt for the customer standing at my manifest counter, too. So my question is: does anybody know of a jump plane in Northern KY/Southern OH that might be available for a demo on Saturday morning? I'm talking "My buddy bought this plane, never uses it as a jump plane, but its got a jump door" variety, something like that. We still have some irons in the fire (the original pilot, for example, is/was doing some looking for us, and I haven't heard back from him yet on where that might be at), but I'm running up against my Certificate of Authorization's requirement to file the NOTAM by Friday morning, plus I have to let the FSDO know this week who is flying and what plane we're using. Our approximate budget on this is something less than $500 . 1 pass, 1 jumper. That's it. If someone would be amenable to a certificate of donation to offset, that would be groovy too! Thanks for any help. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

That's like 10 kinds of AWESOME. Thanks!! NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Odd request here: If you have a Sapphire altimeter, can you post a photo of how the original strap is routed? I have had a Sapphire since I was a student. I wore it on a chest pillow, but since the elastic strap was just cinched over it, I could easily pull it off and wear it as a wrist mount occasionally if the circumstances dictated it. This worked great for years and the flexibility was very handy. Then, this past season I started doing some wingsuiting and decided I wanted a mudflap mount for my alti. So I popped the stitching on the elastic strap, unthreaded it, and zip-tied the base to the carbon fiber mount. After a few months of that, I decided I wanted to go back to the convertible mount since I'll be doing AFF and can't always cleanly see my mudflap mount with my A3 on. Problem is: I forgot to document the strap routing before I removed it. Dooh! Any help there would be appreciated. Thanx! NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I don't know if I'd necessarily classify ADD as a "disability," per se, but it sure can be a challenge to work around/with. Had a student this summer who was pretty skilled in the air, but darn if that poor guy didn't need to keep an Adderol IV drip going to stay focused on the ground. We were dirt-diving his coach 3-way (we have a "do a 3-way" to graduate requirement at my DZ) and as we're talking thru the steps all bent over by the mock up, this young man glances over and sees the Wings logo on the container I'm jumping, and he says "oooh, Wings.. you know, I was thinking of getting Wings.. do you like it?" as we're trying to dirt dive. I had ahold of his gripper and I shook it and said "Dude, we're dirt diving here. Focus." Now, look, I have a short attention span sometimes ("look, shiny object!"), but this poor lad's attention span could be measured in nanoseconds. Now, is that a problem? When you're under the supervision of an instructor, maybe not so much. I knew to keep him focused in the boarding area, keep a hand on him going to the plane (yeah, don't need him to get distracted by the prop..), keep his attention in the aircraft and be *constantly* checking his level of attention to the task at hand. Once it was time to skydive, he was pretty focused, but I gotta wonder what he was doing with the slack time under canopy... :) Under your own supervision, however, that's an entirely different story. How do I know he didn't leave his packing tool in his closing loop? (hopefully he's smart enough to ask for a gear check or something, right, but does every single dude on the plane get a pin check every time?) What if he forgot to cock his pilot chute or, even less checkable on the ground, stow his brakes correctly or quarter his slider correctly? We had another student this summer who quickly got the nickname "Total." I don't know if he was "ADD" or not (I think so, but don't know for sure), but he was easily distracted by his damn cell phone. He'd be in the middle of packing and his phone would ring or vibrate and I'd see him talking or texting like a demon while kneeling on the bag or mid-way thru stowing lines. Then he's rushing to make it on the load cuz he's behind the power curve, and he's forgetting things. He was packing one day and I said "Geez, what is taking this guy so long?" and I look and he's on the phone when he should be packing for the load we're manifested on (I'm a big believer in not rushing my students to get on loads, but you know, when you manifest 2 loads out on a slow day, that's not exactly rushing, until the dude starts farting around). I walked over, knelt down and said "Dude, hang up the phone. You're packing. You need to concentrate." Near the end of the season, after he was a licensed jumper, our DZO stopped him enroute to the plane from the hangar cuz he had his @#$% packing tool hanging out of the closing flap, and sure enough, he stowed the pilot chute w/o pulling the closing tool out (thats where he got his nickname..) I took his cell phone away from him one day, said "Andy, this thing needs to get put away when you hit this DZ. Its distracting you, and you're going to f**king mort yourself because of it.." I doubt it sank in. And it concerns me because he's now a licensed skydiver and will get somewhat less in the way of "external" safety checks from others, unlike being a student where you get checked constantly. I jokingly say I'm easily distractable (and I can be) but I have a rule that I leave all my "shit" at the end of the DZ's driveway. Whatever I have going on out in "the world" is out there, beyond an imaginary white line painted at the end of the driveway. Cell phone goes off and in the helmet bag and I concentrate on the tasks at hand and push all the other crap to the side (ex-wife, kid issues, whatever). Missing a phone call probably won't kill me. Missing a step in packing/gearing up just might. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Several years back, I jumped at a small DZ in Michigan. We were a static-line DZ, lots of Racers and three Cessnas. The DZO's wife managed the student operation/manifest. (anybody whose been around awhile should figure that out.. Doesn't matter anymore, the DZ is under different management, etc) Kid from Canada is on freefall status, having cleared the dope-rope, and makes his first clear & pull jump where he totally ignores the radio and flies off into the sunset (well, not really, he was flying north and it was nowhere near the end of the day) away from the landing area, and eventually lands in one of the many cornfields surrounding the DZ. When we finally got to him, we said "Why'd you fly away from the DZ?" He claimed that his canopy had a "built-in turn" and he couldn't find the DZ. All of us spectating scratched our heads at his explanation, since he was flying straight while he flew away from the DZ. Plus, with a built in turn, he should have wound up finding the DZ again as he went in a circle. He couldn't explain why he was flying straight away from the DZ, or why he didn't bother to listen to the guy on the radio imploring him to turn to locate the DZ. The DZO's wife, a former grade-school teacher, isn't buying what he's selling, and her body language says so. We get him back to manifest and de-geared, picking corn stalks out of his stuff. He's all jazzed up about how he did, and gets himself manifested for another load. We're watching as that load gets out, and our intrepid student, Wrong-Way Corrigan, manages to take what amounts to a 20+ second delay from 5000ft. We're talking what should have been a 2-3 second hop & pop winds up with us watching this kid burn thru 3000 ft flat and stable, making no attempts at pulling until he's blasting thru 2k. We're talking he was going long enough, and LOW enough that there were 4-5 of us on the ground like the Groovers going "pull it, son, do something!" He lands on the student target, gathers his main and comes walking in all excited "Wow, that was a great jump! " "What altitude did you pull at?" "4000!" he chirps rather brightly. To those of us on the ground, we're reasonably certain that 4000 came and went in the first 10 seconds. "Try again. What altitude did you pull at?" "Uhh, 3500?" "Keep going..." "I, uh, well, I know I pulled above 3500... I think.." By now we're inside and he's peeling his stuff off and swearing up and down there is no way in hell he pulled low. The rigs are equipped with Sentinels that are, as I dimly recall, set for 1500 ft. But we were always told that Sentinels have a 1000 ft +/- variation or something like that. He was definitely in the range of a potential AAD fire. Finally, the DZO's wife, who was very proper and friendly, who we'd never heard say a single bad thing, gets fed up with this kid's excuses and barks "Take your shit off, hang it up over there, and get the hell out of here." NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I just got my refund check, $3.57. I looked at it for a minute, trying to figure out the amount. I bought my girlfriend's brother, a newbie skydiver, a subscription for Christmas.. I figured since I bought the sub, I'd get the check for 11/12th of the subscription. So $3.57 had me scratching my head. Then I realized: Its whatever remained from the 10 year subscription my ex-wife got me nearly 10 years ago. Screw her: I'm keeping the check! She got damn near half of everything else, I'm keeping this! (In some ways, she reminds me of the paperboy in Better Off Dead: "I want my two dollars!!") NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Oh, yeah, and I even got my photo published in there last year... how cool is that? NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Yeah, my 10 year just ran out, kept forgetting to grab my label to put my subscriber number in so I could re-up it. Guess my procrastination paid off, this time. Still, I'd rather have the darn mag. Now I gotta wait 30 days or so between my mistresses.. *sniff* I just bought my girlfriend's brother a gift subscription for Xmas. Well, guess I can reinvest in a sub to Popular Mechanics for him :) Darn. My ex-wife got me that 10 year subscription, and when we got divorced and the mag kept coming, I thought "Well, theres at least one thing that came from her that I can still appreciate!" Hahahahah.. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19