Tonedog1980

Since we are on this subject. I am new to skydiving. Only 2 jumps so far =( Bad weather has stoped me from moving on for awhile now. But, I have a problem with looking at my alti. When I go skydiving I have to sike myself up and get in a certain mode I call it so that I am not freaked out so much that I mess up. Once I get in that mode I have no problems at all. I can stay calm and remember what to do, and to tell the truth I am not scared at all any more, and have allot more fun doing it. So far I have only done one tandem and one static line. But when I look at my alti and see my altitude that is the only thing that brings all my fears back to me. After that happens I am just a mess. If you watch any of my videos on dkf1979's websit you will see that I am tottaly happy and having a blast. But, the other day I went and I could not get into my, "mode," and I was freaked out just leaving my house LOL. Well not freaked out but I had allot of anxiaty. Luckly the winds where to high and I couldn't jump anyways. But has anyone ever had this problem and if so what are some things to help me get over it? Just stop being a puss?!?! lol. So far on all my jumps I tried to look at my alti while I was in the plane, but they where quick glances, and I never looked at it while in FF on my tandem. On the S/L you don't have time to look but I probably wouldn't have. I only looked at it once while under my chute and that was a quick look also. LOL for some reason this freaks me out more then thinking about the fact that I could die. Don't ask me why cause I don't know. But I know this is going to be a big problem for me once I start doing my free falls. Can anyone help with this? Or is this just something I have to get over? Thank guys. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

Wuzavince what do you mean by interresting? Did you like them? I was the guy with the yellow helmet. The only thing the video doesn't show is that it was about 40 degrees on the ground and was freezing up there. I was getting hit with ice from the mosiure in the air freezing lol. But was the best time ever. It kind of makes me feel good that I wasn't a puss about it and still jumped in the cold like that. I wish we could get the whole video on the web site. At the very end it shows me having a perfect stand up landing about 1 foot from the little bulls eye thing on the DZ. Was a ton of fun. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

I guess it all depends on how well you trush yourself. I am a noob to the sport so obviously I would be asking for the alti or ridding in the plane to the ground. I see allot of people saying that if you can judge your altitude then go for it. As a noob I have to ask the question is this good practice? I know it would be good practice to try to teach yourself visual altitude awareness but is it good to intentionaly jump with no alti and only relying on your instenct? I guess if you see the ground rushing or you know you are still at a high enough altitude to get your chute open it would be fine, but what if you miss judged and pulled to soon and someone unaware of this slames into you? I think if you had a partener with you and he/she had an alti then I would be able to trust them to pull at the correct time. Otherwise they wouldn't be my partener. Also I dought they would be willing to wait till it was unsafe to pull, so I would just watch them and pull when they did. But as a noob I am with dkf1979. $20 or experence a landing in the plane for once. =P Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

Look the whole point here is that there was no need for bashing. Instead why not just try to answer the question and learn from it. dkf1979 and my self are noobs. We do not deserve to be the center of a public bashing such as this. All I am saying is that you could have easly sent dkf1979 a private message warning him about this, and let him deside if he feels safe or not. Then if you feel you still have an urge to continue this talk to someone who matters. You don't go bashing people publicly at the expence of a begginer. This has caused a bunch of crap needlessly. Someone new to the sport doesn't deserve this at all. Now I can't speek for the instructors, but as far as I could tell it seemed like the winds below 500 feet or maybe even higher where not over speed. Because if a chute flys at 20mph and once we got closer to the DZ we stoped flying backwards while still facing the wind. We had to turn a slite amount and when I landed I was comming in forwards. And very slowly at that. I landed easier then steeping off a bottom steep of a stair way. Anyways, this is my last reply. The only reason I posted this is because some peeps thought I was trying to act like I knew something. I never said I did or acted like I did. I just said I didn't every, at any time feel unsafe, and that this is unfair to dkf1979 and myself. He is my best friend and partener in skydiving, and this effects me aswell. And it isn't fair to us to be the center of what is going on here. Thank you and good day. Peace to you all. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

Ok I was there on this day. Dkf1979 is basicly my partner in skydiving. First I want to say this. You the hell are you guys?!?!?! You act like this is some kind of court hearing or something. Saying stuff like you need to hear from the instructors and that people are at fault or what not. You are just skydivers like everyone else. Some of you only have about 100 jumps, but yet you still think you are pros. So, don't go out throughing insults in peoples faces when you where not there and when you know nothing of Archway. First off you where not there, so you do not know how high the winds where. These student chutes are very big and fly slow, expecialy when winds are just blowing a little harder then normal. I tell you this, on this day I had the most fun I have ever had skydiving. I never once felt unsafe or anything. It was kind of fun flying in backwards, BUT once we got to about 500 feet we where able to turn and come in forwards. SO, we did not land backwards or even have to start thinking about landing untill we where going forwards. And we might have even been higher then 500 feet when we started moving forwards. I have a video of me landing. It was the softest landing I have ever had. It was perfect. I can load it up on our website if you don't believe me. Also with the example of you running out of air while diving that is just rediculious. In that example you actually where about to die. You ran out of air. That is a little more drastic then this. We never said we where in any kind of danger now did we?!?!?!?!? Nobody else that jumped that day said anything about experencing this kind of drop. So, it could have just been a change in air pressure or anything else. I have not been on this web site for long but one thing I have noticed in my short time here is that you people love to bash people. If you think they where being unsafe or the instructors are not looking out for the student, why don't you send him a private message. If the person, such as dkf1979 feels that he was in real danger or anything like that he can talk with proper athorities, not a bunch of skydivers looking to be Mr. Knowitalls. I jumped that day with dkf1979 I was in the plane with him. I went right after he did, and I loved it. Tell you the truth I don't know what the big deal is with flying backwards anyways. It was kind of nice. We where flying slow as can be. It was a nice peacefull slow ride in, and it made for an extremly soft landing. I mean I only had to take like 1 or 2 steps after I landed if that. It was perfect. Now since then we have gone back a few times now. Before these post where even added and they wouldn't let us jump because winds where to high. One day it was only like 1 mph over what is legal and they wouldn't let us go. So, I know they pay attention to this kind of stuff. Tell you the truth I think you all owe dkf1979 and Archway an apolagie. dkf1979 feels horable about this now because we both love archway, they are great people and skilled skydivers. And now he feels like he has caused them trouble needlessly, because a buch of people that think they know everything have to get on here and bash them without knowing the facts. The JMs at Archway are very safe and very throu, they know what they are doing. I have never once felt unsafe here at archway, infact I am scared to go anywhere else because I trust these guys with my life. Like dkf1979 said there safty record speeks for its self. So pls think before you start bashing people next time. This has really cause a bunch of needless trouble. If you think it was unsafe then send a private message to dkf1979 and let him deside if it was unsafe. And if he feels like taking further action about it he will. Errrr this whole thing got way out of hand. I realy do think atleast you owe dkf1979 an apolige. All he asked was a valid question. If you want to post something then answer the question at hand, and if you have nothing to say about the question then don't post. Realy nobody asked anyones oppinion if it was safe or not, so why does everyone feel they have to add that in. If we felt it was unsafe we would have asked that. Like that stupid example about scuba diving. Of course if someone ran our of f**king air under water they would be asking if that was unsafe because that is something that is obvious. Here we where never in any danger and never felt unsafe. So.... SHHH!!! Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

Guys I think we need to stop talking about the helmets and keep it on Christian, but hey that is just my opinion. Also, guys if you sit here and try to figure out if helmets help or not, you will be at it for ever. Why do you think it is such a big discution in the goverenment about weather to instate the law or not. Cause it is so hard to prove one way or the other. But don't say it is just a matter of phisics or anything else. It is not that easy of a subject. If it is tell that to my good friend that died five years ago in a motorcycle crash. Have you ever taken a phonebook and put it on someones head and hit it before? If you havn't, try it lol. It causes a masive concution. Because the book is right on top of your head it just sends the shock waves directly through you, just like it does the book. That is what happened to my friend. The doctors said that he might not have died if he WAS NOT wearing a helmet. What happend was, even though the impact was not that bad, his helmet was to tight on his head. So, the shock went straight through his brain. He died from head trama. They did say that he might have died anyways but we will never know. I don't understand all the tecnical details about why this happens. I just know that for some reason it does. Trust me, go get a book right now, and before you do anything just hit yourself on top of the head LIGHTLY and then put the book on your head and hit yourself with the same force. You will see what I mean. Anyways Christian may god be with you man. Hope you recover well. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

DUDE what happened?!?!?!? You got me interrested in your accident now. If you don't like to talk about it that is kewl but if it doesn't bother you would you mind posting it in inccodents? I like to hear these stories to help me know what to do if it ever happens to me. And no I don't think you are stupid for this. Actually that is a pretty noble thing to do. Trying to get away from the DZ so you wouldn't hit anyone else. Not many people would have thought of that in that situation. Glad you made it out alive though, but sorry for the troubles it probably caused you. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

Well I got to add my two senses in on this one lol. Just read my sign and you will know what I think. But I love both these things lol. Drinking helps me relax at the end of a hard day of work, help loosen me and my friends up so we can have a good time, instead of sitting around like a bunch of stiffs. I'm NOT saying that peeps that don't drink are stiffs, I'm just saying me and my friends are a bunch of stiffs when we don't drink. Maybe that is considered being dependent on it but hey who cares, I like depending on my Budweiser lol. But I will tell you this, there is no way you can compare dieing skydiving to dieing for something related to drinking. If I ever died drinking and driving that would suck. I probably wouldn't even know it happened until I was taking to the big man upstairs. LOL and it would suck to have a hang over in heaven lol. I know exactly what you mean though about being up there feels like being close to God. I swear I say that same thing. Skydiving frees your body, mind, and soul. I can't live without it now. It is burnt into my character. Also if I ever die skydiving then rock on. When I get to the pearly gates and Christ says is there anything you regret not doing, I will be able to say NO without a dought. It feels like I am at the ends of the earth when I'm up there. Just like you said it is hard to explain, but I'm sure I don't need to explain that feeling to anyone on here lol. But anyways if you don't drink cause you don't want it to kill you then that is cool. Just make sure you don't cut yourself short on living life because of how other people handle it or what others say about it. That wouldn't be unfair to you. There is nothing like a hard day at work then to come home and pop open a ice cold Bud, or to share one with a friend in my opinion. And hey if I do die from the effects of alcohol then so be it. Like you said if it is my time to go it is my time to go. Regardless of what I die from, obviously that is what I was supposed to die from. The only real negative thing I see about drinking is the fact that you can kill someone else. That would suck because if it happened to you then it is totally out of your hands. You would have done nothing wrong and just been a victim of circumstance. You get what I mean? But also it is a ton of fun, after you are done skydiving, to sit back with your buddies and get totally hammered and just have a good time. People try to tell me I am adrenalin junky, and I just say no, I only have one life to live, and I am going to do what I want. Like I said, I don't want to get to heaven and have anything I regret not doing. If I am guilty of anything it is being a thrill junky lol. Ok enough of my opinion. LOL I think this is a little more then my two sense but you can keep the change lol. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

LOL yeah I ment nobody would pick up my shift lol. Also that is exactly what I did that day. I just sat around and talked with all the instructors/experinced jumpers. Also watch a few of them pack their chutes. I have seen it done a lot of times and I think our dropzones next packing class isn't till March, but that is another thing im looking forward to. I hear ya about waiting it out and being patient. You can't rush something that can posably kill you can ya lol. But it does suck cause I don't get to go alot. For one the dropzone is about an hour drive from my house, witch isn't a biggie, also I'm a broke MOFO , and Going to school and working takes up to much time. So, when I finaly get the chance to get out there it is a real bummer to miss out. But I guess one good thing about it is that I can't stand the fact of not atleast getting one more jump in before I break for winter, so I was talking to them about what good winter gear to get. They said, for gloves, that the same gloves recievers in football wear are realy good ones for skydiving also, and also said to pick up one of those neck guard things that hunters wear alot. So I think I'm going to take a trip to sports athoritiy and get my first pieces of skydiving equipment LOL. If you would call it that lol. But I also was talking to them about winter jumps and they kind of got me siked up to stop being a puss and jump in the winter also lol. So I think I might be making a few polar jumps lol. Anyways thanx for all the post guys. P.S. WIND SUCKS Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

Man today sucked!!! I was about to make my thrid jump today, got up early even, but when I got to the dropzone they said it was to windy for students to jump ERRRR. We waited for about 3 hours untill it was to late and I had to go to work. Man, I only had to work for 3 hours from 5:30 to 8:30 and nobody would pick up for me. LOL talk about a depressing day lol. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

LOL yeah im pretty skinning arn't I lol. Thanx though Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

Dude, solos are lonely. I mean with no instructor there and im on my own. Of course with friends jumping with me just not a student anymore is what i ment. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

On dkf1979's web page http://webpages.charter.net/skyjump/dan's_skydive_page.htm we have put a link to some videos I uploaded on my web space, since Dan ran out of room. Go to the site then go to My videos then click on Tony. You can see my static line jump where I went totaly upside down. That way you guys can see if I did something wrong there. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

Ok Dan finaly got me to access my web space and I up loaded a few videos that Dan put some links to on his page. Go to videos then Static Line Videos and it has videos of all four of us now. Pretty kewl since Dan ran out of room for them and we still where able to get them on there. Got to give the credit to Dan though I just followed his instructions lol. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!

Kewl thanx. My last jump it was 45 degrees on the ground and who knows what at 3500 feet. But winds where up to 50MPH at 6k. And you are right I didn't realy feel the cold untill I got to the ground. I did notice that my hands where frozen to the toggles but I didn't realy care lol. The only main thing im realy looking for is a face guard or something. That day it was raining and up at altitude the rain was frozen and felt like I was in a sand storm lol. I have long eye lashes and they where collecting ice lol. Made it a little hard to see but I guess if I was wearing goggles that wouldn't happen now would it lol. The only thing is I live in Illinois right across the river from STL and it gets way cold here. I want to jump the whole year round and I know we will get tempeture at like 20 degrees on the ground and probably well below zero up there. Actually we get alot of days that are below zero on the ground lol. So just worring about those days realy. I'm pretty used to the cold though since I have been snowboarding since I can remember but if im going all year round I will get to my freefall jumps and it being my first time, well first time solo that is, I dont want anything to go wrong. Thanx for the info on what you use though. Maybe I will check some of that out and see how it goes. Why live your life only to get to death safely? SKYDIVE!