freeflygirlz

Your very short legs causes you sliding backwards, which also increases the fall rate and will make the opening harder. you really have to work on your legs and Body Position and on your Body Tension all over. body Tension also helps to deal better with the opening shock, even on a normal opening. also take care of your head Position, Keep it back all the time and don't turn it to the instructors side during opening. as soon as you feel good again, go back to the DZ and go on! have fun, blue skies ffg edit to add: actually Students usually feel the physical aspects of jumping after a couple of detailed briefing Units on the horizontal Trainer.... a good arch Position will get you in personal contact with some muscles you have never felt before...

I did not actually looked forward my first cutaway. But when it was over I felt good because then I knew I can do the EP right and how it feels like to actually pull the handles in the air ...

[sarcasm on] At least Foggy should jump a smaller canopy than his instructor / formaly Student, right? the elder people earn respect stuff

Interesting Topic! if it has to be an either / or decision, for me it is 100% Hanging harness!! there are different positive things as above mentioned, especially to make it as realistic as possible. as soon as the Student showed a few good EPs, we start stressing him during his EP by shaking the harness quite hard as it could be on a very shaky malfunction. We watch out for any mistakes under stress. Only if he does a good job for a few times in a row, he passes FJC. We don't have a Standing Trainer yet, but I have seen it somewhere else. I also see the pros as mentioned, fast, quick, everyone is invited to do a quick Training. in the FJC the biggest Advantage would be fast rotation of the EP-training without too much physical stress on the Student. so he could first train the correct EP step by step in quite comfortable conditions before hanging in the very uncomfortable hanging harness. for the instructors it would also be more relaxed not having to asamble the 3ring System 100 times on a day :-) blue skies ffg

HI! Thanks for the fast Response! I do not agree with UPT in this Topic. I check my cypres before every jump. And I checkf the reserve pin every jump, but I do not Need to open all 3 flaps of the reserve on each jump. I fully open it once in the morning, then I just look from the side through the small gap on the Position of the pin in the Loop. I assume that opening the flap completely on every jump - so this would be about 5-8 times more than now - could enforce material damage of the stiffener of the flaps. I am aff instructor myself and try to build up safety awarness by explaning the students why certains things are important. Forcing them by technical barriers is only Plan B for me... Maybe I can get it on special customer request... blue skies ffg

Hi everyone! I think about getting a new gear, right now Vector 3 Micron is on top of the list. The extra foam padding is one of the reasons. I only know one very new gear like this and what I absolutely don't like about it, is the Position of cypres control unit below the reserve flap. I absolutely prefer having a window in the yoke or back side of the rig. Maybe anyone knows if it is possible the order a Micron like this?? On the Webpage and all the Pictures I could not find one. thanks a lot for your help! blue skies freeflygirl

my personal opinion: PD reserves are the best. I don't know enough about the PD optima, but I would definitly think about buying one if I had the choice

Hi! We use Vector Student Gears DOM 2004 and are very happy with them. The MLW can be adjusted exactly as you like to do, but you need to be careful to insure that It's the same on both sides. Where I did my AFF instructor course in 2003 they used pretty knew Telesis gears and they had flaps for about 4 different length, so easier to make it symetrical, but not as much choice as the Vector. in fact we do not adjust the length for every student. We kind of use an average position and only for realy big or realy small people use the MLW-adjustion. Have fun buying new gears - I love it :-) blue skies ffg

I do all drawing of potential situations on our DZ's aerial pictures, as it is (imo) much easier for students to understand. I always set up a simulated situation where they have to do, what you showed in your drawing. blue skies ffg

I agree with you, I have not thought about this point yet. blue skies

The gerneral idea is: The more rules you set, the more you personally commit to control these rules. If there is no legal law for an AAD for D-licence holders, and someone dies without an AAD and the accident might have been avoided by an AAD, no one will blame you as DZO. IF you as DZO require an AAD to jump on your DZ and someone dies during a jump without ! an AAD, you could be blamed, because he was able to jump and break your rule. By setting a rule you say, that you consider this 100% necessary to be safe. Even if the state of the art and the law say this is optional. makes sense to you? blue skies ffg

Hi! The closest one I know of is Salgareda, but I haven't been there the last few years. thats what I found in the web: http://www.cpvpara.com/ It's closed to a nato base a bit north of venice have fun! edit to add: make sure that they are open in winter, probably they are having snow down there as well at the moment.

Hi there! do you know, who is offering courses in Europe? especially german-speeking region?? I know of Brian Vacher, but he is fully booked for 2007... thanks for your help! ffg

Hi! it's not only safer to stick on the manufactures rules, it's even cheaper to do the regular bat. change during the standard repacks. So you can make plans for the repack-date to meet your jump-plans. If you just wait for the cypres to show the error code, you never know when your aad will be out of order. for some persons (student / tandem) or dz with mandatory aad-use that would ground them without warning. I've already seen this happen with gears that exeed the 500jump limit before reaching the 2years limit. cypres 2 improved a lot, so this topic will lapse in a few years anyway. but it would be indeed nice to get a recycling market for cypres bat. (using the left power to supply energy to any portable electronic stuff like a pocket lamp) blue skies ffg

slotperfect billvon loudiamond skymonkeyone imgr2 fields mark Andrewwhyte bbarnhouse chutingstar tonyt raefordite vidiot(?) riggerrob cssriggers hajnalka milehighpres peek potvinj GravityGirl Jeffrey JerryBaumchen masterrigger1 AirTwardo freeflygirlz It's my first PIA Symposium and I'll be the only one from Austria. So, will someone of you take care of me there? What can you do / visit around Reno at that time of the year? Are DZs in the area open at that time of the year? blue skies ffg

We have a C206T as well and I have more than 200 AFFs out of this plane by now. We are doing pretty much the same as described and they are very nice exits, although the door is preety small. Only difference: main side instructor removes his right leg from the plane as soon as he has his grip on the student. What does "pancake" mean?? Our students have the left hand at the floor of the plane and the right hand at the rear door. They push with the right and turn over the left hand into the relative wind. Another question: level 4+5: do you go Main or Reserve side?? I always go Reserve side, as I feel I can control + secure the student more from inside the plane Any suggestens welcome! blue skies

Nate, the student cypres is designed to provide a higher level of safety for students: it is meant to fire even if the student has a partly (slower) malfunction (line over, steamer..). therefore the activation speed is much lower as for expert jumpers. The slightly higher opening altitude gives the student a bit more time to deal with the situation before landing. Expert jumpers would not accept an aad, which fires to an partly open main / at aggressive canopy moves. Its designed to fire only in a near-freefall-emergency situation. In contrary students might not be able to deal with a malfunction. Students open their canopy much higher and if they haven't managed to cut away until 1000ft they won't do below 1000ft and the student cypres will probably save their lifes. therefore it's very important to have appropriate aads for each user-group. Experts, tandems and students have different skills and needs. And as this incidence prooves, it's important, that every jumper chooses the type of cypres, that fits it's needs. Blue skies Sieglinde __________ AFF-Instructor, Austria

Hi! Can anyone provide me an email-contact for michigans-jumpsuits. On their homepage I couldn't find one, only phone and fax. thanks

The information content of the report on the Vigil website is quite low. It's not mentioned when the Vigils fired, as ''below activation altitude'' can be anywhere. The third case which billvon reported where several Vigils fired on the ground in a pressurized cabin before a planned 50 way is not mentioned at all. blue skies

I'm a bit surprised, that you can get a Tandem Rating at such young age at all! In Austria where I'm living, you have to be 21 to get any instructor rating. Personally I think its good to have a minimum age, als usually personality and professional attitude are rather weak at younger age. Of course its difficult to make common statement, of course there are young skydivers, who are very professional at young age, and other, who will never be professional at any age. I guess some students would be very surprised, if they are to jump with a young guy, who could be their son or even grandson... Whats your opinion? blue skies

Not if it happens the first time and probably not if it happens a second time. If it happens more often, it should be considered (evaluation jumps, ....) I once had a very stressful jump in my first year, I DID get the student, but it was closed not to get him by 5000ft. I learned very very much on this jump. What I want to say: a bad instructional performance or very closed jump once in a while (once in a few hundred jumps, not every other weekend!!) will get you back to the ground. It will remind you, what is possible up there. Its probably necessary to really learn what AFF is about. To keep you focused and have a very professional and serious attitude to instructing. Blue skies

In Austria the wind limit is 6m/s for the first 8 jumps, which is about 14mph. Students with more than 8 jumps are allowed to jump until 8m/s (about 17mph) To me 14mph sounds like a reasonable limit. Of course it depends on the size of the landing area and local conditions. gusty winds or rather unskilled students are a reason to keep a student on the ground, although the winds are within the limits.

A fellow jumper is thinking about getting a Mirage G4. He is doing Freefly and Wing-suit and jumping a 135 sqft. Main. What do you think about the G4? Which options would you recommend? What do you think about the wingsuit-option?? Do you like the Inset Stabalizers? Is the split bag comfortable at packing? Do you like the freefly hackey handle? Anything you do not like at all about this gear?? Any comments, postive and negative are very apreciated! Thanks and blue skies!

I did it once and the student immediately agreed with quitting skydiving. He was absolutely not able to deal with stress. After a bit rough exit he totally freaked and nearly pulled his cutaway instead of his main. I had a student who was a rather bad student, very very instable, but he was reliable at pulling. I would not talk him into quitting. If he would, I would not be surprised, but I would not care jumping with him. He decided on his own to do tunnel training, than came back for a rejump. He did not tell us, that he was in the tunnel until we were in the plane :-) he did a great job and got his licence. Recently one of my students stopped jumping after a not very good level 4 jump. I had to stop his rotations and he did not pull. After the pull-sign I pulled for him. For me this is not a reason to give the student this bowling-talk, if it only happens once. I was rather sad, that he decided to stop skydiving. I agree, that most of the students know, when it's time to get a new hobby. But there are a few, who are not understanding at all.

I agree with you, right foot forward might be better. You may want to try both positions yourself on the ground, one feels just more natural. Having the left leg front the student is blocking himself on his way outside the door. Having the right leg front, the left one is already outside "flying", when the student still has his weight on the right one. Have a try! Everything else sounds very nice!