Synapse

Ok here is the progression, flew my hand out of the car window, then plastic non-working model airplanes on my mom's floor, then working model aircraft in a neighbor's field, then Cessna 172's at a local airport, and now big old student canopies anywhere I get a chance.

Thanks for the info guys. I of course assumed that falling out of the rig was what would be the ultimate result, but didn't know if anyone had some more info or possibly a story of some dude hanging by his legs or something. I think if I ever found myself in that situation I'd try to hook that bad boy while I was flying on my back and give that MLW grab a try on top of it just to make sure... altitude permitting.

Say hellow to my little friend... Mr. CLICKY! They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

This is totally a newbie question here, but since thats what I am, I guess thats acceptable. What exactly would happen if ones chest strap was either not fastened at all or if it was pulled out of the buckle during deployment? -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Niiiice, kudos to the guys at Paralog! -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

I can't possibly agree more with arlo, I had similar problems with uncontrolled spins on AFF 3 and swore off jumping again until I could get some time in a tunnel. I made a post about that a few months back that you may want to check out. To summarize that post... I felt way way more comfortable with my ability to control myself in free fall after spending time in the tunnel and its a lot cheaper than repeating AFF levels. Also as someone else stated, its not just about getting through AFF. You have to think about what quality you want from your jumps after AFF and how safe you want to make those jumps for yourself (being unstable isn't exactly a good thing). For me, the added enjoyment that came from jumping and not having to worry so much about my body position made the trip to orlando and the cost of the training well worth it. benny: I totally understand supporting the home state.

I don't ever recall going up to a girl in a bar and saying "hi I run linux, wanna screw?". I run linux because I believe it to be a far better OS than windows. I don't take very kindly to being limited by my OS, power and flexibility are key. Here is an exercise for ya: 1. Put together a text file with a list of every user on your windows box. 2. Now create a new text file with a list of every open file on your system, what user has that file open, and the size of that file. I could have made both of these in linux in less time than it took me to write that section of this reply, let me know how many hours it takes in windows. But hey you may have a point, if MS Office can do all you need to do in order to be considered productive, then windows is probably best for you. If you're having to do that I pray you never get a job in IT. Well maybe you could handle an all MS shop... something goes wrong all you do is reinstall the software/system right? At least thats what seems to be the fix for the majority of problems in windows...not that doing so should really be considered a fix. Wow, sorry to hear that... maybe the company should have went with someone else for their implementation? As for the choice of netscape, I agree that that is a bad choice... the company could have continued to use Outlook with the linux based mail server. Now as for spending money on training their IT to manage the server... is the guy an ape? useradd, userdel, reboot, and rpm are the only things I can think of that this guy will need to use on a regular basis and there is plenty of documentation online on how to handle mail server configuration. An email server isn't rocket science.

Linux... the best anti-virus package/service pack/update winblowz has ever seen! No more crashes, no more constant updates, no more worrying about the latest virus... best of all the shits free and ya can't beat that. -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

I'm no TM, but here is my .02. When I made my first tandem it was a lot like what you describe peek. The TM took a lot of time explaining how everything worked, teaching body positioning, and basics of relative wind and how to use it to control your movements. I got on the plane feeling well informed about what was about to happen, how the equipment worked, and what I was expected to do. Also I felt comfortable with my TM and his knowledge of emergency procedures/skydiving in general, which seems pretty important to me! There were TM's at the DZ that myself and the rest of my friends who went with me tried to avoid getting partnered with simply because they didn't explain as much about the whole process to their "students" and seemed to care less. It becomes a faith issue then, the students (us) didn't have as much confidence in the other TM's abilities since they weren't sharing their knowledge very well. You have to keep in mind that tandems don't know jack about any instructor ratings, everyone is just "some guy at the dz", so the more knowledge you pass on to your students the more faith they have in your abilities. That leads to repeat business. Also, I would really be surprised if most students wouldn't love to walk away with more knowledge about skydiving gained through training at the DZ for a tandem jump. Then you've got more cool facts to share with your whuffo friends right? -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

I've been a little concerned about this ever since getting my rig and this is seems like a good time to ask some questions. I've got a Javelin Odyssey, size J4K (up to 190 main and 176 reserve), which means that I seem to fall into the category you guys are talking about. Since I was buying used I couldn't order the J4.5K harness, which could hold a slightly larger reserve and main, so I went with this. I'm planning on jumping a 190 main @ a 1:1 wing loading in the rig, so the loading on the PD176 reserve would be about 1.08:1. Any advice on how major of a concern this should be with these wing loadings? FYI: I currently have 25 jumps all made on a 220 sq. ft. main. The plan is to jump a 210 for a while on my next few jumps (~25) and then after (or possibly during) the Flight-1 canopy control class coming up in Feb. moving down to a 190. At first I plan on using rental gear with a 190 main and a larger reserve than what my rig has until I feel pretty confident on that size... hopefully that way going down to a 176 won't blow my mind. Also since I don't have a main for the thing yet I can't really rush the process.

As for a DZ, I don't know. As for the job... I would have to agree with the other 2 posts here and tell em to shove it... unless of course I just happened to love china. If they've already cut most of their US employees it is possible that sometime in the future you might be cut also and I would think that being cut from a job you just moved to Honk Kong for would tend to piss one off. Hell even if there was no chance that they would ever fire me I don't think I would move to Honk Kong for any job. That means leaving behind not only the people and places you love, but also an entire way of life... I'm sure the culture there is quite different. -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Couple of questions: -I read somewhere, god only knows where, that over 3 million jumps are made each year in the US and that out of those jumps only around 30 ended in fatality. Are these numbers correct? The 3 million seems a bit high to me, but if it is true then those odds don't seem TOO bad... it still doesn't make it safe, just acceptable. -Of these 30 or so deaths how many were caused by pilot/human error? -Possibly a better question, how many of those 30 did everything correctly? -Do these numbers include people who lost their lives in airplane crashes before actually beginning a skydive? (this is open to interpretation since you could say that you begin a skydive when you get on the plane, when you jump, or when you leave your house on the way to the DZ.) -Any murders or suicides included in the numbers? Finally is it just me or should the USPA have ALL of this information readily available online for anyone to research (Note: it may be and I just don't know about it, in which case pleeeeaaase tell me about it). For me, these statistics play a major role in my decision whether or not I want to participate. Getting them from a confirmed source would be nice. Anyway, I think that skydiving is risky, as is everything else we do... the difference is the level of risk compared to everyday life and the necessity of that risk (being that we don't HAVE to skydive). I am still weighing out this stuff to make a choice on whether or not to stay in the sport and I think every person involved makes this decision for themselves as well. Some just equate this decision to whether or not it is safe and others equate it to whether or not it is "safe enough", so to speak. Its all just wording right? -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Man you must be in good shape! After a day of jumps I'm usually sleeping like a baby by 9:00pm. I do on the other hand have a hard time sleeping the night before a day of jumps due to anxiety. -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Hell yeah, good job man. I've read on here about a lot of students getting into similar situations and ending up with broken bones. Its good to hear that your training helped you make the best out of a bad situation. I wonder if the radio landed in someone's windshield?! -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Hmmm... good point. *Syn thinks of the black suit he has on order, DOH! -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

All very well said Dave, getting to peek into other skydivers minds has really helped me out. Advice from those not in the sport just isn't the same. That is a great quote btw, my biggest fear is being an old man and realizing that I have missed out on life despite living for so many years. -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

My vote goes to the black one, I'm not much on strong/bright colors, so everything I wear usually doesn't stand out too much. Also, I'm not speaking from experience here or anything, but it seems like the black one would be a bit easier to keep clean and wouldn't show off any slid in landings. -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

?!... PM'ing you now.

Cool, hope this helps out man. I know its helped me tremendously. -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

My first time in the tunnel was after failing AFF level 3 due to uncontrolled spins. After that happened I decided not to jump again until I could get in a tunnel. I signed up with Skydive U to do their wind tunnel AFF program and on my first 2 minutes in the tunnel I was all over the place, stuck to the net, and doing the same uncontrolled turns just like my last jump. After I had finished all of my time in the tunnel that was included in the AFF program (20 minutes) I could fly in there w/o a problem and loved every minute of it. No more uncontrolled movements either!

Like you said in your last post I don't think it would be good to stop reading the incidents, reading them has already opened my eyes to a few possible dangerous situations that I may find myself in and how to avoid/deal with them. You are right about the firefighting stuff, it was probably more accepted because it wasn't just for my benefit... not to mention the support from family. As for the car analogy, I agree somewhat that cars are needed (for the most part) and we can't get around it. That being said, I think the people that use this analogy do have a somewhat valid point that a lot of what we do on a daily basis is very dangerous, even though it is necessary. The fact still remains though that skydiving isn't one of the things we have to do so we/I am faced with the decision of whether or not to add one more danger to my life that I don't have to. Freeflybella: As Ron said, that was very well said.

Wow, you sound a lot like a large majority of the people I know from the town I grew up in. There was a lot of rural farm land and no full time firefighters, so there were a ton of farmers and a lot of volunteers. I personally didn't work on a farm, but I have a lot of friends who did and I've got a ton of respect for anyone who can run one and turn over a profit with it in today's market. Thanks for the advice man all of this helps a lot. I always make an effort not to get cocky in anything I spend a lot of time doing b/c thats when you quite learning. And when that happens you fall behind... I doubt this sport isn't very forgiving of that. Thanks for the advice! If this post has taught me anything its that this community is unbelievably supportive of all of its members. All of the encouraging words have helped tremendously. And you have an awesome resource Bon, you've helped me out with this and several other things that you absolutely didn't have to... can't thank you enough!

Sweeet

Awesome, lets see here... SysAdmin - some Win2000, mostly RH Linux Development - Bash and Perl system administration tools (automation stuff, node/network monitoring tools, etc.) Database experience - limited... used MySQL and PostgreSQL in a few of my development projects sales - none management - nadda laid off - not yet The teaching thing is awesome, you sound like you would be good at it... some ppl just have a way of explaining things better than others. Sorry to everyone else for turning this into a mini-resume. -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

HAHA! Whats worse is I'm a Linux sys-admin, so being specialized in an OS thats in the minority makes ya a little less marketable. The good news is that the gov't. is looking for Linux/Unix guys hard right now. I've got some friends that work for a gov't contractor thats looking for ppl like crazy, so I will most likely be going there soon and since its a gov't job I'll have plenty of time to post. Edited to add: Whats your background in computers if you don't mind me asking? -syn They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin