Bosveld

I have read up some on this evolution vs. creation arguments, and the conclusion I have come to is: We don't know exactly what happenned. There is very respectable scientists and clever people on both sides of the argument. I, as the average Joe, don't have all the evidence or found it out for myself or studied it myself. All I can do is listen to clever people's oppinions, and now I must conclude my believe system from there. I'll tell you what I do believe and have found from my own experience. I do believe in a spiritual realm that influence this realm. I have tried and tested the theory of what you do comes back to you. I have been a bad person and found that things go wrong in my life and that I am somehow empty and depressed. When I realized what was going on and turned back to God my life turned for the better. That's just my personal experience though. And how can you listen to my opinion and take it as fact? The best thing to do is listen to as many opinions as possible, then your own knowledge or opinion would be better formed. Try things with an open mind and test it. I think if you truly want to be good, that is all that is needed and Love will find you and put you on the right path. My God is Love and all that is good. I don't agree with the churches always, but some churches have good guidelines. I don't go to church, I have my own personal relationship with God that nobody can touch. I believe in God because I can feel a connection with my soul, and when I ask for it Love gets poured into my heart and makes life easier. But like I said that's my believe, you can do what you want. I've never tried to force my believe system onto anyone. I have told people to try praying before they go to bed every night when they've asked for help, just because it worked for me. That's just my opinion, I love to hear other people's opinions about religion and God, I believe it's bettered my opinion about it. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Hi, South African DZ's I could only get the town logitude latitudes, should be close enough though. 1) Latitude/Longitude 25.73°S 28.22°E 3) DZ Name Pretoria Skydiving Club 4) Country South Africa 5) Airport name Wonderboom airport 1) Latitude/Longitude 25.86°S 29.22°E 3) DZ Name Skydive Witbank 4) Country South Africa 5) Airport name Private strip 1) Latitude/Longitude 26.34°S 27.37°E 3) DZ Name Johannesburg Skydiving Club 4) Country South Africa 5) Airport name Private strip 1) Latitude/Longitude 33.93°S 18.46°E 3) DZ Name Skydive Cape Town 4) Country South Africa 5) Airport name Private strip 1) Latitude/Longitude 29.15°S 26.23°E 3) DZ Name Bloemfontein Skydiving Centre 4) Country South Africa 5) Airport name Not Sure 1) Latitude/Longitude 33.30°S 26.52°E 3) DZ Name Eastern Province Skydivers 4) Country South Africa 5) Airport name Not Sure 1) Latitude/Longitude 29.87°S 30.99°E 3) DZ Name Skydive Durban 4) Country South Africa 5) Airport name Not Sure 1) Latitude/Longitude 33.93°S 18.46°E 3) DZ Name Skydive Citrusdal 4) Country South Africa 5) Airport name Not Sure Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Hi from South Afrcia! Welcome Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Hi, and welcome. Don't worry about those people talking about omens. Skydiving is very safe, it just seems dangerous, but hey that's what makes it fun. Heck I'll bet it's safer than those other things you do. I hope you enjoy a long and fruitful skydiving career. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

never been safe, you might be dangerous! Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Over here in SA we're kinda into our Tequilla! I have to mention though, the tequilla in south africa is closer to AV-Gass than it is to real tequilla Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Welcome Baaaaaaccckk And were happy for you too! Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Hi from ??? SUNNY ???? Scotland? Ha ha , that's funny!! Welcome scottish dude. ps. Hope you guys don't jump with kilts. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Hi, It might look a little different just because of the position of your body relative to the plane and the earth. And because of this it might seem different. The feeling stays the same (the relative wind I mean). If you closed your eyes (don't close your eyes, just an example), the wind would still feel the same as long as your body is relative to the wind ( stomache facing the wind and in an arch). Once you get this picture you could exit in any way, as long as you are facing the wind in your body position ( in this case stomache first). Don't have to worry, I got used to it quickly. Just have to learn to fly the wind, the position of the plane and the earth does not matter, all that matters is the wind, which comes from the front of the airplane at exit and then gradually changes to from below(from the earth). You don't have to compinsate for this change, if you fly the wind it happens automatically. But like always have your instructor explain it. Hard to do without using visual communication. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

This happenned to me once, but luckily the brake line looped around my finger right against the toggle. So it didn't influence the canopy flight too much. I treid to get the line loose, but did not succeed. I had to land with the loop around my finger, and landed it fine. You can imagine what my finger looked like after a whole canpoy ride. It looked like those cartoons when a cartoon character gets hit on the finger with a hammer. It was at least 3 times it's normal size. It recovered within an hour or so. I learned my lesson! Pay close attention when loosening your toggles not to have excess brake line wrapped around your finger. It hurts believe me, and it's not a lot of fun. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

We did something similar when I was about 13 yrs old. On a windy day we took my brother's Predator 190 onto the golf coarse and got a long rope and all the kids from the neighborhood to pull me up. I had to flare to get lift, then when the rope got to it's full length they would let go and I would practice my "landings" (before I started jumping), amazing what older brothers ( who was jumping at the time) can do to younger brothers. I was so light in those days with a 190, needless to say nobody else could get off the ground. I wouldn't recommend it with a car. You are probably going to have to travel quite fast to get airborn. Faster than the natural forward speed of your canopy. It would be a totaly unnatural situation, and wouldn't even resemble a landing. It won't be practice at all. We did something similar a couple of years later on the beach, where we tied a rope around a tree and to the chest strap, on a very windy day. We could fly like a kite. Needless to say this had some disastrous effects. First the rope broke and my friend had to land backwards in a 25 knot wind. If it wasn't for the beach he would have broken every bone in his body. Then I landed in a tree because of a sudden wind change. Was funny at the time, but I realize we were lucky to walk away from it. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

The first time I was on the DZ was when I was 12 years old. Waited around for 4 years and when I started jumping I had such a big expectation. When I finally did jump it was so much different than I imagined that it took me a couple of jumps just to get used to the new idea, as I thought I had it sussed out. I'd say after about 150 jumps it gradually became more and more important to me. So I couldn't tell you the exact jump or moment. In fact I think every jump I still do builds on that awesome realisation. It propably won't stop for 100's of jumps and hopefully 1000's, hopefully never. Regarding the find balance in life theory, I tried that for a couple of years. I gradually grew further and further away from the sport till I realised my life sucked, cause I'm not jumping enough. I don't care that skydiving now rules my life, it's my choice and the plan is to make a living out of it one day. Suppose it's different for everyone? Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Haha! Maybe you should hook up a reserve as your main permanently then. LOL Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

This is what I meant by I cannot picture how it happened. If you look at the pics the knot is around the ring, Iff you grabbed the toggle through the excess lines I can't picture how it would knot around the ring? Maybe I'm wrong, I'll check this weekend how it's possible at the drop zone when packing cause I'm quite interested in this now. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

No matter how hard I try I cannot possibly imagine how it could have happened after the brakes was stowed, (on opening or somewhere in the packjob.) It must have happened when stowing the brakes. a Lot of packers at my drop zone insist on the jumper stowing their own brakes prior to giving them to the packer. As a packer myself I don't care about that because I have to inspect the brakes before I pack anyhow. I cannot tell you how many times I have found problems on how the brakes were stowed when packing, even if at first glance they seemed to be stowed correctly. If I have to check the brakes, I don't mind stowing them myself anyway because then at least I'm sure they are stowed properly. If you need to pack in a rush it is very easy to miss something like that. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

The Jumping is doing great, margate is the best thing that happened to me in a long time. learned a lot, as well as jumping a lot now. I just can't help it. Great news, I'll definitly refer some people to JSC next time somebody asks. An there is a couple of people at our DZ that I think needs to go on a packing course! Keep well sweetie and Blue Skies!! Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Hey Sheri, I think this is an excellent idea, I think all DZ's should offer this, or something simillar. At PSC the packing instruction is basically left to either myself or Naomi, and as you probably know we normally don't have time to instruct people, as we are either packing ourselves or jumping. We (Naomi and Myself) have tried to do something similar on sunday mornings but with little success. I think we should make it more formal, and worth while for the packing intructors. If there were people from our DZ interested in a packing course like this, and ours is not off the ground yet, can we refer them to you? Or will it be a on a member only basis? Ok bye now Jaco Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

I had a problem with audibles for a while because when I first got one, I almost started depending on it and lost some of my altitude awareness. I identified this as a problem because if for some reason it failed or you forgot it on the ground you wouldn't be altitude aware any more. So I stopped using it for RW and only for freeflying and camera jumps. But it basically just took a forced decision to concentrate on altitude awareness by way of the visual altimeter and not relying on the audible. Now I am back to checking the visual one and forgetting about the audible. I still wear it as a back-up, you never know, it might just save you one day, if you do forget. It is set for just before break-off @ 4500AGL. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

A lot of people take a break, and just never come back because they "forget". I think taking a break is not a bad thing, but make a point of going back to the DZ every now and again, once every 3 months or so. Even if you don't jump, just hang out. I've lost a lot of friends who just never come back because of married life or kids or something. I didn't jump often for about 5 years, and when I eventually came back I'm so sorry I didn't do it earlier. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

I don't know how it works in other countries, but in SA we have a lot of clear sunny days. We never jump in stormy, rainy weather. If there's lightning in the air, we would stop jumping long before it ever gets close to the drop zone. Normal white "fluffy" clouds has no danger of lightning whatsoever, so no danger there. It's the dark rainy clouds that needs to be watched out for. It's all up to you any ways, if the weather looks dark and rainy with lightning, it's your choice to go up or not, even if there were crazy pipes that were jumping. Same thing for strong wind or anything that could be hazardous. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

In SA I know Tandem and AFF ratings require 1000 jumps, but I don't know anything about free fall time. Maybe someone from SA can clear that up for me? Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Well.. here in South Africa we don't have free-fall time certificates? I've never heard of them. We don't have freefall time requirements either. Not that I know of any how. They just work on jump numbers over here. I could be mistaking, but I've never heard of freefall time certificates or freefall time as part of requirements? If it did work like that, then it would make sense to keep track of it. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

Well, Yeah.. If you got a pro track, that would make perfect sense. Then you could keep it 100% accurate. That's pretty cool. I'm so far behind on mine now, even if I got a protrack I wouldn't be able to catch up on total time. I guess I'd just start loggin it from that day.

How many people out there still work out their total freefall time. I stopped doing it after about a 100 jumps. I just couldn't see the point anymore. It is so hard to "guess" the duration of your freefall, especially with freeflying and all the different speeds we are able to go. Also opening altitudes are different on every jump I do, for example doing formations I'll be open at 3000 ft - 2500 ft and doing camera work open at 4000 ft - 3500 ft. Working that out every time got such a pain in the butt that I just leave the freefall time column in my log book now. I'm sure it won't be very accurate any ways. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!

I haven't been to all the dropzones in our country (South Africa) yet. But I've been to a few. And I've made a lot of skydiving friends from other clubs at boogies and the National Championships etc. And one thing I've learned is that skydivers everywhere are the same. We are all like one BIG happy family. If I win the national lottery I'd go overseas and try and visit all the dropzones in the world before I die. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, will be true!