NWFlyer

drdive Ladydiver Pattersd madjohn monkycndo NWFlyer rafael "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I'm at almost 10 years, and I have had slow years and busy years. I've had times when I've considered stopping but the feeling's never been strong enough to take action. I don't anticipate I'll do it forever; it probably has a shelf life, but I'm not sure if that's 1 more year, 5 more years 10 more years or till I can get on a SOS record. I've always been a weekend/vacation jumper. I can pretty safely say that will be the case for the remainder of my time in the sport - I don't ever see being drawn to "live the dream" and try to make a living skydiving. Maybe I'll take a sabbatical here or there and skydive more and live off savings, but that's about as far as I'd go. And at some point, I'll be done. It might be forever, it might be for a few years at which time the skydiving -sized hole opens up again, who knows? But it's all good. What I don't get is judging people for their decisions to move in and out of this sport. Whatever the reason... it's cool. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Hah! I just had a similar thought when I placed the order for a new container, something along the lines of "Hey, now my skydiving gear will be worth more than my car." But I realized that even with an old container, the fact that I own two complete rigs and a 14 year old car means that my skydiving gear is already worth more than twice what my car is worth. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

The reasons are always "good enough." To imply otherwise is pretty self-absorbed. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

The G2s used it. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Well, he's also a registered Republican, so I'd say that it's a little tough to paint him as being particularly attached to either party. But that's not going to stop people on either side from trying. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/04/28/donald-sterling-is-a-republican-and-has-given-money-to-democrats-this-does-nothing-to-explain-his-history-of-discrimination/ "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Honestly... I've never had a feeling of dread about finding anything. I've just thought that it would be a bonus feature to collect my stuff. This. My last cutaway in 2007 was of a black main with red ribs, over a stand of pine trees that bordered the dropzone. It went into full stealth mode. JohnMitchell (aka the canopy whisperer) was the one who finally found it on the ground among the trees, after several of us had spent several hours tromping around looking for it. No amount of walking and scanning from the airplane helped us to find the freebag, but oh well. That's why I have a credit card. I've also seen an awful lot of canopies and freebags fall into a clear area right on the dropzone, as if the airplane had been spotted for them.

It all boils down to this question, no matter the speed of the malfunction. If you're not under a landable canopy by your decision altitude, say bye-bye to it. It really doesn't matter what it is. If the malfunction seems "clearable" but it's not clear by your decision altitude, stop fucking around with it, no matter what the problem is. Too many people have died in this sport trying to fix a problem all the way into the ground. Or they try to fix it to a point where they no longer have another option. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

This. Speculation happens because the people who do have all of the available information don't share it immediately for various reasons. Generally the information comes out anyway, either in the form of a well-written complete report like those that come out of SDAZ, or through bits and pieces of information that filter out through various sources, or in most cases something in between. If there is believed to be criminal activity involved (very rare!), law enforcement will get involved as appropriate. If the incident may have been caused by a failure to follow relevant regulations in the US, the FAA will get involved. The USPA would add no value to such investigations and might in fact complicate it. We already have a good understanding of nearly all of them. Even the best analysis won't get you statistical significance, but USPA (well, actually it's Paul Sitter, who's been doing the analysis for USPA for a long time now) does a pretty good job of aggregating and tracking incidents over the years. If you haven't yet read the annual analysis that comes out in Parachutist, take a look. Then try to convince me what a "CSI" type of body could add to the analysis that would justify the overhead of such a group. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

The one that is sitting packed in my rig on the ground, while I hang out and watch other people land in turbulence. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

A hanging harness will get you a somewhat realistic simulation. Someone on the ground can spin you around so you feel how violent a malfunction sometimes feels, and you'll get to feel the "drop" that happens when you cutaway your main. It's not exact, and it certainly doesn't simulate some types of malfunctions, but it's the best you'll get on the ground. In addition to the muscle memory of touching your handles and knowing how to find them if you can't see them, I think one of the most useful things you can do to prepare yourself for a malfunction is to build a very strong altitude awareness, a strong understanding of your main deployment sequence, and a strong understanding of your decision process once you deploy your main canopy and see that it's not a good canopy. Lots of people have wasted lots of time trying to "diagnose" malfunctions, and they get below their decision altitude trying to figure it out and fix it. What they really need to be doing is saying "I'm at my decision altitude and this isn't landable... I will get rid of it." (Skydive Mag had a nice reminder about that recently: http://www.skydivemag.com/article/loss-of-altitude). "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I get it you didn't get it. Check out this guy, I can't imagine his insurance policy would really help there That's what the medical evacuation insurance is for; place where you don't trust the quality/sophistication of the locals. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Will HH change your name to [Green]skygrandmama? "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Today Good Friday Seems most people not at work Except me, I work Weekend weather great I think I will jump from plane That's just crazy talk "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Have you done enough jumping with others to get a sense of whether you'll be someone who will likely need to wear weights on some or all skydives? If so, make that a consideration in your wingloading choice. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you're afraid to wear weights if you need them to be able to fly comfortably in the middle of your range. (This may not be relevant at all depending on your build/frame, but I thought I'd throw that out just in case as I was just having a similar conversation with a newer jumper who is on a 170 now and considering whether/when to move down to a 150, and who has a build such that he'll likely need weights on a lot of jumps). "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

what kind of country lets you without insurance ? I don't know. I just wonder if it's safer to femur in Canada, England or Bermuda without insurance There's so many variables here. Where are you in relation to the closest trauma center (assuming something as serious as femur or more serious - you're not going to the local community hospital, you're going to a trauma center)? How close is the closest air ambulance? Do you speak the local language or have someone with you who speaks the local language? There are a lot of places in the world where you can receive a very high level of care, and there are others where I wouldn't go without some great travel/evacuation insurance so I could get somewhere else to get my care. (Bottom line on all that is that I, personally, won't skydive without insurance. In the U.S. I'm fully covered by my medical insurance; abroad, I'll purchase travel insurance that'll either cover care locally or get me to another country that can provide the level of care I need. If I get broken, I want the only thing I need to worry about to be healing, not how to pay for it or how to pay for getting to a higher level of care). "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

what kind of country lets you without insurance ? This one I live in. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

As near as possible to home and my support structure (friends, family, my own bed). "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Where do you actually live? UT/CO/MT is a big geographic area; let us know where you make your home and people here can recommend (or not recommend) the DZs in relatively close proximity to your home. The reason I say this is that skydiving is not something you just "go somewhere and learn and then you're done." It's something that you learn over the course of years and many many jumps. And at some point in that learning skydiving, you might then be ready to start to learn BASE. And again you'll learn that over many years and many months. It's a heck of a lot more convenient to do that kind of continuing education near where you make your home. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

http://www.dropzone.com/classifieds/New/ I'd like to see something similar, or at the very least, give the ability to sort the "new ads" by post time so that if you do check multiple times in a day you can see the most recent first. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Are you thinking of the camera flyer in 2008 (longer ago than I thought): http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3254187#3254187 "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I'm cool with that. Survived nearly 10 years in this sport in part by getting more conservative the longer I jump because the longer I jump the more I understand the myriad ways this sport and the people in it (myself included) can fuck me up or kill me. And I am a lousy patient, so I'd rather avoid it altogether.

Apparently the press can still have some influence from time to time. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/social-security-stops-trying-to-collect-on-old-taxpayer-debts/2014/04/14/9355c58e-c40f-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html?tid=sm_fb "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I'm starting to wonder if I'm the only person who finds 95% of skydiving video & stills (be they frame grabs or actual stills) to be pretty boring. It's gotten even worse with the proliferation of GoPros. Once you get over the "OMG check out my face in freefall isn't it funny!" novelty, most of what you get from most skydives is pretty boring. The majority of people who strap a camera on their head are lucky to get an interesting shot; they're not going after the artistry... or the framing ... or the lighting/ colors... or any of that. That's not to diminish the awesome work of the many skilled photographers and videographers in this sport (I've got many of their shots on my "I love me" wall!), nor to diminish the technical prowess of the top team and event videographers, whose job it is to have perfect timing and perfect framing every time ... it takes great skill to do that and do it consistently and well, and I know they all had to start somewhere. But it's also not most of what's produced these days, and I'd venture to guess that those kinds of skills aren't what most weekend jumpers slapping a GoPro on are trying to build. They just want something to throw on YouTube after each weekend so they can show their Facebook friends how cool they are. Maybe that's part of why I've never strapped a GoPro on. I don't do outside video, and inside video isn't usually that helpful in debriefing, at least not for bigger groups - it has its uses in a 1:1 situation for sure. Most of the time debriefing is about the only reason I even find video of my own skydives interesting. Now, well-edited compilations can be a lot of fun, and I admire the skill and patience it takes to pull together a well-edited piece. But most people don't bother with that. (All that is to say, go on with your bad self strapping on your GoPro when you're ready, but don't kid yourself that it's all that interesting or useful or artistic! ) "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

If you want to party and socialize go to 'Snore. If you want to jump with organizers go to Perris. Eh, I've always disliked that distinction. I have (at times) done some great well-organized jumps at Elsinore. I have (at times) had some great social nights at Perris. Yes, 'Snore does have the "epic parties" reputation, but that's primarily during their boogies; on an average weekend, the scene's about the same at both... there'll be people hanging out drinking after jumping, and maybe a dinner load. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke