NWFlyer

You're also but a couple feet away from a tunnel wall. Tunnel injuries can and do occur, sometimes they're serious. Is it as dangerous as skydiving? No, a simple comparison of the injury/fatality rates of each will tell you that it's not. But I've seen even experienced flyers injure themselves in the tunnel (and I've got 50+ hours, a drop in the bucket compared to some, but enough to have seen that the tunnel isn't "perfectly safe" either), and I personally appreciate that they take their safety role seriously. Things can go from chill to dangerous fairly quickly in the tunnel, and they're doing their best to keep that from happening. "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

Which dropzone are you doing your training (assuming it's also in Northern California)? Depending on which one, there are skydiving instructors / coaches around who (if you arrange it in advance) could work with you in the tunnel so that what you do in the tunnel can complement what you're doing in your student program. Many of the tunnel instructors at iFly SFBay are not skydivers at all, or if they are skydivers, they are not skydiving instructors. Not a knock on them, but if you're looking to improve specific skills for skydiving, then it can be more helpful to work with a skydiving instructor who also has experience coaching in the tunnel. All that said, as others have noted, for 9 jumps you're looking fine. And I agree with the recommendation to skip the flips in the tunnel. "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 do, but only from retailers (like Zappos) that have free shipping both ways. If I didn't buy online I'd really struggle to find shoes that fit; I ordered from catalogs back in the day or shopped at Nordstrom, which was about the only retailer that seems to acknowledge that not everyone's feet are a B/M width. I stick with brands I know but still probably have a

Poetry is back Because I am bumping this Thread of the haiku "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

You're funny. "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

Oooh, the partisan cable news way of making accusations! 1) Vague assertion 2) Loaded question 3) Implied "proof" "I'm just asking questions here!" Imma grab my popcorn, too.

I've read it a few times and taken the quiz twice but I'm confused as to what it's showing. I predicted an 8 and at the end it said 8 under the "You" column. But then there was this "Americans" column that said 7.3... so does that compare how I see myself with how other people see themselves? Or my number based on the answers with others based on their answers? "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, I'm lefty, and I'm lazy. So I'm two for two! "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

It's on my short list, especially if I can pull off the current plan of retiring at age 55. "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

Fair enough, and the response may very well be "tilting at windmills." But I also like to encourage people to connect to USPA and start to understand how decisions get made and how things get into and out of the SIM. The OP and I happen to live in the same region and have an RD who I'm pretty sure would at least be thoughtful and responsive and happy to have engagement from a constituent. "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

Note that it doesn't necessarily mean it'll go anywhere ... but Jason's the right place to start to understand how. People do a lot of whining about USPA without availing themselves of their representatives. Don't be that guy. "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

Davi, good time to reach out to Jason Gordon (our regional director) and share your ideas with him. The SIM gets updated in the USPA Board's Safety & Training committee, and Jason would be the local conduit to that.

Maybe how I expressed it wasn't clear; I was trying to ensure that you understood that was indeed an option if you find yourself in a situation where you have a malfunction that manifests itself lower than your decision altitude. Two outs are a complex, messy situation, with a lot of different opinions and a relatively limited set of data to back up those opinions. I'm actually kind of surprised someone recommended that you cut away a stable side-by-side if it's still in that configuration. Some would argue that your best option in a two-out is to try to induce a downplane situation and then chop the main. But the SIM does indeed cover the downplane scenario with the recommendation to cut away the main, and makes no reference to a minimum altitude for that cutaway. What you seem to be learning now (which is good) is that an A license is only the beginning of your education as a skydiver. The SIM is designed to describe what USPA believes to be best practices in safety, and what is believed to be the best practice for teaching new students. But it won't ever cover every situation. And reasonable people can agree or disagree with the best practices taught in there, and those best practices evolve (thus why the SIM is updated regularly). "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

You keep doing what you need to do to be alive when you hit 0 feet. If you're in a shit hits the fan situation like you describe below your "hard deck," it's very unlikely that you'll be thinking "Well, I've got a shitty mess of a main above my head that I can't land safely, but I'm below my hard deck so, oh well." Continuing to problem solve at that point is a good thing. What hard decks are designed to prevent is the situation where you identify a problem well above 2000 feet (or whatever your individual number is) and you continue to try to "fix" it past the point where you still have the best option (cutaway and pull reserve at a reasonable altitude) available to you. Your decision tree as described is also missing one reasonable possibility for the low situation, and that is getting your reserve out without first cutting away your main. "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

Is this a personal attack on kallend? "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 use both. Galaxy S5 as my personal phone, iPhone 5s as my work phone. I had the iPhone for a while before I bought the S5 (to replace my previous Android OS phone), and it didn't convince me to become an iPhone owner for my personal use. That's not to say I haven't been pretty happy with the iPhone for work (it's a huge improvement over the BlackBerry I had before that), just that I didn't find it demonstrably better to make a switch. I am comfortable and happy with the Android world. Now that the Swype keyboard is able to be used on the iPhone, I find the usability of the two to be substantially similar enough that it doesn't drive me crazy when I switch back and forth. (Edit to also add that my work usage is pretty limited - I use it for corporate email, calendar, contacts, and lots of phone calls. Most every app I have is tightly-managed corporate-standard stuff. It works great for all of that, and the integration with our corporate systems is much more smooth than was our integration under BlackBerry. I've downloaded very few additional apps onto the iPhone given that it's my work phone and I like to keep it work-focused.) "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/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4712490 He has. But this can also use broader support beyond the wingsuiting community.

Though I do believe I have seen the landing area in which the incident took place closed temporarily to allow first responders, etc. to get in there. That's one of the luxuries Eloy has - if one area is closed, everyone can go to the other. At other DZs, I've only ever seen operations shut down to deal with an incident if there's a need to bring in an air ambulance. In that case, operations are shut down temporarily to give the helicopter clear airspace. As for missing jumpers, I've also never known a dropzone to shut down. "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

-How to safely and correctly open / close the door? -When to open the door / when not to? (Pet peeves of mine include the person who thinks it's smart to keep the door open about a foot even on takeoff/below seatbelts off altitude, or the person who is right by the door who opens it the second they've taken their own belt off, without bothering to do a look back to make sure that all the tandems/students/etc. are settled with their belts off). -CG issues and making your pilot's life easier by minimizing the amount of moving around you have to do (though if the pilot's giving a separate briefing he or she may cover that) -Proper use of your plane's seatbelts (you may already be planning that as part of the seating discussion) "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

Not really. Everything is on Facebook now. "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

You could also use pillow cases, cinched shut with a rubber band. When I've washed my own containers (usually in a front-loader at the laundromat), I also take an extra step of covering the friction adapters with a sock, also cinched on with a rubber band. Maybe overkill, but I like the idea of the extra protection so there's less chance of metal against metal in the machine. "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 you can see from the answers, everyone's got their own opinions. Give a few a try and see which ones work out best with your team. If you can get some assistance from a more experienced competitor or coach, he/she can spend some time in the mockup with your team helping you understand the best place for everyone to be to get optimal presentation for each of the exits you've mentioned, as well as the exit timing. (NB: my recommendations are on the assumption that you're exiting an Otter or something with a similar door... I've got no clue / opinion on other door configurations!) I agree with the recommendations of B, P & H. I think O's maybe not the best option. E can be good but as others have mentioned it has a tendency to rotate. If all four flyers are solid individual flyers, F can actually be a nice one, but it can be hinge-y. (Also, some good discussion in this post: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4541390) "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

Netflix has only a fraction of their offerings streamable. I had to switch back to DVDs to get many of the old classic movies I wanted to see. Yeah, I know. It could be an "and" rather than an "or." I've had both for about 4 years now but finally cancelled the DVD as I just wasn't watching enough to justify even the lowest-cost plan. "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

Too bad the DVDs will lag the streaming by a while (at least I think it well). I hope I'm wrong. You could just join the rest of us in the 21st century and cancel your DVD plan and add a streaming plan. "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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFD6EFVsTg "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