jwynne

Just to answer the original question, there were a few issues. A large part of the field taken up with difficult to see overhead wires. This was strongly explained and warned about. The landing areas is still good sized, just smaller. Winds were fine, 4-5 knots. 17 jumpers carrying flags, streamers, smoke and a crew stack. Then cloud cover at 2400 feet so we couldn't stack the openings much. All done on one jump run due to tight time constraints. We had one jumper off a crew stack have to bail for the space between the stands and the track because he wasn't sure he had space to clear the fence. No injuries at all. In retrospect when then exit altitude dropped some of the showmanship should have been simplified. Blue Skies - Janna

I would strongly suggest tunnel time. A major change since you last tried to learn to skydive. There's an excellent wind tunnel in New Hampshire. Probably not too far from you. AFF is a very challenging way to learn something. There is no other time in our life where we try and learn something in 60 second increments while under complete sensory overload. With all the wind tunnels around, there's an easier way to do it. go spend 15-30 minutes getting comfortable flying your body. AFF will be a whole different experience.

There are many skydivers in the broken back club. I had a burst fracture of L2 about 9 years ago. I have a L1-3 fusion with a plate across L1-L3. I've made about 2500 jumps since my accident. I'm in the states, but I'm sure there are places you can go skydiving in the UK.

I've got a lot of spectre jumps, no chops. I have a friend that chopped a spinner due to a toggle fire. I've dealt with numerous toggle fires on opening myself. Needed to replace risers to correct that. I did have some harder openings that seemed to coincide with lines getting out of trim. It still opened fine if I packed, but got much less forgiving of fast paid pack jobs. Relined it's back to nice soft reliable openings regardless of who packed it. I love my spectre. Opens with line twists, no problem. It'll just keep flying while you kick out of them.

Jet jumps were happening as part of the Christmas boogie at Perris. Yesterday they did a very informal 10way speed start competition. It was great fun. There were at least a couple of completions. Our group had 9 out of 10 together at 6500 feet. The plane holds 80 and gets to altitude in 4 minutes. They did 2 passes, 40 jumpers each. It was pretty cool seeing the first group shuffle down the aisle, a quick go round and then it was our turn. I was first in our group of 10. The exit blast was powerful, but the air was pretty clean. I exited with my arms in to my chest and then put an elbow out into the wind. It cleanly flipped me around and I got to watch the rest of our group exit the plane far away across the sky. We set it up with base and pin as 5 & 6 out. I got to track across the sky to get back. It was a blast. There was huge lateral distance to cover, but not much vertical. Great fun, a little expensive, but highly recommended.

I have worked with a number of pet monkeys. They make terrible pets. Most often someone was asking me to remove teeth so that they would cause less damage to the people they live with. Monkeys are filthy and destructive. Both things that work fine in the wild or in a zoo. Not at all compatible with life in someone's house. When they are scared or threatened their natural behavior is to bite. Also not compatible. Don't get a monkey as a pet. In many states it's also not legal.

In general, I think not deploying in clouds is a good idea and I do my best to not jump when there are likely to be clouds at breakoff or deployment altitude. Years ago I was on a 30way and at breakoff we found ourselves all tracking into a huge cloud. This was a group of old time jumpers and I knew most of them were comfortable taking it down to 2000 feet. This all went through my mind as we tracked off. At about 2800, just above the cloud, I did a big wave off and deployed. The rest of the group tracked into the cloud. The bottom of the cloud was at 1000 feet. We had one cypres fire and everyone else deployed in the cloud. It was spooky flying around in the cloud for 1000 feet, but I was comfortable with my decision. I let others near me know what I was doing and there was no one near me under canopy. Overall my preference would be to not get myself in that situation.

I'm not sure I have any good suggestions that have not been said already. I spent many years in prevet and vet school studying. I listened to lecture tapes driving the car all the time. I found it very helpful. Sometimes I'd get to the point where I hated getting in the car and I'd give myself a break and listen to music for an hour. The menomics thing works well and it's always fun to do as a study group. When you make up ridiculous things together you they stick in your head. Part of this is, the more you study, the better you get at it, and the more you retain. Right now I don't think I could focus and study for 3 or 4 hours. Our study groups used to work at something for 8-10 hours at a strech. One other comment on the cat issue. I love animals, but I've learned to switch off the warm fuzzy connection when I'm working on something. I may need to go cry when I'm done if thing don't turn out well, but that just interferes with my ability to do the best job I can. Somehow the anylitical working part can stay focused and unemotional. I don't know if any of this helps, but good luck. Anatomy's a bitch.

If you were to search broken back, I'm sure you'd find lot's of discussions. I exploded L1&L2 in a landing incident years ago. I had major surgery, was in a brace for 6 months, and down for a years. That was 8 years ago. I'm as fit and flexible now as I was before. I just now have to work much harder to maintain and I do frequently have back pain. None of it slows me down skydiving. It all depends on how recovery goes and how hard you work at it. At 8 months post op I started doing pillates and I've continued forever. It's helped a lot. Anything is possilbe.

4000-6000 depending on the type of jump and planned breakoff. 2500, and 1500 for the flatline. I've only heard my flatline with a canopy already deploying, but I train that if I hear it with nothing initiated, it's time to reach for silver. I'm close to cypres fire range and a risk of 2 out if I deploy my main that low.

I think a "down" jumper is someone who' temporarily broken and can't get in the air. I've been there

The last alarm on my dyter is set for 1500ft. My emergency procedures include, if I ever hear that alarm and haven't alreay pitched my pilot chute, go for my reserve. I'm too close to the ground, and with a cypres, at that point there's a high risk of a cypres fire. I've never been in that situation, but that's how I practice it. Deploying a main below 1500 feet with a cypres put's you very at risk for 2 canopies out.

Bottom line, you're fine, it was a good decision. I will admit to being influenced years ago as a new jumper. I'd paid for 2 reserve pack jobs in one week. When the loaner canopy above my head opened up backwards my first thought was, another reserve repack! I did a controlability check, thought about the logistics of flying and landing it backwards and decided it was safe. Big factor, it was a falcon 215. i don't think I'd try it with my canopy now. One other comment. You should have no hesitation to use your reserve due to concerns about landing it. Before you buy your own gear, take a day to demo reserves. Some gear stores have demo reserves. If not, the gear manufacturers do. If you need a bigger reserve to feel comfortable, do that. Janna

Two big differences in how you do this. One plane load, VS formations. With a one plane load there are a lot of benefits to getting the max number of people in the floater lineup and door jam. You've got to have pretty heads up people to do it well. Get no one smashed into the door and no one deployed off the floater bar. Most of us have seen both happen. The other situation is formation loads. There it's not beneficial to jam the door as tight as you can. You need a fast efficient line up so that all planes will be ready to go at the same time. Theres' a lot that goes into organizing that line up, but the comment, visualize where everyone should be 2-4 seconds out the door works well. Janna

I did my AFF many years ago, but I can totally relate. I think it took 4-5 jumps before I could remember seeing the plane as I left. It's very overwhelming learning an intense set of tasks in 60 second increments in an environment that's nothing like anything you've ever experienced. As everyone else said, it's totally normal. Stick with it and enjoy!

In Bill's version, I was jumper L. I had been watching jumper R on my crosswind and base. We were at about the same altitude and I was unsuccessful at changing this. I turned on to final, deliberately taking he far left side of the grass, expecting jumper R to take the right side of the grass. When he turned left across my final approach, he was not far away. I made a split second decision and responded with deep brakes. I stayed in deep brakes until I was clear of his canopy. It worked, we’re both OK. The other thing I could of done would be to make a sharp left turn, not knowing what I was turning into. I know that any canopy collision requires two people. In retrospect, what I should have done, was earlier on, realize that I had not gotten clear recognition from jumper R. I had been watching him, but I wasn’t really sure that he had seen me. I should have seen the possibility of a traffic conflict and made the decision to head for a landing off the grass earlier on. I used to mostly land off the grass on any crowded load. Currently I can’t run out no wind landings and it does make me reluctant to slide in landings in the dirt. I think I need to let go of this. Rolling in the dirt is much better than a canopy collision.

University of Florida is a good school. I'm biased towards UC Davis, but I'm a Davis graduate myself. These days vet school has gotten so expensive, I'm not sure if being in state even matters any more, but Wisconsin's not bad either. Happy to discuss further if you want to PM me directly. Janna

I scan who's on the plane and think about canopy sizes, aproachs and what the landing traffic is likely to look like. Then I look for everyone under canopy and decide if I'm comfortable heading for the main landing area. I have a serious fear of dying close to the ground under an open canopy, due to someone else HP swoop

Dom I'm on Christy's 8way team and looking forward to a great time. Just trying to get a little ahead on the learning curve. Chris sent me some great material. There's just not near as many info resources for learning 8way as compared to all the 4way material around. Janna

I just participated in Airspeeds first 2on2 4way camp. It was a total blast. Over 2 days we did 2 hours of tunnel 4way in 15 minute blocks. 2 students and 2 Airspeed members. When I first saw the program of what was planned, it was pretty intimidating. We did all the blocks except 1, 13 & 20 with lots of vertical moves. They did an excellent job of starting with randoms and easy blocks, then gradually progressing to the more difficult blocks and then combining everything into complex combinations. It really pushed my flying skills. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Right now I think they’re still doing this as an invitational event. It’s going to be hard to match up 4way groups if they don’t know something about the participants. The pace is pretty fast and you need to know the letters, numbers and basic block technique. On the drive home I figured out we did the equivalent of 135 skydives. Each jump gets done twice for 2 minutes, but there’s not time for a lot of detail. No creeping at all. That was a surprise, but there’s just not time. Any serious 4way freaks, you couldn’t find a better way to spend a weekend!

I spent last year training and learning and competing in 4way. There a lot of good learning tools around between Fasttrax, Airspeed and some of the other web sites. This year I'm learning 8way. I've looked a little and not found much in terms of slots and continuity plans. I'd like to show up for our training camps knowing a little more than I do now. Any suggestions?

Unfortunately I had a lot of experience with this last year. I had maybe 8 openings with one unstowed toggle in 40 jumps. Never really figured out why, but I was making multiple changes to my toggle and riser system untill I got it stopped. I never chopped. The one time my slider came screaming down, took the toggle keeper off and came down entangled with the other stowed toggle was a bad one. Took me about 1200 feet to sort it out. I knew what it was and I knew I'd opened high or it would of been a chop. The other blessing was I was jumping 4way so at least I wasn't opening in the middle of lots of canopies.

Perris Snatch Force is Pat McGowan, Debbie Parisi, Amy VonNovak, Janna Wynne and Lori Thomas See you all there

A very good way to start making this happen, would be to generate a list, invite a local organizer (or just do it youself) and start making 16-20 ways happen every few weeks. That way you support the local talent, help it grow, and have more jumpers to invite on your 100 way. Keep it up, let the list grow and work towards regular formation loads. I'm lucky to be in Southern California, where we can scare up a 32 way with one weeks notice, but the same thing can be put together in the Midwest.