mdrejhon

Just to confirm to everyone.... Yes, wnmccart has been my primary instructor throughout my progression. I should also add that in person at the dropzone I was also told useful in "emergency situations" too (like canopy entanglements) so obviously wnmmcart meant "good canopy situations" when he said "The only time a..."

Skydive Gananoque, obviously! It's pretty close by, and the people are friendly. I go there. Just passed my solo yesterday. I would highly recommend them. Check my review. They have an OTTER weekend this coming weekend. thread here. (Edit: Clicky is www.skydivegan.com)

Borrow another router to test. I know some of them have a history of defects where it suddenly became "weak" for no reason (no interference, just a plain defect).

Student to student observation, be noted. Remember boards often amplify problem areas. Just like a COMPUTER TECH SUPPORT forum often attract problem areas, like complaints, help requests, warranty claims, etc.... Happy users don't post compliments as often as the complainers. In a similiar vein, you rarely see people shout "I'VE NEVER BEEN INJURED!" around here even though there are more of those people than you think. Injuries do happen, but it doesn't mean everyone is guaranteed to get injured. There actually exists 1000+ jumpers who have never been in the hospital as a result of the sport. Sometimes it's just a cracked finger nail. JUST BE SAFE, PROGRESS SLOW. If you chose, you can even stick to huge docile student canopies for hundreds of jumps if you wish, and that's a good way to avoid the hospital too. Avoid excessively windy days, especially for the large canopies. Again, this is student to student observation. Even ignore student advice, myself included, and listen to your instructors.

True, everyone including my instructors say it's good to know for emergencies, but I should reiterate:QuoteIMPORTANT: Please note: It's also quite possible they were going to teach me PLF before I switched canopies. I should note this. I cannot make this assumption. I'm just talking about the lack of PLF instruction during the MAIN progression program prior to solo certification.

Welcome to the club. It's one of the two main things I'm tense about. Door. And pull time. I'm finally relaxed in the plane, even YAWNING twice (17th jump), until 10K, then I start to get nervous about the door. Pull time nervousness near pull altitude is why they didn't let me do a hop-n-pop graduation jump until my 17th jump. Freefall wasn't a significant problem in my training so I just had to do instructor-monitored funjumps with my own objectives from 11K+ just so that they know I can pull relaxed, stable, and in a proper level arch. That only started becoming consistent after the 13th jump. On the 17th my instructors decided I was ready for my first hop n pop, to officially put me off instructor supervised status. My pull timing has virtually always been excellent, I'm always anxious to pull before I go below pull altitude - and pull on cue - but pull relaxed was the problem. My freefall and canopy is good in comparision to those two issues I had.

I think it's really a factor of the training and student equipment people get. It may be a country specific thing too. I'm in Canada, where most dropzones are typically rural in beautiful settings of farmland, streams, and parkland rather than surrounded by dense suburb communities. So rules may be optimized towards our country. (I'll have to check CSPA PIM's) Anyway, I am NOT disagreeing with my instructors, but simply gaining insight. Everything seems safe, I was even required 4 tandems before starting my freefall program, students aren't getting hurt, and student standup landings are reportedly the norm rather than the exception when it comes to certain models of student canopies. Perhaps their teaching methods and safety are better. (IMPORTANT: Please note: It's also quite possible they were going to teach me PLF before I switched canopies. I should note this. I cannot make this assumption. I'm just talking about the lack of PLF instruction during the MAIN progression program prior to solo certification.)

Good point - PLF's are definitely being taught - but my point remains that *some* programs don't teach PLF... True, about cutaways. You are still taught them regardless even if you never have to use them. It's just that some dropzones don't even teach PLF even on the ground. At dropzones using very docile student canopies such as Manta 288's, it appears that standup landings on the first solo are not unusual according to what I hear... Especially rural dropzones with great selection of easy landing targets. I totally agree with my instructors here, I'm just gaining insight.

(Most readers know this, but just in case. PLF = Parachute Landing Fall, typically taught for an AFF-1 jump) With all the easy standup landings with some big student canopies with big square reserves, some dropzones no longer teach PLF. An example is the tandem progression that crosses over to an "AFF-style" program (PFF, AFF, FFP, or whatever), commonly used in North America, skipping the AFF-1 requirement of a PLF. This obviously varies from program to program and country to country. I had always known it was an old carryover from the round canopy days, but decided to learn them anyway after rereading EP's many times and was bored during "wind hold" in previous weekends and this weekend. I know PLF is a "not essential but good to know" item, helpful during emergencies such as malfunctions, severe errors, etc. Many people have never done a PLF before, and PLF seems to be going the way of the dodo. A very helpful instructor who watched me, helped correct some of the errors I made during PLF. Based on what I now know, I believe my previous 2 foot PLF's from a picnic table seat went fine, but nobody was watching, so I may even have errored on those (nobody will ever know). Then I knew I screwed up a higher-up 3 foot PLF pratice from a picnic table top, and this time an instructor was watching. He came over to make corrections to my technique, kind of warning me for praticing a technique potentially improperly by myself without consulting an instructor first for critique. CONSULT YOUR INSTRUCTOR!!! I'm interested in hearing opinions about PLF and whether you used them after your AFF-1 jump. I'm interested in hearing examples of actual PLF experiences.

That's quite a difference of experiences. gravitysucks, I'm curious.... What was your previous canopy before your 230? You're only 0.87 wingloading and you say you can't land well on it. Ouch. I'll take that as a warning for myself. [I also realize it perhaps may be the porousity of a used canopy, too. I'll eventually be shopping for a used rig after my instructor recommendations] katzurki, that's a dramatic downsize. What jump number was that? According to your profile, you say you are from Moscow, Russa and you are on a 1.29 wingloading. Around where I live, it would seem to be a definite no-no for me. Maybe things are different where you live (Not necessarily, I'm just curious). It definitely won't affect me and my instructor's agreement on an eventual very appropriate minor downsize at the right time that both me and him are comfortable with. I am posting here to gain a better understanding and insight to good/bad decisions. That's why I also posted the 0.65 wingloading thread - simply to gain a better understanding. [Minor edits made to clarify/correct some things] By about jump number 40-50 I'll have my own rig if I can afford it. Hopefully. I want to be DAMN sure that I like the canopy before commiting to it. Obviously, my instructor will help here, but I'm also researching on the side too to better prepare me for talking to my instructor for upcoming talks about reasonable future goals. ***BEGIN CAUTION - CONFIRM WITH INSTRUCTOR*** Student to student chatter to be completely ignored. My instructor, the books, and several websites always mention that people have a tendancy to flare early when they panic. This is often a self-defeating thing with canopies, because you land harder if you flare too early, and as a result of that bad experience, you end up keeping flaring too early on the next jump, etc. BE WARNED, THIS MAY NOT BE WHAT YOU ARE DOING, BUT THIS IS SOMETHING TO ASK YOUR INSTRUCTOR - ASK FOR A VIDEO CRITIQUE OF YOUR LANDING AND FLARE. ***END CAUTION - CONFIRM WITH INSTRUCTOR***

I'm finally now relaxed enough to yawn of boredom at 9000 waiting for the jump plane to ascend. But I always still get a bit ANXIOUS just before the door opens... ("RELAX!", my instructor says! *TAKES A DEEP BREATH*) For a funny reason, I'm more relaxed outside the plane on the Cessna strut than staring out of an open plane door. Anyone experience this? Pull time is now more relaxed. I think I'm doing well for freefall and canopy control as a student, but pull was my main problem - being relaxed enough below 5000ft. I'm a little shy of playing chicken with the ball called Earth.

The USPA SIM says 14mph. As it's Canada, it's the PIM. I think it's more or less similiar, although I am not sure what the exact figure. I did several flare tests during play altitude above 2000ft on my 16th jump (fast flare, slow flare, medium flare, half-brakes, 75% brakes, flare turn left, flare turn right). As a result, my landing for the solo graduation jump (17th) was pillow soft like stepping down one or two steps, rather than jumping down three or four steps on previous jumps. I almost avoided stepping forward on that landing. I did a minor flare speed adjustment. I'd really appreciate slightly fewer wind holds though , but not at the expense of safety so it's definitely my instructor's call. I'm imagining that they'll recommend 0.9 or thereabouts for my first rig that I buy in a few months (I'll be at jump 40-50 or so), we'll see. If I end up renting longer, maybe 1.0 wingloading.

Yeah, my instructor told me he is going to teach me a few additional canopy airspace lessons for when this dropzone gets busy. My training was during late April and May, with the Canadian spring and gloves-required-at-altitude, which is a less busy time of the year too for this neighbourhood DZ. This permitted me one-on-one classroom training and the whole airspace all to myself (all the experienced pilots were long landed almost before I opened. Okay, not that quickly, but close. Yes, I pulled at 4000 and they pull at much lower.) This warmer weather and the "Otter Weekend" will make things dramatically busier at this dropzone. I'm looking forward to new lessons.

Four here. Realistically, I'd say only one "true" offzone landing, since I consider the farmland adjacent to the landing zone (The edge of this farmland is less than 100 meters away from the landing bowl target), as a convenient alternate landing zone. Winds transpired against me, so I landed in that adjacent farmland three times on Sunday. So "technically", 4 offzone landings. The wind layers of different speeds really confused me. One moment, my huge fluffy canopy was blowing me backwards, and the next, I was moving forward. That was a learning experience. It was just simply much easier to aim for the adjacent empty farmfield, so I was no more than about 100-200 meters away from the from the target bowl even though it was technically offzone. Edit: Actually, now that I think of it more, make that 3 offzone. I landed in dropzone grass near the "dirt driveway" boundary between the farmland and dropzone grass. So I was inside the dropzone only 5 meters from being "offzone", as I wasn't standing on the adjacent farmfield.

Hey Trevor. Nice to see you on here! That wasn't last weekend - but the weekend before. I remember seeing Simon land offzone that day I think, but I could be wrong with the person -- there were definitely two other offzone landers (other than me) during that weekend. There was a few offzone landers in adjacent farmfield, myself included, can't remember the names. Man, there were MANY wind holds that day. .... I sure know they're pretty accurate.

The thought never occured to me to even pull during a track. My instructor told me to always arch after the track, before pull. (Of course, if I ever lost altitude awareness low and noticed my altimeter was low (i.e. 2000ft) I'll just whip something out immediately anyway depending on above/below harddeck altitude...as trained by my instructor. Haven't pulled low before though and hope I never end up having to pull lower than expected.)

My work has provided me a TREO from time to time since I do software development for handheld computers, smartphones, and organizers. TREO's are great multimedia devices, especially the newer 650 model! However, I'm kinda partial to 2005-era bright-screen BlackBerry models since they can now do almost everything TREO's can do nowadays - and there are some great info at BerryFAQ.com. Much better than the boring 2003 and 2004 model BlackBerries. Even multitasks concurrent applications better than Treo, as Palm doesn't do multitask yet. Yes, modem as laptop on BlackBerry now too. Treo is still better for MP3 music, since there's no memory slot for BlackBerry... I must say I'm kind of addicted to 100 hours of reliable nonstop always-on instant messaging (MSN/AIM/ICQ/Yahoo), which TREO doesn't yet have the continuous battery life for. Need something more durable, several 3 and 4 feet drops to floors and concrete and my BlackBerry is still working. Treo's would have been broken long by now... Four new BlackBerry models (7100, 7290, 7520 and 7250) finally has much better bright photo screen quality than the original TREO600, although not as good as the newer TREO650 (high rez 320x320)... However, infinitely far more reliable, and finally over 1000 downloads available. Until recently, BlackBerry used to really suck for software (only 2 chat apps at start of 2004). Now there's about 30-40 different brands of third party chat software, plus a software catalog finally exceeding 1000, including word processors, multiple brands of HTML web browsers, open source software, etc.

#3 tandem. (4 tandems, 2 standup) #1 solo. (13 solos, 12 standup) All but 1 solo landed standing up. One butt landing in the pea gravel. Although on one other, there was a near-butt-landing as wind pulled me right back up before I collapsed the canopy. I have experienced various directions already (running, stepping forward, 20 degrees sideways, and even landing backwards, strong wind, plus at least one instance of nearly zero wind), which I managed standup. But, really, truly, thank the fluffy 288sq ft canopy for that, loaded at only 0.65. It's literally landing me (almost.) Okay, I flared reasonably well for a student most of the time. I think excellent by some standards, but I have no idea how I measure up to an average student... There was many times of borderline winds, and a couple of times that ground winds really picked up after we were already up. In this particular instance, I should thank the mantra by my instructor (And reinforced by so many sources everywhere) about the danger of flaring early. That gave me a standup landing on my first solo. My pratice flares during tandems helped with timing. On one of my solos, I did flare clearly early once, mostly due to a distraction of a guy running towards me for the first time. It was windy, and he was just going into position to collapse my canopy, I thought he was panicking about something else. Ooops.

In one day ...I'm now solo. YAYYY!!! ...I hit the 10 mins freefall milestone. Man, this is gonna get expensive if this keeps up... How do you pay for all that beer!?!? I now owe 48. I'll see if I can get away with spreading the beer over two different weekeneds (24 pack per weekend). Let's see...

Okay. This weekend was great. 5 jumps on Sunday alone, although Saturday had zilch due to bad weather. I'm finally on solo self-supervised status. Even got a few pratice fun jumps in. On time for next weekend's boogie. Onwards to my "A".

I had fogging issues, but for me, fogging was only a problem during ascent in the plane. The freefall clears the fogging rather quickly. Actually, just opening the plane door pretty much solved it. (May vary from goggle to goggle. Experienced skydivers will have to fill in about whether fogging is a danger on certain kinds of goggles in certain conditions)

Just to clarify, this is only based on my NON-skydiving experience using gadgets outdoor in cold weather. As a deaf guy, I own a huge amount of gadgets, and have found cold weather generally don't affect them.

Being in Northeast a little above the border (Canada, in Eastern Ontario), tunnel time is a luxury I will have to get while I'm travelling elsewhere - it's at least a flight away, unless there's a tunnel near Boston I can use, then it just becomes a 1 day drive. There is some tunnel training included in the DWR attempt. (Orlando Skyventure, probably) I may try a detour and make the Appalachian Amusement Center (I'll be in Virginia this summer), but it depends on my time and budget. Wish there was a wind tunnel nearby!

(Gananoque, Canada) I jumped an early April tandem before my PFF program. Second open weekend. It was really chilly at altitude, but nothing as cold as you were saying. Probably closer to 0C, or maybe a few degrees negative. On one of my PFF jumps (early morning jump), it was cold at altitude again and my hands got a little numb despite wearing gloves. Just slightly. It did not help that I was outdoors waiting around, and my hands were already cold before I went into the plane. So it is a good idea to warm up your hands before you jump, or before getting in the plane. ;) Like make sure you put on your gloves early, get them to warm up first... I did not bring longjohns, but I was OK with two layers down there (sweatpants and jumpsuit). My hands really needed the warmth more at 0C. Any colder like -15C at altitude and I definitely recommend longjohns. Edit: About the camera, I assume you're using an enclosure around your equipment. Always a good idea, and avoids rapid cooling when it's suddenly subjected to sub-0C winds at 120mph. Not familiar with the D-Box, but if it's an enclosure then you should be OK. Most of my electronics work just fine outdoors in good old Canadian winters... LCD screens become hard to read sometimes (darker and slow), but everything else works fine.

On my 8-jump weekend (PFF training), I was on both the first load of the day and the last load (sunset) of the day. I was on the sunset load on the day prior too, so that was two sunset loads in one weekend! That was fun. On the first load of the day (5th PFF jump): I landed in the pea gravel. That was a welcome change from the day prior's offzone landing! (I was definitely backing up during that landing) I had a few wind holds because winds were gusty and unpredictable. The forecast was as high as 27kph winds. But I got back to "home field" on all 4 jumps that Sunday on my student Manta 288 moving in a forward motion. One time I almost had no forward motion. (It was windiest for me early on, including during the first jump of the day, I was barely moving forward - so that was easier for me to aim at the landing zone just by crabbing and holding to "back up" above the landing spot during my approach, and then do a near vertical descent on my final approach, with just slight forward motion. On my flare, canopy flew backwards and I planted my butt into the pea gravel.)