Eule

The police - this might not be an isolated incident. There was a policeman on the news last night talking about a case just last week where some jerk jimmied a window and jiggled a juvenile's jacks, causing a jam when the kid tried to play with them. PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

And here it is. I decided to wait for my first couple of jumps after the tunnel time so I could tell if it "took". It took. :) A somewhat long trip report follows... After deciding that AAC in Waynesville, NC was about the closest one to me, I booked half an hour on Saturday 23 July. I left Tulsa on Thursday morning, camped out a bit west of Nashville on Thursday night, and got to Waynesville on Friday afternoon. I located the tunnel and then started for the campground, up in Smoky Mountain National Park. The turnoff to the campground is only about a mile from the tunnel, but the road is "interesting" - I was lucky to still have daylight while I drove up there. 10 miles in about 30 minutes, and the paved road ran out after the first 10 minutes. The reward for all this is a beautiful campground with a creek and lots of pine trees that is about 15 degrees F cooler than down in the valley. There were six of about 25 sites left at 19:30 and by about 20:30 it was full. After setting up camp, I ventured back down into the valley to explore. All of this is on the southeast side of the national park, which is touristy, but nothing like the north side of the park (Highway 441 - Gatlinburg - Pigeon Forge - Sevierville). The town of Maggie Valley has some restaurants and chain motels. I went back to the campground and slept in, as my tunnel time wasn't until 4 PM. On Saturday, I went into Waynesville - it seems to be the "big city" with more chain motels, a Big Kmart, etc. After lunch and wandering around downtown Waynesville, it was tunnel time. When I got there, I was met by the gentleman who helped build the building and now runs the motor (whose name may be Dan, but I unfortunately can't remember) and Chris, the owner. John and Dawn were driving in from a long trip and hadn't gotten there yet, so Dan showed us around a bit. Besides myself, there was a father (skydiver) and his 15-year-old son (not yet a skydiver, but had some tunnel time) and another guy who I don't think was a skydiver. Shortly, John and Dawn arrived, and the fun started. John took the four of us into the classroom for a ~15 minute explanation of how to fly in the tunnel. He asked each of us if there was any particular thing we wanted to work on - this is when I told him that I was going through AFF. We got done with the class and moved on to suit up. The jumpsuits, helmets, and goggles were provided. The suit was pretty much like the suits I've been wearing for AFF - not skin-tight but not big and baggy. The main differences between the tunnel suits and the ones I've worn for AFF is that the tunnel suits close with Velcro instead of a zipper and the tunnel suits only have grippers on the hips. The goggles and (open face) helmets were just like I've been using in AFF. A group of more experienced jumpers that came in after me were wearing their own regular skydiving jumpsuits, helmets, goggles, etc and flying just fine with them. The way the tunnel is set up, the air outlet is at ground level and there is a net that is around 50 feet (7 m) square stretched over it about 10 feet (2.5 m) up. You walk out of the second story of the building onto a concrete deck, and then on to the net. The outer part of the net is made up of thick nylon? straps, about 1" (2.5 cm) wide, on about a 4" (10 cm) grid. You can walk on this, but it helps if you spread your feet apart more than normal. In the center, over the air column, there is a 14 foot (4.5 m) square net that is not as heavy as the surrounding net. The center net is more like a volleyball net, made up of relatively thin nylon? cords on about a 4" grid. You can walk on this too, but normally you fly over it. There are some guy ropes in the center that go from the net down to the ground to keep the center net from blowing up too far when the air is on. The edge of the air column is marked on the center net by a circle (about 12.5 feet (4 m) diameter) of white paint. The center of the column is marked by a painted square in the center of the net. There is also a blue light centered down in the air outlet, so if you look straight down through the white square and see the blue light, you know your head is in the center of the air. I got to go first. The first trick is getting airborne. I found that I had to stand at least on the painted circle and preferably as far inside it as I could get before I tried to lean over and get horizontal. If I stood further away from the center, my torso would catch air but my legs wouldn't and I'd either sit there at a 45 degree angle or slide backwards out of the air. Also, as you get horizontal and your feet want to come up, I found it helped to kick off of the net towards the center of the circle. Also, the very first time I got on, there was a few seconds of Dan adjusting the airflow to get it right for me. When I first got air, it felt to me pretty much like the air rushing past me in free fall. John (and a new instructor he was training) went to work, helping me fix my body position and stay in the air column. I was only flying 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 m) off the net, so John could simply stand on the net and hang onto me as needed. Flying this low also allowed me to "cheat" - if I was low enough and felt myself moving towards the edge of the circle, I could grab the net and recenter myself. When I was flying, John and the other instructor would use hand signals to communicate with me. If I was standing right on the edge of the air column, I could hear John if he leaned over to my ear and shouted. If we took one big step back onto the heavier net, we could have a pretty much normal conversation. I wasn't wearing earplugs. After I could get reasonbly centered, I did "big man/little man" for a bit, to go up and down relative to the net. Then, we worked some more on my body position, especially my legs. I fell out of the air a few times and onto the big net; the only time this hurt is when I landed on my shoulder and head instead of my feet and tweaked my eyeglasses around. Most of the time, when I knew I was going out of the air, I just sort of rolled off the edge of the air and landed on the net. This all happened in five-minute bursts; after five minutes in the air I was quite ready to sit down for a few minutes, drink some water, and cool off. I didn't find any new muscles I didn't know I had; I felt tired in the same places I do after a free fall, just more. John joked that I'd feel it in the morning but I didn't feel that bad when I got up the next day. I would watch the others playing in the tunnel while I was taking a break - there is an observation area with seats inside the air- conditioned building. While one person was walking out and the next person was walking in, John would often jump through the air and do a flip, or a roll, or show off by going about 40 feet up in the air. Before I got back in the air, John and I would talk a little about what I had been doing and what we were going to do in the next round. Somewhere in the second half of the time, I think I figured out what it means to be relaxed. John would give me the waggly hand or make a funny face. I would let out much of the tension in my arms and legs and the ride would get a lot more stable. This is what it's _supposed_ to feel like, I think. When I was trying to stay centered, I had to look down, but once I could stay reasonably in the center, I could look out and see the Smoky Mountains. Better than Lexan walls, I think. :) When my time was up, I went back inside and shucked off the gear. After cooling off for a while, I watched some of my video, and understood better some of the things that had been happening. Also, a large group of "locals" had come by for some tunnel time, and I talked to them, watched them, and took pictures. Some of them were doing all sorts of fancy things, like sitflying, 3-person RW, etc. Their tunnel time ran well after sunset - there are four theatre-type spotlights aimed at the flying area so you can fly after dark. When we all got done, four of the locals and I did ARW to the Waffle House in Waynesville for dinner, and then I returned to the campground for the evening. On Sunday, I decided to break camp and head for Skydive Carolina in Chester, SC - this is where some of the local skydivers were from. I was hoping to get in an AFF jump to see if the tunnel time had helped any. Having been well-taught in skydiving, I also stopped and attempted to buy some beer to take to the DZ, and discovered that South Carolina, like Oklahoma, is one of the backwards states where you can't buy beer on Sunday. I finally found the DZ in the late afternoon (SC has some interesting ideas about highway signage, as well) and inquired about making a jump. At that point I was still on two-instructor jumps, and they only had one AFF instructor there at the time, so I didn't jump. If I had called ahead of time, they might have been able to have someone there. So, I just hung out for a bit and checked it out. My home DZ has a 182, but this place had a "big plane". Even though I saw the it land, it was still a jolt when manifest came on the PA to announce the next load and didn't stop reading at four names. :) I saw the last load of the day (13 jumpers) go up and come down, and then I took off. I had planned to stay in the state park south of Chester, but found the directions at the campground to be lacking. Basically, it said that if you didn't have a permit the rangers might shoot you, but offered no information on how to obtain a permit outside of 9-5 M-F. Between that and the lack of Sunday beer, I wrote off South Carolina and returned to North Carolina, which had been treating me better, for the night. On Monday I got up, drove through Smoky Mountain National Park, and headed west for home, stopping near Nashville again on Monday night. The straight-through drive would be about 13 hours, but I decided I didn't want to knock myself out. On the other hand, knocking oneself out is relative. I started in Cherokee, North Carolina, and when I crossed back into Oklahoma, there was the "Entering Cherokee Nation" sign. It took me 13 hours of driving on the Interstate, about $40 in gas, one night camping out, and a flat tire west of Memphis. 150 years ago, the Cherokees (and other tribes) _walked_. The week went by and I went to the local DZ late Saturday afternoon (30 July), but couldn't get a jump in. I did look at my tunnel tape with my instructors and talked about my next skydive. I stayed overnight and got on the first load Sunday morning. Survey says... it worked! I was a lot more stable in free fall, and the jump went a lot better than my recent ones. I got another jump in later in the day and in that one, I did start a turn I wasn't expecting but I managed to get out of it. It's still going to take me just a few more than 7 jumps to get through AFF, but I am making progress again, so I'm happy. One observation I have about AAC: they are not yet set up for people to walk in off the street. This is made clear on their Web site, but it bears repeating. You have to book your time through the Web site, and it's not an automated "shopping cart" kind of deal - it generates an email to a human who you then correspond with to confirm your time, and this process can take a day or so to complete. It's not a big deal, but you should allow for it if you are booking time there. The facility itself is definitely fully set up to deal with walk-ins, but the business processes aren't there yet. I got the impression that this is a deliberate filter; I think they may _want_ mostly people who are already skydivers or who have played in a tunnel before to help them refine their setup before they open to the world at large. The tunnel itself works fine; the processes surrounding it seem to still be somewhat under development. Anyway, that's the story. Thanks again for the tunnel tips and pointers! Eule

I am not 100% sure, but: your cell phone company may not like you very much. If you switched on the phone before takeoff, it would _probably_ stay associated with the same tower all the way up and back down. But if you waited to switch it on until you were at altitude or nearly so, you now essentially have a cell phone with an antenna on a 10,000 - 14,000' tower. It'll cause no small amount of consternation among the towers on the ground as your phone tries to pick the best tower out of a dozen, rather than out of one or two. It might take your phone some time to acquire a signal, and it would probably switch towers a lot. The reason why I say I'm not 100% sure is that the above explanation is sometimes used to justify the cell phone ban on commercial flights. It might be a real engineering reason, or it might be a fake reason that sounds good. I _think_ the plans to allow cell phone use on commercial flights involve a "cell tower" in the aircraft, so the ground towers won't be affected, but I'm not sure. A data point: at a previous job, my boss had his own Cessna 172. I asked him once about using a cell phone in the air and he hadn't tried it, but said he did try taking a CB radio up with him once. He reported that it was pretty useless - on the ground you can only hear stations up to a couple of miles away, but in the air he could hear stations from ten miles of Interstate at once - everything ran together. (For the telecom geeks: I am aware that 27 MHz analog AM is almost a polar opposite of 900 MHz analog FM or 1.8 GHz digital FM, etc, but I think you'd have similar issues.) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I started AFF in June. If I was going to start from scratch again, I think I would have gone on a tandem first. When I got off the step on that first jump, nearly all I could think of for the first several seconds was "Oh sh-t I let go of the plane the ground is down there and I'm going towards it oh sh-t I let go of the plane". Eventually I settled down and did most of the things I was supposed to do. Immediately after the ripcord pull, I again had a couple of seconds of "oh sh-t nothing is happening" until I remembered to settle down and do the count and wait for the parachute to deploy, which it did. I think that if I had gone on a tandem first, I could have gotten all the "oh sh-t" moments out of the way when I didn't have to _do_ anything. As I think has been mentioned, some DZs offer a progression that starts with some tandem jumps, so you might be able to make your first tandem jump part of your official training. Even if you can't do this, I agree with the previous advice to tell your tandem instructor that you're thinking of going on and becoming licensed - he or she may then let you try a few things, like steering the parachute. Good luck! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

At the DZ I go to, there's a young guy who just got his A-license. His dad is also a skydiver, but was more active back in the day instead of recently. His dad still has a rig and has jumped a few times with his son. I don't know exactly what he had to do; I _think_ the rigger (possibly assisted by the DZO) did an unpack/inspect/repack on his rig to make sure all was well. I don't think he had to go through a complete class again, because the chutes in the rig are the same ones he jumped back in the day. Something to consider: there's more than one DZ. I don't mean you should shop for the answer you want to hear - if you tell your story to five places and they all want you to go through the complete class again, that's a clue. But if the first place doesn't seem interested, try another. The DZ I go to is 45 minutes further away than the closer alternative, because I didn't feel comfortable at the closer one. One thing that I know has changed: since '82, the gravity bill has gone up a lot, and prices have risen to compensate. The dropzone owners will tell you that the fees are for paying instructors and pilots and buying avgas, but don't let that fool you... it's really for the gravity. If the DZO didn't pay the gravity bill, freefall times could extend into hours - basically you just have to not look down. (See the excellent training videos directed by Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng.) There are complicated insurance issues for this, though, so most of them opt to keep the gravity turned on. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

About 32 years and 3 months. Of course, I'm currently about 32 years and 5 months old. :) No, my mom didn't jump when she was pregnant with me... Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I got started a couple of months ago. Before I even jumped, I went to a couple of local dropzones and just hung out for a bit, to check them out. I found that most of the people there were very friendly and outgoing and would tend to notice the "new guy" (me) sitting there and come up and introduce themselves. I was intimidated at first, as well... after I found the first dropzone, I drove around in circles for ten or fifteen minutes before I finally got up the nerve to park and go in. :) The dropzone I'm at is only open on the weekends, so this may be a little different for you since you said you're going during the week as well. However: after I was there for a couple of weekends, it was pretty easy to tell the staff and the regulars I had already met from the experienced jumpers that I hadn't met before. I made it a point to find a time when they weren't too busy (not rushing to get packed or on a load, etc) and walk up and introduce myself. So far they've all been friendly and we usually talk for a couple of minutes. I can't really speak to this, as most of the younger people I've seen jumping (who are no younger than 18) were tandems. You might be ready to get asked things like "your mom must be the one jumping, where is she?" either seriously or in jest. Just smile and let them know that _you're_ jumping and it'll most likely be cool. Here's a tip: When you've got to go in and meet a group of new people, bribery _works_. Not cash, but food. You don't have to arrange for a catered steak dinner for everyone! Just show up with a couple of dozen doughnuts or a box of cookies or something like that - enough that everyone or nearly everyone can have one. This isn't just for the dropzone... this will work for the rest of your life - at school/university, on the job, wherever. I have made it a practice to do this on the first day at a new job and it's worked well for me. Part of what happens is that since you've brought food, people that might otherwise be shy about introducing themselves will come up to you and say "Hey, thanks for the food!" and will usually then introduce themselves. As far as beer goes - in my limited experience, yes, skydivers like to sit around at the end of the day (_after_ all the jumping is done) and have a beer or three. Some people don't drink for religious or medical reasons and that is accepted... one of the instructors at the DZ I go to doesn't drink, but hangs out with the rest of us and has a cola or whatever. Here in sunny Oklahoma, the drinking age is 21. Somebody who's 20.9 might enjoy a beer with the older people, but somebody who's 16 wouldn't be given a beer by anyone older and would probably be chastised by the older people if he brought his own beer. This will vary widely by culture and I don't know what it's like in the UK. I've visited Germany (not skydiving, just on holiday) where the drinking age is approximately "old enough to see over the bar" and I suspect that there, a 16-year-old could enjoy a beer in the evening no problem. One thing that is universal: you shouldn't feel like you _have_ to drink to fit in, nor be made to feel that way by the people you are with. I will also second the "no drugs" admonition... besides, after you start skydiving, you won't feel the need for them. :) You may also want to post a message in the "Bonfire" or maybe the "Events and Places to Jump" forums - "Bonfire" especially is a little more widely read than this one. Put your DZ somewhere in the subject line, like "New AFF jumper at Norfolk UK" or "Anybody jump at Norfolk UK?" or similar. You'll probably be able to find one or two "regulars" at the dropzone you're going to, or at least someone who's been there before and can tell you some of the names at the dropzone you're going to. Good luck! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

All, Thanks for the help! Between the replies and reading through the forum a bit (which I should have done before I posted), I think I've got a handle on it now. Now I pretty much need to decide how far I want to drive, set up a time, and do it. I'll report back after my tunnel time. Thanks! Eule

I didn't find much enlightenment. I found some hawks that have white or very light immatures, but I don't find much mention of immature owls in the books I have. Another possibility is that it was an albino, but that would have probably been noticed already. Eule

When I read the subject, at first I thought you were objecting to my picture. :) A couple of things off the top of my head... all of the guides will give a certain range but "birds don't read books". If there is a serious shortage of food in a bird's normal range, they will sometimes follow the food as far as they need to. Also, sometimes one individual gets confused and ends up far off the beaten path. The owl in question may have also been immature - nearly as big as a full-grown owl, but with different plumage for the first year or so. Now, if there really was a whole flock of snowy owls in Perris, you'd probably know it - it'd be on the local news and there'd be birdwatchers all over the place. Also, this doesn't mean they don't exist, but I can't think of any owls that have an immature plumage of nearly all white and then change to something much darker. I am going to check in a couple of books when I get home, and I didn't see the dead owl in question, but just going by what is common, a barn owl seems a likely candidate. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Hello all! I started AFF in June, never having skydived (from a plane or in a tunnel) before. Now I'm at 15 jumps, but I've only had a couple of brief flings at level 4. To make a long story short, a big part of my problem is body position and stability. I don't think the visual of "sky - horizon at 45 degree angle - ground - horizon at 45 degree angle the other way - repeat" is a standard part of AFF. :) I had a suspicion that a tunnel might help and after a couple of dives this weekend, my instructors said they thought some tunnel time would be good for me. So, now I'm looking for a tunnel. I have looked on the Web a bit and found where some of them are, but I'm sure I haven't found all of them. My first criterion is that it be within a 2 day drive of Tulsa, Oklahoma. To calibrate this distance, Perris and Orlando both meet this criterion. (Either one would be 2 12-hour days of driving, so an 8 AM tunnel time the morning after I get there wouldn't work, but that afternoon would be OK.) Put another way, this means that pretty much only Oregon, Washington, and the Northeast states north of about Pennsylvania are out. Closer is always better, but I'm willing to drive a little if I need to. My other criteria are not as big to me as the distance one above. One is that it might be a little better if the tunnel is at or near a dropzone. After I get some tunnel time, I might want to go to a dropzone to see if I am really learning what I need to know. Another is that it'd be nice if there is a place to camp at or near the tunnel. Since I'm driving, I can deal with dropzones/campsites that are a little way away from the tunnel. One of my instructors mentioned the tunnel in Perris, one in North Carolina, and one in Tennessee. Looking around the Web, I think he was talking about L1 in Waynesville, NC and Flyaway in Pigeon Forge, TN. In addition to finding a place, I'm also wondering a bit about the procedures. I have read the info on a couple of the Web sites, and I know I will be able to answer some of these questions once I pick a tunnel and talk to them directly, but I'm curious. If there is a "tunnel FAQ" lurking somewhere, you may be able to point me at it and ignore many of these questions. Are the tunnels usually booked up a long time in advance, or is it relatively easy to book a date a week or so away? Assuming it is possible, my timeframe for the tunnel visit is within the next month or so. I understand that for what I'm doing, I will probably buy some chunk of time, and I will fly for 1 or 2 minutes at a time, then rest/wait for several minutes, then fly again. Does this usually continue until I've got all the chunk in, or does it happen that I will fly maybe half the chunk and come back a few hours later or the next day? (I'm pretty sure this also depends on exactly how big of a chunk I buy.) Any ideas on how much time I should be thinking about? I know that 2 minutes is probably not enough and 2 hours is probably too much (besides being just a little bit beyond the budget) but in between I don't know. Is there any special exercise or preparation or something I should practice before I go to the tunnel? Thanks for the help! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

If you're in the US, you might look at http://www.airnav.com . Most of the content there is extracted from the standard FAA information about airports, but it also includes user-reported prices at the various FBOs. Since the prices are user-reported, they can be a little or a lot out of date - each price has a date on it so you can see how old it is. You might look up an airport near you that gets a lot of general aviation traffic, as those will usually have up-to-date fuel prices. There is also a summary report for the whole US at http://www.airnav.com/fuel/report.html . Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I vote for this too... or at least visiting the dropzone(s) in your area by yourself, first, and checking them out. I didn't tell the other half that I was thinking of jumping, and I visited a couple of the local dropzones on the weekend. (I drove back and forth past the first one for 10 or 15 minutes before I got the nerve to park and go in...) One of the questions I posed to the staff at each place was "how do I break it to the other half that I'm thinking of doing this?" At one place, the answer was "just sneak off and do it" and at the other, I had a good conversation about it with them - they'd dealt with this before. Also, checking it out on your own lets you find a place where you feel comfortable, which will help if you bring your wife out to observe some jumps. (I came clean about my intentions before I made my first jump, and the other half was OK with it.) I found this to be true as well - the dropzone staff were happy to answer questions. Both places I visited are open on weekends only, and maybe Friday evening. Probably the best time to find somebody free to talk for a while is first thing in the morning (8 or 9), or towards sunset. On Sunday things seem to slow down a little sooner, so you might be able to go out earlier in the day and find someone with some free time. At least in my limited experience, one thing that won't happen is that the staff won't BS you. If your wife asks one of them directly "can you die doing this", they'll probably say "yes". They will probably then go on to explain the specific risks and the precautions that are taken for each one, but they won't pretend that it's not dangerous. Good luck! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

The first thing I noticed is that there's a dark spot at the trailing edge of the lower canopy, where the blue and white cells join. Is that the weight for the US flag? I also don't see a pilot chute on the lower canopy. There is a smaller black dot at the trailing edge of the lower canopy in the center of the white cells, which might have something to do with it. The lower skydiver has his/her back to the camera. I think the upper skydiver is flying towards the camera. The upper right corner of the POW/MIA flag might be caugt in a weight line, or it might just be flapping in the breeze. The lower left corner of the US flag seems to be trailing back towards the lower skydiver, which makes me think it is somehow attached to him/her (on purpose or not.) Am I close? Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

That's just the beginning of the bird's problems. ATC called and they want to have a word with him about his transponder. Apparently he only squawks when he feels like it... PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Disclaimer: I am a complete n00b and still a student; appropriate amounts of salt are advised. A couple of weekends ago, some of the experienced jumpers at the DZ I go to jumped onto a big sandbar in the river. Since I'm still at AFF (mumble), I was ground support, bringing post-jump medical supplies (disinfectant/anaesthetic) down to the sandbar, and providing transportation back to the airport. The sandbar was pretty big, but there was also a driftwood tree trunk lying on it. Fortunately it was far enough downwind that there was plenty of room past it for landings. Myself and the other ground support crew sat on the tree trunk and did quality assurance testing on the medical supplies. The jumpers had scoped out the landing area on foot earlier in the day and therefore knew about the tree trunk, plus we were sitting on it, so they were able to avoid it no problem. It sounds like this beach is a regular landing area, and maybe also used by swimmers, etc, so it may already be relatively clean. Also, if there is some driftwood lying around, it probably won't be as big as a tree trunk. But it's something you might want to think about. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

sangiro> Eule> Or am I screwed? sangiro> Depends on what you were writing... Hey all! Writing from cellphone in freefall! Watch thing says 2 - got to pull a handle - forgot which one? Any help? Now 1! Come on guys! No trolllkldsf.,dfmk NO CARRIER JohnRich> Eule> The workaround for this is to compose one's reply in a real editor with JohnRich> Eule> temporary files... JohnRich> Been there. Done that. Ack! Yeah, but then I just have to do [ESC]:w and it gets saved on the hard drive. That way, I can get it back after almost anything short of a head crash... bob.dino> A little bit faster on a Windows PC: Thanks! Unfortunately I can't use exactly the same shortcuts, but there are others I can use. I also can't run many of the most popular Windows applications, like Mydoom, Bagle, Netsky, Gator, etc. :) Thanks for the help! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Thanks for the replies! Hopefully this won't be too confusing: I am going to attempt to reply to several people at once, instead of creating several follow-up posts. Here goes... Orange1> do you wear a wrist-mount alti? Yes. Looking at it while I pull does sound like a good way to keep looking forward when I pull. Orange1> are you getting video'd on your AFF? So far I haven't. If I continue to flail I may spring for it. Tonto> So what about fear of the door? If you're a new skydiver, that should be high on Tonto> your list! I don't think I'm too afraid of the door, but I'll let you judge. (All of my jumps have been in a 182, so on the ride up, I am sitting behind the pilot, facing the rear.) On a few of my jumps, there has been someone on the load who gets out at 4K (accuracy or IAD), then we go on to 10K or so. Sometimes I have been keeping my seatbelt on until the door is closed after the 4K jumper gets out; if I don't have it on I grab the side of the plane until they are gone. On one of my jumps, I had gotten up on my knees behind my right-side instructor, next to the door. We were really about 30 seconds out from actually opening the door, but I thought the opening was imminent. The pilot was making a turn to get on the spot and the right wing was low and I remember hoping that they didn't open the door just then because I didn't want to fall out. We got level before the door was actually opened and things were fine. When my right-side instructor gets out and I scoot up next to the instrument panel, I do hang on to the door frame with my right hand until I get the word from my instructors to climb out on the step, but when they say go, I get my hand out on the strut (I think) fairly quickly and climb out from there. Tonto> 90% of my problem students have been the ones that don't look at me. I haven't been having trouble seeing the hand signals, but on the past few dives I have been chewed on for not making good eye contact during the COA. Some of this, I think, has been my obsession with "staying stable means looking _straight ahead_". Tonto> The "Arch" comes more from relaxing the abdominal and pectoral muscles than it does Tonto> from tensing the muscles in your back. This is something I need to work on. So far, I feel like the right response to an "arch" command involves tensing some muscle(s) up _more_, not less. Tonto> If your instructors have ever asked you to "relax" how could you possibly do that Tonto> with every muscle in your body quivering in tension? They have asked me to "relax", and so far, I think I have been interpreting that as something I need to do in my mind (only), not my mind _and_ my body. hookncrater> Seriously bro, you are way overanalyzing your jumps. NWFlyer> But sometimes analyzing can get in the way of relaxing and just feeling the skydive. Jeth> And from my meager experience, I would agree with the people saying you are WAY Jeth> over-analyzing everything. mdrejhon> My instructor is right when the word "relax" is the hardest thing to learn during mdrejhon> skydiving. Darshiva8> Relax and don't worry too much. I detect a theme, here... :) riggerrob> Forget about using your eyes to find the ripcord. The thing is, when I do complete a practice touch, my hand almost always goes right to the handle - it's not like looking even helps that much. NWFlyer> I still visualize today and find that when I do I tend to have more successful skydives. So far, when I go over the dive flow, I have been _thinking_ about what I need to do at each step, but maybe not _visualizing_ it so much. My instructors have been trying to push me in this direction - once on the ride up, and once on the ground, I started to do the body motions that I would need for each step, and they stopped me. Their explanation was that if I'm not going to do _exactly_ what I will do in free fall (because there's not enough room in the plane, or because I'm just being sloppy on the ground) then I'm just learning bad habits. I stopped doing the physical motions, but maybe I haven't yet started visualizing everything all the way through. Jeth> On the ground, in the plane, just keep touching it without looking. I have been making it a point to check my handles a couple of times on the way up, but every time I have done this, I have been looking at each handle as I did it. This may be how I am mis-training myself to _look_ for the main handle instead of just _reaching_ for it. (I have been trained that I am _supposed_ to look at the cutaway and reserve handles before grabbing and pulling them, but not the main.) Jeth> My instructor had a big thing with getting your other hand out in front of your head Jeth> at pull time. This was so you didn't drop it down and end up flipping over. I was trained the same way - put my left hand, palm parallel to earth, way out in front of my head, as I reach back for the main handle with my right hand. On a couple of my early jumps, I had my palm down but my hand right on top of my head, or even with my palm flat on my head (like pushing a hat down), which probably contributed to my tendency to roll right or flip at pull time. Avion> I got two words for this: Tunnel Time I had pondered this. I am somewhat divided between it being a useful training aid, and a misguided attempt to fix a software (wetware?) problem with hardware. Avion> I see your in Tulsa, the closest tunnel to you I think is in Eloy, it should be Avion> open soon (Yea, right they been saying that for a year now Wink) The closest tunnel that appears to be actually open is in Perris. I have already worked out the drive time and camping spots between here and California... :) mdrejhon> I found I am the most relaxed when the goals are kept really simple, like adding mdrejhon> one new objective to a previously successful jump that I wasn't as tense during. My instructors and I have been doing something like this, which is part of the reason I have so many jumps per AFF level. mdrejhon> My canopy skill is definitely progressing much better than my RW skills. So far, the canopy part has gone pretty well, I think. On the last few jumps I've been getting minimal guidance on the radio and have been doing OK, I think. I've yet to stand one up, but I've gotten close. Again, thanks for all the replies! I just checked the weather forecast and it's blue skies this weekend, so I will probably be out giving it another shot. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

This is mostly a case of user error, but... I was working on a long reply and had previewed it a few times. I was working on the last couple of sentences, when I managed to close the browser tab that had my reply in it. grep kcore and sundry other tricks didn't bring my text back... do posts-in-progress get stored on the server anywhere? Is there any way to get back to a post-in-progress? Or am I screwed? If it helps any, I was replying to http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1730445 and the last time I worked on it was about 08:15 UTC on Thursday 14 July. (The workaround for this is to compose one's reply in a real editor with temporary files and -r and everything, and then cut-n-paste into the browser just before posting, which I will be doing in the future.) Thanks! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Caution: I am also a student; nearly everybody here will know more about this than I do. Having said that: - My instructors did tell me something to do when I flare and then think I've flared too high. You might ask your instructors directly "what do I do if I think I've flared too high" and see if they have a recommended procedure. They may just say "follow through" or they may tell you something else you can try. - I have been in charge of my own flare (no cue over the radio) for the last few jumps and on a couple, I consciously made myself wait less than a second or so to start flaring after I first thought "Maybe I should start flaring now", and it seemed to work out OK. Also, I tend to think "hands up - hands up - hands up" to myself as I come down through the last several feet before the flare, which seems to help keep me from moving my hands too early. This may or may not work for you! - I haven't stood one up yet either. I have progressed to where I usually land standing up, fall over, then stand back up again, but I haven't done a straight stand-up landing yet. So don't worry too much about it. :) - Have you been able to watch other students, that are jumping about the same size canopy, land and flare themselves? I think it's a little hard to correlate what things look like from the side (you watching another student) and from the air (you looking down and deciding when to flare yourself), but maybe it will help. If you can't see the landing area from where you normally hang out, you might ask if you can observe some landings from a safe place near the landing area. Again, I am also a student, so discount my advice appropriately. Any crazy ideas you pick up from here should ALWAYS get discussed with your instructors. Preferably before and not during the skydive. :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Hello all! I started going through AFF on 11 June, have been jumping every weekend since (the DZ I go to is only open on weekends), and have 13 jumps total now. Unfortunately, after a brief fling at AFF 4, I am still at AFF 3. After the first few jumps I figured it was going to take me more than 7 jumps to get through AFF, but I didn't think it'd take _this_ many. I am posting to see if anyone has any ideas on how I can get my head in the right spot to proceed. My initial problem was apparently a common one: I didn't have a good arch. At first it wasn't that I was forgetting to arch - it was just that I wasn't flexible enough. I kept up with practice arching and stretching exercises (from the forums here) and this past weekend, my arch (at least on the ground) was pronounced 'much better' by my instructors. I still have trouble holding it for the entire freefall, but when I do have it, I feel much more stable in the air. I think I will be able to solve this with more stretching and exercise. My second problem is probably looking down at the rip cord at pull time. On my 7th dive (AFF4), the instructor released me and I was facing him for a few seconds, then I started an unintentonal turn. I went through 720 and kept turning - I was still belly-to-earth, but I didn't like being in the turn and decided to pull. When I went to pull, I looked down, and possibly didn't get my left hand up, with the net effect that I flipped over on my butt (without pulling). My next thought was "pull anyway", then "no, I'm upside down, give it about two seconds of trying to get face down again, THEN pull anyway". I got flipped back over just before I pulled, but I later found it wasn't because I arched, but because I looked down again when I went to pull. It bothered me some that what I thought I did to fix it, and what actually fixed it, were two different things. On my next dive, I looked down again at pull time and my instructor grabbed me to keep me from rolling over. I pulled without flipping, but only because he was hanging on. After all this I got a little paranoid, I guess, about becoming unstable. On the next dive, I fell really nice and straight - no turns, no wobbles - until I went to do a practice touch, when I got a little wobbly. Hey, I know how to fix "wobbly" - yank! At about 7.5K. Surprised the hell out of my instructors. :) On the next two dives, I got really focused on being flat/straight, to the exclusion of doing the practice touches - when I started to move my hands to do one, I would feel the air pressure be a little different left and right, and then put my hands right back into the arch position instead of completing the touch. Up to this point, I had been working with the same instructor(s) every time. They asked another (more experienced?) AFF instructor to go on a jump with me, presumably so he could see what a problem child I am. :) I did two jumps with him. On the first one I left out the touch again. On the second one I did the touch, but my pull sequence was a little off: I saw 5K, waved off (at least I thought I did; instructors said they didn't see it), then went back to arch for a second in an attempt to not look down, then reached down and pulled. I had a ripcord in my hand, but when I got on the ground my left-side instructor told me that he had opened the container at 4K at about the same time I pulled. We had long debriefs after these last two dives. So far, I have been trying to remember every little thing about the skydive, for a couple of reasons: one, I figure it shows to my instructors that I am paying attention, and two, I have been writing up notes for myself on how each dive went that are much more extensive than what goes in my log book. (On average, the notes for each dive would run to two printed pages.) After these last two dives, one of my instructors commented that I was telling them a lot of detail about things that weren't too important (like when my instructors undocked or docked on me) and not much detail about the important parts (COA, practice touch, pull), and thought that maybe I was having trouble trying to remember everything AND do the things I need to do. For my last dive, I purposely didn't do a long write-up, just a few sentences worth of notes. Both of my instructors said that I was challenging them - not in a bad way, just that they both wanted to be able to help me do better but weren't quite sure of the best way to do that. We agreed to all think about it this week and get back together next weekend. Like I mentioned above, I'm posting here to see if there's a 'common n00b mistake' that I may be making. I have the feeling that my problem isn't so much physical (body position or movements), but mental - approaching things the right way in my mind. I also know that probably none of you have actually seen me skydive, and asking for help here is a little like writing a letter to your doctor asking why your throat hurts. I will keep working with my instructors and doing what they advise, and if I think I figure out my problem, I will talk with them about my discovery _before_ we go out the door. But I would appreciate any ideas from y'all. Thanks! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

2 jumps on Saturday, 1 on Sunday. On the jump Sunday I finally figured out how to arch correctly. I've now done a couple of other things, as well: a) stayed overnight at the DZ and b) postponed a trip to see my family because the weather was going to be good for jumping. I went to see my parents on Monday (for Father's Day); I hadn't told them I was jumping - I just told them I had a tape I wanted to show them. I put in the video of my first jump last weekend and hit "play". After the initial shock, they took it pretty well, and asked a bunch of questions. Then they asked if I had any still pictures that they could show off to their friends at work. I printed some off and I know they were paraded around both workplaces on Tuesday. Both of them are cool with it now. The weather is supposed to be good this coming weekend... :) Eule

Thanks! Here's the $0.64 question: are you working skydiving into a story so you can write off the jumps and beer as "research"? :) Eule (North American serial rights only)

Thanks! I am getting ready to make the ~1 hour drive again Saturday morning, so we will see... The DZ staff have been almost apologetic when they explain that the wind is too high, or whatever. I understand that it isn't under their control but some people must get really bent about it. No rain scheduled for this weekend, but possibly too much wind. Yes! Having said that, it'll hopefully be less "shock" and more "this is cool!" on the next one. :) Eule

Hello! You have about seven more jumps than I do at this point. It's supposed to be sunny this weekend, but now the wind might be too high... argh! Somewhat the same here.. I had the idea off and on for years but around a month ago it came into my head and wouldn't go away. Your profile says you're jumping in Long Island, NY. I looked up the airport and it looks like Long Island Sound is only a couple miles north of you. Do you have to do anything special (life vests? flippers? carrier landings? :) ) because of this? Eule