L_M

hehe that's true, but it's a relevant factor regardless I don't want to be the guy that goes "luck had nothing to do with it, I handled it well, nothing could have gotten me" If you're oblivious to the luck factor you think you're invincible, and that would be the biggest mistake anybody could make.

that's the conclusion

Glad you lived, but I really don't think all of the above should appear in the same post Low turns kill m'kay. That's true, BUT 1) I don't know what you would do but when I see a powerline very close underneath me I don't think the quick decision of clearing that shit is a bad idea. In a situation like that there is no time to slowely move yourself to the right, it's a quick reaction or get zapped. As I said there were a lot of obstacles, the small garden was surounded by high trees. 2) An impact with a tree after toggeling a quick 90° turn can kill aswell. I'd rather absorb the shock on my side than flat in the face and on the chest. After the left turn just before impact I pulled my right toggle down to the same height as my left one trying to slow down just a bit so my body wouldn't have that downwards slam effect. It all comes down to the situation, how you handle it and LUCK

It happend to me as well on my 15th WS flight, I didn't plan my flight pattern at all and ended up above the town. I landed in a very small garden, it was my only option so i had my sights on it when I was 2500 feet in the air with bad winds. It went like this. 1) I flew above two trees that were pretty close, 2) Noticed a powerline under me (above a garden, what the hell), 3) So I went FUCK and without hesitation I hooked a low right turn, 4) Saw a straight tree line in front of me and hooked an even lower left turn, 5) Landed on my side, completely absorbing the shock over my whole body (before impact the thought "this will probably hurt but I hope I'm not going to break anything" went trough my mind), 6) Got straight up checked my shit and I was A OKay, I looked up at the sky thinking "not only is this garden small as a peanut, the trees and powerline around the garden are as high as 4 meters" I was happy the way I handeld it, so much is comming at you in such a short time and it's one deccision after another. But it's just as much LUCK as it is handling the situations, there can be so many unfourseen obstacles (if you see them to late or react to slow it can be a very ugly situation) Planning the flight is SO important and out landings can get you killed. That would suck balls, dropping dead in someones garden. Plan the jump, land on the DZ and have fun.

PF told me that the Phatom 2 is on the way, no actual date but it's for this year.

In the far future a suit will be designed that has wings on it with a significantly large wingspan. As the wings of a bird are in proportion with his body in order to fly. The gaint wings will take the place of the parachute container on our back. The operating system would be build from the beginning of the left hand all the way over your back to the end of your right hand, in other words your upperbody would be placed in a "pulse-suit" that monitors every little muscle movement. Those muscle movements would be translated on to the wings, the wings would make movements as normal bird wings would and it would be posible to go from up to down to a landing. It remains speculation and my imagination but either way we will have to wait for nano-technology to be perfected and new fabrics. In an other lifetime I'd say.

Hi people, I’m new to skydiving and started skydiving in order to become a base jumper. Lately I’ve been inspired by the possibility of tracking, it seems somewhat unreal. My question is this one: will it make me a better “base jump tracker“ if I concentrate all my time and energy on tracking during my skydives now? Is it significant enough to do this? Hope I formulated this in an understandable way. Thanks.

It gets worse when you do your first solo jumps, I did my first 4 solo jumps last weekend and I can't stop thinking about it. I’ve even dreamt about skydiving two days in a row, weird dreams but always something to do with skydiving. Now when I earn money I start calculating how many jumps I can do with it and I'm cutting down other expenses. Maybe it’s a good thing the DZ is only open on weekends ;)

I started out wanting to get into BASE jumping, I got in contact with Thijs and some other people and they’ve helped me a lot. The next logical step was skydiving of course and I looked at it as a pre training stage thinking to spend not to much time in this stage. But that all changed after my first jump just recently. I want to become an experienced skydiver before even thinking about getting into BASE. Not because I could be a better BASE jumper if I do but because I know skydiving and all its aspects are going to keep me busy for a long time not to mention that I love skydiving. And it can’t hurt to first become an experienced skydiver, with that said I’m not saying that a less experienced skydiver couldn’t be an excellent BASE jumper. Simply put into one sentence I’d say people have different ways to approach BASE jumping and that approach can change throughout there journey. And the key phrase for me personally is “no need to rush it”

As a poor student I will have to get a weekend job to fund all of this, even 10 jumps a week is far of with the money I'll be making. More like 3 maybe 4 if I'm lucky

Thanks for the welcome you all.

Hello, Yesterday I took my first Jump and it was GREAT, the first kick I got was the sudden acceleration I felt when my body turned facing to the ground. The first thought that went through my mind was WOW this is fun and a big smile took over my face. I did all my exercises calmly and clearly and the pull went fine. The canopy control could have gone a bit more smoothly but I landed softly ... on my ass

Hey Thijs, Leslie here :) Just saying that it's very helpful to read all this it gives me more insight on your point of view.