azureriders

Bill beat me to the reasons, and not to hash on you Mike, but this has no doubt got to be in the top ten least thoughtful posts I have ever read on this site. Someone waits out a grounding and then does not get hurt, and you think the person issuing the grounding was automaticly wrong?? Even in the case of going to another DZ to work around the grounding, in most cases this is done with a different attitude than the one that got him grounded in the first place. Whether he learned something, or just does not want to have to drive to a third DZ, the change in attitude may have just been enough to save his life.

AFF was desgined for first time students. As much as a tandem gets you over some of the butterfly feelings, it also builds bad habbits that your AFF Instructor will have to work around. To those that are not sure and are a bit squimish a tandem is recomended, other wise I discourage a tandem at all.

I could not agree more, but I have also seen an AAD fire where the resulting opinion of the S&TA, the coach on the jump, and my self being the skydivers original instructor and the coaches Examiner, was for him to get back in the saddle and make another jump, then and there. extinuating circumstances where that at 60 jumps or so and with a little age and lack of flexiability he purchased his first rig and had trouble finding the hacky. He was retrained of course as we all know these or not reasons enough to go to AAD fire. At the end of the day he was put back into his familiar rental rig and put back in the air. I guess what I am saying is that I agree with Bill and a grouding rule, but not all rules are always black and white. Sorry for the hijack. I have seen several threats to ground and issued a few of those myself, but have never seen the need for those to be inforced as the threats normally do the trick. We have a long narrow landing area and normally dictate a set landing direction down the long axis and the threats to ground are normally over people insisting on landing directly into a 2 knot wind perpindicular to the pattern. We have also grounded novice jumpers pending retraining on whatever issue was observed. "Hey, I am up on this load....billy bob does not jump until I have had a chance to talk to him" Good thread

Those friends have probably not actually looked at nor paid close attention their shoulder straps. 2" I would say is perfectly normal, if not even on the lower side of normal. Any less than 2" and your rig is going to be super uncomfortable when not under canopy

you missed a poll option, the correct option too. A LARGE wingsuit is an acceptable student jumpsuit We must not forget about wing loading. I mean I know a wing suit is high perfomance and all, but at a lighter wing loading student could really learn to handle such suits with out having to bother with all that transition training later, right?

And it should. I have three wings containers and never leave more than about 12" of unstowed line. I rarely rarely ever get line twist. excessive unstowed line to prevent line twist is a myth in my opinion. excessive unstowed line has been a factor in line / container flap entanglements.

that source does not seem very creditable when it also claims that he has 2 million skydives total. just saying

To an AFF student on the ride up "Level 7 huh? Have they packed your malfunction yet? You know you have to have atleast one before you graduate? Have a nice jump." "Are you nervous yet? You should be" Pilot turns and "WE JUST LOST THE LEFT ENGINE" Tandem Instructor quickly hooking up, Tandem student: "Ok, enough is enough, lets lay off with the jokes" Tandem Instructor turns students head to window, where the prop sits still. Tandem student: "LETS GO, LETS GO" as he drags his instructor down the bench. This was funny enough that I had to laugh, even while getting a very nervouse AFF student to the door. with 40 some odd jumps: "Hey man, the S&TA just said C and D license only in this wind, you think you could get him to let that slide for me?" @ 28,000 feet, Pilot with o2 mask off and in his hand, "I'M FEELING DIZZY" When asked why he wanted to be a coach, the new candidate replied to me "well, I know you will still get to the girls before I do, but at least I will be next in line" "You got any questions?......Good, because I didn't have any answers" "I knew it was pull time..I just didn't want it to be over yet" "There might be a better way to kill yourself, but I can't think of one right now" ~G.D. Williams

there is one possiblility I can think of right off. If this is the case then there are other better ways of handling this, but sometimes we have to do what we have to do. If you are small, and your Instructor was small, and if you had a not so small person shooting video, you may have been asked to keep your arms in to help reduce drag and keep up the fall rate for the videographer. The only other times I have seen this, was in case of previous shoulder injuries.

I have no idea what this has to do with packing or this thread, but I still disagree with your statement. I do it all the time. Base Ball cap, turned backwards, pitch right out the door, have never lost one.

Yep, would work just fine for many, however not for me. We use a full time editor and vedeographers often make turn around after turn around. I have to be able to switch the media, dropping one off to the editor, and get back in flight. edited to say: thanks for talking to me Phil

Although a lot of people, my self included, pro pack and then psycho bag, there is a whole way of packing called the psycho pack. It is not the same as pro packing. There is a video running around somewhere of Bezzy psycho packing start to finish; it is worth checking out. for what its worth, just the baging portion of a psycho pack does seem to slow the opening up a bit.

I agree. My sewing mentor (way before I started skydiving) told me that the only thing less predictable than a sewing machine, was a woman........or was it the other way around......anyway, this ilustration seems to be very predictable, so it must be fake

well I guess no one is using a quick connect attachment for the cx150 at all?? or maybe just no one wants to talk to me??

just paid $300 for mine. Just covered the Examiner's fee, nothing else. There was no charge for eval jumps. I did not have to repeat any, but I do believe that there was no additional fee (other than slots and rental of course) for re-jumps either. That is my rating cost me all slots and gear rental and uspa / upt fees plus $300. I thought it was fair. I charge $200 plus slots and fees for my coach course. I normally do all eval jumps, and if I hire someone to do them I pay them out of the $200. No additional eval fees to the candidate, even for re-jumps.

I have never seen her with make up. Not the first time, and I will be just fine keeping it that way.

just wondering how everyone is handling the bottom of camera card slot on the 150. I assume it is something easier than what I did. Using a Quick Quad, my original plan was to use the mounting screw in one of the offset holes (where a guide pin should be) and install a guide pin in the center hole (where the mounting screw should be). This would allow for the card slot door to open. It worked, the only thing was that with the mounting screw off centered on the Quick Quad plate, it tended to ride up on the other side, the side opposite from the screw. Although minor, this would cause the camera to look upward, and I was not happy with the sturdyness. So I took the bottom of my camera off (yes, my brand new cx150) Dremeled off the plastic insert for the guide pin, and replaced it with a barrel nut that I made. So now my cx150 has two threaded holes in the bottom, instead of one threaded and one guide pin hole. The Quick Quad mounts up great and supper sturdy useing two screws, and the card slot door opens fine, but it was some work. So what is everyone else doing?

Don't tell students that, they may have learned differently, or not. Leave emergency procedures to their own instructors. Also, I happen to know a girl who is alive because she DIDN'T cutaway her main when she didn't have to: stuck pilotchute followed by reserve pull but due to a rigging error no reserve either, she got the main out eventually, she had no other option. bad, bad RIGGER then.. you missed dragon's point completely, and it was a very valid point. The internet is not the place to be giving EP advice to students, and no offense, but especially not from some one who is not an instructor.

excellent post

I said earlier that this was not a morbid question. I think you are already getting my drift, but I thought I would clarify a bit anyway. There is two points to my meaning. First, as Jtval said: "I also agree with Azureriders. It is not a morbid question. You are about to enter a sport that can kill you. If you have a question, ask it. " I could not agree more, especially with the first sentence. Point is, no matter how morbid, if it is you life and you think it needs answering, then ask. The second point and what is often missed by new comers to this sport, is that a cut away is not normally an epic occurrence like some might would think. They happen; they are a real part of our sport. Most end on a positive note. So, just because you are talking about a cut away does not likely mean you are talking about a fatality. Therefore I would not categorize anything about a cutaway as morbid. I remember when we had a local buy the food concession stand at the DZ. The first couple months they were there, no cutaways. Then when a cutaway did take place, the new cook slipped over to me, and quietly ask what happened, what went wrong, who screwed up, who is in trouble......my reaction of "calm down, it’s just a cutaway" blew his mind. I have seen nearly a whole season go by with out a cutaway on the DZ. I have also seen several in one day, two from the same four way formation, and I even had two in one day on two different DZs. It happens, not morbid at all Sorry for the drift, back to the main point.

149366 + 269 = 149635 total jumps 248 + 0 = 248 cutaways 149635/248= 603.37 1 in 603 so far

exactly 1 out of 602 as determined by DZ.com Welcome to the sport and this is not a morbid question at all.

As an active Coach Examiner, my advice to you is try and sit in on the course. You should not have to pay for it, as you will not actually be inrolled in the course. You will learns TONS from the class room, briefing and debriefing sections of the course. You will not experience the eval dives, but as said up thread, these will not teach you new flying skills. In the end you will no doubt have learned some new things, and you will have a good idea of wheather or not you would like to get your coach rating at a much later date. Teaching any skill will enhance that skill in your self more than anything else you can do. You must first however, have the basic skill. Don't rush it. 100 jumps for a coach rating is a minimum, not a recomindation, kind of like pulling at 2500' with your B license.

I have given three different speeches that went something like ~ Skydiving is not for everyone...yada..yada...yada...so you are going to have to fix --insert problem-- or perhaps find some other way to occupy your weekends ~ Two of those are still jumping and doing well, the other still does a tandem once a month and is a real part of the DZ family. I do not believe in the bowling speech, as it is normally just an instructor cop out, but there is a time and place for everything, even a speech I don't believe in. My fourth such speech is in the making right now. Hard headed old gent that complains of shoulder pain to get out of mock up practice, but then wants to know when we are going up. Weather has been bad so far, but when his class mates start going up and not him, then the talk will happen.

Forgive me for not reading the whole thread, but you answer in my opinion is pretty straight forward. You need to, when ever possible, get your coach friend who knows you best, and a trusted Instructor who knows the sport best, together at the same time for a discussion. If you can't get them together, talk to your coach, then take that information to a good instructor, you may be suprised at what you learn.