arai

"every year in the united states, hundreds of home owners set fire to their house while attempting to deep fry their thanksgiving turkeys indoors." be careful out there

had to go and spoil the aquarius perfect zero

well apart from seeing socks, you can notice smoke column directions, waves on the water etc, but you should be able to stay over the dz until you can see the socks. I think they have to be visible from a 1000 feet. In the pff course they mentioned to me flying your canopy in a box and watching the ground for winddrift. ei pick a landmark and try and fly yourcanopy straight for a few seconds, look through your legs and notice if you are drifting off that straight line relative to the ground, then turn 90 degrees and do it again. once you have flown your box pattern you should be able to find a good indication of your wind direction and strength by how each leg of your turn was affected by drift. The box allows you to get a good idea because if you just flew east and got pushed to the north, the wind could be from the south, southeast, or southwest. But by flying the box (or at least more than 1 leg) you can narrow down the wind direction. apart from that you should have an initial guess because you looked at the sock *before* you entered the aircraft, and during the plane ride up ... right?

yeah when I was getting my solo it was a requirement, it was basically sitting facing backwards with the door open, but instead of a ride the slide exit I was told to grab my right ankle with my left hand and just cannnon ball off. alternativly you could face backwards on the step (if your out of a cessna) and just hug your knees and roll off. You get used to it, its surprisingly easy to get stable, just when your tired of spinning relax and arch and you'll find yourself falling stable in no time. the exit is one of the fun parts of the jump for me, and because I had fun and just hucked myself out any which way for awhile I feel more comfortable in the air because of it.

yeah get someone to check them or at least get adivce. my mom will never be able to scubadive because her instructors didnt fill her in on the importance of clearing your ears as you decend, or at least why its so important, so when she was getting the licence she just thought it was supposed to hurt. She reptured her ear drum 2 years ago and I still think it hasnt healed enough that she would be able to dive today.

he'll hit it too, thats the way with the internet, if something catches on it starts going pretty quick, I just got an email from a friend with the same thing in it. and this one doesnt even ask for money, he just needs the hits.

I'm like you, always out to try new and exciting sports, here's my list of things I've done or are still doing, maybe it will give you some ideas. the trouble becomes maintaining participation in them all without winning the lottery. I find I'll slow down on some of them and then find them again later on. Right now I manage to remain fairly active in a large number of them but its a tricky balancing act for sure, now if I could just get that lottery fixing figured out ;) downhill mountainbiking rock climbing dirtbiking motorbike racing waterskiing wakeboarding kneeboarding sailing surfing windsurfing kite boarding kayaking scuba diving skiiing snowboarding

yeah its wind ya need not waves (though they are fun) but if your starting out in kiteboarding you'd probably want the absense of waves (at least big ones) till you get good. I've heard florida is good for windsurfing so its gotta be good for kiteboarding.

I tried to search for other posts about errors but the search function was down..so then I went to post about it, but I get an error message when I post so I think somethings broken. it posted anyway but after people replied to me I wasnt getting emails? can you help me with my problem? ...*runs*

yeah okay, guess that makes sense. I just wanted to grab something that will serve in the interm so I dont have to keep snagging the dz's when I jump.

maybe I did see you, I overheard someone looking for a scale because he was worried with his weight belt (that was hard to adjust) he might be over the total weight limit for swoop comp's

oh sorry, that sucks, were you there on saturday then? I was there at 9 in the morning and when I had to leave (I would have loved to stay longer) they were still getting ready for king air #3 so I hadnt heard it wasnt flyin. But I ended up getting in 5 jumps, and had a great time. maybe I'll see you out there next time.

It was a full altitude Cessna 206 jump as the KA is still down. . not any more it aint, I got on the first and second loads of it this year on saturday (what a great day) I've only been jumping the cessna's so the king air was really fun. Glad to hear you had a great day too (I have to qualify returning to earth unharmed after a cutway a great day ;) )and made out of it okay, and recovered your gear as well.

I'm planning on getting a real jumpsuit at some point, but for now I'm just looking at getting something inexpensive to start with. I'm 18 jumps into the sport so I've yet to really need a specific kind of suit, some jumps I try sit flying, backflying, etc some I work on my belly skills, and some I track. I was thinking of going down to the local army surplus store and just picking up a pilot flight suit or something like that to be used for jumping. unfortunatly the search is broken so I cant find if this question has been asked. I havent seen it asked before and I'm guessing its because there is something obvious about the suits that makes them unsuitable? They seem like they would be close in fit to the student jumpsuit I've been borrowing when I'm at the dz would something like that work or is there a reason that they would be inapropriate for jumping out of aircraft with? thanks -arai-

My Mom is a pilot, and recently (now that I skydive I've been talking about jumping more with her) she was telling me about how she used to fly jumpers when she was first starting out. At one point she told me about the guys she flew and how when she would open the door, they would steal the key from the ignition and jump!!, she would then have to glide back for landing, I thought this was pretty damn funny, and she was laughing as she described these "bastards" that made her life interesting. She said ever since the first time they did it she would wear a spare key around her neck. for some reason it feels to me the kind of stuff that you could get away with back then, but that kind of stunt pulled today would cause all sorts of screamin. Do any of you have cool/funny/crazy pilot stories? Does this kind of stuff still exist but just manage to hide under the radar? -arai-

sweet, I love the rolling inverted exit from that skyvan

well I'm torn between, "fair enough, this is bonfire after all", and, "that aftertaste in your mouth is piss from this mornings kornflakes" bad morning was it? I was just askin if anyone has actually heard the speech include the instruction to actually go bowling.

yeah, I understand the concept, you pull some poor struggleing student aside and tell them that maybe skydiving isnt for them, or some variant of, hinting that they might be safer at home. But has anyone ever actually said the words, "maybe you should think of taking up bowling instead"? or actually used bowling in a sentance where you told someone to go home? Or is it simply that by saying "the bowling speech" you refer to the talk people have where they tell people maybe skydiving isnt for them? it almost seems excessive, or maybe thats the point, getting them to clue in that its that urgent that they dont endanger themselves further. Anyway, tell me a bowling speech, a real one, that you've heard

how often do you instructors get either type. I guess this could be subjective as you might have someone that has trouble remaining stable but has a great attitude, but I was curious to hear some of the instructors stories. I tried my best to pay attention and ask intelligent questions after having read up on the jumps I was going to be doing, personally I felt it helped show that I was taking responsibility for my safety during my jumps. I tried to be informed and make my instructors jobs easier. I think in the end my work payed off as I passed all pff levels on the first try (I'd been told it doesnt happen that often), and the jumps ended with soft standup landings, usually right beside the instructor. I admit to being proud that I was able to accomplish this but know that I've got thousands of jumps worth of learning ahead of me. I hope I was able to make it an enjoyable day of work for the instructors at the dz. So far I've gotten positive encouragement from them (though I'm sure thats part of their job) and one instructor remarked "well your doing this about as fast as possible" and has had me downsize canopies already. I have to thanks all the intructors and operators at Pitt Meadows, they've all been great and helped make my entry into skydiving an easy one. There are a lot of very experienced jumpers who are happy to lend their time to share their sport with a newcomer and for that I'm grateful. My question for stories came after I was just finishing off my solo coach dives. A student at the dz was a couple jumps behind me in progression and was on his first freefall from 10,000 feet. The instructor I had jumped with most of my jumps was with him. He got unstable pretty quickly and managed to throw both his instructors by 8,000 (his story when he got down was pretty funny). He followed his training and pulled at that point and got down alright. My instructor passed me laughing said "you were too boring, you just jumped and fell stable" now the student wasnt a bad one, he repeated the jump and did much better the second time. But I imagine you instructors with all these years of training must have had some crazy experiences when teachings us newbies how to fly. So anyway, thanks to all you poor bastards that jump out of aircraft with people who have no idea what they are doing, your help is much appreciated... now tell me your bowling speeches :P or maybe give an idea of what makes a good or bad student -arai-

just wanted to say thanks for all the responses. I am aware of how much work a dog would be and I wont take that step until I am 100% sure I can meet the needs of that dog. I'll definatly have a look at the local shelters and maybe in time I'll even sign up for a fostering program. I guess I was just looking for some stories from people who manage to work around a 9-5 job. I had a black lab that I took care of when I was growing up, who is still with my parents. My brother currently lives with his girlfriend and they recently got a beautiful little lab. He's getting close to fullgrown now but this is him as a puppy.

I've been looking at getting a dog recently and am wondering how everyone with jobs does it? I've done a lot of research into the dogs I've been looking at, and I have no doubts that I will be able to meet their exercise needs. I mountainbike, run, and generally do a lot of outdoor activities. and can take them for walks in the mornings and evenings. my question is about in between that. I work 9-5 mon to fri. there has to be other people in this situation that have dogs. Do you find that being able to spend time in the mornings and evenings enough? it would be just me looking after it. if I got a puppy I would likely take some time off work so I would be around more often, and would even consider some kind of dog day care so when the dog is young it will get both social interaction with other dogs and a bit of a watchful eye. I'm still a ways off actually getting one but I am curious to how everyone else who has a regular job deals with the responisbility of taking care of a dog. I've got my eye on a few breeds right now with these two popular with me right now anyway. any input greatly appreciated

well I finally got an upclose look at my big skydiving goal. A guy at our dz was flying a beautiful v1. He had on a full face with tinted visor and while he was doing his preflight and pull checks I heard someone jokingly mention "you look like your doing 300mph on the ground!" and no kidding it really did look like he was going to just spread his wings and rocket off into space. I was in between loads as he jumped and boy is there ever a long time between freefallers and wingsuits. I saw everyone else open up and just kept waiting to try and spot him, I couldnt find him, and after what seemed like forever I even got nervous as I was thinking to myself "surely he should be opening by now?". Well finally I saw the chute open and not only had he taken forever to pull, he was still at around 5,000 when he did as I believe he was getting used to the suit. So anyway, was pretty happy to complete my pff jumps 1 and 2 and get a chance to see a bird in action in the same day.

N/A

yeah I couldnt believe it myself when I got home and checked on the old one, I guess its the kind of thing that sticks in your head. I think some of the stuff comes natural due to my interest in aircraft, so a lot of it seems pretty common sense to me. I had been reading a bit about rigs lately too when I was reading about wingsuits as I was planning out what types of things I'd like to get in my future in the sport. I'm hoping to get a used rig to start with after 30 or 40 jumps and then get something new/newer when I get past 200 or so jumps. hopefully its just that I pay attention and pick things up fast, cause I've still got a lot whole hell of a lot to learn, but I'm looking forward to it anyway, I'm hoping for the sun to start shining more often so I can come down and start pff. thanks again arai

well I finally got a break in the weather and a chance to start down the road to doing this more regularly. Everyone at Pacific Skydivers were great and after a pretty smooth groundschool got up for 2 IAD jumps today. My arch needs work but went alright, and the rest of the jump went great on both occasions, both landings being soft standups. To anyone in the Vancouver area wanting to learn, Pacific Skydivers were great and I really enjoyed the experience. Now looking forward to the pff the next time the rain decides go a away for a few days. Rob if you manage to read this I went back and looked up my old jump, I dont know how time flys that fast but it was almost 8 years ago, not 3, I guess I'f I remember it as 3 it means I'm not getting older ;) thanks again Dan