jduebi

Ignore it. When I told my parrents I had this "don't say anything, I won't listen" look in my face. Just tell her, that your not interessted in her oppinion about skydiving at all and that if she starts talking about it, you'll leave. Tink about it as if it would be a boyfriend which your mother doesn't like, would you even listen to her in this situation? You can not expect from her, that she'll like the idea of her daughter jumping out of airplaines. But she can not expect that you listen to her, or even stop with it.

Thank you for all the answers... Everyone seams to have a little different opionion, but the answers are still realy usefull to me. These are the main points, I'll try to take with me out of this discussion: - Landing is the most dangerous part of the sport, plan it early enough and keep concentrated until the canopy lies on the ground. - Never endanger other people if there is another way you could survive. - Don't try to land within a zone which is to small for your skills, as long as you have another possibility. - Be honest to your selve, and keep your personal limits in mind. One jump less a day, is one jump less and nothing more. One jump to much at a day could end in no skydivining for some months or even no skydiving anymore at all...

What if the winds are perpendicular to the runway? They want people doing crosswind landings? I got the instruction that we land parallel to the runway against the wind or into the direction of the first jumper. Of course you can land angular to the runway, and there are several alternative landing zones. But I never ever saw someone land across the runway onto the main lz. I think that rule is especialy for the main landing zone, because if you would land perpendicular to the runway and land after or before the lz you woul hit a building, land on the runway or into a creek. I'm realy not expirianced and I don't wanna say anything which brings my home dz into a bad light. It's realy a great DZ! We have a realy good and realy realy realy expirianced DZO and I'm shure he made the right decision. It's a swiss dropzone and it's perfectly organized and they are realy aware about security! I'm shure they know what they do.

That's exactly my problem... Everything worked out... Some linetwists, one or two plf but never any injuries... Perhaps that sounds wierd. "If you know that problem, why don't you just take it more serious..." That's not that easy as a young guy who wanna hava some action, you start to drift in this dardevil approach without recognizing it.

Thank you for that answer... It's great to hear, that the decision wasn't that stupid. Nobody told me to land beside the street and nobody told me that I should have landed into the cornfield. But everyone at the dropzone told me that it was completly stupid to land opposed to the stundents. Of course it would have been a problem if there would have been more jumpers in the air.

Your totaly right. I think my biggest problem is, that I'v got 51 jumps and the fear is getting lower every jump. I read a lot about people who have a hard time fighting their fear, and I also had some moments during my first 15 jumps. But isn't it a much bigger problem if the fear and respect is going away? It's perhaps also because of my age, that the fear is going away much faster. I don't wanna tell you, that I'm a cool guy, I know that this is stupid... There are some students in my age and I recognized that most of them also get this problem the more jumps they have. I just wanna know if you also expirianced this moments, when you recognize that you don't take it serious enough? And what do you do against it without loosing the fun? ------------------------------------------------------------------ Perhaps I should make a new post for this question. Something like: 'How to keep focus if your loosing your fear? How to avoid becoming a daredevil if your a young guy starting to skydive?'

Hi there A week ago I did a jump with a stupid landing. I didn't sleep enough, but I felt awake enough to handle a jump easyly. It was a great jump until about 1200 feet. I forgot to check the wind bellow 1200 feet, I didn't check the speed of the jumpers which landed bellow me, perhaps because I was a little tiered. I turned into downwind at the usual spot and got realy slow because of the strong crosswind. I was to low to do a clean base/final, the only way to reach a landing area was straight ahead... (Our dropzone has the 'always' parallel to the runway rule) I was about 600 feet and had 3 choices: 1.) Fly straight forward and land on the student area safley, but opposed to the other jumpers. 2.) Slow 180 degree turn and land on a 30 feet band of bicycle way and grass just beside a street with some fast traffic. 3.) Land in the cornfield which is for shure no fun at all. There where just 2 students in the air which I could easyly avoid. So I decided to land straight forward opposed to them. What do you think? Would you generaly avoid any landing area if you land opposed to the other jumpers? Would preffere to land into a high cornfield with a warranty of plf? Or would you land close to a street? Thanks for the answer.

Hi I'm a swiss skydive student, did my AFF and a cuple of jumps. The swiss licence is similar to the USPA B licence, that means it takes longer to get it and until then I am a stundent... The point is, that I wanna buy a RW-Jumpsuit and my instructor told me that shuldn't use booties. Now the point is, that I don't wanna buy a RW suit without booties, because if I realy wann do RW as I get my licence, I'll need them. Isn't it? And I don't wanna buy another RW suit just to get booties :-) Question: - What about wrap the booties inside? - Can I add booties to an existing suit? What do you think? Greetings from switzerland

FreeBSD is also realy nice.

What would happen if it rains on the ground. Would it be possible to fly the canopy in rain...

Damn I can understand you, I'll go to AFF next week (10 days in the south) and the weather forecast looks realy bad. I'm realy scared, because these days will cost me a lot of money, and it would be horrible if I could jump only for a few days. How hard would it be to do a AFF in the rain? :-)

Of course it's hard to determine somehting like this for your self, but I think that's not the problem. It's just that I often get upset about the USA. Your country just looks much different if you see the things trought our media.

Ok, if you tell me that Bush won the election fair... That will make it pretty hard for me to talk to any US american without a big grin. Oh and I think you realy should take a look on other countrys how to do ellections...

Did you know that there where/are a lot of dubiously AIDS expriments with children in New York... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/4038375.stm But that's not bad, because the great USA, the country of freedom, you decide what's right and wrong on this world. You have your own human rights, isn't it? Torture? Is he an american? No? So why do you ask? You even got your own understanding of a democracy. I live in Switzerland, and I can tell you, you'v no idea how a democracy even looks like. The only thing that relieves me is, that the US people are not generaly naiv, most of them just have no idea of whats going on because of their manipulated media.

Bush in the right direction? Only he stumbles :-D So sorry, but US americans are often so naive. Ok perhaps that's the first thing your dictatureship (government) did against energy problem, but it's far away from calling it a right direction. Don't try to convice me that your government is a democracy, or that you'v got a good social system or something similar. I'm from switzerland, and damn you have no idea of what's democracy and freedom means... (that was off topic, I'm sorry, I get emotional about (against) the USA all the time)

Some friends of me went to a french DZ to make some tandem jumps. They told me (everyone of them), that the opening was pretty hard. I also made a tandem on a czech DZ near prague, and the opening was realy fluffy soft. I'm just doing my licenc and won't make any tandem jumps anymore. But there are even more friends who would like to do a tandem, because of my new sport... (Some of them even wanna do it with me, but yea, you know that question... They just don't get the difference between the driver licence and the one for skydiving.) Now the question: What would you do to check if the tandem staff of a DZ is doing their job? Look for old gear? Some labels like this F-111 you talked about?

I see your point, your totaly right. The solution of the SportVue is pritty nice that way. I just thought it would be fancy... (I think there was a realy good safety article about all this fancy stuff, perhaps I should read it again...) It needs a lot of ideas to get a good one :-D

That's nice but not what I want. Speed and a exact hight would be great. I'm working as a software developer and it realy shouldn't be a big deal. The problem is parhaps, that the market is not big enough to develop and manufacture a more complex system. And of course it's not to watch movies while sitting in a train, it has to work 99.999999% reliable within a harsh enviornment. Ie. it would need two altimeters for shure, one for the number which is more fancy, and one for the warning which is not that high tech but more reliable...

That's what I was talking about. But does it realy need to be that big? They wanna do one with GPS :-D, in 3 years there'll be a nice voice within the helmet, telling us "after the next cloud turn 90 degree right, track until you get the pull sign", or "5 seconds to flair, 4, 3, 2, 1 now!".

Hi Looking for a new gear I took a look on several altimeters and asked my selve, why nobody builds this into a helmet. It wouldn't be that hard, there are several cheap technologies to integrade a digit display within a visor. Additional to the AGL, the vertical speed and the time till impact would be very interessting... Would you pay 500$ for such a helmet, or perhaps even 700$ ? Technicaly it wouldn't be a big deal. Greetings from switzerland

Hi I'll go to gorizia in italy with the team of the german 'EXIT' Skydive group... For me it's realy important, that my instructor speaks german as a mothertoung, even if my english is not too bad. I made a bad expiriance with not understanding a jumpmaster. For you it's a little easier, because there are a lot of instructor, which speak realy good english. I found some DZs in Germany and Switzerland which go to warmer regions for 1 or 2 weeks in the winter. I also found one which goes to the USA, but that's a little far, and not my favorite country :-) Greetings from switzerland...

I've done over 800 hundred tandems and never had a student like that. Occasionally you can get one in the grounds school that needs a minor attitude adjustment, but I've never seen that in the air. At my first tandem, the jumpmaster also lowered me, but I had no idea why, and what he's doeing. That was also scary... He actually told me that at the ground, but I didn't understood it right, because english is not his mother toung and also not mine :-)

Thank you for all the great information! Even if the costs are a little to high, it will motivate me, to make mor money... And that's great about my job, it's a matter of knowledge, working hours and of corse the right connections... Blue Skies

Ok: 1. Skydiving is something I wanna do since I'm 12 2. I had to wait a year after my first Tandem to start AFF At the moment I'm thinking about nothing else than getting up there, getting into it... And of course, what I realy wann do as soon as I'm good enough, is wingsuit flying. Back to the topic... Of course, most students won't, and even I didn't read as much about skydiving to decide if an instructor is a good one, or if the gear is still ok. (Even the poorest DZ won't give you a gear, of which they know, that it won't work at all...) That's why organisations like USPA and of course pages like this are realy important. That's why it is realy important to writhe reviews of gear and dropzones, because no manufacturer and no dz will tell you that their bad :-)

I'll start my AFF in 24 days and of course I also thought about this point. As a stundent in the end, I'v no big choice than to believe the instructor, so I don't realy know how good the gear works... But I'm not that affraid about that problem, because I'll ask anything, and the instructor will have to explain me everything. And I wanna see the AAD, and all things I already know from reading all the safety articles here :-) I think a Student should remind the following sentence: "It's not about trust, it's about my live." That's why I wanna make an AFF with a small group of students and enough instructors which speak my language... Hopefully everyone who wanna start skydiving will read about it enough, before he starts AFF.