jduebi

Hi all together First I'll introduce my selve, as the other new forum members did. I'm a software developer from switzerland just at the beginning of my twentys :-). My AFF will start in 25 days and like most of the others I did a tandem and couldn't forget the feeling. But Skydiving was a dream of mine, since I was about 12 years old. The last year I was thinking about skydiving all the time, but I didn't found any earlier training, and of course I had to save some extra money. I was reading within this forum for the last weeks and there where some posts from Beginners, which just finished the training, but don't have enough money to continue. Even if I'v got the luck, that I'v got a nice job, I'm not shure anymore how much it will cost. (In switzerland nobody would talk about payment, and I think it's the same here) For the whole training I calculated 3600 $ including: - 10 days on a Italian DZ with german instructors (just 4 students - It's like private training i think) - 10 days hotel and the travel - AFF - about 20-30 jumps after AFF and perhaps 1-2 rejumps - All the Licence costs (USPA and swiss...) What do you think, could this work out, is it to much, or do I need more? What does the whole gear cost? I calculated with the same as for the training, about 3500 $. Is that enough? Does it make sence to wait the first 100 jumps until I buy my own gear? How much do I need to pay to rent one? I don't wanna buy gear until I'm a little better, because I read that I'll need a stundent gear at the beginning. I think it doesn't make sence to buy such a gear, if it gets boring after a year. What Do you think? After all, when I'll have a gear, and the licence, what's next... How much money do you use for skydiving every month? I already know how much a jump ticket cost. But what's about all the other things, what else do I need to calculate with? Blue Skies Jonas -> Don't forget, a skydive student should ask every question he has in mind. (That's written at the end of my AFF stunden book...) ;-)

Sorry, I don't have an answer, but I have/had the same Problems. I'm swiss, and my mother tounge is german. I had the option to do a cheaper AFF earlier this year in a hoter area of europe. But the Instructor would have spoken english, which wasn't their native language either. So, I searched a while for a german dropzone in the south. If you take a look at europe, there's no german speaking country in the south :-D. But I found a german team which goes to an italien DZ and do AFF training there. So that's my solution... The reason why I'm so scared of having a not native german speaking instructor, was an expiriance I had on my first tandem. The instructor explained me in english that he'll loosening the gear a little bit after the chute is open, and that I'll fall down some inches for that reason. I understood it completely wrong and got a big shock, as I slided down the tandeminstructor after the chute already openend properly... My AFF will start in 25 days, and since I transfered the money, and I know there won't be any way back, I'm thinking about it every moment. But I realy like this kind of fear, it's still exiting, and I hope this won't change... I'm not that affraid of doing something completely stupid in the air, becaus of fear. I'm affraid of the fear before jumping out of the airplain. I know from other expiriances (klimbing), that if I fear to die, the fear is like gone and I start to react like a machine without thinking that much. The time before this 'break even', is what I'm afraid of...

Hey man I'm with you. I'm from switzerland, and will start my AFF in 28 days. Good luck. And hey, it would be great if you post some impressions you got from the AFF. How you handled the fear, and which part of the training was the hardest one... I'm also counting the days.

Hello I'm just making hollydays in Shanghai, but I would like to move here. I wanna make a tandemjump with my friend within the next two weeks and of course I wanna find a dropzone where I can continue jumping when I'm living here. I realy hope somebody knows a dropzone in china. Greets Jonas