dontbounce

If I dropped an object from a plane, how long would it take before all lateral motion ceased and the fall was straight down? Say for example, If I wanted to drop a "crash test dummy" from a plane at 2000ft and have it land within a 1000ftx1000ft area. A good spotter could probably tell me... I dont know the math to figure it out... Anybody know? Assuming no wind, minimal drag, etc... Also, it takes 1000 feet and 10 seconds before you reach terminal right? Thanks!

Makes me feel better... Thanks! Good landing... beer!

I retract my earlier statement. It seems sensible that you shouldn't be learning EP's off the internet. Right? After all, what if I (being the asshole I am) tell you that the real emergency procedure is to tap your heels together three times and say: "theres no place like home" "theres no place like home" "theres no place like home" and "poof" you magically appear in the DZ bar with a cold one sitting in front of you... They will train you what to do. Just do what they (instructors) say, exactly how they say to do it. Practice over and over again until you can feel your handles in your sleep.

During my first jump, I was really nervous. I had a lot of adreneline in my system. I had gone over the procedures over and over again. But during the jump, I lost track of how high I was, and my instructor had to pull my "rip cord" for me. If my instructors had not been there, the same thing would have happened to me. It is hard to describe unless you have done it, but it is safe to say the I had so much adreneline in my system that I was incapacitated by it. You could describe my experience as a "blackout", although I was partially aware of what was going on.. There have been other cases of jumpers that had heart attacks during a jump. This is a possibility. I am sorry about your friend. We are a close knit group of people here, and it pains us to hear when we have lost one of our own. I hope my explanation of my own experience has given you a better understanding of some of the possible things that can happen in freefall. Paul

Get new friends... Thats what I did... :)

ME TOO! I didnt want to be the first one to say it... I was nervous and excited. My first tandem, I thought I was going do die of heart attach the entire 4 hours before the jump. My first AFF Jump, I thought I would never sleep again. My Second Aff Jump, it was still pretty bad, but not as bad as before (I went to work that night), and I was bale to sleep in the same 24 hour period. It gets easier the more you do it. The most important thing you can do is rationalise it in your head. Stay calm on the jump. I can't stress this enough. As long as you are able to stay cool on the jump, that is all that is important. Avoid stimulants the day of the jump (Coffee, Cigaretts, Medications, etc) and it helps a lot. Skydiving is all I think about anymore too. :) Just ask my wife, whats-her-name. I saw her just a few weeks ago... LOL If it is true fear that makes you want to quit, you have to look at yourself in the mirror and decide if you are willing to be beaten by your fear, or or you going to push through it.

TomBuch, I know you... I read your book... Good stuff...

Yes, I am hungry for knowledge. No I dont have a "SIM", don't even know what it is. I will check out the link you sent... Thanks! Why are you concerned? You didn't ask a ton of questions when you started? That concerns me a bit! This forum is a great resource. I would rather know too much than too little. Sure, while too much info is a bad thing, I don't want to place my life in the hands of others. I am too much of a control freak to just "assume" that everything will go as expected. I want to know about MALS, EPs, Going In, risk levels, AAD's, Wingloading, Hook Turns, RSLs, different types of canopies & containers, etc, etc, etc... Check the attached Photo and all will become clear...

Welcome! I am doing Accelerated Free Fall at Skydive Arizona in Eloy. It isn't cheap, but it IS a lot cheaper than other sites I have seen, and the folks/gear/drop zone here are all superb... 1 tandem jump, 1 wind tunnel, and two jumps. If you are just starting out, do a tandem jump. All of the fun, none of the responsibility. It is great, and you will be hooked. I got a tandem jump as a "once in a lifetime" present for my 31st BDay, and here I am, less than a month later, working on my AFF. My wife has created a monster!! Costs: It starts out pretty expensive, then it gets gradually cheaper.. After you get your A license and your own gear, it costs as little as $20.00 per jump. If you can swing it, some schools have package deals that are signifigantly cheaper than doing your 25 jumps individually.... What better way to murder a brand new credit card, eh? :) Like the other guy said, the cost varies greatly. It IS cheaper than a Coke habit, and the rush is way better...

Thanks! I am more confident now... That means a lot me me. I appreciate it.

OK! Well, I figured as much, but I wanted to make sure... Thanks guys!

OK, So i screwed my 1st jump. Got side tracked, inst pulled for me (thanks Phil). Is it "against the rules" to have an Audible during AFF Jumps? To be honest, having my inst pull for me scared the shit out of me and it took a whole lot of sack and a little bit crazy to do it again (AFF L1) the same day. I am glad I did, but I think I will be scared on Level 2 and spend the whole dive watching the needle drop. I would feel A LOT more comfortable on AFF 2-7 knowing that I had some backup system to help keep me focused on my Alti. A little angel on my shoulder going "pssst!" time to check alti...

Sorry for the stupid newbie question, but everybody says that I should still ask if I dont know... Theoretically: I am doing ok, it comes time to pull, and nothing. If I deploy my reserve with my main still on my back, will it work? What if I deploy my reserve without cutting away? It looks like the main actually sits on top of the reserve in the container. If the main is still neatly packed in the container, will the reserve have room to "get out"? I am not looking for legally binding advice here, so dont tell me to talk to my instructors. I just want to know from some old timers or riggers how it is set up in the container... Is it one on top-one on the bottom (e.g. fully independent) [r] [m] or is it "main sitting on top of reserve" so if my main sticks, my reserve will not deploy until the main is fully cut away... [m/r] Anybody know where I can find some animations or scemtics of how it works? Maybe I can go hang out at the DZ being a packer's bitch for a few weekends... heh heh Thanks guys, Paul

Heli to heli? You know about rotor blades, right? You know that the general direction a diver goes during a fall is down right? So, to get into a door of a heli, you have to enter from above to a spot directly below the rotor blades... I can toss a hackeysack between the blades of my ceiling fan and not get whacked about 3/10 times. So, I guess if you have a great sense of timing... Let me know if you pull it off. Send me the video and I will mail you a case of longnecks and some big brass balls to go with it...

Do not take what I say as "advice", it is just my "opinion". Take notice of the fact that I have three jumps, one of which was a tandem. Your instructore are the best people to ask. They are usually a great bunch of folks that are glad to help you... With that said... I was told DO NOT rely on a peice of equipment, and that even though the RSL will probably get your reserve out out the bag before you even have your hand on the reserve handle (99.5% of the time), the other 0.5% of the time you will feel like a real genius/pimp for pulling the reserve handle... I was taught the Emergency procedures as if I didn't even have an RSL. If you think about it, the upside of pulling the reserve handle is that if your rsl fails, then you save your own butt. The downside is... If your rsl works, then you will pull your reserve handle for nothing... Seems worth it.. make sense? I am all about erring on the side of caution, esp at terminal velocity with a malfunctioning main...

No I am looking to learn how to do my aff. With three jumps so far, I would say instructor is still a few weeks away... thanks though... lol

My AFF Level 1 was lock on to the alti at 6500. At 5500 wave and pull (basically all in one smooth motion). Yeah, unfortunately, I learned that firsthand... Adrenaline is a strange thing. It can make a normal person into either "superman", or "rain man" (as in my case)...

Get there early, so you dont have to park in the back lot... Lot of fine powder dust... The closer you park to the front, the cleaner your ride is at the end of the day...

I search around a little looking for info on AFF and found this site: http://www.skydiveelsinore.com/jumpstart/index.html They have some awesome animations about AFF. Does anybody know how accurate this info is (esp EPs/Mals) and how much variance will I encounter at an AFF course elsewhere? I noticed their level 1 pull altitude is 4500 and mine was 5500... I thought the animations were great, and really helped me visualise how the rest of my AFF Jumps will go (as long as the material is the same). Thanks!

I drank the first time I did my tandem, and I drank after my AFF L-1. Mostly just an issue with nerves, and being so amped up that I felt sick to my stomach and had the shakes. I assume after a few more jumps, this will become less of an issue. Normally, I almost never drink. When I do, a double shot of Gin does the trick. ;)

Thanks! I feel a lot better about it now. 3 jumps and zero titanium/zero reserve rides. Good enough for me. I am glad I was failed. While I don't expect that the AFFI's ever "fudge" somebody and let them squeak by unless they are sure they are good to go, it was a great learning experience. I knew exactly what I had to do, I had the sequence down PAT, but when it came time to go, I had so much adreneline in my brain that I seized up (like running your mom's ford taurus on 120 octane jet fuel...) All the preparation in the world doesnt mean squat if your shit your pants on the exit. At any rate, I was able to keep perfect awareness on my 2nd jump by simply calling out the altitude to my self every time I checked it. For the cost of a dry mouth and some lost gum, I did 1000% better on #2 (and even landed on the grass)... Everything was groovy... I wish I had paid more attention to my pilot chute, and properly performed a 5 count when I deployed it, but It opened and no line twists on #2, so what the heck... Here it is the next day, and I still get a little burst of adrneline just thinking about it.

Me neither. I still remember it like it was yesterday... Oh wait... It was yesterday.

Yeah I will be extremely conservative for a long time. I have a wife and 4 year old son. Now, if It were 10 years ago... Watch out below!

Nonsense. I love all the advice I can get and I appreciate you posting it. When I said dont take advice from people that have scarcly more experience than you, I was talking about me. I am as green as they come. I didnt want to come off as sounding like I wrote the book, and having some poor schmuck go in because of something I said that he took as the gospel. I was just posting my obversations as an L1 jumper, because none of the 1000+ crowd even remembers the grip of blind panic, or the 10 gallons of adreneline and I hoped maybe I could help another person thinking about doing their L1 keep their cool by telling them how my jump went. If I can help another diver, then great. I tried to stick the what I was taught and not to give any advice, except what was absolutely nessecary. You know, altitude, awareness, keep cool, pull. All good advice. Seems really silly to you 250+ and even more so to the 1000+ folks, but hey, for us L1s, these are things that brought me from doing terribly on try #1 to almost perfect on #2. Cheers!

Thanks for the kind words.. Yes, it took a real gut check to get that suit back on. :) I am glad there was a 2 hour lag between jumps. It gave me time to think everything through, identify my mistakes, and even to spend some time relaxing and cooling off. I psyched myself out the first time. It was 0% fun (well, canopy ride was fun). I was a LOT easier on the 2nd go. I kept my cool, and it was like 50% fun, 50% deadly serious. Maybe next time I will shoot for 60/40. ;)