Majaman

Hi there. Well I'm not exactly a veteran dispite my 19 yrs in the sport as I had a 15 year long pause in there. I have therefore done both the traditional course and AFF. There are pros and cons with both, but I do not believe AFF is incomplete, it is just a different way of teaching basically the same things. I believe that I was a better canopy pilot after the traditional course than after AFF, mainly because it is more jumps and I think that AFF makes you better in free fall. This is my personal experience, anyway. You may have point, at least regarding accidents under functional canopies. As a student you are forced to use large docile canopies and are therefore less likely to injure yourself. As the conventional course require many more jumps, you have more canopy training before you go out and buy your first brand new VX81. ;) Just my 0.02$ -------------------------------- Back when I used to jump...

I too got Sabred™(Love that expression) a couple of weeks ago. I jump a 210 so its not only small Sabres that kick. It was a rushed pack job in windy conditions. I could hear my neck do that lovely crunchy sound 0.2 secs after throwing the pilot. Had to see a bonedoctor for some re-crunching (un-crunching?) but I'm good now. :)

So I finally got around to start jumping again. Did my first AFF last Sunday, I'm doing a full course again, partly because of rules and regulations, but mostly cuz I need it. I'm not old enough to have started out on rounds, but I have done all my jumps with a round safely tucked away behind my back. Never got around to trying it out though... So: first jump after 15 years. How was it, I hear you ask. Well, first time around I didn't do AFF so there is a major difference already. I found out that the frequent twists I used to have wasn't due to the flat packs. Oh no. It was me dipping the shoulder when dumping, see. What worried me the most was that I would become as terrified as in the first jumps I did. Fear of fear. But I didn't. It was ALL good. In my mind, of course. Technically it was far from perfect. Bent too much at the knees, the shoulder-dipping-thing and a pretty bad landing. Since my previous, stone-age jumps was on a dog-slow, big-ass, see-through, 7-cell, piece-of-s**t, I was quite surprised by the speed of a modern 9-cell ZP, large as it was. 260, I think. So surprised, in fact, that I did a low turn. Breaked, and about 30 degrees to get up-wind, but still. Then I smartly let the toggles up to full and as soon as I felt it dip, I started a flare at about a meter (3ft) or so. This resulted in a pretty long slide on my posterior in the muddy spring grass. In short - the perfect jump, and I am very pleased. I have not been able to think about anything but getting up in the sky for the last week. Makes me regret all those years not jumping. My biggest disapointment is that someone told me that frap-hats are considered "out". Blast, I was so looking forward too having me one of those. Say it aint so... Oh, and I have lost all old papers, my old log, my jump suit, and do not yet have a new license number, so I used "the neighbour of the beast" for the time being. I hope they find my old numbers hidden away somewhere. I understand that small (early) license numbers are cool, and I need me some of that... Blue skies! -------------------------------- Back when I used to jump...