Ratty

As long as its all fixed and sorted before i get there i'm happy!

I'm going to the UK in January so will be tunnel flying for the first time ever, yeee ha. Why? Just because I happen to be staying a few km's from the tunnel

Thanks jheadley. I agree about staying on the ground in windy conditions. A lot of people say that student canopy's don't collapse, I beg to differ. We were jumping at a new dropzone and the wind "limits" were unknown. The wind was very turbulent and I had a rather nasty canopy collapse, luckily high enough to recover before landing. Its been an interesting thread for me as I will be looking into buying gear in the near future and want as much info as possible.

Everyone has mentioned the over loading, what about underloading? What is the minimum loading a canopy should be? I'm currently doing my student progression and have to jump a 280 which gives me a wing loading of around 0.55. Means I descend VERY slowly even with doing lots of turns. Only 3 more jumps and I get to convert to a 210 which will at least be a wing loading of 0.7

I met my current BF after about 3 months of going to the drop zone. He has been a sky diver for many years and has quite a few hundred jumps under his belt. He has no problem jumping himself but like you gets really nervous when I jump. He even shouted at me once because i didn't flare all the way on my one landing (I'm very light jumping a student canopy, just wanted a bit of fun). If you love a person you will always worry, its just a matter of learning to hide that worry for their sake.

Patience... I'm on my student progression, getting through it nicely whenever I get the chance to get to the dropzone and the weather is playing nice, but all I can think about is jumping with other people, being able to do what I want on a jump without a JM checking on me and trying new things. Sigh... only 5 more jumps to go!!!

Jumping at a different dropzone for the first time I had a rather nasty canopy collapse at about 900 ft. Luckily the canopy reinflated and I landed safely. I messed up my next 3 jumps purely because i was so nervous and stressed about my canopy ride instead of concentrating on my jump. I had previously trusted the student canopies, that was no longer true. I didn't want to get out the plane which even on my first jump I didn't have a problem with. Now I'm happily jumping again without that intense fear

My poor mom almost had a heart attack when her friend asked me how many jumps I had done without a static line, she thought I had done less than 10 jumps all with a line attached. Point is there are some things people should just NOT know. I prefer to just keep my mouth shut unless I know the person won't give me a hard time.

I know about nose bleeds/ blood in spit all too well. Been suffering with sinus since I was a kid and when it gets bad I will often cough up blood or my nose will bleed. The bleeding is either caused by a drop in blood pressure or a burst blood vessel. At night your blood pressure drops and I occasionally will wake up with blood in the system. Never painful or anything but still not fun. It will be interesting to know what your doc says. So far mine haven't come up with a remedy except telling me to eat more salt and occasionally putting me on anti-biotics. Doesn't stop me jumping though.