brettski74

Cool! That's the starfield simulation, right? You just left it on so long you got to the edge of the universe, right?

I'm not Bill, but you need to keep in mind that when communicating in writing, you do not have the advantage of tone of voice to temper the way in which your words will be received. Email and electronic communications have exacerbated this problem somewhat, because many people can type faster than they write, with less effort required and can send the message off in an instant, without the time to perhaps cool of and think about how to phrase things to be less confrontational. Words like grossly and blatantly tend to imply that the author and editor should have known better and that they were therefore negligent in publishing the story. Whether this is valid or not, many people will find such an implication insulting. When speaking, people rarely use such words without some degree of raised voice or inflection indicating indicating anger, annoyance or similar emotions. When people read such things in writing, they will tend to interpret them similarly. You may want to consider that in the future. The statement about her not deploying her main may be in conflict with many other sources, so it is definitely wrong - maybe even blatanly so in some people's opinion - but I think the way that was worded is more likely to make people defensive than it is to inform them about our sport.

The statement that she didn't deploy anything is false. Witnesses reported watching her main canopy fall away, so clearly she did deploy her main. I haven't seen the actual FAA report, but there have been media reports which refer to it which talk about the following points: Kramer was conscious just after impact and spoke of tension knots in her reserve The FAA report mentions a number of entangled lines on the reserve They were unable to determine the cause of malfunction of her main At least one FAA official has been quoted in the media as saying that her "reserve also was inadequate for her weight. " Before you go commenting further, you may wish to read about the incident in the incident thread. It includes a number of comments from people who were actually there, as well as information from the FAA report. Your statement contains exactly the kind of confusion resulting from misinformation that earlier posters were worried about.

Now that's what I call thinking! That looks hella fun! I wonder how many jumps I need to be allowed to do that? And canopy? They look to be on the small side. Hmmm... I'm trying to figure out the dynamics of doing that on a board. I imagine it would find some kind of equilibrium point where the canopy flies mostly forward, and you might have to ride a lot more on your toes to keep everything going straight, but that's just me thinking out loud. Another thought I had was you'd want to be careful to keep those skis well away from the canopy and lines. A freshly tuned pair of skis will have nice sharp edges that could cut through a canopy in a second.

It sounds like this was a sub-terminal opening. I had the same experience when I test-jumped a Safire 2 I was planning to buy several months back. I exited, waited three seconds and then threw my pilot chute. About three seconds later I was wondering what's going on, looked over my shoulder to see everything streaming out and the canopy snivelling. Within about another half second, I was stood up and all was normal. I spoke with my instructors on the ground and their first response was that a sub-terminal opening may well be noticeably slower than one at terminal velocity. Keep in mind, though, I don't even vaguely resemble an expert, yet, so discuss this with your instructors.

According to the definition on dropzone.com, a wuffo is simply someone who doesn't jump, and upon further reading of the forums, there seems to be some confusion as to the correct spelling of the word. I wonder what it would take to get this added to the Oxford English Dictionary? Until that day, I guess dropzone.com will have to be the official repository of skydiving vernacular. There's also an entry on Wiktionary. I don't think whuffo or wuffo or however you spell it is a dirty word. Most of my friends are still whuffos. Some people are jumpers and some people are whuffos, just like some people are boys and other people are girls. It's perfectly acceptable to be either and don't let anyone ever tell you any different. Back on topic... kudos to you for supporting your wife. I don't have a wife to worry about just yet, but my mum worries about me jumping. We're all generally smart people and know the risks. If something happened to me while jumping, it'll be happening while I'm doing something I love. I'm going to go ahead and guess that the same would apply to your wife. I agree with the advice already given to you several times, so I won't restate it again here. Blue skies.

I've jumped the AN-28, also, and yes - it is a very nice plane to jump from, but it doesn't seems closer to your typical large, turbine jump-ship. The AN-2 - especially the first time I went up in it, with all of it's attitude and character during startup and the ride to altitude, seemed to be the most appropriate fit to the "strange/different" description.

So I went back and in the spirit of sharing, I thought I should let you guys know how it went, since you were so gracious as to encourage me to give it another go in the first place. Aerodium Take 2 was *MUCH* better. I didn't realize that there were a couple of relatively experienced skydiver jumping down at Jelgava who were also instructors at Aerodium. I spoke to one of them and went back with him and another skydiver/tunnel instructor. A few things were different that made it better. First, they've upgraded the machinery so there's more power, now. I definitely noticed it. No more pushing on the air to get up. The air felt smoother this time. I'm not sure that this is anything to do with the machinery. It's probably just more because of me. I was new when I started last time, and I was tired when I finished. Third, having someone actually make suggestions of what to try next and what to focus on helped a lot. I actually felt like I learned something this time. I mostly concentrated on horizontal movement - forward and back, side-to-side, trying to feel out the size of the working area. Tried to do some leg turns, that kind of thing - nothing too radical. I still felt a little sloppy in the air, but it looked quite smooth on the video, so maybe a little more time and confidence is all I need for those maneavres, now. Anyway, I guess the point is as everyone suggested. Don't let the frustration get to you after your first visit. Give it another try and you might be surprised.

I'll check it out when I'm in AZ in January. I'm sure the gear store will have demo rigs, and Aerodyne will apparently be there showing off Triathlons, too.

Antonov AN-2. BIG Russian biplane with canvas wings and a wooden prop. Think Indiana Jones movie, complete with the smoke and 17 different sound effects during the engine start sequence - including one that sounded uncannily like the noise that the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrive made when it was broken in The Empire Strikes Back! Drives like a bus - ie. everything seemingly in slow motion including acceleration deceleration and bumps and a low drone of the engine the whole way, and when they back off the power on jump run, it feels like we've parked. Time to get out and make your own way back down. According to Wikipedia it has no stall speed. Apparently there's one flying jumpers in eastern Canada, too. A friend of me showed me the website, can't remember exactly where it was, though.

I'm assuming that you're talking about demoing several different size mains and then choosing a reserve of a similar size? Reserves are normally designed to be more docile than mains, no? eg. 7-cell instead of 9-cell. Less elliptical or not ellicptical at all - that kind of thing - so they would likely fly quite differently to your main. Is it possible to get demo rigs that have a reserve canopy hooked up as the main? I'm always wondering what my PD-176R will fly like if I ever have to use it. Wondered about that as well - with the why? My main is a PD-210 and my reserve is a PD-176R. I've flown a Safire2 179 before... once... a while ago... It was fine and I landed great, and I doubt the PD-176R will be as aggressive to fly, but still I wonder. For those of you lucky enough to have had a reserve ride, how did you find the reserve performed as a wing - particularly when landing?

I was taught that, too. That makes sense - confining yourself to limited airspace while avoiding radical moves. In my thus far short skydiving career, I have jumped through clouds. No incidents there, yet, but I did have a close call on a three-way one day which highlighted the importance of knowing exactly where everyone around you is when you or they are thinking of deploying. This is one reason why that never deploy inside a cloud unless at the hard-deck makes even more sense to me these days. I wanna know I'm clear before I throw that PC and induce probably the most radical change in my velocity of the entire jump.

What fingers? When I last jumped a couple of weeks ago it was only a 30 second freefall from 7000' but once under canopy I didn't seem to have hands any more - just these hook shaped pain devices attached to my arms in the position where my hands used to be. :)

I had no idea this existed. Cool!

Personally, I think that's something better suited for a personal blog. I write about my skydiving experiences and just about everything else in mine - the purpose being to share my experience as I travel this world with family and friends. Sometimes I like reading them because they can sometimes bring back exhilarating memories of when I first started to skydive - the fear, anticipation,excitement, fun. Other times, they're just boring. If all students start doing this, I wonder how full the forum will get with student stories. If they do become really popular, maybe they'll need a separate forum just for the students.

That's not just awesome. That's officially awesome!

What is a bomber jump? The only thing that comes to mind is jumping out of a B-52 or something, but that doesn't seem so plausible...

Didn't anybody ever tell you to practice safe packing?

"Got to do it" in the sense that I want it so bad that I must do it - that's great. "Got to do it" in the sense that I'm worried my friends will think I'm a pussy if I don't. That's not so good. If you want to get yourself into the other "got to do it" frame of mind, hang around with skydivers for a bit, watch us, get to know us and if you're truly interested in giving it a go, your curiosity will eventually win out. If not, then it's probably not the sport for you. The fear of heights thing - yeah, bad idea, not just because you're not here for the skydiving, but I think it's misguided, anyway. A few times, I've heard people (usually whuffos) suggest that skydiving is a good way to get over a fear of heights. I'm scared of heights - at least, I shit bricks when I am standing at the edge of a cliff looking 20m straight down, even if I'm wearing a rappelling harness. I've tried rock climbing, abseiling and skydiving and had no problem, but looking straight down a cliff still makes me shit bricks. It's just a different experience. Curious - rock climbing automagically creates a link to a rock climbing website, even if I try to make it a link to something else. I wonder what other keywords do this?

I have - but only once. She really didn't want to do it, was nervous on the ground and once she landed, she said she hated it, and the look on her face seemed to agree. I've heard stories of other people who were pressured into a tandem and were in tears. I can't say that that sounded like a positive experience for the person involved, either - or the tandem master for that matter. That said, I love skydiving. You could say that I'm addicted. There is nothing else like it, but as others have said, it's not for everyone. If you're not sure, maybe visit your local dropzone for a bit and just hang out, watch and talk to people. Most whuffos I've met that hang out at dropzones eventually go for a jump and love it. If you visit a dropzone and still don't feel the need to do it, then it's very probably not for you. Edit: Fixed broken formatting.

Here are two more for my home DZ - Skydive Burnaby in Canada, and another one for the Jelgava dropzone in Latvia where I've been jumping for the past couple of months. The Burnaby one is in a low-res part of the world, so I've had to use a bit of edumacated guesstimation. If the resolution improves, maybe we'll see how good my guesstificationing was. :)

Almost correct. It is in the PIM, but it's technical recommendation, which means that it's not absolutely required like a BSR, but you are supposed to get written approval obtained before deviating from them. Another reason why you may be OK. I can't think of anyone at my DZ who started to learn packing until after they'd obtained their Solo CoP. As I read those rules, a Solo CoP holder is permitted to jump a main packed by someone without their main packing endorsement. I'm thinking, though, they're probably often jumping the pack job of the person before them, as are the people still on student progression. Do your Solo CoP jumpers rent the same gear that is used by people on your student progression?

By "container flaps", do you mean the pin covers? That's the only place on my Vector 2 that has tuck tabs. The riser covers are velcro. Edit: Changed "vector" to "Vector 2".

I take cash, jump tickets or coaching.

FWIW, I wasn't planning to start swooping for a long time, but I was thinking about maybe a Safire2 169 or similar in the next 6 months. I'd read only about a third of the way through that first list and I found myself rethinking that. There's no rush, and I can happily wait until I've got 200 or more jumps before making that decision. Maybe making the carnage more accessible won't work for everyone, but reading through that list made me think - and hopefully the right thing.