Baksteen

I really don't understand this. What are they thinking? Most facemasks don't do anything to protect you since they are not designed to stop viral particles. Even the 'correct' masks offer only very limited (if any) protection if improperly used, especially if not combined with safety glasses and other protective clothing. Maybe, just maybe there is limited protection of others directly in front of you if you sneeze in your mask, but even then a lot of air gets out around the edges of the mask. And don't even get me started on people removing their masks to scratch their nose, talk to other people FTF or no the phone..... IMO every mouthmask worn by an untrained member of the public is witholding one from a professional in a high risk job who needs it a lot more.

Yes, still happening for me as well. This includes page headers, forum names, posts, user names etc. The only things non-italicised are the "notify me of replies" and "submit reply" buttons.

You have convinced me. I have notified the Dutch government and they will issue the measures you mandate as soon as possible.

That's quite the conclusion you draw, based on a post that was clearly a so-called "joke" (look it up sometime). But for you information, I meant families as in parents and children living in the same home. Not as in aunts, uncles, parents and children living elsewhere. I am not going to justify or even explain the measures my country takes, which I fully support. I'm not a doctor, but a laboratory technician who works with different viruses. You can look them up yourself, provided of course you can see the screen of your tablet from the back of your high horse.

In the Netherlands, social distancing is not applicable for families. So my wife and I (who both have the necessary Mad Skillz) decided we could jump from, say, a rented 172 if we adopted a pilot. Then we realised that many of the (volunteer) pillots at our club are also commercial airline pilots. We briefly considered the amount of college debt your average pilot incurs during their study and decided we'd wait until the preventative measures are revoked, along with everyone else.

I used cheap-ish silicon ear plugs with changeable filters. Good results, no problems communicating in CReW (it actually got better due to dampening of the wind noise), no pressure issues on the plane or during the few freefalls I did. Unfortunately I lost these earplugs a while back, on a less than perfect jump. I've been using the even more cheapo foam plugs since then - and they also work just fine even though I did not take them into freefall yet.

When I was a new jumper I bought a second-hand Rainbow warmsuit (airtherm suit). https://rainbowsuits.com/en?s=thermal By far the best investment in Skydiving I've ever made. IIRC they're based in Germany, so shipping costs probably won't be prohibitive.

For some reason, whenever I log in from my laptop (Firefox) the entire site (and only this site) is in Italics. 'My' desktop at work (Chrome) does not have this problem.

Is this the same attitude you display in skydiving if peoplpe don't give you what you want? You go to DZ B if DZ A won't let you jump the canopyt you want? What happened to this community and cameraderie stuff you were on about?

Just musing, not criticising... I have never understood why websites (are made to) go through all this trouble of privacy statements, cookie warnings, terms of use agreements etc. etc. and then have the 'remember login' set to 'yes' by default.

This seems the most likely cause to me. I would ask a suitable experienced person watch you pack. The first thing I thought was that the slider may not be all the way up against the slider stops, or that it may be incorrectly 'flaked' (translation issue here). The slider must be all the way up and packed to catch as much air as possible in order to work most efficiently. I'm sure native English speakers on here can explain more properly waht I mean, but it is best if someone shows you in person how to pack the slider. If you're sure that you do these things correctly, it may be that the slider shifts when you put the canopy in the bag.

Lack of money to pay for my jumps Lack of time to go jumping Lack of good weather to jump in Closing in fast (for all Dutch jumpers) is lack of willingness by ATC to facilitate us. Basically in the Netherlands ATC makes the policy, checks and audits the implementation of said policy AND advises the government about aforementioned policy. The results are artificial ceilings in a radius of basically the entire country and denying demoes that are "too close" to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, let's say within a radius of 10-15 miles. The latest developments include actually grounding DZ A if DZ B requests extra altitude by NOTAM for special events.

Nor does using appropriately sized rubber bands, which eliminates the need for double stowing - incidentally without removing the PITA of replacing rubber bands more often (hence the comparison). IMO laziness in replacing the rubber bands is the real cause of all that bagstrip, linedump etc. that people are so afraid of - not the fact whether you double stow very large rubber bands or single stow very small rubber bands, or something in between.

The discussion about the superiority of double of single stowing is just as useless as the one about the superiority of the single hand reserve procedure versus the two handed reserve procedure. Let's just say that you have your theory and I have mine and let's agree to disagree. However, I feel that if the entire cause of someone's canopy opening reliably is dependent on being super anal about what rubber bands you use and how you use them, there might be other underlying issues at play. And yes, of course I am exagerrating, which I know better how to do then how to spell.

Reminds me of that Star Trek flick in which they have to jump off the starship and land on a platform under some kind of bat wing shaped canopy... During the scene I was complacently smiling and thinking 'let's see what Hollywood has thought up about how the future has improved skydiving. Until they slapped their three rings and the canopy packed itself. Then I thought, "Alright, I want one of those". I see a lot of good comments here in this thread, but I'm not entirely getting the part about the pilot chute not fitting and needing a lot of force to be put in the rig. Are you jumping springloaded gear by any chance? BTW, I am not a fan of double-stowing rubber bands. I just use *smaller* rubber bands.

That's what I usually use to whuffo's to relieve the tension. But last week a French jumper told me an even better one: "Then I take out my gun and shoot my buddy, because I don't want to die alone".

Congrats on a job well done. It might be worth it for a rigger to check whether the release cables are not too long. There might be lots of reasons why the cables did not come out fully, but this is an easy one to rule out.

Skydiving off a dragon...now that would be a first - and really cool. :-)

Think of it as a debrief (of a jump in this case) instead of criticising someone. Don't say "whoa that was shketchy, you are gonna die you @$$hole!!!" but instead say "<<general remark about the jump>>, but have you considered" - Consider "the eye of the beholder" Often it's not what "you" intended to write, but what other people read into a given post that sets the tone. Sometimes (especially with sensitive issues) it's a good idea to write up your post, have a coffee break, reread it all trying to take into account the other person's perspective and edit accordingly. - Sandwich your feedback No matter how bad the jump, there is always something positive to be found. Instead of falling into the trap of listing every mistake, focus on a few key points. Start and end with positive remarks, and alternate your criticisms with positive remarks as well. Think - don't needlessly repeat after one another. If what "poster X" has written pretty much covers what you were going to say and you have really nothing new to offer, there is no point in typing that stuff all over again. Just like the post, agree with the poster, or whatever. I'm mostly talking about a post which is made in a thread before the OP has responded to it. If they HAVE responded to it, first read the reaction and adjust your response accordingly. Most of the above has a high "duh" factor. Yet.....

Just something to consider: The smaller the canopy, the smaller the margin for error. The higher the WL, the smaller the margin for error. Of zourse you chose a container suitable for that canopy and probably have an even smaller reserve, because that is what most jumpers have. And now you're flying your reserve having to land off in high winds on a field surroudned by high trees and you are also wearing a few pounds of lead to keep up with your FS4 buddies.

Just replying to this part of your post. Sorry to disagree, but you can succesfully PLF any landing. The PLF is meant to distribute the energy from a hard impact, thus preventing or at least limiting damage. Landing on one's behind (intentionally or not) is an advanced landing technique with, if improperly executed, high risk of damage to the spinal cord. The trick to a successful PLF is to already assume the PLF-body position when you turn onto final or at ~100 ft at the latest (instead of while you're touching down). That way you have enough time to perform the mental checklist (knees bent, chin on chest etc.) while still keeping an eye out for traffic.

Hah, snap! :-)

When I started out I was telling everyone and their dog about skydiving, as we all do. My parents were immediately very supportive. Other responses varied (and still do) from the "death wish"-variety to the "I always wanted to do that"-variety. Thirteen years later, I'm very reticent about talking about jumping, especially in 'new' social circles. I prefer people to get to know and (dis)like me for myself, rather than for a stereotype attached to some hobby I have. However, if people have questions (including about incidents reported on the news), I take my time to answer them as best I can. To the "death wish"-clan I talk about the risk management that is involved in skydiving. You have to remember, all that your average person has to go on is a few poorly informed and/or sensationalist news reports and Hollywood. If you take the time to educate people, you'll see that the questions and remarks you get from people will gradually turn into interest, sometimes despite themselves. Friends and family may still not like what you do, but at least they'll trust you to keep the risks as manageable as possible - provided you earn that trust of course.

For convenience I'm lumping all wind conditions in the landing pattern together. I'm guessing that the 'incident' rate wouldn't correlate so much with wind conditions in general as with what the jumper themselves are used to. If you're used to landing in low winds, you're more likely to bollix up at high winds and vice versa. If the winds are high, then there is little to no chance to overshoot on final, but there is more risk of being blown off course on your base leg, or turning too late from your downwind leg. Or you might have to land while backing up - stressful for most jumpers.

If you only want to look at (serious) skydiving incidents were gear failure was the only issue, you also only may look at (serious) traffic incidents where gear failure was the only issue. I'm betting those are even closer to zero.