Jazzthieve

It's one thing to sit stable, it's another thing to be able to fly it.

Those are things that you don't need to worry about right now. If you go to your local drop zone everything will be explained to you there. Students always start out with rental gear and by the time you're ready to get your own gear you'll know yourself what chute/rig to buy.

I sleep, the ride up is pretty boring, so if there's nothing important to be said I try to sleep,... then I jump.

That was the movie "Drop Zone" I think not the other one. According to that movie it even is possible with a tandem .

I'm going to order a new freefly suit. After my experience with matter didn't turn out so well I'm gonna choose a Tony suit now. My eye has fallen on a particular suit I've seen in the picture gallery on their site: http://www.tonysuits.com/gallery/images/Alchemy_standA1.jpg Can anyone help me determine what materials are being used based on that picture, it seems you can choose between supplex, 4-ply, polycotton and spandex and I don't know the difference between them. Also does anyone know what kind of blue is used on that suit. The 3D design program on their site isn't that much of a help in determing that specific blue and Tony suits themselves haven't responded to any of my mails, that's why I'm asking here.

BTW It was a major from the para troopers that told me that mate

The first things I bought were gloves and goggles, nothing more, and that was after I had 10 jumps.

You might want to do a few jumps and see if skydiving realy is your thing before spendng several thousands of dollars.

He's not talking about "typical military jump", in my country (Belgium) paratroopers sometimes go pretty high up on Halo jumps, and I'm not talking about 18.000 ft, more like 30.000 and sometimes even higher. It's a fact that people can start having troubles with their fillings. I've recently been on a 20.000 ft halo jump and some people experienced itchy gums and and slight pain on their teeth. Even before I went on that halo jump, everyone who went got a briefing from the pilot about what it would feel like and he too mentioned that there is a possibility of experiencing pain on teeth fillings. So I wouldn't be too hasty on calling it a "ludicrous statement".

That is correct, at my home dz and two others I've visited It's a rare exception that a novice average sized skydiver has anything larger than 170 as his own first rig.

112 jumps and I have a Spectre 150 loaded at 1,23. First jump with the spectre was at #34. Love that canopie, great landings in all conditions.

I didn't fail any, much to my own surprise.

So you're freeflying after only 60 jumps??

I have to agree with tho other posters, you are worrying too much and over-analyzing it perhaps jumping isn't something that's ment for you.

So acording to your "advice" I should have chopped it, you probably missed the part where my post said "my right hand got stuck with it". Perhaps I'm a noob and I know nothing but I don't think it's a good idea to chop while your stuck on your main with your hand. Also for a guy with only 157 jumps your giving away "advice" like your an instructor. I was able to think and experiment about what I could do because I had the time or do you realy think I would do this every time when I'm confronted with a malfunction. The fact is I had a mal I dealt with it the best way I saw fit and I landed safely without any problems so don't tell me how I should have dealt with it according to you cause you "know", you weren't there. The USPA's licensing is apparantly totaly different then what we have here in Belgium, here you automatically get A after 25 jumps, B is 50, C is 100 and D is 200 jumps. During AFF most emphasis is placed on the skydiving part (stable freefall, altitude awareness, pulling, exits,...) canopy piloting is something that's not realy handleled in depth during AFF.

Last week I had my very first small malfunction. Everything went well on opening, my spectre opened soft and on heading as usual. The first thing I did was check where everyone was, then I released my toggles. But then trouble began, my right toggle was stuck, I couldn't get it loose, in some way I had made a mistake on my packing job. Not only was my toggle stuck but my hand got stuck with it aswell. My spectre started turning to the right but I balanced it by pulling the left toggle level with the right. After some time I got my right hand freed and started trying to get that toggle loose...to no aveil. In the mean time I steered my canopy with my left toggle so I could land on the dz. I started thinking "man this is gonna be a hard landing", there's was little to no wind that day. But then I rememberd those swoopvideos I've seen those guys using their front-risers to make hook turns. So I thought, let me try the back-risers then instead of the front risers, I tried it in the air and thought this might work. So I got myself ready to land, at the same time I would normally flare I grabbed both back-risers and pulled them towards my neck, I made a soft standing landing. Untill then I never even used front or back-risers for anything, nobody even told me I could land like that, so watching videos for some part realy helped me there.

Where I come from a tandem isn't considered a jump to be counted with the rest of your jumps. When people ask about how many jumps you have they are referring to YOUR jumps. On a tandem, it's the Tandem Master who jumps and does everything, you came along for the ride. It's like when flying on a plane it is not you who flies, it's the pilot, you are just a passenger.

Hanging out of the door and jumping off backwards and wave at the next person, sometimes throwing in a backwards flip....loving it.

Cause people say I have a boring personality,....I'm out to proove otherwise.

My dad is (well actually was) a paratrooper in the Belgian army, he got me a tandem jump when I was 16 and I enjoyed that very much even though I was pretty scared in the plane. At 16 years old I didn't have the necessary finances to persue the sport of skydiving. Later came motorcycling but eventualy at 26 I decided to give it up for skydiving, and the fact that I live 10 miles away from my DZ also helped.

It's just in Belgium they've got this system (they call it warp-jumps) I have to do 10 warp jumps with an instructor before I'm even allowed to do 2ways, but I'm hoping 5 warp-jumps would be enough (I have to pay for the instructors jumps). In the mean time I'm gathering jumps on my own.

16 Tandem 27 (actualy it's 26, I already had 10 jumps when I reached my 27th birthday)

My feelings during freefall, hmm....I guess you mean what my thoughts are..... I'm quite new to the sport also but the things I feel are freedom and complete enjoyement mixed with still a small amount of nervousness. At same time I try to remember my position in the sky relative to the other jumpers who exited before and after me so I don't come flying in in their path and have a canopy open right below me. Sometimes I also get a bit bored during freefall, due to my low jumpnumber I'm not allowed to jump with anyone I like so mostly I'm jumping alone and there's only so much you can do when you're alone and don't have alot of freefall capabilities.

Hi, I'm new here (and to the sport of skydiving) and I'm tired of paying extra for rental material at my dz, so I am on the lookout for a rig of my own. I think the classifieds section on dropzone.com is one of the largest databases of secondhand skydive material on the net (correct me if I'm wrong) so I check it on a very regular base. However, I hardly get any reaction when I send an e-mail to the sellers. So far I've sent an e-mail to about 5 people and only got 2 replies (one of them took a full week to reply me). Is that normal, I think it's because I live in Belgium and alot of people dislike the idea of dealing with potential buyers who don't live in the US or UK, am I correct? The secondhand market here in Belgium isn't very large and it isn't always easy to find something I like just because there isn't alot to choose from, so I prefer buying abroad.

When you start AFF at Schaffen, look for a guy with a dark-grey jumpsuit with orange sidestripes, that would be me