fercie

I have a friend who's getting this cutaway: I hate my packer reserve: I love my rigger Fear is not knowing.

Fight past the fear, and keep jumping. Then there's no question :) Fear is not knowing.

10 seconds after I land, and I'm still wearing my rig: "Do you jump too?" The number of people that don't think that girls can jump too is astounding. Fear is not knowing.

I think time PUT INTO the sport is more important than time IN the sport. Someone with 1000 jumps in 3 years that does quality jumps, spends time talking to instructers, pays attention to the skydiving activity when he is on the ground etc might have put just as much time or more into the sport as someone with 1000 jumps in 15 years that makes it to the DZ once in awhile, gets a couple jumps and leaves. Everyone's skydiving career is different with different experiences that amount to different levels of experience, even for people with similar skydiving stats (jump numbers, time in sport, etc). Fear is not knowing.

You do have to have jump experience. They ask for 150 freefall jumps (either civilian or halo), but that is waiverable on a case by case basis. Airborne is static line so those jumps don't count towards the 150 freefall jumps. Fear is not knowing.

I went through tryouts and made the team last year, so hopefully I will be able to help. Tryouts were two months long, and we jumped (or tried to, depending on weather 6 days per week, 6-8 jumps per day. With all the weather, we ended up getting about 150 jumps. We did pt every morning, went to the DZ, and were jumping, packing or working on narration all day. When we weren't doing that, we were pulling weeds, raking, painting, rolling WDI's (wind drift indicaters) etc. Basically no free time for 2 months. The cadre don't necessarily look at how great you are now, but your learning curve, how well you would represent the army and how good of a team mate you would be. They teach you how to shoot accuracy with a demo rig, because it is very different from shooting accuracy on a sport rig. The tryouts jump smoke and do all of the maneuvers, that we do on show site, except for the intentional cutaway. Also like most things in the army, there are waivers for everything- one guy made it last year with only 82 jumps to begin with, and they may still accept your packet, if you wanted to give it a shot this year, and got it in asap. I hope this has been helpful, and if you have any more questions, just ask!

Congrats on your choice to join the military. I am currently serving my first tour in Iraq in the Army reserves. There are a lot of us here that are on our 2nd and 3rd tours and a couple that are even on their 4th tours. Thats important to take into consideration, especially with a young family. I advise you to talk to a recruiter, but then cross check everything he or she tells you with someone that has nothing to gain by you joining, to make sure that your recruiter's not jerking your chain about anything. Decide what you want and don't sign unless you get it IN A CONTRACT. It is easy for a recruiter to tell you that once you get through basic and to your unit that you'll be able to get what you want. You can get Airborne and other extras in your contract before you go to basic (but you have to be able to pass the physical, PT standards, etc). As for Guard vs. Reserve, I don't really think its that big of a difference. There are friendly rivalries of course, but just make sure that you do what's right for you. Fear is not knowing.

Is this not the most messed up story? What is wrong with some people? http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/04/28/austria.cellar/index.html Fear is not knowing.

People who spend 20$ worth of foodstamps on pop and candy and then buy 40$ worth of lottery tickets, a carton of cigarettes, and a case of beer. Fear is not knowing.

Doc! I know for a fact that you're starting to go for that candy! :D Fear is not knowing.

Give me two weekends back from this deployment and I'll have my 100th... Fear is not knowing.

You're obsessing about skydiving so much that you're practically a skydiver already. If I were you I would pick a date and stick to it. That way you don't just keep saying "yea, I'm going to do it...someday..." Fear is not knowing.

Sorry to cause so much trouble At least I've improved a little bit since this video Fear is not knowing.