Krosfyah

i was trying to think about this the other day, when speaking to a non jumping friend as to where my motivation had originally come from to want to skydive. I racked my brains and i can't remember anything other than when i was about 7 we were asked by the teacher in class what we wanted to be, if we could be anything. Most kids said "football players, policemen, doctors, nurses, astronauts, pop stars etc" the usual kids thing - i said if i could be anything i wanted to be a bird. I remember people in the class laughing but the teacher thought it was very interesting (i guess because it was pretty unexpected). I didn't see what the fuss was about - all i could think of was "if i could be anything, i sure as heck would rather be the one thing that can fly about than something like a boring doctor!" I guess for the moment (until reincarnation, and i get my wish) human flight will have to suffice :) What about you guys? Was it from watching Superman, having relatives in the sport or simply curiousity?

Hi all - anyone know what Adrian is up to at the moment? Or how his book is coming along. I haven't heard a peep about him for a while now. Is he still testing/modifying his wing suit design? Anyone have his email address? I have lost it. Thanks peeps.

When chatting about jumping with some non jumping friends the other day, as uhhh you do from time to time :) one of them asked what happens if you hit a bird. I haven't ever heard of anyone coming into contact with a bird, but when i thought about it, i thought stranger things have happened and it might well be possible that this has happened. Anyhoo, does anyone know if this has actually happened to anyone (god forbid, for both the jumper and birds' sakes)

Hi all - has anyone out there got any idea where i can get Joe's DVD, for a UK DVD player? I would really like to see this - anyone know? Thanks for the help all!

throw your rig out the plane and follow it out (sans rig), put it on mid flight and then pull.

Anyone ever done one of these? Sounds pretty nuts to me - was just wondering what it was like if anyone out there has ever done one.

It seems to me that people love to laugh at whuffo questions. Why is this? I mean sure "wow what happens when you reserve chute doesnt work" "are you going to test your cypress?" "when the chute opens do you go up?" type of questions are mildly amusing, but a lot of people in the community seem to have a sort of "im a skydiver, youre a lowly non-knower (whuffo) i will laugh at you and not bother to explain anything to you" attitude which i think is pretty self defeatist. This sport is based around small tightly knot communities. Wouldnt it be great if it was based around larger communities with even more of a diverse group of people involved? Why dont we all, the next time we get a question like "isnt it like minus 100 degrees up there?" not laugh and revel in our 'superior knowledge', but rather pull up a chair, open a few beers and try and spend a few minutes telling people what it's really like and what the real deal is? I know some non jumpers (whuffos is such a stupid word to me - where the hell did it even come from??) ask pretty ridiculous questions, but i think we would all do better to talk positively about what we do, try and open even just one persons mind to the glorious experience, and tell them what the real deal is, and then ask them if they wanted to come and try a jump with us at the local school, instead of laughing at them, then doing nothing other than making sure we have a good mental note of the "yet another stupid whuffo question" that we were asked to tell our buddies about while huddled around the manifest. Anyway, you might think im being a humourless fool but reading this forum, and listening to the tone in jumpers voices when describing a non jumpers question makes me think that some peoples egos could do with being taken down a few notches from the high echelons they seem to have propped themselves up on.

i was given this by my dad a few months back. Its quite a good "film". I would rate it about 8/10.

http://brontus1.homestead.com/photo2.html I don't know - maybe the dog has fun. Thing is - it can't let anyone know, and we will never know if it is having fun or enjoying itself. I don't know about you but i think that it's pretty cruel of the guy to even take the dog up there once, let alone market the animal as his show piece.

Ok, thats a slight over exaggeration? One thing i have definitely noticed though is that 99% of skydivers - at least where i am from in the UK - are white. I was talking to a black friend of mine and his suggestion was that black people are too busy just trying to survive day to day life for the most part, let alone throw themselves out of a plane for fun. Any black (or any minority for that matter) jumpers care to enlighten me as to why this is, and if my friends point has any validity? (i figure it probably does to a certain degree)

http://www.met-office.gov.uk/ www.accuweather.com good luck!!!!