Spy38W

I for one know that I have returned borrowed gear after forgetting to hook the RSL back up.

You have to remember that when it snows in Florida it pretty much causes a state of emergency with all these people who don't know how to drive in snow (myself included)

Whuffo, good question... I originally went out to the DZ to be a jump pilot, I kept seeing the huge smile on all the jumpers' faces and the fun they were having. I then decided to do a tandem jump, justified by the fact that if I was flying skydivers I should probably understand more about their point of view, well, that one tandem got me hooked... The DZ lost me as a pilot, but gained me as a jumper. :)

New DZ Checklist for me... Watch a couple of people go through manifest so you don't look like too much a dumbass. Look at, and study the map... alright, looks good, have landing patterns/areas, outs, where are the windsocks? etc. Talk to other jumpers to sort out jump plans... Bigger RW team ahead of us said wait 10 seconds to jump, we waited 10 seconds after they launched + time it took my low-jump buttocks to get out on the step and still got screamed at after we landed I'm a Newbie, so I might be over/under-doing it. This works for me, but may not for anybody else. But at any rate, see a qualified instructor to confirm/deny anything I typed, after all, I'm a newbie too, and what do I know?

Luckily I haven't been drunk enough to have that really happen to me, was writing in a hurry and forgot to put a j/k after it..

After I started skydiving I got really drunk one night and decided I wanted a tattoo. Of course I didn't want to get a generic one off the wall, but couldn't decide what to get, then it dawned on me, it was my 'first' tatoo, so I got BEER! tattooed across my back in 8 inch tall letters

Here's one that happened to me in Naples, FL a couple of years ago. I was taxiing out to runway 14 which was the active, while I overheard ground clearing a jet onto runway 5 (runway 5 is longer and he needed the extra length). When I was ready to takeoff I contacted tower, and heard them clear the jet for takeoff. I think I looked at something inside the cockpit and did not see the jet take off. A couple of seconds later I was cleared to takeoff and asked the tower about the previous jet (who I didn't think had taken off yet, but was in the process) Tower responded by saying the jet had already cleared the runway, and I replied with "Oh, I guess I must have missed him" and right away tower came back and said "That was my intention".... Argh

Is working fine for me 2/20/02 8:06PM

Agreed, cats are great for apartments/condos.. they don't care if you're gone all day, they won't crap on the carpets, and they're quiet.

Only 30 jumps here, no cutaways yet (knock on wood) but I'm still so new to (and not understanding) packing that it's bound to happen soon.

Alright, let me start off by saying that I am probably at the same point as you, if not less (I have 25 jumps). I'm still at the point where first thing after opening (if it happens) is to to a 360 L/R turn and full stall to make sure everything is working alright. After that when under a new (to me) canopy, I do a couple of full stalls followed by riser turns (front and rear) to try to learn about what the canopy could/would do to me throughout the ride. Well, that is how I do it, as to why I do it, I'm still a pilot scared of what an unfamiliar airplane can do to me (the canopy). Of course this is just my experience, and I definitely reccomend seeing a qualified instructor before trying anything I reccomend.

I've got one worse... I fly for a living, and weekend weather was shite, but flying today there was nothing but blue skies and calm winds. I muttered unconciously into my headset how awesome it would be to jump, only to be awakened by my boss saying, "If you jump out of my plane you're fired". Oops, didn't mean to say that out loud :/

Damn, I don't really give a shit if I die diving, but even that's beyond me.