soulbabel

Thanks for the compliment, but perhaps we are both slow learners, lol. I actually have 26 total hours, but 5 hours were all belly, and 21 were dedicated to freefly. And everytime I tried to learn a new discipline (even belly), it always took me twice as long to pick it up compared to whatever friend I had with me. I'm definitely not a natural by any means, and I really have to work my ass off to learn a new move compared to the the other flyers at Paraclete. Also, I'm pretty spoiled to have Paraclete as my home tunnel. Once you get to a really stable head down, and start learning to carve, all the extra space you pay for really starts to show its worth. I think if you flew in there as much as I did, your HD would definitely kick my ass.

I still have alot to work on: cleaning up my flying style, breaking some bad habits, etc... but I thought I'd share my progress anyways. I'm kind of a sloppy, slow learner, so don't learn from watching me. Get yourself some quality coaching from the actual instructors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqPxzglOCJI I jump at Skydive Suffolk in Virginia, if you're ever around looking for freefly jumps.

credit card... My philosophy is, if I'm going to take up a sport that can possibly kill me, then I'm going to die with as much credit card debt as humanly possible. That way I know I had way more fun in my life, than I should have been able to afford. Don't follow my lead, obviously, I was just answering your question. Also, at my dropzone (Skydive Suffolk in VA), once we jump more than 5 times in a day, the tickets are half price the rest of the day. So I'll do like 10 jumps for $175. On a busy day, I'll come in and pack student/tandem rigs all day to make money, and on nice, slower business days, I jump my ass off to get the discount. Lately, I've been breaking even.

A large factor that tends to tire you out, is you aren't used to using your muscles in that manner. This usually causes you to fly really tensed up and you end up overusing your muscles to maintain whatever posture your trying to learn (especially in sit and hd). As you progress, you learn to fly your body more efficiently, and use only the muscle input you really need, while the rest of your body flies pretty relaxed. I'm not saying conditioning isn't important (it helps alot), but that technique will definitely prevent you from tiring out too quickly. For instance, sitflying used to leave my arms completely weak after a short period of time, but now, I can fly sit almost all day long. This is because I rely more on my back and head to maintain the majority of the lift, while my arms are there to fine tune my flying, take docks, etc.

Contact Chutingstargear and demo a 135 Nitro by Hiper. Basically the same canopy, and last year I was able to get the demo by the weekend. I really liked the canopy, and it's pricing is pretty sweet.

I had a similiar experience while going through AFF. My suggestion is if you find yourself unintentially starting to turn, counter the turn to stop it, then relax and try to find your neutral posture. Another thing you might want to look at, is whether the student rig is adjusted correctly. A poorly adjusted rig can end up shifting on your back and can possibly start flying you. That issue should go away when you get your own gear, but as my AFF instructor told me, "student rigs are made to fit eveyone, but they aren't made to fit everyone well."

If you can't back carve yet, try learning that at belly speeds. It took me awhile to get used to the awkwardness of the posture, and it's also good for resting your muscles when your hd training starts wearing you out. Once you get the back carve, it'll make it easier to learn inward facing carving at hd speeds.

I was working off the assumption you didn't have a container. However, if you already have a container that you're content with, then it just comes down to which one you want more. Just make sure you find out the pack volume of that specific canopy, because that huge logo is usually sewn on and adds alot of bulk. You don't want to buy it, and find out it doesn't fit into your D-bag.

The container, but only if: -it fits really well, being made for someone matching your body size -you find it difficult to find used containers made for you body size -it gives you room to downsize if that's in your plans -you like how it looks (not a dealbreaker, though) And then you could just demo canopies for ~$50, for two weeks at a time.

If someone gives their critique like an insult or doesn't take feedback from anyone, then yeah, those people are assholes. Otherwise, they are like everyone else in this sport trying to improve, having to rely on what other people see and tell them to figure out where the problems are. I've learned that it's really easy to feel like I'm flying well, but in reality I have issues going on that I'm completely oblivious to until someone points it out. For instance, when I was in Skyventure Colorado practicing sitflying, the instructor kept trying to get me to fix an issue with my body position. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, so he tells me to look in the mirror attached to the tunnel wall, and in like two seconds I was able to fix my body position after seeing my reflection. Also, I see in your profile your home DZ is Perris. I'll be visiting Perris/Elsinore June 12 and 13. If you want, you could tell me who the guy is and I'll jump with him and tell him he sucks afterwards.

http://www.indoor-skydiving.com/eng/

If a guy is just passing on information he's heard from a windtunnel instructor, does the information become less true because of his own flying ability? I dunno if that's the case with your guy, though, but I think most people are usually just passing on secondhand information even if they can't apply it yet.

I'm not sure how helpful this info will be for you, since you're looking for wingsuiters, but Skydive Crosskeys in New Jersey has a July 4th boogie where tickets are $17.76. I've only jumped there two years ago when I was on coaching status, so I didn't pay attention as to whether they had wingsuiters or not. The place was crazy busy when I was there though. http://crosskeysskydiving.com/skydiver_events.php

Thanks for the replies. I'm thinking I might check out Perris' windtunnel first, and then spend most of Saturday at Elsinore. Can you describe the poker run? I'm not familiar with that kind of event, but it sounds like something I wouldn't mind taking part in. Also, how fast is the windtunnel?

I'm getting sent out to attend a conference in Anaheim, June 8-12, and I was thinking about getting some jumps at either of these DZs. Since this thread is four years old, I was wondering if someone could tell me if most of the thread information is still accurate. I'm not a swooper, but I'm a good freeflyer (IMHO), if any of that matters.

From all the responses I've read, apparently SLOW SAM is more qualified because it's ASSUMED he is doing his homework and preparing himself to become a knowledgable instructor. I really don't understand why people make these assumptions, because the jumpers I come across apply themselves differently. Some people actively pursue the knowledge and experience to develop the wisdom, while others may be far more casual about pushing the boundary of their knowledge. The fact that we can set our own developmental pace and focus in this sport, proves how "time in sport" can be a really poor qualifier in judging who'd be the better instructor.

This happens alot in the windtunnel when doing headdown. Usually all it takes is a small piece of gaffer's tape or duct tape applied over the chain right beneath the slider to secure the zipper for the tunnel session. I usually tape a big strip of gaffer's tape on the inside of my helmet underneath the padding, and tear off a piece if I need it. (Of course, you can tape it on the outside if you want, also.) If you zipper opens up in the tunnel, then the suit has the potential to catch alot of wind and send you into the wall. I've never really seen that happen, as most people are able to just transition to a sit and zip their suit up.

I don't have any personal experience flying those suits, but I know all the instructors at Paraclete XP recently switched to the Raptor. They seemed to like them alot compared to their old suits, perhaps one of them might chime in and elaborate. Also, I think this thread might be seen by a more appropriate audience in the windtunnel board, since the suits in question are more tunnel suits. In terms of style, I think the Uno suit looks nicer, but you might want to also look into BoogieMan suits, too. http://www.boogieman.fr/

Oops, looks like I meant rolling shutter and not rolling stutter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_shutter Specifically, I'd see the wobble or jello effect on my footage, and this was evident even when I stepped through frame by frame. The method I used to step through the video frame by frame is different than what most people do. Basically, I demuxed the video file into its elementary streams, and loaded the video stream into VirtualDub by using Avisynth. This allows me to see each frame as it actually exists in the stream, without being affected by the capability of my videocard.

I jumped the pistol shaped version a few times, and I thought the quality was pretty crappy especially when using the 60 fps mode. The footage had all sorts of rolling stutter when I watched it back on my PC, and just to make sure it wasn't a playback issue, I stepped frame by frame through it. I'd avoid it and go with the CX100, CX110, etc.

I tend to find that my belly skills are so basic and fundamental to skydiving, that they don't atrophy too much from inactivity. When you say you only jump once a week, do mean you only get to do a single jump once a week, or that you can get out to the DZ to do a few jumps once a week? I'm assuming you mean the former, since I remember sitting around all day during my AFF training for an instructor to free up and train me and then do the jump. If that's the case, then there are alot of different factors that would make you fly less efficiently than you are used to. Not having jumps beforehand to get you warmed up could be one cause, another is just the mental stress of having your AFF objectives coursing through your brain and having to perform them during the jump. I think you'll find that once you get your A license or reach solo status, and can begin truly flying your own body without the stress of having your performance evaluated, you'll be able to see your actual belly skill level (especially when you try flying level with 2 or more people). I've also found that being able to do something in the tunnel, may take a few jumps to adapt to the sky. So my suggestion is for you not to worry too much about muscle memory loss, and just focus on becoming a skydiver that deserves her A license. Anything that you can do now, but might get rusty at later from inactivity, usually doesn't take more than a few practice jumps to get back up to par.

The event happened last night, I heard only about 13 people showed up.

You can see their rig covers in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drahzLwLQ6A#t=1m17s

His issue is not with Paraclete XP's usual marketing, but just with the "Send a skydiver to congress" event they had in December. http://www.paracletexp.com/node/108 Basically, there were a few variables that could affect how much flight time you would receive. How many people that showed up, and whatever time the first regular flight was at the next morning (which was 6:30am originally, but became 5:30am closer to the event). Most people got the headcount of attendees from Paracletes facebook page or website, which said 4 people at first, and then was later updated to 13 or 14. I'm pretty sure it was true at the time of posting, but the headcount was never updated after that, so attendance ballooned to 50 people since so many people thought they'd get insane amounts of tunnel time. The only way to find out the true headcount was to call the campaign headquarters, as they were the ones actually handling the reservations. I was the 8th person to register and attended the event, and I felt sorry for the people I met who came from Ontario, CA, and Massachusetts, etc, expecting an incredible deal on tunnel time. At least for the second event they are running, it has a limit of 30 people and an actual start and ending time. I would just advise anyone trying to get an accurate headcount to contact the campaign headquarters, as opposed to Paraclete XP's front desk. I actually think it's a decent deal if you want to go out there and do some belly flying with new people (or friends), and combine your times to get the most out of it. I wouldn't expect to find many freeflyers though, so those wanting to learn freefly and fly their times solo, you'll probably be flying 3 minutes every 90 minutes, if they keep the same structure of 10 flyers in every 30 minute block.

Any instructor there can help you with your belly skills, but I'd have to say go with Rusty if you wanted the best belly flyer there to teach you. His belly turn is so freaking fast, you can hear the volume of wind he's pushing from outside the tunnel.