rgaray

Yes, Carlos does, we used a stunt double (Brianne Thompson) for Drea :) --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

thank you!! we worked really hard on it, shot the whole thing in only 9 hours.... --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

http://www.fountainofflight.com We just shot this last week over at Skydive Elsinore, I hope you like it! :) --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

Padu, yeah, they had to shoot that episode at the Hawthorne airport which is within the 30 mile zone inside LA county. Union rules state that if a production needs to be moved outside of a certain range, shit starts to get exponentially expensive. I know the guy that consulted them for this episode, and he too, wasn't happy either with the end result. But like you said, most people that watch the episode have absolutely no clue about dz operations, let alone rigs etc... it's TV too, it would have been so much worse if they would have made it like this for a feature film. --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

Eh, Fincher, your post is pretty ridiculous, if not right out disgusting. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but who are you to judge the way people deal with a fatality? A lot of skydivers are very spiritual by nature, and I'm pretty sure they mean what they say when they take time out to put their loved ones they've lost on a pedestal, no matter what their choice of words are. To the original poster....I hope your jump went well. I have something I can share which is pretty unique compared to most cases. I witnessed a fatality at my home DZ when I was on my 5th solo. I immediately told myself this was a sign and that I should immediately stop my training and get in my car and drive back home and put skydiving behind me. It wasn't just the fatality, it was the way it happened. It was a fatality where an extremely experienced jumper did several mistakes that induced a chain reaction of bad things. Then one of my coaches came up to me and explained to me that ultimately, this is something I have to accept from the moment I decided to join this sport. People will die, I myself may die....and all you can do is take a piece of what happened and put it in your lexicon of knowledge and become a safer skydiver. I realized then that everything happens for a reason and that just as he died that day, I could have died too driving back home. Skydiving just makes it more real because of the nature of the fatility and especially because during most cases, nobody really knows what truly happened to the victim up there. Staying aware....is the most important factor. Becoming complacent is the worst thing that can happen to you, and unfortunately, complacency is ironically linked with experience, when it should be the other way around. Therefore.....the best thing you can do is just keep doing what you love, accept the risk, and be the safest skydiver you can be. No matter how many jumps you do, always prioritize safety, check your gear and never jump if you're not in top mental shape. Those are my 2 cents, sorry for your loss. --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

are you referring to the guy that made an illegal jump without a parachute (later strapping himself into another skydiver)? I read that in this month's parachutist, not sure if it's the same guy. --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

I think it's pretty normal to fear the unknown. I haven't had a reserve ride yet, and although I'm pretty confident the reserve will do its job, it's the process of getting there that scares me, and all the little things between the chop and the reserve opening that could be done wrong. Again, all of this will most likely go away in my head once I experience it, but I totally know what you're saying. I am a firm believer in NOT riding your main down if it has the slightest malfunction. The odds will NEVER be on your side if you think that way. With that being said....the best way not to worry about this is to take your packing job seriously, never do it in a rush, and never let anything distract you. This might be an extreme example but one of the guys at my DZ who's got about 700 jumps and one cutaway related to me what had caused his first chop......he said he gave himself stepthrough because he had decided to show his friends the night before how to pack his rig while he had been drinking. My point with this extreme example is that 1 out of 2 stories I hear about people's reserve rides have come out of plain stupidity. To me, my skydive starts while setting my brakes, and ends when I jump out that door. For everything else, there's the powers beyond me. --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

Huh? You mean rear riser 180's... (?) I don't think you're supposed to touch the front risers on your way to your A unless it's to try to make your navigator 280 dive (and good luck with that!) --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

I think you're a little confused. You speak of hypertension and heart disease in the same line. Both have nothing to do with one another. Sure, you could have a heart problem or a kidney disease, and that could lead to high blood pressure and hypertension, but I don't think you're referring to that kind of hypertension, which as you know, is medically referred to as secondary hypertension. I have a hard time believing any licensed skydivers (forget tandems, cause those are the ones where people pee/crap in their pants) would actually be a licensed skydiver if he would have to put himself through the fear, tension, and heart palpitations of having to exit that door. It just wouldn't be pleasant and they both don't go hand in hand with one another. Hypertension is a pretty weird condition in most humans, and science indicates that no specific medical cause can be found to explain a patient's condition. Being someone that suffered from it severely for over a year or two, I can account for the fact that it's mostly psychological. You can be on your way to 12,5k and make your heart rate go up as much as you want to the point where you're panicking if all you think about is how your chute will probably not open or how something will go wrong. Or....you can just take deep breaths and realize the amazing accomplishment of being in control of your emotions, surroundings and most importantly, your heart rate. When we stand on that door.....our body changes its configuration and goes into survival mode, or, adrenaline mode.....we become stronger, more focused and time slows down a little. I would hope all hypertension would go away at that point. Being scared shitless and panicking is two totally different things if you ask me. Being scared is something you learn to embrace and conquer.....panicking is just a sign that you should maybe stay on the ground or look for another sport.....hypertension or not. --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

You're going to find what I have to say interesting.....I used to suffer from hypertension before I got into skydiving. Hypertension is of course a thing with the mind and it can be cured. I realized that Skydiving actually solved my problem with hypertension because it taught me how to conquer my fears. With hypertension, I felt like I was going to die whenever my heart would palpitate like crazy.....I would get into small airplanes and I would want to get out of them because I felt claustrophobic (ironically a twin otter when I Island hopped in the caribbean with my gf in April). So, I don't know if the same thing will apply to you, but I realized that hypertension and panic attacks is just something you gotta control, they come from fear and anxiety of just not knowing what's up. Skydiving solved that for me. --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

Thank you Tom :) I agree with you --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

Yupp, and if you noticed, I touched upon that, the low turns out of the blue. I'm not gonna quit the sport, I'm fully aware of the risks, just promoting safety, as I think we all should, no matter where we are in our skydiving careers. See ya tomorrow at the boogie Mark... -R --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

To sum it up, I guess we can say that this sport is as dangerous or as a safe as we want to make it. I guess my emphasis though is on the ones that do something they know will do nothing but raise the probabilities, putting themselves at risk, KNOWING about it and therefore making themselves and everyone else around them vulnerable to unnecessary dangers. Hasn't anyone ever had a newbie swooper or some dumbo cut infront of you on final just because they didn't care to look out for traffic? Stuff like that scares me, cause I have no control over it. -R --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

Hey! Correct me if I'm wrong, don't you need to do a night jump in order to get your B-license? I see you already got yours? and I read on this thread that they weren't necessary until the D-license? Please let me know, because I already went over the 50 jumps and the only thing I thought was keeping me from going and getting my B license was the night jump, and my DZ won't have another one till November. Thanks! -R --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."

Eh...I hope you didn't misunderstand me ;) The dangers and the risks are a given, I'm very aware something could happen to me too at anytime, no matter how safe I am. The point of the thread is about being as safe as possible. --- "It takes courage to walk through the rain on a cold and foggy night, but it is those nights that dawn the most beautiful mornings."