Melt16

It seems to be working for me though. Fortunately at our DZ the wind usually blows in the same direction all the time. So its easy to setup the final approach. What would you do differently?

Atmo is short for atmonauti, a sort of track where you shape yourself like the wing of the plane and get good lateral movement instead of going down. Check out www.atmonauti.com for more info. I find its easier to hit your spot if you use the same landing pattern each time. I make my final approach turn at roughly the same spot every time and at the same altitude. Obviously if the wind is strong I adjust how far away the final approach begins from the target.

Well we were missing our main plane for the last few weeks as it was away for a service and some paperwork. I did jumps 48 and 49 on that day in the little replacement plane that takes ages and only gets to 8000ft. So i was pretty stoked when we were about to board the little plane for my 50th jump when suddenly our big plane came into view over the runway and landed. So got to jump in that back at 13000 ft Didn't do anything special, just some Atmo but it was fun and I had a wonderful skydive and hit my landing right on the spot!

Got 4 jumps in on Saturday and reached my first milestone, 50 jumps! I must say since I bought my own rig I've found I've enjoyed each jump more and more. Back when I was using a variety of club rigs I didn't feel like I was progressing at all, and you always had that additional stress of the rig not fitting right or you not being able to have consistent canopy control. Can't wait to get back into the sky again. Blue Skies

Which Go Pro Hero mounting is that? Or is it just a part of the Helmet Hero and you left the rest out?

Hey, I got mine already. Check out this post. It has some pics of my suit and a small review. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3350802;page=unread#unread

Bear Grylls rocks, he has a great TV show and I have a lot of respect for what that guy does.

aaah, I get it so you feel more of the downward acceleration than jumping out a plane. Sounds cool. Also like the point made about being all able to hang on the skids and let go at the same time

Sounds like fun, but I don't see whats so great about doing a hop n pop from a heli? Could someone explain why its so awesome?

I've just finished my AFF and now doing my ISP program. I'm doing miserably bad, as I'm battling to move forward in the sky to dock on my instructor. He has given me some good advice and said one of my issues is that I am backsliding, this has been corrected by widening and straightening my legs but when I try to move forward just feels like I am going nowhere Was just wondering if any of you could give some tips on moving forward and other things I can do that will help. Thanks

Agreed. I got 15 jumps now and can't stop talking to people about the jumps. I got my one mate who keeps moaning about how I keep going on about it but he is doing his first jumps, AFF 1, 2 & 3 on Sunday and I can't wait to tell him to shut up hahaha

Hey everyone, thanks for the comments. Yes I agree you can learn a lot about yourself and what you are doing in a jump to improve yourself. I was fortunate in that my instructors both wore helmets with cameras so I actually had film from both angles. No additional money was charged, I think they were gracious enough to realise the course is expensive enough as it is

I would say once you are no longer a student and capable to jump out by yourself.

I'm definately more comfortable with one of my instructors than the other. The one is more serious, and it sounds like he is crapping on me, rather than telling me what I'm doing wrong, while my other is more laid back and chilled and just says things in a nice way. Due to my personality and upbringing I respond better to the more laid back instructor.

For anyone whose keen to watch me do my first few jumps... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZRZGK2fb7o Thanks to the advice on this forum I ended up using Sony Vegas Movie Studio to do the editing and DIVX converter to pull the DVD video into AVI format. Let me know what you think LOL.

I might check that out too, DSE posted a good one... Sony Vegas Movie Studio Free trial and not too pricey either, with great tutorials and a nice interface. Now all I got to do is get my butt into gear and do some serious editing

One thing I don't understand is why do people steal skydiving gear? Do they think the container is a bag full of goodies or something else?

Thanks Well Liam said since I'm a beginner and don't know what discipline I'm going to be doing, he recommended the freefly suit with mini grips as a first suit so I can do freefly, and if desired get into formation work. So in a way for a first suit this lets me do both.

During my AFF I had to continuosly borrow jumpsuits from different people at my DZ as I am one of the taller people out there - so finding a fitting suit wasn't always the easiest thing to do. Anyway I started looking online for a jumpsuit manufacturer. After trying out a few online suit designers I really came to like the look of the suits that Deepseed.com had to offer. After emailing them within a few hours my questions were well answered by Liam and his team. So I decided to put in a rush order for a Teardrop style FreeFly suit and go for all the extras a suit could have... Deepseed is a company from New Zealand, I live in South Africa. My order was put through on the 19th of September, and to my pleasant surprise it arrived today on the 2nd of October. So here are some pictures and impressions of my new suit. Unfortunately the weather at my DZ is looking a bit dodgy this weekend so not sure if I'll be able to jump it, but when I do I will add to this article and post a video... When this box arrived for me today, I was happy to see the Deepseed logo on the side, my new suit was here!! [Edit I don't know why inline images work in preview but not in the post but you can view each attachment pic at the bottom] [inline box.jpg] After opening it up, I was presented with a free baseball cap and 10 Deepseed dollars. Thanks guys.. [inline cap.jpg] Laying out the suit on the floor... [inline front.jpg] The logo down the right-side leg checks cool [inline logo.jpg] The material, build and stitching quality is of the highest standard. It may be my first jumpsuit but I know when a piece of clothing has been made properly... Here is a picture of one of the mini-grippers on the leg... [inline minigrip.jpg] The collar is made out of spandex [inline spandex-collar.jpg] The inside pocket with zip may become useful... [inline inside-pocket.jpg] And finally, me with my new jumpsuit on :) [inline me.jpg] All in all, this suit looks and feels lovely and I can't wait to go jump with it. I have been wearing it around the house for the last 2 hours lol and it is very comfortable. I will let you know how it fares under the intensity of the dropzone in due course....

N/A

Check this article out.. 100% natural. Just use sea salt, not table salt http://lonniebruner.blogspot.com/2006/02/snorting-saltwater-from-bowl.html

Hey, I want to put together my AFF jumps and put them on YouTube. All my jumps are on DVD. Can you recommend some good (free or cheapo) software I can use to import these videos, add some text in between jumps, and play a song? Something easy to use would be great. Don't feel like getting my head around some full-blown studio level software. Thanks

I'm doing my AFF at the moment. I did 4 jumps this weekend (my most ever) and just wanted to know if anyone here after jumping feels absolutely wonderful, but then has a beer and feels all down, tired and depressed? Now don't get me wrong I'm smiling 90% of the time in my life and meditate etc and consider myself fairly happy with life etc. But for some reason after my jumps on Sunday I had a beer and I just felt immediately all tired and like I'd had hit rock bottom. Then on Wednesday I had some mates over for Poker. And feeling great the whole week, after 2 beers and playing Poker I absolutely miffed out and just felt all sorry for myself. I've never had this before and was wondering if this might have something to do with all the skydiving this weekend and maybe my body is just more sensitive or something? Any thoughts/ideas would be great. Maybe I'll just have to give up beer!

I was doing my initial AFF jumps on a 285. My instructor has since put me on a ZP.EXE 235 and I am loving it. It opens quickly and so smoothly and it feels great to fly. My landings seem much easier than the previous canopy I was using and I'm sure I'll be using this for a long time until its time to buy my own.

Hey Guys, I'm doing my AFF 5, 6, 7 & 8 this weekend, I can't wait While I can't give much advice at this point all I can say is when going up in the plane look forward to your jump and focus on the things that are going to go right not the things that could rarely go wrong. When that door opens I still crap myself taking some deep breaths helps and try and put a smile on your face. I've been doing a lot of research on canopy control/wing loading and I suggest get yourself a book and that 5 in 1 DVD. The more knowledge you have the more comfortable you will feel. I've read a lot online and if I have any doubts about something I've read or heard my instructor as my go to guy for everything. After all he is the one who knows what I'm doing right, and what I'm doing wrong, he is the one jumping out that plane making sure I'm going to climb in another plane and do it all over again. Take care and blue skies...