poser

It's pretty good on meatloaf and chicken. Remember, if it doesn't burn twice it wasn't hot enough. I'd guess it has something to do with endorphins. peruse Mo Hotta Mo betta and you'll find all kinds of good stuff...

I used the fog city inserts for motorcycle visors to prevent fogging, but they probably won't fit a skydiving helmet. Basically it's another thin sheet of plastic that you attach to the inside of the visor with a gasket that creates an air space between your visor and you. I think I remember having to trim mine, and cut the gasket and such so you might get it to work. I'm surprised skydiving helmets don't have this already, or as an option..

Is there a wind tunnel anywhere close? Doing 5 minutes in the tunnel within a week of a jump will help more than you can imagine. I'm averaging 1 jump every 2 weeks, and other than a bit more pre-jump stress due to frequency it's been fine. It just takes me a few seconds longer after exit to get myself to relax than it might if I was jumping every weekend. I did 5 minutes in the tunnel between 4 & 5 and it really helped reduce my stress levels because I knew the freefall portion wouldn't be a problem because I'd done the turns repeatedly in the tunnel. I found it helpful to practice the dive flow with a 'relax' as part of the tasks. It's amazing how something that seems so simple in theory can be so difficult in practice. Hell of thing jumping out of a plane...

This is just classic. Although I think unzipping your pants and going in holding your johnson would be another. I can see the headlines: Man dies attempting to masturbate in freefall, FAA spokesman has declared 'loss of altitude awareness' as root cause of accident. Interviews with wife: 'well, he was a one minute wonder...'

Tunnel time. I was having problems getting relaxed on my level 3 and 4, did 5 minutes in the tunnel (with a coach) which was basically practicing turns for the most part, and it REALLY helped and I easily passed level 5. Was worth every penny. Oddly enough it helped most with my pre jump anxiety because I knew from the tunnel time I could fall stable and do turns with no problems. Once I knew that, I could relax and start having fun instead of being all stressed out.

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I think this belongs here, maybe in general, anyway.. Scenario: We're on the ride up, I'm last man before the tandems. Tandem student is next to me and directly across from her is what I believe to be another tandem master (looks like he's flying camera maybe). Based on the exchange he's definitely employed by the DZ. He reaches over to the student and puts his finger in the chest strap which has a loop sticking straight out of about 3-4" and tugs on it to see if it's actually connected, looks at the tandem instructor for said student and the following exchange happens: "little loose isn't it?" 'it's all they had available' (palms up with a slight shrug) to student "well you better hold on tight" student is oblivious. Now this is my level 1 AFF jump, so I've got other things on my mind at this time, there are my two instructors right there, and another couple tandems behind the one in question. I saw a few glances around which I took to mean that nobody else thought it was a major issue, but now that some time has passed it's kinda spooky in that close call sort of way... So the question is, how dangerous is a loose chest strap on a tandem? In retrospect I think I should have elbowed one of my instructors and asked them if that looked like something they should jump or not, but like I said I was pretty preoccupied at the time. Last thing I want to do blow it out of proportion and get the tandem student freaked out. Given the tandem instructors response and body language, it sure seemed like he wasn't entirely comfortable with it but did it anyway = bad judgment in my opinion. So I guess I'm wondering the best way to handle something like this (in the future), and does it merit letting the DZ management know?

Care to elaborate? From your response I assume you have data from studies performed to support it? If so I'd be very interested in the results and appreciative of any links you might be able to provide. If not what exactly are your primary concerns? Just from a sample size perspective I would have a very difficult time accepting the assertion that suicide risk is increased, given the rarity of 'no-pulls' (and even some of those are likely brain lock) in the burn-in statistics. They just don't happen often enough to be able to draw any valid conclusions IMO

Hope this is the right forum for this type of question. My 20 year old daughter suffers from what I would characterize as moderate depression. Which means she's on medication but still has periods where nothing seems to help much. She's not the 'can't even make it out of bed' level, or suicide attempt level, but definitely has bad days to deal with. I was thinking skydiving might be therapeutic - something to giver her a lift when she's feeling down. I'm curious if there is any consensus on this at all? FWIW I'm not a skydiver currently, but am seriously thinking about getting into the sport (have a good friend that's been jumping 20 years), and going through the AFF with my daughter seems like it could be a very enjoyable experience.