Cyane

...and are looking for some help for a can koozie favor phrase that references skydiving. Traditionally they say things like, "to have and to hold and to keep your beer cold" or "something old, something new, something to hold your brew." Our combined creativity is at about, oh, zero, so I welcome any brilliant or not-so-brilliant ideas! We met skydiving, and have spent the last 5 years skydiving together, so we're trying to work that into the favors! Cheers :)

I've been jumping a Pro 135 for about 50 jumps or so now, and I find it a very "meh" canopy even though it's a 135 compared to larger Pilots and Sabre2s I've jumped. However I haven't been smacked on opening yet, and I'm not the best packer in the world.

About a hundred jumps ago I had a not so great landing across the tarmac, and dragged one of my tennis shoes. Burnt almost all the way through the laces, and lost a few chunks off the top of the shoe. I could still knot the laces to keep it on my feet, and with booties it's no problem. Every hop and pop I've done this summer in just tennis shoes I've been a bit nervous, since it was fairly loose, but haven't had any problems so far. Sure enough I jumped on Saturday, pulled, and my feet swang way up by my head and the shoe came off. Rather surreal, watching my shoe float lazily on by... And there was also the 21 point 2-way from 9K, which was amazing! But then we decided we should be trying something more complicated since that's way too many points Excellent weekend.

No. A friend jumps a Wings that's several years old, and he ordered it with the freefly pud. It's that second (labeled as UPT) style. A more recent Wings on my DZ also has the same freefly pud.

Excellent points. I'll get back to you guys in another several hundred jumps :)

Correct. I have a 10 lb weight belt I wear on a lot of jumps, so my WL with that on is at about .934. Any eventual jumpsizing would have me without the belt for the first bunch of jumps on it.

Some day in the future (100-200 jumps distance at least--I've got lots of learning to do on my current canopy) I'm probably going to downsize. Right now I'm on a Pilot 150 and I love it, so the tentative plan is to eventually downsize to a smaller Pilot. My question for those with much more experience is this: would it be best to downsize to a Pilot 140 or a Pilot 132? My thought process has me leaning towards the 132. The 150 to 140 isn't "much" of a drop, and on similar canopies, like the Sabre2, a downsizer has to go from a 150 to a 135. However I know very little and would love some second opinions :) Used Pilots are pretty rare to come by, so if a good deal comes along I don't want to miss it!

I had a thin pair of gloves that I use for biking and running in the fall/spring that I used when I started S/L (back in November up north here, so nice and chilly!) that I wore with plastic latex gloves underneath. Your hands get pretty sweaty and gross inside the gloves and you need to grab a new pair for each jump, but they block the wind really well and because they're so thin I was able to feel and use my handles no problem.

I'll have to give that a try! I'm in the upper midwest and the weather's been consistantly bad, so I haven't been able to jump in a long while. Instead I've been trying to use the time to get in better jumping shape.

My coworkers think I stretch a lot throughout the day because we're always standing, but really I'm trying to improve my arching muscles

Get my A!

Thank you both for the advice! I can't wait for my next jumps to keep working on all this.

I think so, yes, and also to account for the wind direction. I'm going to review some things tomorrow (I'm feeling kind of brain dead!), but I'm having a really hard time grasping the into the wind with minor adjustments to stay over your holding area, then turning to move with the wind to go past your target, then turning a bit to move sideways through the wind, then turning to go into the wind for the last 300 ft...it makes sense when I stop and think about it but I completely lost that during both jump. And who knows where I would have ended up without the radio assistance!

Hi all! I joined a while ago but have just now made my first jumps so I thought I'd say hello. I did two static line jumps today. The first I had line twists that I had to kick out of, and landed farther north than planned since I couldn't hear the radio commands very well and couldn't muster the brain power to remember which way I was supposed to be turning relative to the wind. The second one I was even more nervous about having realized how MUCH I can only learn just by doing, and doing over and over. While working my way out of the plane I slid my hands down the strut but the second my foot left the step the wind took me and I slid right off--apparently I did a back flip in the air! This one went a bit better since I seemed to understand more how to run my canopy to not fly way off target, but my altimeter was also broken so I was VERY thankful for the ground assistance. Right now I'm still nervous about the canopy control, particularly in the landing pattern--if you'd like to share, how long did it take you to get a feel for how the wind was going to take you relative to how you moved your canopy about? I'm very grateful for the time spent on EPs. When I looked up at my canopy on my first jump and saw the line twists, I had a very clear "risers apart, kick to untwist, if you can't get it quickly, two hands on cutaway handle, look at reserve handle, pull cutaway, pull reserve..." train of thought. Sorry this is so long--I had a fantastic day, have a lot to learn, and look forward to continuing to jump!

The iPad is an LCD screen though, so even though you can read your kindle or nook books on it you'll get eyestrain pretty quickly. I have a Kindle, and love it. I find it very easy to put books both purchased and downloaded on it, and like others have said the battery lasts forever. I've only played with the Nook a bit, but I found the touch screen part to be awkward and hard to navigate with.