adagen

Seem to remember a couple of years back that the elf 'n' safety police 'oop north' shut off the A66 for a bit of snow, leaving drivers to negotiate the A595, which is a sight less drivable in the white stuff! As 2 Scots based in the south, we thought it was some type of southern affectation Anne

Think I said it before, but if you are anywhere near a windtunnel, book yourself some time and tell them you're planning AFF. Then you can start to pick up the basic freefall skills so they feel natural when you actually jump. You'll find tunnel staff will be very helpful, and ten minutes tunnel time will give you about the same freefall time as 12 jumps, plus the opportunity to debrief in detail from the tunnel video. In AFF you need to learn freefall and canopy skills, and if you have done the initial freefall learning in a windtunnel, it takes a bit of the pressure off. Anne

I don't have much experience, but my first thought was that while you might be able to develop reliable technology that would work for a blind skydiver in isolation, it doesn't deal with the fact that other people are using the same space so there is a collision risk. Detecting and predicting the behaviour of others is probably orders of magnitude more difficult than working out the landing pattern. Anne

Take a look at this It's in a town with a very busy traffic flow during peak hours and a 20% retiree population. It's been in place for 30 years, and when I googled accidents for the location, the last one mentioned was in 2008. But then they haven't considered turning it into a car park. Anne

Couldn't get it to work either. Win 2010, IE8 and google.com. Couldn't get any of the other funnies to work either Anne

Not an expert but you might find motion sickness eases when your body knows what to expect. Also some people find ginger helps with motion sickness. And crystallized ginger tastes nice even if it doesn't help

The one near Nottingham....Langar? Nice people! Anne

Have you noticed that if you look at the list of side effects they all seem to be remarkably similar even for very different drugs? I get the feeling that a lot of things get listed just in case, rather than for any real reason. That said, some manufacturers list side effects along with the probability, which is more useful. Anne

Viral I guess, seem to hear those terms a lot in the UK Anne

Seeing a consultant next week to sort out a shard of bone detached from either clavicle or scapula, not sure which at the mo, but I suspect it will need to be pinned into place. I want to go in there armed with all the relevant questions so I get to understand the issues and options and don't get railroaded into something that will cause me problems in the long run. For example I've heard that some materials are more likely to move around. If anyone's had something similar done, or has some knowledge of the subject I'd appreciate your thoughts. Anne

Best person to give you advice would be a qualified coach with you in the tunnel. A coach will help you put your body in the shape it needs to be. If you try and struggle through on your own the chance is that your muscles will memorise the wrong position, and it's a lot more difficult to correct that than to get it right early on. Anne

Talk to a manager at the tunnel, preferably just after you've flown there. Then they'll know that you're capable of flying in the confined space of the tunnel without bumping off the walls or burbling yourself or your friend or the instructor. the tunnel management has a duty to ensure that people who fly there are safe, and my guess is that they will be more receptive to the idea if they know a little about your current abilities. Anne

If you're waiting till spring, you could try a few winter visits to a wind tunnel to learn the stability and control for freefall. Your nearest tunnel is probably Bottrop in Germany. Or come to the UK, 3 tunnels to choose from - I recommend the Bodyflight one

When you're in the plane, think about the jump plan. Keep going through in your mind what you're going to do. If the jitters set in, pull your mind back to the jump plan. On the ground, make sure you fully understand the emergency procedures. Once you leave the ground, keep thinking jump plan. And breathe steadily, don't hold your breath or overbreathe. Did AFF recently and this worked for me, didn't stop me being nervous but allowed me to manage it. Hope it works for you. Anne

you will really struggle to be tense and stiff if you have a great big smile on your face +1 Most of my experience is in the tunnel rather than the sky, but on so many occasions I have watched someone struggling with stability because they are tense or concentrating too hard. Then an instructor manages to get them to smile or laugh and suddenly they relax and stop fighting the wind. Once that happens, they become much more stable. And if tenseness isn't your problem, smiling still helps - it makes your face look much better on photos and videos Anne

If it was that simple, kids in the playground wouldn't be able to baffle their mates by asking them how to pronounce GHOTI Anne

Nausea - I had the same problem when I did a tandem but not at all during AFF jumps. I'm guessing it's because the body doesn't know what to expect because it's a new experience and the tandem instructor is making the decisions. Bit like being nauseous if you're sitting in the back of a car when someone else is driving it on a winding road in the dark, your eyes don't get the chance to warn your ear canals what's going to happen and your balance mechanism objects. If you're doing the driving the problem doesn't happen. Anne

One learning aid that can be quite useful is the little articulated model that artists use. It's not always easy to work out what's happening from a video but you can put the wooden model in the same body position and work out how the airflow would move a body when it's held in that shape. It's low tech but as a tunnel flyer I've found the model pretty useful for working out what's happening and how to make things happen. Anne

If you have any interest in freeflying, Bottrop attracts some excellent freeflyers. If you do decide to fly there it would be worth allowing extra time for watching. You can't guarantee who'll be flying but if you're lucky you'll get a chance to watch some amazing flying. Anne

Tried doing that but it was flagged as spam spam spam spam Anne

Nice list

When beginners fly with a friend at Bedford, each beginner has their own instructor, they don't fly independently. It's not really intended for skydivers, but for people who come once to have the experience. Anne

For me it works to have a few things on the go. There are the things I'm currently learning and I spend most of a tunnel session on them. There are things that I can do OK but they need to be fine tuned so each session I'll do a bit of work on them but not so much. And periodically I go back to basics to avoid getting sloppy with basic techniques. I preplan a tunnel session round a mix of all three so I know what I want to cover. One thing I have learned from training myself and other people in a number of different sports is the need for a session to be flexible. If you get to the point where something isn't working and isn't getting better no matter how hard you try, switch to doing something else rather than waste expensive tunnel time making no progress. Anne

Actually it was a throwaway comment in response to the earlier post on poverty, not a serious comparison. However, UK tunnel minutes are substantially dearer than US ones Anne