IronEddie42

I jump several big suits regularly (Jedei 2, Rebel, etc) and I've flown pretty much all of them out there. Nearly 1000 WS jumps so far and my current setup is a 12' bridle with a 30" F111 pilot chute and I have not had a single PC hesitation. As I've gone through the different iterations of suits (small, medium, big, huge) I've changed both my PC size and bridle length and I'd expect that most people do the same thing.

I PMed you!

I have a bunch of jumps on a Swift (an early prototype Swift, at that) - maybe 30 total - and I have not experienced much of what has been discussed in this thread. 1. It (and the other Squirrel suits) are incredibly well made, and from what I hear, the customer service is indeed second to none. 2. Performance is quite impressive for what most would call a small suit. I have done all sorts of things in the Swift - flocking, docking, diving, barrel rolls, video for coach jumps and I have had no problems putting the suit exactly where I want it. 3. I would agree, to some extent, that sticking a FFC student in a Swift may not be the ideal situation - but as with anything related to skydiving, everyone learns differently. Personally, I love the Swift - I have found that it is all the suit I need for my flying. It's the best suit I've flown to date - including I-Bird, T-Bird, R-Bird, S-Bird, X-Bird, Phantom2, Phantom3, Colugo, and an Aliensuit G7.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI272CeHZVU Starts at about 2:20. Seems pretty definitive to me. LOL.

It's my home DZ as well, and I'm a SkydiveU coach, so if you need someone to jump with, keep an eye out for the guy with the red/black jumpsuit, jumping a Mirage, with a sticker-covered Bonehead helmet - I'll be around all day long. -Steve

I know this is a little unorthodox, but I'm struggling here ... I'm trying to win a contest on Facebook, and all that is required is to get the most "likes". Could I ask you guys to click the link below and like the picture? You'd be helping me win 50% off a new Mirage container! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=344185315670427&set=a.344185282337097.83337.226300784125548 There is nothing else required - just click the link and click LIKE. No spam, no account permissions, no auto-posting ... just a simple LIKE. Help a fellow jumper out! Thanks everyone!

Heya Steve ... this is the other Steve H. here ... :) Can't wait for you to get your license so we can put us 2 Steve H's up in the air ... haha. As for my rig - I have a Mirage G3 M6 with a PD 193 reserve, Cypres 2 AAD, and a PD Spectre 210 main - I couldn't be happier.

Here in MA, we have UMass Amherst and Fitchburg State - both are about 30-40 minutes from Jumptown (www.jumptown.com) and you're just a couple of hours away from the big skiing mountains in Vermont.

I recently got my license and was dying to get into a full-face helmet - for the same reasons others have mentioned, but primarily because I wear glasses and the goggles over the glasses truly sucks. I also decided on the BH REvolve helmet, and I couldn't be happier - the freedom to simply detach the visor and convert it to an open-faced helmet was great (although I don't see myself using it too often), and I love when I'm in the plane, about to jump - with the glasses/goggles thing, I'd have to constantly lift up my goggles to defog - now, with the helmet, I simply leave the visor up until I'm just about in the door, then I push it down and go ... it's much more convenient.

Ah - so basically, fly stable until we're able to grip each other without reaching out and (I guess) pulling myself towards him? Makes sense ... and thank you! *edit* After re-watching the video - it looks like I do reach out a bit on the last grip ... but the first grip looks pretty good - my arms stay out in the "neutral" position until our hands grab on to each other ... do you agree or am I missing something?

Thanks! I felt as though it went really well - and after watching the video, I still feel that way, but you can see a couple of points where I'm a bit off balance - especially on the third dock attempt. And as far as flying to the grips, I'm not quite sure what you mean - the coach (guy with the camera) and I discussed the jump on the ground and he told me to fly and grab his hands - said nothing about the grips ...

I think... Read my signature tag-line Haha - well, I'm not going to treat it as law or anything like that ... just trying to gather as much information as possible, from as many sources as possible, and use that information to better my skydiving :)

http://youtu.be/CiU1tvjBp9Q?hd=1 Video of my AFF Category G1 jump. Just wondering what you folks with a lot more jumps than me (I know - not hard to do) think ... things I did right, things I could improve on, etc. Had a blast on this jump, but after watching the video, there are definitely places that I can improve - or at least I think so. What do you guys/girls think?

And another update ... This weekend was another productive skydiving weekend. Went up to Jumptown on Saturday - ended up doing 4 jumps. First jump was my first solo jump ... went very well - I basically treated it as though it was just another jump with an instructor/coach - even though they weren't there. I did everything the same, though. Planned the dive (wasn't going to do anything crazy without the "safety net" of having someone with me) - grabbed my student gear, did a full equipment check, got suited up, discussed my dive with one of my coaches, had them give me a gear check, went out to the mock-up door and practiced my exit a few times, then I felt ready to do it. Boarded the plane, got strapped into the seatbelt, and started envisioning the jump on our way up to jump altitude. Discussed my jump with the other jumpers on the plane, just to make sure everything was in order, and we all knew what we were doing. At this point, my nerves were a bit rattled, but not quite as much as I was expecting. We got up to 13,500', the door opened and people started jumping. After what seemed like forever, it was my turn - got in the door, dove out, arched my body and relaxed - and lo and behold, everything was going just like it did on any of my previous jumps. After doing a backflip and a few 360 turns, I decided to just relax and enjoy my first jump where I didn't have a list of tasks - kept my eye on my altimeter - everything was looking great - it was actually a very calm and peaceful jump that seemed to last a lot longer than the other jumps I had done. Waved and threw my PC at 5000', and after an uneventful flight, I landed and felt on top of the world. I was very proud of my progression and that I had done something that not a lot of people have done. Picked up my chute and now it was time to go back to work. After discussing my jump with my coach and having him sign off on my log book, we started planning for my next jump - the 5500' hop and pop. I wasn't too worried about this jump, as I had done 30 static line jumps in the Army, from a lot lower altitude than this, so I was feeling pretty good - but as I would find out, treating a jump with anything less than my full attention was a mistake. So the coach and I went over the jump - wasn't really much to go over - floater exit, arch and get stable, 3-4 seconds after leaving the plane, throw the PC, do a few new turns (had to do 4 180 turns while in deep brakes) and then fly the approach pattern in deep brakes. Okay - I thought I had it, so we geared up, loaded the plane and did the jump. What a horrible exit ... I was a bit unstable, tumbled a bit, then managed to get stable after about 3 seconds, but then, when I reached for my PC, I ended up flipping over onto my back, and at this point, I had to throw - so I tossed the PC, and the parachute deployed just fine, despite me being on my back. I had my first line twists (well, first in non-military jumps - they were a regular occurance during the static line jumps, so I wasn't concerned), so I twisted out of them, did all of my 180 turns properly, and flew an excellent pattern while in deep brakes - I actually landed right on the X that they have set up in the student landing area - so I was pretty happy about that. Picked up my chute and headed back to the hanger, feeling a bit down, knowing what I did (both right and wrong) and prepared myself for what I was sure wasn't going to be an overly positive debrief from my coach. Dropped off my chute for repacking and sat down with the coach - he pretty much echoed what I already knew - unstable exit is what caused all the trouble that I ran into - and then he gave me what I knew was coming - I would have to repeat this jump. However, he said that he was able to watch all of my turns and my approach, and those were excellent, so the repeat jump would just be an exit - nothing special was needed to pass. Picked my head up, went over the exit - and this time, he gave me 2 great bits of advice. #1 was that while I was in the door, my arms holding on to the bar were very over-extended - he said I should pull my body in, so my chest is against the top of the door. #2 was to watch the plane after I exit - as it flies away - and this proved most useful on my repeat jump. Grabbed my gear again, got suited back up, and went up and did my repeat jump - and this time, everything was perfect. I felt so stable throughout the entire thing - I felt so much better about this jump than the last. After an uneventful pull and parachute flight, I landed and knew I had done well. Met up with the coach and he agreed - I had passed the jump and could move forward. I was now given a choice - I could do my 3500' hop and pop, or I could save that for later and move on to the Category G jumps. Without any thought, I knew I wanted to start the G jumps, because I knew they were the introduction to jumping with other people and seemed like these would be a LOT of fun - and boy was I right. Got hooked up with a new coach and we went over everything for this jump. After doing a couple of practice run throughs, we suited up and up we went. I was also excited, because the coach was jumping with a GoPro and was going to film the jump for me - WOOHOO! Got up to jump altitude, got in the door (floater exit again) and we both left the plane. Another solid exit - this gave me a lot of confidence in something that I had been rattled about - now it was time to start my docking practice. Found the coach, turned towards him - he backed away some 10-15 feet and waved for me to come to him. Straightened out my legs, and amazingly, everything worked as it was supposed to - I flew very close to him, but wasn't able to grab hands, as we were spinning a little bit. S'ok - no problem. Stopped, checked altitude, and tried again - and this time, I went right towards him, grabbed hands and cracked the biggest smile - this was AWESOME! He backed away a little further this time, and was a bit lower than me - this caught me off guard, because I hadn't learned (or thought I hadn't learned) how to adjust altitude. So I extended my legs, and surprisingly, as I went towards him, I got closer to his altitude at the same time. This dock was a little more shaky - but I managed to get to him and grab hands again. Checked altitude - just about to pass 6000' - and that was our stopping point. Shook my head no, he gave me the thumbs up and waved me away, so I turned a 180 and began to track away from him. Now, I didn't feel like I had gone very far away from him, and obviously, I couldn't see him, but I tracked for the 5 seconds that we agreed on, stopped tracking, got stable, waved and pulled. Parachute deployed no problem - had to do a few reverse turns - I had actually done some of these (unknowingly) on previous jumps, so these weren't a problem - did my approach and landed. My first thought was GOD DAMN! That was a lot of fun. I felt great about the jump and knowing that I could control myself that way while freefalling was incredibly reassuring. Picked up my chute and headed back to the hanger. Dropped off my chute and took off all of my gear - I was done for the day - time to get comfortable! Met up with the coach and he was almost as thrilled as I was. Debriefed the jump, and he had nothing but positive things to say. I had done as well as I thought I had. Exchanged a few high-fives and headed home, feeling on top of the world. Oh - and for those of you interested, here is the video that he took: http://youtu.be/CiU1tvjBp9Q?hd=1 Headed back to Jumptown on Sunday morning - had to take my packing class. I won't spend too much time on this - excpet to say that I truly hate packing - it is such a pain in the ass and I will be more than happy to pay riggers to pack for me. But I have a much greater understanding of how the whole system works, which is a great thing. So - end result was that it's a pain in the ass, but a good skill to have, and I think that once I get my own gear, it will become easier - or at least that's what I'm hoping. I finished up the day (and the weekend) by completing my 3500' hop and pop jump - I remembered to look at the plane after exiting and it went as well as my 2nd 5500' hop and pop. Nothing more to really say about it ... but in the end, I had a GREAT weekend, full of new jumps and new knowledge - I am truly loving this sport.

Well, then I guess I owe you 10,000 points! Thanks for the response - I certainly was excited, and I'm even more excited about everything I have in front of me.

Well ... alright - I will apologize for this giant post, but I had quite the weekend, and for whatever reason, I guess I'll share it with you guys! After this weekend, I feel SO MUCH BETTER about the control I have both during free fall, and while under canopy. Went out to to the DZ on Saturday, and ended up sitting around all day, waiting for the winds to die down to an acceptable level. Unfortunately, they never did, so I went home, knowing I'd be coming back the following day. Went back, bright and early. Looked like a perfect day for skydiving - not a cloud in the sky, light winds, everything was looking great. Went up and did my Cat D1 jump (4 90° turns, and 2 180° turns). Jump went GREAT - the turns were very easy for me to control. Did everything I had to do, with plenty of time to spare, and deployed my PC at ~5500 feet, as instructed. I was a bit worried about my landing approach, as I was having trouble judging the winds and the appropriate altitude/location of where to start my downwind leg of my approach, so I spent a lot of time watching other jumpers before me land, discussing the approach with my instructors, and running through it in my head, making sure to make mental notes of landmarks on the DZ that I can use to make a good approach - and guess what? I did it! I ended up landing about 5 feet away from the X placed on the student (or non HP) landing area. As soon as I touched down, I felt like a million bucks. For all intents and purposes, it had been a perfect skydive. Previously, I've been very critical of myself (probably unreasonably so, considering I'm a student with all of 5 jumps at this point, but still - I tend to hold myself to an extremely high standard in everything I do, and skydiving is no exception), and for the first time, I really had no negative remarks to make - great exit, great free fall, great turns, great approach, and great stand-up landing. I felt fantastic. Went back to the hanger and met with my instructor for my debrief, and he pretty much echoed what I was thinking - turns were crisp and stable, I was altitude aware throughout the jump, deployed on time, did the proper approach, and landed standing up - he was as happy as I was. He went and discussed my progress thus far, saying that he feels comfortable with me doing a combination D2/E1 jump for this next jump, which I guess goes a long way in showing the confidence that my instructors have in me (even if I didn't quite have it in myself), and I figured that if they think it's safe for me to do, I will give my all and do the best I can. After he cleared it with the head AFF-I, we went over the dive plan. There were going to be a few new things on this jump - this would be my first time doing a floater exit (this idea was scary - the idea of climbing out of the plane was a bit unnerving), 360° turns (wasn't too worried about these, as my 90s and 180s went really well), and lastly, they were introducing barrel rolls (surprisingly, I wasn't too worried about these either - they actually seemed kind of fun, and I was looking forward to trying them). But needless to say, that's quite a lot of new things for a new jumper, but I felt up to the task. So we got in the plane and discussed the dive plan further, on our way up to jump altitude. At this point, I was feeling pretty good about it (except the floater exit - I was still a bit apprehensive of this). Got up to jump altitude, the teams in front of us jumped out, and I was up next. Instructor checked the spot of the other jumpers and gave me the order to go ahead and climb out - which I did with no hesitation - at this point, I was all business, ready to do what I needed to. Climbed out, checked with the instructor, swung my leg out, back in, and back out - and I was out! It was an awesome exit and in the end, I did all that worry for absolutely nothing. It was actually a lot more fun, and far more stable, than the standing in the door exit I had done up to this point. Now, on to the skydive. I got stable very quickly (this has always come very easy to me) - saw the instructor come down in front of me, and he gave me the thumbs up to start my maneuvers. COA'd, did my first 360 turn - was a bit slow, and a little sloppy, but now I had my timing down. COA'd again and did my 2nd 360 - MUCH better - quick, controlled, stable, and I stopped looking directly at the instructor - felt pretty great at this point - I felt as though I had turns pretty well under control. COA'd again, gave the instructor a thumbs up, telling him I was ready to do the barrel rolls - he smiled and gave me a thumbs up back - time to roll! First barrel roll wasn't much of a roll - ended up flipping over, but wasn't able to continue the momentum to spin over - got stuck on my back for a second - quickly rolled out of that and got back into my neutral position. COA'd again - still plenty of altitude. Time for barrel roll #2. Again, I had the timing down much better - pulled my arm in, felt the rolling, stuck the arm back out while pulling the other one back in - bam! Quickly rolled and got back into my neutral position - barrel roll complete! COA'd - still had about 1500 feet to go before - so I just relaxed and enjoyed the freefall. Waved and pulled at the proper altitude - flew a good approach and would have stood up the landing, except my feet landed in a small patch of sand and dug in, forcing me down on to my knees - still, I felt good about the landing, so all was well. Picked up my chute, and headed back to the hanger. Met up with the AFF-I again, did my debrief, and again, got great feedback - he saw that I was very much in control during the entire jump - and more importantly, I FELT like I was in control - great feeling, especially being so new. Got cleared to do my E2 jump - and I couldn't have been more excited. He went and signed us back up for the E2 jump, and while we were waiting, we went over the dive plan. Front flips and back flips? YES PLEASE! I couldn't wait. No anxiety about this jump - which again, was a great feeling - the nerves were starting to get used to jumping out of a plane and doing stuff ... until he mentioned that he was going to have me do a diving exit. *GULP* Head-first out of the plane? Woosh. Scary, but do-able. He showed me how to do it, practiced it a few times in the mock-up, and once he felt I had it down, we loaded into the plane, and away we went. My turn to jump eventually came, time to do the diving exit ... swallowed the nerves down, checked with the instructor, got the thumbs up, out, in and OUT I WENT! Turned sideways, into the wind, stuck out my right elbow, and BAM! Awesome exit - I actually REALLY liked this exit and I can see myself using it a lot going forward. out in freefall, I spun around to locate the instructor - found him and stopped while facing him. COA'd and gave him the thumbs up - got the thumbs up back, and now it was time to flip. Did a front flip first - much harder than I expected. Ended up kind of getting stuck on my back and needed to flip over - did so with no problem. COA'd - still way high - time to try a back flip - these were far easier - flung my legs up and my head back, genereated enough movement to flip all the way over, and I came out of it in an almost perfect neutral position. Now THAT was fun! COA'd - still had more than enough altitude to try another front flip - this one was much better than the first one, but still needed to recover a bit more than I would have liked - still, progress is progress. COA'd - no more vertical maneuvers, so instead, I decided to do some experiments on turns - instead of doing a 360, I was going to go for 2 full rotations - did it, just as a celebratory type thing - and again, controlled the whole spin, it was nice and quick and stable. COA'd after it was done - just passed the no more maneuvers altitude - looked at the instructor and shook my head, acknowledging that we were at the altitude we agreed on - he shook his head in return - deployed at proper altitude, flew another great approach and stuck the landing standing up - again, another fantastic jump, and again, the instructor agreed. By all rights, I was now an AFF graduate, and was told that my next jump would be my solo jump ... this ended up not being the case, because I had paid for 8 instructor jumps, and they wanted to make sure that I got my money's worth. So instead of doing my first solo jump, they said it was okay to do my first Category F jump - the introduction of tracking. Now this was intriguing, and it was something that I knew I wanted to get good at. Hooked up with a new instructor/coach and started discussing the art of tracking. Seemed pretty cool, and not too complicated ... but little did I know ... Suited up, went over the dive plan, and once we were both comfortable, we loaded into the plane. Once we reached altitude, it was our turn to jump. I had chosen to do a diving exit again on this jump, so the instructor got into the floater exit position, I checked with her, stepped to the edge of the door, did my out/in/out again and went for the exit - but for some reason, the instructor wasn't moving ... ended up hitting her while exiting - we tumbled for a couple of seconds, got some distance between us and we both leveled out. COA'd and gave the thumbs up - got one back - she pointed in the direction we were going to track in - I turned that way, pointed my toes back, brought my arms down and supposedly tracked ... but it was pretty sloppy. I was teetering left and right, not very stable ... but probably a pretty typical first track. Stopped after 5 seconds of tracking, spun around - found the instructor, COA'd - still plenty of altitude. Did a 180 back in the direct we came from and started tracking again - this one felt a lot better. Did some heading control while tracking - still a bit shaky, but far better than my first track. Again, stopped after 5 seconds, found the instructor, and COA'd - still plenty of altitude. Turned another 180, and started my 3rd track - now it was coming more easily to me. I had a feel for the amount of pressure to apply against the winds with my arms, and felt a lot more stable. Stopped after 5 seconds, found the instructor, and COA'd - still above our cut-off altitude, but not by a whole lot - she OK'ed doing one more track, so did another 180 and started my track - and the 4th track was definitely the best one - I felt very much in control, and actually felt like I was travelling more horizontally than I had been previously. Again, stopped after 5 seconds and found the instructor. COA'd - definitely below our cut-off altitude, but above my pull altitude - I just relaxed and waited for pull altitude - pulled, flew another excellent pattern - probably my best one so far, and did another stand-up landing. Gathered up my chute, headed back for the hanger for my debrief, looking forward to hearing what happened at the door, so I don't let that happen again. Debrief was good - she was actually very impressed with my tracking ability, considering it was the first time I had done it, and by the 4th track, she said I was looking very good. As far as the issue with the exit, she said that when I lined up and did my first "out" move, she thought that I was just lining up a little further and not starting the count - so she suggested 2 things - #1 was to make my movements a little more deliberate and obvious, and #2 was to say something like "1, 2, 3" or "Ready, Set, Go!". All of it made sense and it was a good lesson to learn. So in a nutshell, in one day, I learned how to do 90° turns, 180° turns, 360° turns, barrel rolls, front flips, back flips, started tracking, and did 3 different types of exits. Oh ... and I graduated AFF and I am now able to do solo jumps. Quite a productive day, if I do say so myself. And for those of you who read through this entire post, you get 10,000 imaginary points. :)

Just an update, I guess ... I did my B, C1 and C2 jumps this past Saturday. B and C1 went really well - according to the instructors, my solo free fall was very stable and looked great - which was the part I was relatively intimidated by - but I did great! I was pretty pumped about that ... Then my C2 jump ... again, free fall was excellent - it seemed to come pretty naturally to me - I just kept reminding myself to relax and not fight the wind coming up at me - and apparently, it worked :) Then came time to land - and this time, they didn't give me any instructions from the ground (previous landings, I had help on when to do my approach turns and whatnot) ... and I botched up my base leg pretty badly - took it out WAY too far and ended up landing about a half-mile away from where I was supposed to land. I was very disappointed and knew right away what I had done wrong - I was just unprepared for the wind to blow me as fast as I was going on my downwind leg and totally miscalculated what I needed to do to stay on target. In the end, though, I passed all 3 jumps, and now I'm on to my D jumps - so I'm looking forward to that - and I really want to get the approach down ... does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks Skymama :) My Category A jump was excellent. Everything went the way I expected it to - I just tried to stay relaxed and focused on each task I had to perform - finished my COA, practice touches, 2nd COA by about 9000' and was able to enjoy the final 3-4000' of freefall. Once I got under canopy, everything was smooth sailing. Even landed standing up with no problems - and as soon as I landed, I felt great about the jump - I knew I had done everything required of me and everything had gone very well. It was a pretty proud moment. :)

Hey everyone, New skydiver here (sort of) ... although I'd say that I'm a little more experienced than the average new jumper. I did 30 static line jumps in the US Army between 1997 and 2001 and I followed that up with a 9 tandem jumps (not knowing about the AFF class) between 2001 and 2011 - and I completed my AFF first jump class and Category A jump on Saturday, 7/16/2011. The class was exactly what it says in the title - accelerated. A lot of information coming at you, but I paid very close attention (as this information will surely prove to be vital) and after going over the dive flow a few times with the instructors (and a hundred times in my head) I managed to perform the jump nearly flawless - the only correction I had to make was extending my legs a little more during free fall. Needless to say, I am completely hooked. I had gone up on Sunday to do my Category B jump, but the New England wind had other ideas - stayed 1-2 knots higher than the allowable limit and never came down, so it looks like I'll be going this coming Saturday to do my Category B and C jumps. Should put me in good position to get the instructor jumps out of the way before the season ends. I'm wondering if any of you have suggestions - and I'm not even sure of what the suggestions could be on ... gear? Techniques? Advice? I'm open to it all ... so feel free to lend some help to a newbie jumper :)