First time buying gear

[Alex. 0]

Im realy thinking of getting my own gear. I have asked people in my dropzone and i always got a diffrent answer. I have been skydiving properly( on a regular baisis) since late july 2007. I have done 25 jumps to date.i realy cant c myself giving this up. Again im on a tight budget as im in uni. what im realy asking is
1 how many jumps should i have b4 i get gear?
2 I want to freefly so what should i get?
3 I dont know the difference btwn the makes of canapies, so cud you help my with that?
4 would you recomend buying new or used and do u mean all gear eg alti, cloths,helmets... or just container. and canapie.?
if you decide to reply cud you be specific bcos iv been given very vague answers and that wud just add to my confusion.
Thanks in advance

[councilman24 37]

I usually don't answer these posts because plenty of other people do. But here goes...

Yes you should by gear. The rental costs add up, your at the mercy of other peoples schedules, the rental gear may not be what you want to get familiar with, you may end up jumping several different canopies and you it's hard to get good when your constantly changing, you will be responsible for the maintainence which means you will know it's done right and on time.

You should buy used gear. Your on a limited budget and used gear will be much cheaper, the main that you should jump now is not likely to be the main you want to jump in 200 jumps, you may be able to get gear faster. It may not fit perfectly but if your half way normal you will be able to find a rig easily.

You should by your own new altimeter, goggles, helmet, hook knife, and perhaps jumpsuit. A used jumpsuit of appropriate still and size would be a good idea and save you some bucks but they are often hard to find. I still own every jumpsuit I ever bought, new or used.

You should try to buy an appropriately sized zero porosity main canopy. A non ZP canopy will be cheaper and there have been millions of jumps made on them but a zp canopy is more likely to help you learn the skills you need for your next canopy.
Older Triathlon and original sabres may be two choices. Newer designs such as Spectre, sabre II, still triathlon, pilot and others are good choices but will cost more. There are other choices that have similar performance.

You can find lots of threads about wing loading. Start with 1 lb suspended to 1 lb square foot of canopy (1:1) in mind. Don't go much higher in weight per sq. ft. Talk to the instructors that know you for specific recommendations. ZP canopies out last their lines and so a used canopy may need a new set of lines or may have already had a new set of lines. Have it inspected by a rigger.

As to containers. You want a bottom of container (BOC) hand deploy pilot chute unless you've been trained on a pull out (also located on the bottom of container but called a pull out versus BOC) and have decided to use one. You may still be using a ripcord. If so you will want to get training for a hand deploy and choose that for your deployment system. Older containers may have a rear of leg (ROL) hand deploy pilot chute. This is NOT an acceptable system for free flying. Other than that secure pin protector flaps on the main and reserve and secure riser covers are the other issues for freeflying. Vector II's (a model from Relative workshop now called United Parachute Technologies (UPT)) is NOT free fly friendly. Other older container from mayber 1998 or earlier are probably not good for freeflying (very broad generalization) Vector III from UPT is freefly friendly as well as all currently sold models and probably their immediate predissors. Get a Paragear catalog (paragear.com) as a good generaly "wish book" reference.

Infinity, Icon, Mirage, Vector III, Talon (newer versions) Javelin, quasar are some good container choices. An older javelin or vector II or infinity may be the cheapest. A triathlon or sabre would be a good canopy choice. There are others and others will argue.

A reserve should be appropriately sized. Glide Path company reserves, Raven's from Precision, Performance Designs reserves and Smart reserves from Aerodyne research are all acceptable choices. A tempo reserve, no longer made might be a lower cost alternative.

If so inclined buy an AAD. Used cypres' are available and affordable. Be aware that they can't be used more than 12years and 3 months from date of manufacture.

Start with that, look at ad's and search threads here.

And if you use full sentences and words we won't think your an idiot.
No limit on characters here.

Thats enough from me.

Oh and have any potential gear inspected by a rigger before committing to buy, or at least run the choices and photos of gear by a rigger. I've ruled out gear for people just from photos.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[berchtoldaj 0]

Hey Alex,
I would start here
http://www.dropzone.com/safety/Gear_and_Equipment/index.shtml
there a few articles on what to look for when buying your first rig.

Al

************
Watch out for planters.

[lilchief 1]

nice mini article!

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return." - Da Vinci
www.lilchief.no

[CazmoDee 3]

Could you please resist posting in shorthand?
Thanks

I'm behind the bar at Sloppy Joe's....See ya in the Keys!

Muff 4313

[Kiki32 1]

Renting sucks! Buy!

Poetry don't work on whores.

[MedicJumper 0]

Hey alex. Welcome aboard.

Awesome advice from councilman above! It's bang on on everything.

my 2 cents:

1) between now and 50-60 jumps. I'm saying that because for your first 50 jumps or so your learning curve is HUGE. The more you wait and the more you'll know which parachute fits you best... but of course the more money you'll spend. It's a question of balance. Councilman is right that continuing to rent will both be annoying and not as productive as if you have your own stuff. A good start is at least do your class A licence where you learn the basics on a huge canopy. After that... well, if you KNOW you'll stay in the sport, the earlier you buy, the more money you save that you can spend on jumping instead of rental. Just realize that your first canopy is a learning canopy where you need to feel safe developping your skills.

2) again coucilman is bang on. I've had good luck with mirage and talon 3 (www.miragesys.com, www.rigginginnovations.com) in the past. Those are containers if you're not familiar with brand names. Both are freefly friendly. There are others but I haven't jumped them so I can't give advice.

3) There are a million different canopies out there. The most fun I have flown at your skill level were the icarus safire2, sabre2 (more recent so probably more expensive on the used market). I've also put quite a number of jumps on a triathlon and it would probably be a good choice for a first used canopy. Again there are others that would work for you but I haven't jumped them...

the main companies manufacturing canopies are: Performance designs, icarus canopies, Precision aerodynamics, aerodyne... there are others.
if you want to learn, a good start is to go on their site and read what they have to say. www.paragear.com or www.square1.com (they both sell skydiving stuff) are good places to learn about gear.
For the reserve I'd go PD (performance designs). That's all I've ever had in mine and I've never heard a bad thing about them... ever. It's a proven design, it's a safe design and that's what you need if you ever need to use it. Last thing you need when you start skydiving is worry about what you have in your container...

4) container: used
main: used
reserve: used or new but if used then definitely in good shape and not too old
altimeter: new
hook knife: recommended but not essential. New if you go for it, they're not that expensive anyway.
helmet: new though it doesn't have to be a 300$ helmet! At your level what you need is a helmet for protection, not for look... and forget about camera anything for now... learn to skydive you'll have plenty of time to film yourself and your buddies down the road.
jumpsuit: yish, I dont' know what to say to that one. Personally I hated getting the dz suits. They always fit me poorly and, well, how often do they wash these things anyway... anyone knows? I bought mine right away but it's up to you. new or used.

and lastly. Absolutely, definitely, without a doubt do get your future rig checked by a competent rigger. There's mostly good stuff out there but you wouldn't believe the kind of crap some people are trying to pawn off to unsuspected beginners. Get it checked and jump it if you can. I know it makes it pretty difficult if you shop in places like this site or others on the net but I think it's essential. Can you tell yourself if the equipment has been abused, if the lines need to be replaced, if the porosity of the material makes the canopy beyond salvage (or a poor flight/flare on anotherwise good canopy design)... not many people can. Riggers do this for a living. They also tend to be skydiving bums (sorry guys) who spend half their life either skydiving or thinking about it so they tend to be good references.

Anymore questions, post them here we'll try to answer
hope this helps

Somewhere, someone is training when you are not. When you race him, you will loose.