A Few Questions

[Quake120 0]

Well, I did my first tandem over a month ago, and sadly, I barely remember any of it, other than the fact that it was amazing. I had some stuff come up so I haven't had the money to go again. My brother is on his 4th jump doing AFF, so I was hanging out at the dropzone when he was jumping (I wasn't jumping) and was talking to a few of the experienced guys there and I've got a few questions now...

What altitude do you typically pull at? (Not talking in general here, but your personal pull altitude)

How many reserve rides have you had? When was the first? Was it exceptionally frightening?

I would like to get certified. Would you suggest I save up the ~$1300 for certification and go all at once, or save up enough for each jump? If I did have the $1300, would it be possible to get certified in a weekend?

Is anybody from Utah? Is your home dropzone Skydive Utah?

[skybytch 273]

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What altitude do you typically pull at? (Not talking in general here, but your personal pull altitude)

Between 2500 and 3000.

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How many reserve rides have you had?

None.

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Would you suggest I save up the ~$1300 for certification and go all at once?

Yes.

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If I did have the $1300, would it be possible to get certified in a weekend?

Depends on what you mean by certified. You could get "off instruction" (so you can jump solo) in a few days, assuming good weather and instructors available to jump with you. Most instructors suggest doing no more than 3 student jumps a day; getting through the student jumps on a three day weekend is doable but at most dz's not likely since instructors are usually needed to jump with a number of people instead of focusing the entire weekend on one.

[riggerrob 643]

I typically pull between 3,500 and 2,500 feet.

I have suffered 20 reserve rides. The first was the most scary, because I did not know if I had the courage to do it right. Obviously I did.
Several more malfunctions were while test-jumping for the army, but the majority of my cutaways were from first-generation tandems.

Try saving $1500 to $2000 and doing all your AFF dives during a three or four day weekend. Trying to do more than two or three student jumps per day is counter-productive.

[darkwing 5]

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What altitude do you typically pull at? (Not talking in general here, but your personal pull altitude)

How many reserve rides have you had? When was the first? Was it exceptionally frightening?

2500 ft. (which is higher than I used to, but I'm an old guy).

3 reserve rides in 2300 jumps. One was a test jump so it sorta doesn't count. The first was at about 40 jumps, and wasn't scary. I just did what I was supposed to do.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[ltdiver 3]

Pull at 3-4,000' (hey, I'm a cameraflyer! )

6 reserve rides. First one at about 60 or so jumps (don't have that log book out right now). First one: Made the mistake of unstowing the brakes while I was still in line twists . Made me SO upset that I'd done such a stupid thing that I went and rented gear the rest of the day for $45/jump! That was 10 years ago, and it -still- makes me sigh.

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[StreetScooby 5]

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What altitude do you typically pull at? (Not talking in general here, but your personal pull altitude)

I'm a belly guy. I pull about 2500'. Free flyers tend to pull a little higher since they're burning through altitude much faster.

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How many reserve rides have you had? When was the first? Was it exceptionally frightening?

I have 4 in about 1700 jumps. Each time things have become "crystal clear" (best way I can describe it). No fear. Too much happening for that.

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I would like to get certified. Would you suggest I save up the ~$1300 for certification and go all at once, or save up enough for each jump? If I did have the $1300, would it be possible to get certified in a weekend?

Get through it as quick as you can. Don't spread it out.

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Is anybody from Utah? Is your home dropzone Skydive Utah?

I learned to jump at Cedar Valley, Utah. My jump master was Jack Guthrie. Excellent teacher. Highly recommend him.

We are all engines of karma

[Quake120 0]

I know Jack Guthrie. He is the DZO of Skydive Utah.

My brother just finished his AFF FJC and AFF Level 1 jump, having Jack on the reserve side. Lance, another instructor was on his main side. The AFF 1 went perfectly.

Jack is an excellent skydiver (with close to 11,000 jumps), and a great DZO. He will be my instructor on AFF.

[HydroGuy 0]

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Is anybody from Utah? Is your home dropzone Skydive Utah?

I stopped by Skydive Ogden last Saturday. They had a nice operation going...nice big plane, nice hanger to pack in, lots of people, and the owner Suzanne was SUPER cool.

Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

[billvon 3,070]

>What altitude do you typically pull at?

2200-3000 feet.

>How many reserve rides have you had?

12 cutaways total; 5 were unintentional (i.e. due to mals.) 3 were on tandem rigs. 2 were on my own gear.

>When was the first?

At about 500 jumps. Wasn't scary since it was over so fast.

>Would you suggest I save up the ~$1300 for certification and go all at
> once, or save up enough for each jump?

Do it during a time when you can get it done within a month or so. Long layoffs make it hard to remember what you did last time.

> If I did have the $1300, would it be possible to get certified in a weekend?

Perhaps a long (4-day) weekend. 3 jumps a day at the student level is pushing it. There's a lot to learn.

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

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What altitude do you typically pull at? (Not talking in general here, but your personal pull altitude)

I, due to the type of skydives I am generally on these days, rarely pull lower than 4,000 feet. I do mostly tandem, AFF, and wingsuit skydives.

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How many reserve rides have you had? When was the first? Was it exceptionally frightening?

I have had five reserve rides in 4,450 skydives. I had my first cutaway (under a round reserve) when I had right around 200 jumps. No, it didn't really scare me. I did, however, get very scared on my last wingsuit cutaway (actually, I couldn't even cutaway and fired my reserve straight into my spun-up main. I thought I was dead)

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I would like to get certified. Would you suggest I save up the ~$1300 for certification and go all at once, or save up enough for each jump? If I did have the $1300, would it be possible to get certified in a weekend?

Go straight through your training as quickly as possible. You wouldn't want to wait a full year of drivers ed before you got to drive, would you? Like Lisa said, though, you are still considered a student until you have your A-license. That will probably cost considerably more than $1,300.


Chuck

[bodypilot1 0]

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instructors are usually needed to jump with a number of people instead of focusing the entire weekend on one.

My private program allows you to train with me 1 on 1 so this sort of thing doesn't happen.



Be safe
Ed

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[georgerussia 0]

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What altitude do you typically pull at? (Not talking in general here, but your personal pull altitude)

4500-6000, depending on whether it is solo or RW, and who was packing my main :)

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How many reserve rides have you had? When was the first? Was it exceptionally frightening?

I had one on jump 22 on my 3rd pack job: http://dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2251147
It was NOT scary at all (which was very strange for me), probably because I practiced EPs in harness just several hours before this jump, and pulled at 6
.

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I would like to get certified. Would you suggest I save up the ~$1300 for certification and go all at once, or save up enough for each jump?

Two extra points to everything said above:

- You have to go through the refreshing course if you didn't jump for 30 days during your AFF. In most cases it means repeating the previous level. So if you're going to jump once a month, you'll jump the same AFF 1 level for the rest of your life :)

- Make sure you have some extra money if you need to repeat a level. It is possible to complete AFF without repeating any level, but my instructor said very few people succeed in that.

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If I did have the $1300, would it be possible to get certified in a weekend?

It is very difficult. AFF creates a lot of pressure on you as student. After my first jump I was definitely not in mood to jump again this day - I felt so tired. Not to mention first jump course, which will take 4-6 hours.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[xlh883 0]

[DSE 5]

Since everyone else has answered most of your questions, I'll only comment that I'm at Skydive Utah virtually every day.
Today, I went to Skydive Ogden for the second time, was told to give it another shot after a really poor experience the first time. Since Hill AirForce base was having their big airshow, we went over. It was a repeat of our last experience. I'll keep going to Tooele instead. (Skydive Utah)
They've got a great FJC, my partner just started it,.
Certification/novice status is nowhere near 1300.00 at Skydive Utah. Call Heather or Debbie; they'll give you the scoop. They also just took on 2 new AFF instructors, both very communicative and capable guys. I think they've got around 10 AFF people there.

Yes, you can certify on a weekend, except they don't do jumpschool on Sat. You can do your second tandem on a Friday, start jump school on Friday, jump again on Friday, and finish your AFF on Sat. That's about what I did. Took me Sat/Sun/Mon to complete it all. I took jump school after having several tandems in Hawaii.

PM me if you need any other Skydive Utah info.