weldingninja41

I'm getting that you are psyching yourself out. As an instructor who teaches hundreds of jumpers a year one of the hardest things for us to help a student with is getting them to relax. When you can relax you will finally be able to think your way through the jump. As it stands it's all a blur. I am a big believer in controlled breathing to help bring down the pulse and visualization. Next, I want to address you referring to riding down as " A ride of shame" or rejected jumps. Skydiving is as much or more mental as it is physical. At no point should you ever jump from a plane if you are not 100% mentally prepared. There is no shame in not jumping out of an airplane. There is shame and allowing outside pressure to force you. This can get tou hurt or worse. Want to know how to get in serious trouble or worse, that's how. Do not allow peer pressure or outside influence to force you to jump. This is a personal sport, we all make the decision to jump for ourselves. Breathe, visualize, and find that inner strength you know you have, Good luck.. Rodney

I have bought a reserve from Jeff and sent 3 others jumpers to him to get reserves also. Never had any issues with him. And getting those reserves for the price he sells them is a no brainer i.m.o

This is the kind of thing I have seen before, and wort of what I was thinking of doing. The top (red) is closer to what I'm gonna try out. Thanks everyone.

Does anyone have some pictures or actual drawings of some of the pocket sliders they have built in the past. Or pdf designs? I'm interested in making one for a Sabre 170. I really only do hop and pops with it but come across people asking about it. FYI, SENIOR RIGGER, multi rated Uspa instructor, S&TA here, not a 100 jump wonder trying to reinvent the wheel. Just interested Rodney

Pd is the only company who does this. I sent in a pd176 that still had 13 boxes left on rhe label. Came out of a rig that had been stored for 09 years. They gave me the world famous " Failed Permeability Test". And "X'ed" out the label deeming it not airworthiness. But they did offer me 150 dollars off a brand new one. Since I've become a rigger I have seen this same answer to two other reserves sent to pd. Last I checked nylon fabric is made of nylon fabric. The same nylon is used on main canopies that get jumped hundreds if not thousands of times and are constantly in the sun on jumps, and they work just fine for Years and years jump after jump. But a reserve that has been ridden 1 time and spent its life away from the sun and all the wear and tear from daily jumping had a limited shelf life. It's a money grab. Period

I have a tempo 170 in my rig right now. It's 20 plus years old. I had it pull tested before I went to rigging school and got my own ticket. I have 3 rides on this reserve. 2 cutaway malfunctions and a total nothing out in a wingsuit where I had to go straight to reserve. It flew great had very good flair. It's is also the smallest canopy I have ever flown. I landed standing up and on target all three times.

So, I have never been injured skydiving, "knock wood" well not seriously hurt. I did however witness a friend of mine and a mentor pull a low hook turn that ost him his life. I was a very new A licensed jumper and decided that day to walk away from the sport. It took me 2 years before I could get the courage to jump again. It was not easy, I was more scared that first jump back then I was on my very first Static Line jump. I am not sure what advice to give you on this, only that I just simply went and did it. Some ground school and an Instructor on the load and I just did a Hop and POP right out of the door. I landed it and said OK lets go again quickly. went right back up and went to altitude and did a recurrency jump with my instructor. I think if I had to ride all the way to altitude and have to do freefall skills I wouldve backed out. Getting that hop and pop out of the way was key for me. No bullshit, no screwing around INstruvctor spotted cand called for the door and I went as soon as it was open. 600 jumps later here I am. I will say that you should never get on a load if your brain is so preoccupied that it might inhibit your ability to react to any situatuin that might arise. Good LUck. Be safe. HAve fun

Hey Ricardo, this is gonna be an everybody has their own preferences post. That being said Cookie finally does have an impact rated helmet with the G4, I never understood why it took them all the way to the release of the G4 to put a helmet out there that would actually provide impact protection when other manufacturers have been doing so for many years, I am a bonehead guy. The brand new Bonehead helmet that just came out is really very nice. About the same cost as a G4 and less than the 500 dollars that Kiss wants for their helmet. The cool thing about the newest bonehead is the field of view. when you have it on you cannot see any of the helmet at all. You get open visiblity in all directions. It looks like an astronaut helmet. check it out it is the Bonehead Dynamic.

i can make the video and ill post it on YouTube 3 and send the link. That way it'll be searchable for others also. ill get it done this weekend

send me an email address and I will shoot a video for you. I used to do it one way that Jay Stokes Taught me, after doing evals with Mike Wadkins he taught us a different and in my opinion better and safer way. you can email me at Rodneyreed35@gmail.com juat a note to say hello and thay will giive me your address to send the video. Blue Skies my friend

You can hold coach and instructor ratings courses at non group member dz's. For a fee payable to the USPA. It really always comes down to money. We held both coach and IAD and Static line courses at our bon memeber dz. Paid a huge fee to do so. Money.. Also canopy courses can be conducted by anyone. They do not even need to be a member of the USPA. they have to be approved by an S&TA or the like.

That's the first I've seen or heard of that happening.. interesting situation. definitely something that could be on a Friday freakout. There is much to be learned in this video. Thanks for posting it. Should make for an interesting topic of conversation at the DZ this weekend

I have the 7 black (limited Edition Dusk White) version. My buddy has the hero 8. The 8 does have a little bit better video Quality, but to me it is really not that significant a difference to warrant spending the extra coin on an 8 right now. The non replaceable lens on the 8 is also pretty crappy on gopros part IMHO. If I eat shit and crack the lens on my 7 I can get a replacement for 20 dollars from the gopro website. if you crack the lens on the 8 they will happily sell you another 8 as that is your only option. I don't really use the Gopro's as a professional would though so some of the more advanced features might be a lot better between one or the other, I just want to get clean clear video of my jumps that I can edit with a few simple steps and post that shit to social media and induce moisture bombs to explode in the panties of all who see them. But hey, that's just me....

I guess it depends on what the specific DZs course is. After clear and pull out students have a 5 second delay to get them used to "coming off the hill" and to their Belly, then 2 10 sec freffalls tp introduce stabitlity. Then we send them out with a coach for 15 seconds and left and right turns and alti chexks etc. The way O understand it from Jay Stokes and Ron Bell is that students can be turned over to coaches as soon as they are cleared to pull for themselves. Before that the method specific training has to be done by an instructor.

There was a lengthy discussions on another forum regarding Static line and IAD jumps and their credit towards licenses. As a SLI/IADI who regularly gets both Cadets from the Air Force Academy and jump students from several military bases in our area who have military static line deployments, there was a lot of confusion regarding these jumps. The USPA defines a skydive as leaving any aircraft in flight with the intention of landing under a parachute. It took many emails between myself, Jay Stokes, Ron Bell and regional director Ray Lallo to get clarification. Static line amd IAD jumps are considered freefall jumps because there is a short period.o time before deployment that the person is consodered in freefall.. Military Static line jumps do count towards total number of jumps for USPA licenses. They obviously do not tick off the freefall time or freefall skills requirements. I just finished a SL course with an Army jumper who arrived with 34 SL jumps including intentional water landings. After he completed his course with us and through some back and forth with Ron Bell and some others. He needs only a small amount of freefall time and a canopy course for his B license. The junps he had before the course count. He completed all requirements in 22 jumps and recieved his A license.