FrogNog

I was basically unconscious for four days on the vicodin (Wooo!) until I got tired of that and went on just the ibuprofen for the rest of the week. My recovery didn't have any complications, and I'd say if I had been a skydiver, I wouldn't have been jumping until I felt good enough to be walking around all day, which was ~4 days. I got general and had one fully impacted, one partially impacted, one normal, and one not existent (25% savings!). After I got off the vicodin and got out of bed, I still had suture pain for about 3 weeks. That got old. But it wouldn't have kept me from jumping. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Dude, why did you do that? Shoulda sent it UPS, it would be here in a day and there's no good weather scheduled until April. Seriously, no good weather for the next 10 days in this area, as I posted above! One day you'll have to meet us halfway at Toledo to jump their Beech 18. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I wear a helmet because I'm clumsy and whack my head into the plane a lot. The DZO sez my helmet makes it easier on the plane. I don't see a wingsuit making me any less clumsy piling in or bailing out, so I'll keep with the helmet. And I wear a Pro-tec (so far) because it's cheap, it gets the job done, it's comfy, and nobody ever bounced because they didn't look cool enough. Plus I figure I'm hot enough to get the girliez without a swank helmet. Jumping out of planes makes up for a lot of helmet insufficiency, and a pimp wingsuit should help too. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

My DZ loves "South African ZP" because it's not as slippery. I love it because I learned to pack on it and it's all I've flown - so it must fly great . I never heard that it wore faster. In fact, I heard it was just as good, but more user-friendly. I've had, uh, one jump on a Hornet 190. Flew like a Triathlon 190 on well-greased bearings. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Mmmm... Gusts, turbulence. Yummy. I try to ignore these (up high) and just keep on flying like I would if the air were smoove. All my issues with chunky air under canopy have so far been psychological; the actual amount of swaying, rocking, bumping, uncommanded turning, and recovery diving has been minimal. I just trust that the harness will continue to hold me and the canopy will continue flying. (If I notice I'm in genuine freefall again, I'll re-evalute this.) Due to minor turbulence on landing I've had a couple of low flares plus a few just-in-case PLFs. No matter what happens on a jump, I try to hit the ground as softly as possible. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Just got off the phone with GF. She vented about work then on my turn I complained that I checked the 10-day forecast for weekends' weather one county North, one county South, another county South from that, one county West, total other end of the state, four cities across the Canadian border, and one city just across the state border to the South. All of them had nearly identical shitty forecasts. She says she's concerned for me. Thinks it's unhealthy that I would spend 8 hours driving in a day for a jump. This was before I mentioned I was looking for any $49 roundtrip flights to California or Vegas. Does anyone else think this is within the bounds of reasonable and healthy? I'm in frickin' Seattle in December, here! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Basically, yeah, you're a freak. Personally, my palms just sweat when I think hard about skydiving. If I'm watching someone else do it, I'm OK. But if I'm visualizing being part of it, waterworks. Plays hell with my gloves in the plane.

*snort* I'm still trying to pack so they OPEN! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

That's how all inventions work. First the other people say it doesn't even work. Then they say the invention is stupid. Then they say the old way is better than the invention. Then they say they thought of it first and were already doing it that way. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Really? That's strange. I jump a Triathalon, and the only time it ever opened hard is when I packed it incorectly... before I really knew anything about packing. Triathalons, if you ask me, are known for their soft, snively openings. I've heard some people claim Triathlons have an "affirmative opening" and with all, like, five of my rides on a single Triathlon 190 at about 1.2:1, I would agree with that. No pain at all, but certainly not a snivel. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if different triathlons, with different line trims, material age and wear, planform sizes, and wingloadings open differently. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

* Food and drink. * VHS or mini-dv tape so you can get your camera-having friends to give you any footage they get of you when you jump together. (Just always keep the tape queued up and ready to record the next segment.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I almost had that dream. I'm guessing a lot of people do. I was probably at 1k with my hand on my reserve d-ring wondering whether I was going to get it out, up, and open before I met the treetops. I have a recurring theme in my nightmares about being unable to move quickly - each step while running takes several seconds, I don't know if I'll be able to pull the d-ring out of the velcro, trigger takes forever to pull and doesn't break like it's supposed to because the breech isn't closed, etc.. In real life I'm content that I can pull a D-ring or a throw-out in a cordura pouch with no drag. Gotta love adrenaline. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I gotta say the pringles one busted me up the hardest. I can totally visualize that one. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I found that by removing the barbs from the hook, it gets a lot easier to take the fish off. Sure, sometimes they loose themselves before they're on the dock or in the boat, and the hook still can't feel good poking a hole in their lip, but MUCH easier to take 'em off and throw 'em back without as much damage to any parties involved. And they call me heartless. WTH? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

They're squeaking because they're clean and sticking to the webbing. The solution IMO is to get something on them that will prevent this but not cause abrasion to the webbing. I would call the manufacturer and ask them if they think it's OK for you to put a little food-grade silicone lubricant (like for cutaway cables; food grade = no evil solvents) on the rings. I bet that would do the trick. Caveat applicator. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I know it would get you nowhere, or even a long ways backwards, but this makes me want to explain that, "yes, as skydivers we know unintended reserve deployments are no good and, in fact, they can cause personal or group injury or death in the normal situations we use our rigs, and we do our best to avoid this happening." With the rig off my back I could see an increased possibility of some numb-nuts using the reserve handle to grab the rig, so that's a nice reason to stick it in a bag of some sort. Double-benefit: keep ignorant hands away and keep the pilot chute restrained if, by some unforseen accident, the reserve pin should clear. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The reason I would NEVER want to have my rig (when I own one) moved as checked luggage is because the specification for checked luggage says it is normal/expected/acceptable for the luggage to experience something like a 15 foot fall onto concrete (or tarmac or whatever), if it slips off the conveyor belt. I forget where I read this, but I think it was at the airport, and it was basically a specification saying "if your luggage can't tolerate this, you don't want to check it." I was told never to drop a rig with an electronic AAD because their internals could be damaged by the acceleration. I'm sure a couple dozen gravities wouldn't break anything, but it does seem reasonable that a hundred or several hundred gravities could break something delicate inside that little black box. And depending how the rig lands, the AAD could end up with such an insane acceleration. (It mostly has to do with whether hard things hit; some electronics datasheets note that dropping a plastic-case transistor onto a workbench from a height of a foot can cause hundreds of gravities of acceleration and break stuff.) When I have something the size of a backpack that cost me $3,500 and that has a delicate electronic voodoo backup component (comprising 25% of the cost) that I want to be fully operational in case I need it to save my life, I don't plan on letting luggage-tossers handle it. If it were inside a gear bag with a huge foam wrapper around the entire rig, I would consider it. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Wait'll you have a nightmare about Tom stinking up the plane. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I assume this is an exaggeration; isn't the descent rate for that canopy going to be about 1k per minute at normal glide? Possibly 500 feet per minute? Without updraft that would be 13 to 26 minutes from 13k AGL to the ground. Sunday we had a weird situation where 6 or so jumpers had no problem with some interesting winds. (Different directions at different altitudes.) One student opened maybe 2k high in the same place as everyone else and got blown something like a mile - backward. (The DZ totally located and collected him, though. :) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I don't know if it would piss me off. On the one hand my DZ is way more homey and safety-conscious than that, so if you were a "normal" jumper I'd expect everyone to pitch in and go after you because we do that for our pals to make life better. If you were a student I'd expect the staff to be all over finding out where you were, because they consider it bad form to misplace students. If you were recently injured I'd expect the other jumpers to know that and be more concerned. But I have been conditioned somewhat to expect that this won't happen every time, and that the DZ doesn't want to be held responsible for trying to find and collect you, or make any sort of promise that they will. I understand the point about what if you were hurt, but in this sport being helped out when you're hurt is a common courtesy based on volunteerism and goodwill, not duty. That unfortunately means a person could go cross-country or land hard on an anthill or wind up on an island in the middle of the river (without knowing how to swim) and find nobody came after them, or people came looking but failed to find. Don't we just toss this on the pile of dangerous outcomes to be avoided by preparation, skill, luck, balls, and determination? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Maybe they figured if it never came back, that was just as well because they could never get any luck with the closing loop and pin. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I misread canopycandy's post and thought she said "Marilyn Monroe". That all sounded good to me. I swear that's why I confuse easily: I do it to myself. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Golf and bowling would wither away without these people. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

That's my favorite part! Nothing like a little asphyxiation to heighten the pleasure of surfing out the deployment phase! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Your first reserve canopy over your head will be a thing of beauty. Like a main only all the equipment attached to it has one purpose: make you have a safe ride. The toggles will probably be crisp as the day they were sewn, and the lines will be bright white. I can't guarantee these things but that's about how my student-status reserve looked and it stands to reason yours will be the same. *cough*practiceflares*cough* -=-=-=-=- Pull.