Freeflylizard

Nice one CJMeredith! You've totally got what my original point was (I was the one who started this very long post). I think that it is everybody's own individual decision. I feel much the same as you - I skydive for myself, and I jump a CYPRES for my family and friends. I was just interested to hear what everybody else thought about the whole thing, and am really pretty disgusted at the amount of name-calling and bitching about others that there seems to be in our great sport. CHILL people! Make your decision, discuss your opinions, but quit judging other people. Chill out and enjoy your skydives without trying to be so high and mighty. God bless! Tom.

Well, here in England, we are simply taught: LOOK LOCATE PEEL PUNCH PULL ARCH. I like this drill, but then it's the one I was taught and it is the one that is instinctive to me now. My little advise is don't over-complicate it, and don't change the drill you learned originally unless you're really really confident about it. Don't forget that your mind works quite differently in an emergency situation, so you don't want to confuse it with complicated reserve drills. Tom.

I've got 120 jumps and I have packed all of those (except the first 8 AFF jumps) myself. I started off taking about 30 minutes over a pack job (always pro-packing) because I was just learning from other people on the DZ. I practised a bit back at home in the living room, and at the DZ if the weather was bad. Gradually I got quicker at it, and now it generally takes me about 6 or 7 minutes to pack. There is no reason for me being this fast apart from the fact that I have practised. That is the only way in my opinion. I don't do anything differently from my very first pack job, but I do it a 5th of the time because I have done it a lot and often. That's the best way to improve. Practise! All the best, Tom Arnold.

I was up at Netheravon (UK) the day before yesterday doing some funky freeflying. Just before my 7th jump of the day my friend and I were practising the exit in a mockup when we overheard an AFF instructor briefing his student on what to do on her AFF level 8, which here in England is a case of getting out at 5000ft and pulling within 5 seconds or thereabouts. What got me listening was the fact that the student was asking about what exit to do as she had only ever done dive exits on her previous levels, and the instructor told her to try sitting on the door and getting out that way. Probably not a good idea seeing as she was meant to get stable and pull within 5 seconds or so. I would say she should do what she was comfortable with. Anyway, the bit that made me pretty angry was that she was obviously worried about being able to pull stable within 5 seconds. Now we all know that if you get out at 5 grand it takes about 20 seconds to get to pull altitude (about 3k), and it is important to pull stable. But she said to him "what happens if I'm not stable after 5 seconds?" to which he replied "just pull anyway - count to five and then pull whether you are stable or not". Does anybody agree with me that this is bad? Tom Arnold.

Good points there - especially the one about spotting, and being unconcious after a CYPRES fire. Any other views? Tom.

"I think that it would also be good to get in the habit of looking over the equipment of the people around you in the plane, not just your own" In the UK, we have a system called Flight Line Checking. This is mandatory at all UK dropzones, and it involves every jumper getting a check on their entire equipment before every skydive. To carry out these checks you must have acheived your B licence which involves learning exactly how to check another person's equipment for problems such as the chest strap being undone for example! I know that in other countries the flightline check is not mandatory, but when my friend Wil and I go freeflying at Empuriabrava in Spain (great DZ!) we still check each others equipment before every single jump we make, even when making 10 jumps in a day. Definitely a good idea, as however careful you are about checking your equipment you can still slip up, as was sadly demonstrated by the accident which sparked this debate. Just my two cents, Blue Skies and safe landings! Tom Arnold.

I have a friend in the UK who has a round reserve in his rig. You'd never know by looking at it, but you would if he pulled it! He says it's safer because it is less likely to get tangled if deployed through hung-up main, and that there are less possible mals it can have. Trouble is, if you're jumping somewhere like Empuriabrava in Spain or Sebastian in Florida for example, where there isn't much margin for error in terms of off landings, I reckon you're gonna be more vulnerable under a round canopy. Also, there are different wind limits for round canopies - something like 8 knots for rounds as opposed to 20 knots for ram-air. So do you have to stick to the round canopy limit if you have a round reserve? Is there anbody out there who uses one, and if so, do you use it all the time, or only when the wind is light and you have a large landing area? Blue Skies and safe landings! Tom Arnold.

"I'm so damn sick of the Cypress debate. We can't seem to go a month without it popping up." The reason it pops up so much is because it is an issue which raises a lot of mixed feelings - the issue of CYPRES's is a very important one to our sport. And this is what these forums are here for anyhow, for a good debate on subjects we feel strongly or curious about. "Falling off my motorbike is unlikely... but that doesn't stop me wearing a helmet" "*ARE YOU SURE* that Section 16 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (& it's associated $100 fines) isn't the thing that got you wearing a helmet for riding in the first place, & keeps you wearing one? The reason I ask is that TRRL research indicates that 94% of motorcyclists "would not wear a helmet all the time" if it wasn't mandatory(& very visible)!!" In reply to that (no I'm not the Original Lizard! - But I do wear one of Ian Chapman's very fine freefly suits!!!), I would definitely still wear a helmet if they weren't mandatory. Sure, the enforcement of the rule probably is what got me wearing one in the first place, but I have seen what happens if you fall off at even a very slow speed without one, and it's not at all pretty! Hence the reason I don't even wear an open face helmet in the summer - gotta be a full-face even in town. So that's how it relates to my views on the CYPRES, i.e. I still have one even though it's not mandatory because I have seen what can (and of course I'm not saying in necessarily would) happen without one. "JUST QUIT FEELING THE NEED TO TELL EVERYONE ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL OPINION ON THE MATTER." Well, in reply to that, I think it's very important and interesting to hear other peoples' opinions on issues such as this. After all, that's what these forums are for. If you don't want to read these debates, the answer is simple - don't click on the 'forums' area on your computer screen! Thanks for all the input guys and gals. Blue Skies! Tom Arnold.

I am a freeflyer from the UK, and I have one proviso about my skydiving. I won't jump without a CYPRES. I get a lot of hassle about this from various people, whether it's at the DZ or on Dropzone.com forums. People often say to me I should not skydive if I'm not prepared to jump without a CYPRES as they reckon it means I don't trust myself to carry out my reserve drills properly. Bollocks! This really annoys me. If I didn't trust myself to cut away and pull my reserve I wouldn't jump at all - ever. People just don't seem to understand that however experienced you are and however capable and calm you are in a freefall emergency, you are not going to be able to save yourself if you are unconcious or if you dislocate your shoulders (just examples - look at the Airtec SSK CYPRES saves pages). Sure, this may be unlikely, but I would say that falling off my motorbike is unlikely as I am an extremely careful rider, but that doesn't stop me wearing a helmet. If anybody ever questions my decision not to jump unless I have a CYPRES (or other AAD) I would urge them to read the CYPRES save reports and the skydiving fatalities webpage. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to say that all decisions regarding AAD's should be a matter of absolutely personal choice. I would never dream of telling anybody that they should or should not use one, as everybody has very individual feelings about them. Does anyone disagree?

Yes mate, Netheravon can be a little bit bollox. They do claim to have the highest lift capacity in the UK, but do they use it? Do they hell! Many a weekend I have gone there to find the place crawling with people - 3 turbines in the hangar (Cessna Caravan and two Turbine Islanders) and only one of them flying! Hence one jump in a day. And yes, civilians do get bumped off lifts without a second thought. Ah well, it's close to where I live (Southampton) and it's cheap. Sadly it's closed at the mo due to diseased sheep! With regards to freeflying in an RW suit - no problem. I had the same situation when I started to learn FF, so instead of using my RW suit, I wore a pair of jeans with a big baggy fleece (watch out for covering handles though!) on top so that it was nice and easy to stay upright. I don't particularly like sit-suits (the ones with the wings on the arms) because anybody can sit in one of those, and then when you take it off, you basically have to learn how to sit fly properly. You're better off not using one in my opinion. Anyway, if you drop me an e-mail to twa199@soton.ac.uk, we can arrange to meet up somewhere in the UK (Netheravon or elsewhere - Hinton's a great DZ) and do some jumps. See you around, Big blue ones and no Foot and Mouth!* Tom. *by the way, to all those USA readers out there, all the diseased sheep stuff (if you didn't know) refers to an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in the UK at the moment, resulting in a lot of DZ's being shut for fear of spreading the disease further. Bloody sheep!

Hi there! Cool - sounds good, I'd love to do a couple of jumps with you. I generally jump at Netheravon, but am always willing to try somewhere new due to the fact that although Nethers can be good, I have more often than not been up there on a beautiful day (blue skies no wind) and only got one jump in through no fault of my own! Anyhow, if you wanna meet up and talk freefly, let me know where you jump and I'll try and get there sometime, or get yourself down to Netheravon. By the way, with regards to trying freeflying on your own, it's a great way to practise, and if people try to stop you practising new skills on your jumps (good point about being allowed to do shitloads of backloops on your solos but not sit - bloody British attitude!) try a different dropzone! Hope to hear from you sometime to meet up and do some jumps, Cheers, Tom Arnold.

Hi there! I'm a freeflier from the UK, and I would recommend that you start off by concentrating solely on sit flying. Find some friendly freeflier (and we all are - another great thing about freeflying!) and get him/her to jump with you. Most people will be more than willing to help you through the first steps. It's a good idea to do this, as by jumping with someone more experienced, you'll know how much you're moving around the sky and they'll be able to keep you safe and tell you what you're doing wrong and right. Don't be tempted into jumping with more than one other person before you're ready, as this can be very dangerous. It's all too easy as an inexperienced freeflier to zoom across the sky at 100mph and hit someone very hard! Be careful, do some 2-way and solo sit jumps, and have fun! Blooooooooooo skies! Tom Arnold.

My best advice would be to stick with your canopy for another 100 jumps or so. I have 99 jumps and I jump a Jonathan 150, but don't suppose that I'll be changing my canopy until around 250-300 jumps or even more depending on my currency. Don't forget that (depressing fact though it is) the majority of fatalities in our sport are caused by people flying their canopies badly, and more often than not this is because they have downsized too soon, or got ahead of themselves in some other way such as hook-turning with only 150 jumps! Do you feel that you've taken your canopy to its limit? No offence meant here, but I very much doubt it. If you talk to experienced canopy pilots with several thousand jumps, you'll be amazed at how long most of them held onto 'big' canopies before downsizing. This is for a reason! I'm obviously not the one to be telling you what to do and what not to do, but if I were you I'd hold onto my Spectre 150 for at least another 100 jumps if not more. You may be surprised at the performance you can get out of it if you spend some time exploring its abilities! Blue skies and stay safe! Tom Arnold.