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YEEEE HARRR ! Jump went great, all the prep i did resulted in a perfect jump. Off the door with 2 JMs and camera was good, and i was very stable in free fall thanks to the advice from Minna and Peter. THANK GUYS ! You rock! Ill put some pics up when i get them and vid as well for sure. I have 2 more jumps planed on Sunday and Monday so no stopping me now! D Get busy living or get busy dying!

Hey Minna, Im only 8 hrs away from jumping! I better go to bed! Speak soon with pics of my AFF! D Get busy living or get busy dying!

Here are some pics of me making my new braces for my jump. I started by making plaster molds of my legs then i used chopstrand mat and polyester resin to make an inside mould of that. I then broke the plaster off and did a lay up of carbon fiber over the top of the chopstrand mat mold which i then removed. What you see is a pure carbon firber product that weighs very little but is extremely strong. I also molded in loops for the velcro straps to pass through. so i dont have any studs, screws etc to break or catch. I will wear these under my jump suit. Im doing a stage 1 AFF on Friday from 14 000. Cant wait! D Get busy living or get busy dying!

2 weeks untill my AFF stage 1,Im going to start making my leg braces tomorrow out of carbon fibre. Ill post some pics of the process. I need to have my legs stuck at 90 degrees in free fall so that is why i am making the braces. Get busy living or get busy dying!

.............and a couple more pics. Get busy living or get busy dying!

Here are some pics of my jump. TM is Alan Gray & thanks Jason for flying camera.

One down! All went well today, AWESOME to be out there again! My pants worked well and I didnt fall out of the harness. I now need to find out how to make some 90 deg knee braces so i hope peter can elp me with that. Cheers D Get busy living or get busy dying!

OK, Im off to do my first tandem, wish me luck! Get busy living or get busy dying!

Hi Minna, Thank you for your time spent writing all that you have. I have a great team of very experienced JM's and the full support of the Australian Parachute Federation so I am being well looked after. You don't need to worry one bit about my jumps. I have a wonderful wife and a 4mth old son to go home to each night so i wont be taking risks. I suppose I am lucky that I have been around aeroplanes and jumping most of my life. I learnt to fly when i was 16 and have over 2000 hrs flying all types of aircraft. I have also spent time in the military. Having this experience means that I am a professional in risk management. I am also a licensed aircraft engineer. I have been employed in very responsible and risky industries all my life so I guess emergency procedures and training is second nature, I never went for more than a couple of months without having some type of practical test or exam. All to do with safety. I consider jumping to be a great example of managing risks in order to achieve a safe and fun outcome. I mean, how amazing is it that we can jump out of a plane and step onto the earth! Unreal! I have spent over 200 days at DZ's and have seen over 5000 jumps, watched countless videos, loaded many busted bodies into ambulances and packed far to many rigs for free! Infact, I flew for 2.5 years, pretty much every weekend dropping jumpers for no pay. You get to know a lot about the industry and also see a lot of silly people taking risks. In fact, there were some jumpers that I banned from getting in my plane because I saw them as a liability to everyone else on board. I even had a jumper jump out with his single point restraint still attached and he was dangling under the plane. I kept my cool and passed back a knife for him to be cut free. Ive seen students freeze up, ive been thrown up on by tandems (YURRRK!) and I have cut people out of trees! I have fitted skydiving doors to aircraft and conducted test flights with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and wrote reports on safe dropping procedures. I have trained jump pilots, I have caught tandems on landing and I have drunk many a beer after big days at the DZ. I once flew 17 loads in a Cessna 206 in one day which for those who know is a lot of loads. I have contacted Peter via email and he has replied so his advice will be great. I am not doing static line at all, (I dont even think anyone does that here anymore) and I will have as many tandems as it takes to get my canopy skills back up to speed. Don’t think it will many tho as I always had good landings within 2m of target. I find it much easier to land a chute then a 6 tonne aircraft in a 25 knot crosswind in heavy rain at night after a 3 hour flight thru thunderstorms and on instruments only until established on the ILS and visual with the runway at 300ft and doing 120kts. Landing a parachute is one of the most enjoying things to do after doing the above mentioned 20 times or so! Olympics sound great. Ill push you out on the way up! Ill post my tandem tomorrow on you tube and put the link up here. Thanks again and sleep easy, I wont jeopardize a thing, in fact, my jump is going to be on a major TV station here in Australia as to promote the sport to others so that’s another reason to do it right. Nothing however is more important then what I have to live for, My wife and son. Blue skies D

Thanks Monky, I have read all of that thread and I have also conversed with the author. Are there any Paraplegics with their injury at T10 or below that have jumped? Im trying to get into contact with Peter Hewitt in South Africa as apparently he is a para. I really want to find out what it like from someone who has a similar injury to me as people with spinal damage higher up then me have different challenges and issues to overcome. I will keep searching around. TY D Get busy living or get busy dying!

Hi All! Ive just joined your forums. Im in Australia and I am planning to jump solo. I am a T10 complete para with no movement or feeling from waist down. I had a motorbike accident 6 yrs ago. I was a commercial pilot before then and I flew jumpships for 3 years (500hrs) to build up hours. It was here that I got the jump bug and completed 37 jumps before I broke my back. Now I want to get back into it and have a tandem booked for this Saturday and my solo planned for 24th Oct. I have a pair of motor cross pants that I have modified with extra padding and straps to pull my legs up with for landing. I have a modified harness that has extra webbing across the back to stop my legstraps from falling down my legs. I have very strong upper body control but the main thing i am interested in is my legs in free fall. Do i need some type of brace or will my legs naturally posn themselves in the box position? At this point I dont plan to brace my legs but will use knee pads to hopefully get my legs in some type of correct position. Any advice would be great. Cheers D