ja3688

Ha, yeah I figured that was a pretty ridiculous fall rate I'm 5'10" and about 215lbs. I'm not what you'd call fat, but i could definitely stand to lose a pound or 3. I've been working out and losing some weight, with a goal of 180 or 190. So I'm not sure if i should buy a really baggy jumpsuit now to slow my fall rate, or if I'd be better off waiting a little while to see how much my fall rate changes after I lose some more weight. I'd just hate to spend all that $$ on a jumpsuit just to have to get rid of it in a couple months. Oh well, i guess that's something I'll have to discuss with my instructors.

That makes sense... I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something I should be worried about, but I've always been told I'm stable and my body position is good when I deploy, and I guess that's what matters. Oh, and... Yeah, I think that might solve more problems than just my fall rate Thanks for the replies!

I made jumps 11 and 12 this past Saturday with a coach. They were my first jumps with my new Altitrack. The jumps went great, but when I got home that night and started looking over the playback, I noticed something that I thought was strange on jump 12. For most of the jump, my fall rate (with my Altitrack set on TAS) was hanging out at around 130mph, never going higher than 135 or so. But right at my deployment altitude, it shot up to 150mph, and stayed there for several seconds, until it finally went back down when I was under canopy. Is this normal? I assume it had something to do with my body position... maybe I arched harder as I pulled or something? I just thought it was strange, because I pulled right at 4500ft (confirmed by my coach), and my fall rate was showing 150 until about 3300ft, when it finally slowed down and the Altitrack registered me being under canopy. I'm just trying to figure out if this is a normal thing to see when playing back a jump, or if there may be something wrong with my body position that's causing me to go faster before I deploy. It just seems to me (based on my extremely limited knowledge and experience) like speeding up before opening would be a recipe for some unpleasant openings (although the opening on this jump was fine). These are the only two jumps I've done with a freefall computer, so I have no way of knowing if this is a one-time thing, or if it's something that happens every jump. I know I'd be better off asking my coach or instructor specific questions about my body position and the like, I just thought I'd ask the general question here, to see if I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I would have asked my coach about it that day, but I didn't notice it until I got home that night. He didn't mention anything about my body position or fall rate being off before I opened, though.