KamikazeDavis

It was love at first jump... Was something I always wanted to try and just never got around to it. So I had a pretty stressful week and on the Friday decided I wanted to reward myself with something fun so I scheduled an IAD jump for the following Saturday.

Yes I'm in Canada... Also, Just to clarify they essentially called it AFF 5.5, the instructor was both AFF certified and C2. It's just the second AFF 5.5 went bad. The first two attempts I just didn't execute the turns properly (i.e. did a 270 degree or 90 degree rather than a full 360 on each side).

Hi, thought I'd share my experience. I did an IAD on October 9 and immediately fell in love with the sport. So I came back this Saturday and started AFF training, I did 1-4 on Saturday and they all went well: good jumps, good maneuvers, and good landings. Went to a friend's birthday party that evening but I was so exhausted (the jumps combined with a lack of sleep Friday night as I was out so I had only had 3-4 hours of sleep friday night) that I just stood around and left early. Got home around midnight and collapsed in my bed setting the alarm to get 9 hours of sleep. But I woke up early around 6:30 and was just too excited about the jumps. AFF 5 started ok, but went bad during the left turn I entered a high speed turn (leg out of position) and lost lots of altitude fast. Arched and pulled the main at 5500'. I did a coach jump after that which went ok but my turns sucked so I opted to do another coach jump and again started well managed to start/stop turns and was very stable. Went for the main chute at 4000' couldn't grab it and I lost altitude quick as I went into a dive and ended up belly to sky. Checked my altimeter gave the main another shot, again couldn't grab it. Was spinning fast and belly to sky, altitude was at 2800' I waved off my coach who was in a hard dive after me and pulled the reserve. The riser caught on to my next as it deployed and I've got a nice burn with lots of exposed soft tissue across the back of my neck. Did a PLF landing back at the DZ with the main still in the pack Tried to do too much too quick that combined with physical exhaustion. I pushed the envelope a little too much. At pull time I should've arched harder and kept stable, but lack of experience got to me. Every jump (that was my 9th) I managed to execute an excellent pull, so it was an odd feeling not getting it right away. Once I'm healed going to find a wind tunnel and get some time in their with a coach to sharpen my maneuvers .

Thanks guys! Yep that's Eden. Was in such a hurry to get out of the plane that I slipped on the IAD jump... A shot of adrenaline quickly followed and then the smooth canopy ride down with a huge grin the whole way. Addictive as hell!

... I didn't discover this sport sooner! Hi everyone, I did an IAD dive on (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend and fell in love with the sport instantly. Since leaving the DZ on Saturday I couldn't stop thinking about it and how I wanted to do more! So I called them up the next day and tried to start my AFF right away but the winds kicked in and I couldn't go up. Hopefully tomorrow I can get my level I in. So in the meantime I've been exploring the web to find the community (hence I find myself here) and 'simulating' my first AFF dive... my coworkers are starting to look at me funny though...