Skydivers Check In

[s0urce]

That's fucking awesome!

How high are you when you have to open the chute?

As you progress you start opening lower and lower. The student hard deck is 4500ft. In this video I turned away from my coach and started tracking away at 6000ft. I opened roughly at 4800ft and it takes the main parachute about 700ft to open up. I was fully under canopy around 4000ft.

[e30trooper]

Nuts dude. Im sorry I would not be doing that haha. Great jump tho!

[george graves]

As you progress you start opening lower and lower. The student hard deck is 4500ft. In this video I turned away from my coach and started tracking away at 6000ft. I opened roughly at 4800ft and it takes the main parachute about 700ft to open up. I was fully under canopy around 4000ft.

Have you heard about those army/navy jumpers that are deployed behind enemy lines? And so to get them in there, they'll just from some insane altitude so the plane isn't spotted - I don't know the number but something like 30,000 feet. Then they fall as far as they can, opening their shoot at the last second. Just slowing down before they hit the ground. Crazy. I'll have to look that up.

Oh, and then there was that NASA guy in the 70's (?) that jumped from something like 100,000 feet on a weather balloon. I think he exceed the speed of sound on the way down.

[TwoJ's]

Terminal velocity George.

I went tandem a couple of years ago. It was just as george described it -- better than sex. We had a main chute malfunction as well. It opened up and we started spinning in circles really fast. I yelled "are we OK?" and the pro said, "ummmmmm... hold on!" and dropped the chute. for the 5-10 seconds we were back in free fall I was sure that my life was over. But alas, he pulled the reserve and all was well. Scary shit though.

We went from just under 13,000 ft and fell for about a minute I believe. I definitely need to go again.

[s0urce]

^^ That Kittenger Jump is insane George. He reached 720mph during his freefall. Since there was no air at such high altitude there was no friction.

^TwoJ's. That is nuts that you had a malfunction on your first tandem jump. The spinning probably meant it was a line over malfunction.

[george graves]

Is hard to learning to pack your own parachutes? Do you do it your self? It's kinda f-ing important...I would imagine not something you do while talking on a cell phone.

[Farbin Kaiber]

George, you are talking about HALO jumps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HALO_jump

[s0urce]

Is hard to learning to pack your own parachutes? Do you do it your self? It's kinda f-ing important...I would imagine not something you do while talking on a cell phone.

Haha, funny you ask. I'm taking my packing Class tomorrow. I need it to get my A license. Packing is pretty simple, usually it takes noobs about 15-30 minutes to pack a main. Once you get it down it takes anywhere from 5-10 minutes.

After the packing class I'll have to jump the chute that I packed. From that point on, it's really up to me. A lot of jumpers don't bother with it and pay the packers fee (6 bucks) to have someone experienced do it for them. Once you get good at it there are lots of tweaks you can make to your pack job that affect the way the canopy opens.

As far as the Reserve Canopy, it has to be packed by an FAA Certified Rigger every 180 days.

[george graves]

That's a tough call between packing it yourself and paying the $6. On one hand $6 is nothing. On the other hand, if you want something done right...

[F34R]

I want to jump SO BAD. I just don't like the idea of someone packing my chute. That NASA video is amazing.

[s0urce]

I want to jump SO BAD. I just don't like the idea of someone packing my chute. That NASA video is amazing.

Well the entire sport is about trust. If you can't trust the guy packing your chute, you probably shouldn't be jumping at all. That being said, the pack-rats at the DZ usually have a shit load of experience and will most likely do a better pack job than you could ever do. But even if they botch the pack job on your main, you've got a reserve for a reason. Get out there and jump. It will definitely change your life.

[F34R]

Well the entire sport is about trust. If you can't trust the guy packing your chute, you probably shouldn't be jumping at all. That being said, the pack-rats at the DZ usually have a shit load of experience and will most likely do a better pack job than you could ever do. But even if they botch the pack job on your main, you've got a reserve for a reason. Get out there and jump. It will definitely change your life.

That is on my list of stuff to do. I just have a hard time trusting things like that. But two chutes is really good. I just need to find a place to do it in NY that is well known and trusted.

[s0urce]

That is on my list of stuff to do. I just have a hard time trusting things like that. But two chutes is really good. I just need to find a place to do it in NY that is well known and trusted.

There are a ton of great Dropzones in NY. I've heard really good things about Blue Sky Ranch. But there is a complete listing of USPA certified DZ's in NY on this page:

http://www.dropzone.com/dropzone/North_America/United_States/New_York/index.html

[F34R]

There are a ton of great Dropzones in NY. I've heard really good things about Blue Sky Ranch. But there is a complete listing of USPA certified DZ's in NY on this page:

http://www.dropzone.com/dropzone/Nor...ork/index.html

My Girl Friend's brother jumped with their program a few weeks ago.

[z31maniac]

Terminal velocity George.

http://www.esquire.com/features/impossible/felix-baumgartner-skydive-0810