Tag: instructor

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WEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Sorry for the long delays in between postings, I’ve just been so busy with my new job, with my summer plans, with getting Skydive Addiction on the map, with making excuses as to why I haven’t been posting, with procrastinating posting, and with a bunch of other stuff.

Seriously speaking though, getting Skydive Addiction on the map is my #1 priority…
Behind skydiving of course 😛

So anyways, this past weekend, I managed to convince 8 of my friends from a couple of DZs I jump at to join me on a bungee jumping road trip.
Needless to say, I heard at least 20 skydivers say:
“Are you crazy? How could you jump off a perfectly good bridge… WITHOUT a parachute?”

Yes, that’s right… Skydivers asked me the most God awful question in the world…
Why wouldn’t I? It’s quite a different rush from skydiving, and it’s a welcome change from the regular routine… Given, it’s not something you’d find me doing every day, but it’s fun once in a while.

So we headed to the Great Canadian Bungee which claims to be the highest bungee jump in North America. It’s 200 feet over a very very blue lake. Beautiful place actually.
I jumped there last year (as you can see on one of my 1st posts). And it was a lot of fun, so I decided to head back.

Turns out that when you’re 8 or 9 people, it’s actually cheaper to pay for 10 then it is to pay for 8 or 9… Group discount… So that’s exactly what we did.
And since I organized it, my friends were quick to put my name down as the person to do two jumps.
S-WEET!!
So the 1st person to jump is a girl named Stephanie, she’s done 5 tandem skydives, but doesn’t have her license yet. She’s never done a bungee jump however.
(They went by weight)
After 7 minutes of her standing at the edge not jumping and 7 minutes of myself and one of the other guys yelling at her to hurry up, she finally took the plunge… Ok, well she held hands with the instructor and he slowly lowered her backwards until she finally fell. HI HI =)

The others jumped right away, which was a welcome sight =D

My first jump was a normal forward dive with my ankles strapped in, didn’t give me the same adrenaline rush as the 1st time though (Which pretty much proved that once you face a fear, you never get that same rush again =( )

I even tested it… I started running back up the hill to get to the top… Half way up, I couldn’t breathe anymore… If I had an adrenaline pumping through my veins, I probably would’ve made it up without breaking a sweat.
So on the 2nd jump, I decided to strap myself in by the shoulders. The instructors at the top told me that since I was so comfortable with jumping off the bridge that I could do a flip this time.
We decided that I’d do a back flip. That back flip then turned into a double and if I had known how much more time I had, I probably would’ve been able to get a third in. Damn me and my dissatisfaction!!!!!

So after spending 2 and a half hours at the bungee jump place, we then decided to go grab breakfast at some random place in town… This place was on the 2nd floor of a supermarket… And I can say one thing… If we thought waiting for Stephanie to jump was a lifetime wait… Waiting for sunny side up eggs and toast to be prepared was an eternity.

Fast forward an hour and we arrive at Go Skydive. It’s one of those DZs that you wouldn’t be able to find if you didn’t know where to go… We didn’t know where to go.
We parked in the Gatineau airport’s parking lot, looked around for signs, but couldn’t find any.
We were given directions on how to walk there by a girl who had just completed her 1st tandem =).
So we get there, they check out our paperwork, the rigs we’re jumping, and so on.
Then they tell us that even though we’re regular jumpers who have jumped together before, they want us to jump with a coach ?!?!?!?!

My buddy Alex lent me his rig (Sabre I 170 in a Javelin J2 rig), he spent 15 minutes checking the gear making sure that everything was ok even after a rigger took a look at it and I had inspected it too… His reasoning was that he didn’t want my death on his conscience. I laughed, told him that I’d pull the reserve on purpose then went into the plane 😛

In the end, they decided to put 5 of us on a Cessna 182 (TINY plane!!!) instead of their Navaho (Still tiny, but bigger than the Cessna) but this time, we didn’t need a coach.
For those of you who don’t really know the difference, with a Cessna, you have to get out of the door, hang onto a strut below the wing, stand on a step and hang there before your jump.
On the Navaho, you jump out of the door. On the Twin Otter and the Caravans that my home DZs have, you not only jump out of the door, but you have a bench to sit on 😛

Anyways, the DZ’s landing area is bigger than the one at Parachute Montreal but the planes, much smaller.
The staff was nice, but the rigger who packed Alex’s rig after I jumped took ages… He also asked us different questions about the rig and forgot to collapse the pilot chute (a fairly dangerous mistake that can sometimes cause a malfunction). Anyways, all in all, I’d jump there again, but I’d also pack my own rig 😛

Blue Skies everyone!

-Adam

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AFF Level 2-7: With Videographic Evidence

I was thinking about all these jumps and reading my SIM (Skydivers Instruction Manual) and considering/reviewing all the tiny little critical things that I learned and experienced and then all those little details just begin to swirl around and blur together and all I can remember is that I went up in the Otter  a bunch of times and jumped out and some people were with me and they were nice and fun and nobody died and I passed each level and then I was done.

I do have video of two of them, so I’ll throw them up. Maybe you’ll be able to figure out what the heck happened ‘cuz I’m not really sure anymore.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJJPIgJZYoY[/youtube]

That’s Level 4 (above). I just had to do some basic maneuvers to show my ability to control and direct my body in the air. It’s so much harder than you might think. (Unless you’ve been doing this a while. Then you’ll get to laugh at me, because my attempts are pretty laughable.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjWEENh4NRY[/youtube]

This was Level 7. This was my third jump that day and also my 38th 29th birthday and a pre-cursor to the Mar gets crazy after hours in the DZ story, which will have to wait for another time.

Immediately following my Level 7, I went up on my first solo jump which was also my first sunset load and was pretty spectacular. All in all, a great birthday!

Highlights of AFF: First jump was so empowering! Figuring out how to make my body start cooperating with my mind. The first time the instructors let go and I flew alone. Hard turns under canopy (wheeee!)! Front flips out the door! And by far my favorite; the 30 or so (and growing) new members of my “family”. I love all my newdrop zone friends.

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AFF Primer = Ground school

So, let’s start at the very beginning. How does one go about becoming a skydiver and jumping all by oneself? It begins with an AFF course.

AFF (Accelerated Free Fall) is a program designed to teach you in baby steps the fundamentals you need to prep for jump, exit the plane, remain aware of altitude, free fall in a  stable position, do very basic maneuvers, deploy from  a stable position at the right time, assess and react to an emergency, fly your canopy, and land safely. You learn these skills (and a few more I’m sure I’ve forgotten to mention) over a series of 7 specific jumps with an instructor (or two) beside you and coaching you every step of the way.

But first, before you ever jump, you train. AFF students first take a course (taught by a certified jump master and badass) in which you spend 6-8 hours learning all the fundamentals of the sport and equipment and emergencies. And it’s pretty flippin’ intense to learn all that crammed into 6 hours, because you kinda gotta KNOW this stuff or risk bouncing, and that’s BAD kids. So take ground school seriously. It’s there for a reason.

Then after they explain everything, they show you. They show you videos. they show you pictures of various malfunctions. They show you all the equipment in great detail. They put you in a harness and flash pictures at you of possible canopies and ask you to react to the scenario. You practice the belly down free fall position. You practice exiting the plane in a mock up. You physically practice everything before anyone will clear your punk ass to go on up and try it for real. And that’s a good thing.

I had the privilege of taking ground school twice. The first time I sat the class, after the classroom and practical training I was unable to jump because of high winds. All weekend I sat in the drop zone and watched other jumpers go up and come down, and I sat in the hangar with the veteran jumpers who had the same idea as my DZO: the winds were iffy, so why risk it. (Note to newbies: you can always tell what the smartest thing to do is by seeing what the veterans do. They live to jump another day for a reason. Take an opportunity like this as a good time to hang around and pick the brains of those much wiser than you. It’s kinda a good time. Some of them are even hotties. Grin.)

After a second straight weekend of being grounded due to winds and weather, I hit upon a clear and un-windy day but at that point I needed a refresher. So I did another two hours of review with another instructor and frankly, it was pretty cool. He taught a few things differently than the first guy. It wasn’t that the information was different, I just understood things better in some cases. Maybe it was just the repetition. Either way, it was worth it.

Skydiving is a sport in which you pretty much can never learn enough. Almost everybody I talk to, from newbies like myself to serious veterans with more than 10,000 jumps, all say the same thing: Learn something every time. Have fun. Relax. Slow is fast. Don’t get cocky. Be a sponge.

So, to be crystal clear: I’m going to tell you all the juicy details of my experiences and what I learned or am learning. BUT please remember – I don’t really know shit. I’m pretty damn new to this sport. I am only one source and definitely NOT an authority. Please always, always consult with and refer to your local jump masters and AFF instructors.

Next post, I’ll tell you how I failed to pass my first jump. (Rut, roh.)

Mar