So first off, I’d like to give a HUGE thank you to Adam Mabee at Parachute School of Toronto for the ENORMOUS hospitality he showed us at PST.

Not only were we welcomed with open arms, he made sure that we got into the sky even when mother nature wasn’t 100% cooperative. The wind conditions were perfect, but cloud ceiling wasn’t very much so….
We got several hop and pops done, some emergency exit practice and luckily I even managed to get in on one of the two loads that got to 9.5k (We had a blue hole opened up for us for about an hour on the Sunday).

Long story short, Adam was a great host, and I honestly look forward to going back to PST again.

So Friday evening around 4:30 pm, we head off from Montreal for a 7 hour drive to Toronto.
We were to be the last ones there, leaving Montreal with somewhat disappointing weather (There was a pretty big snowfall while we were on our way), that left me kind of worried that we wouldn’t get to jump if conditions stayed this way. But as we got closer and closer to our destination, things got greener and greener…
To put things simply: There was no snow after the Quebec/Ontario border.

Now, we’re beginning February in Canada… One would expect to see some white… But seriously, there was nothing at all.

At this point I’m thinking “What the hell kind of a winter jump is this gonna be? I’ll be landing on grass”

But we continue on our way regardless. Obviously we’re not here for snow, we’re here to jump off planes.

Around 11:30 PM, we arrive at the hotel, everyone’s been drinking, we’re last to arrive. The others has stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings and managed to get us sponsored. We would have to skydive while wearing their kid’s crown, in exchange, we’d get 50 wings. For those of you who don’t know, B.W.W. has a hot wing challenge where you have 5 minutes to eat 10 of their hottest wings (200 000 – 350 000 scoville) – More on that later.

So we get drunk and head to bed around 2:30 AM like good skydivers. ( We can sleep on the plane right? )

At 7:30 AM, we get up and head out for breakfast then on to the DZ.

We arrive around 10 AM.

The DZ is just opening up, they’re pulling their Cessna 182 out of the hangar (The 206 had just gotten a new engine, so they’re going easy on it for a bit).
I walk in to see this:

Put a smile on my face, even though Adam hates it for being tacky.
I manifest myself on the first load to 4500 feet to get a quick hop and pop done and to simply work off the rust since my last skydive.
While on the load, that beautiful blue sky you see in the picture earlier proceeds to disappear and we’re told that the ceiling is at about 5000 at the moment.
Worked for this load, but later on, it kept creeping lower, and lower, and lower, and lower…
Luckily, Adam kept us warm with a nice fire:

Needless to say, the ceiling never went back up and stuck around 3000-3200 feet.
Adam made sure that our time wasn’t wasted and let those of us who were comfortable do some emergency exit practices:
We may not have gotten full altitude, but we did have a great time.

That night, we went back to B.W.W.

With our pictures from the day as proof:

 We of course got our hot wings…And yes, I proceeded to eat them in less than 5 minutes… Tears, runny nose, burning fingers and all…. I will not go into details about how my poor colon felt the next day.

So Sunday morning, we headed back to PST for some more action. We had convinced Adam to open early so that we could get as many jumps in as possible before heading back.
We were greeted by gray skies and a ceiling of 5000 in the morning. So once again, hop and pops.
I got on the 3rd load, attempted to do a mini track jump with one of the girls, but ended up back-flipping unintentionally on the way out and simply tracking on my own.
After that jump, I decided to sit out for a bit to warm up while the others jumped more.
I’m super glad I did, because Adam came in to announce that there was a hole that opened up.
Before he even got further than the word “hole” to tell us how high we could go, myself and 2 others were running to the whiteboard to put our names on the next load.

We got up to 9.5k, I got to do some head down, and I had triumphed at what I had set out to do: Get a full altitude winter jump done at PST.

All was well until about 500 feet, when I realized that I was coming in to land on a patch of ice. I figure “time to slide on my butt”, I proceed to do so, but then slide another 20 feet past the ice right into the mud.
Those wings + my muddy backside have won me the nickname “Shitty pants” at the DZ for quite some time.

Hopefully Adam and the others at PST enjoyed the laugh at my expense.

Once again, I’d like to extend a HUGE thank you to Adam and the peeps at PST for being so welcoming and so nice to this group of crack-headed skydivers from Quebec.
I have to say that of all the Drop Zones I’ve visited, this is by far one of the ones that is MOST fun jump oriented. Adam is a true saint in the sport, he runs the school for the love of the sport and not for the money.
Rentals at 12$ if you pack them yourself are by far the cheapest I’ve ever seen for any canopies at all. (You’re jumping Sabers if you go for the sport canopies)

If ever you’re in the area, be sure to stop in for a fun jump or two, and as Adam constantly says “Just don’t fuck up”.

Blue skies everyone! (More pictures from PST on our facebook page and here)

Adam A!

A friend of mine who happens to be a Francophone skydiver from Quebec only took up the sport a few years ago.

She’s someone who impresses me. She has her motorcycle license, she has her skydiving license and she’s just an overall “bad ass” woman.

She gave me permission to post an article that she wrote up for Canpara (Canadian version of Parachutist)

This is the article:

Skydiving in your early 50s?
Written by Normande Cournoyer
Translaled by Gaëlle Vercollier

Yes, it is possible. ln 2004, around the end of the summer, I was
looking for a special project to undertake the following year. As
I was reading the paper one morning, an article really caught
my attention. A woman in her eighties had done a tandem skydive.
Suddenly, I remembered I had been having a recurring dream for a very
long time. I was flying off into the sky and it was always very pleasant.
June 11,2005, was the first tandem, a memorable day spent in total
euphoria. While taking Lebeau Road in Farnham which leads to the
Nouvel Air site, a song by Natasha St-Pier was playing on the radio:
To each their own story (Chacun son histoire) with the following lyrics:
“Taking off, flying, Burning one’s wings, To go through the sky, To
write one’s story … )” What a coincidence! I was far from thinking it was
the beginning of a beautiful adventure.

Well, yes, five weeks later, I was in the air for a second tandem.
Believe me, a third one almost occurred.

Seeing my need for adrenaline, one of my close friends suggested I
take some skydiving lessons. This idea was eating at me because I was in
my early fifties. After some research, information given by people in the
circle and encouragement given by a person who started skydiving at
47, I decided to follow the PAC program in the summer of 2006. I told
myself that I would regret it if didn’t give it a try.

Unfortunately, I was unable to complete my training in 2006 for
various reasons: difficulties, lack of available time and whims of Mother
Nature. One Friday morning, my heart wasn’t really into skydiving.
While going to Nouvel Air, I made a stop to have coffee and think
about what was best for me. While looking at the paper, I read a quote
by Nicholas Macrozo who belongs to the world of Canadian athletics:
“Sornetimes, you have ta take a step back in order to take two forward.”
I had just found my answer. I was stopping everything for now. My
solution was to go to a vertical wind tunnel.

On three occasions I found myself in the New Hampshire wind
tunnel with amazing instructors from Nouvel Air (Martin and Vincent
Lemay and Mario Prévost). Results followed one progress after another.
This past 16th of July, Solo certified, I was flying on my own in
Farnham’s sky.
From the time I made the decision to go on a tandem up until my
Solo certification, my journey had faced obstacles. Fortunately, the main
difficulties were encountered during the winter. Before the tandem,
I had a crow’s-foot tendonitis, the following year, surgery on the big
toe, and to top it off, last winter, tendonitis in both shoulders, I didn ‘t
find that one funny… With perseverance and hard work, I was able to
get back into shape. What is marvelous is that my physical condition is
better than it ever was.

Skydiving for me is to be in a new dimension: feeling of freedom,
of space around oneself, feeling the control of my body on the air.
While being safe, it’s the search for new feats. To fly off into this bluish
dimension is pure pleasure.

Presently, my objective is to continue having fun while progressing.
Who knows, maybe the A license? Only the future will tell.
I am proud to be a new skydiver in her early fifties. It’s the
achievement of a dream and a big challenge. I just had to believe in it
and face the encountered obstacles and provide the necessary energies.
My motto: “The only challenges lost ahead of time are the ones not
taken up. There wouldn’t be anything worse than to resign to defeat
without finally having tempted to be victorious”.

Hey everyone!

It’s been quite some time since my last post, I’m so sorry about the fact that we haven’t come up with much new content this past while.
I’ve had to take a year off from skydiving to sort of reassess where my life is as well as pay off some debts that I sorta just left lying around…

I’ve been staring at the skies waiting till my chance to get back up there.
I missed the 100 way Canadian record attempt that was done at Parachute Montreal. They didn’t manage to break the record due to weather issues, but they did 5 attempts and are planning to retry in 2012.

I’m finally going to get my fix, some friends and I are headed to this coming weekend. That’s right, February 4th and 5th, we’ll be jumping out of a sexy Cessna at 13500 feet in Frozen Canada.
I’m expecting it to be – 1 000 000 Degrees out, so I’ll be jumping in a mixture of both my skydive gear and my snowboard gear (Full face helmet, snowsuit, board socks, etc…) I’m pretty sure that my frost bite will have frost bite. I CAN’T WAIT!

I’ll have some pictures taken and post them up as soon as I can.
I promise you that I’ll be writing more as of now, if not about my jumps, about some random info I get about the sport.

On a side note: We at Skydive Addiction would like to wish a quick recovery to Jeb Corliss, for those of you who aren’t aware, he injured himself in a base jumping accident earlier this month.

Blue skies everyone!

Adam

Hey everyone!

I had a very eventful day last Saturday, it started off with my celebration jump for my B license.
We did a 7 way that went to hell, was someone’s 100th jump and the idea was that we would do a hybrid (some belly fliers, some free fliers).
The plan was that we’d have a 4 person base (I was in the base).
With 2 people hanging onto us and one stinger (He was on camera filming and would randomly hook on and off in freefly)

Our exit was fairly unstable and I ended up separated from everyone, I was falling way too slow to be able to keep up no matter how hard I tried, I failed miserably… If I had a camera, I would’ve had the best view of this jump though, I was just above everyone and saw everything… Was laughing the whole time… I found it funny to watch one of the hangers fall on someone

For the 2nd jump, we did a 4way hybrid, well.. attempted to, again, with the guy who was 100 lbs heavier than me, but this time with a girl who was 80 lbs lighter than I am…
Needless to say, she and I couldn’t keep up =P

I gave up on trying to keep up with the other guy (I need to practice my speed flying before I try that again)

For the 3rd jump, I participated in someone’s 900th. It was a 9 way belly fly.
We were supposed to exit the plane on red and jump on green, I dunno why, but we were already falling on red…

The jump was fairly well planned, but someone had a brain fart and ended up below us. We had a few issues and ended up zooing the jump, but was fun.
That is… Until we all tracked away and I pulled my pilot chute…

My canopy opened… To reveal:

A beautiful….

Line over!!!!!

It was off center a bit to the right, I was spinning but managed to control it.
Decided to try to land it.
Most of us didn’t make it back, with normal openings… With the fact that I lost about 1500 feet of altitude spinning and was flying a crippled canopy, I’m sure you know I wasn’t one of the people who did…
I landed just off a pumpkin patch in some soft dirt.
I had about a km and a half (1 mile) to walk back to the DZ.
Wasn’t so bad except for the fact that I was walking through a farmer’s field with my canopy.

After having gotten back to the DZ, I got an earful from one of the packers…
She doesn’t like me to begin with, and I think on top of that, she was the one who had packed the rig. She didn’t believe that I had a malfunction and was probably having a bad day to begin with.

So come the end of the day, there are still some tandems that hadn’t jumped, the sun’s setting, they go up for 2 quick loads while we bring in some cars to light up the landing area.
It was still somewhat light out so they didn’t need more than 2-3 cars to light the area.

For our jump, we had set up about 20…
There was no moon out, the sky was dark, the only light we had was the lights of the city (let me tell you, it’s beautiful up there).
We had 10 cars on each side of the landing area set up at an angle so we wouldn’t get any light in our eyes.
It was set up in two passes (a pass is when the plane flies over where we’re supposed to jump out, when there’s two passes, half the people jump out the 1st time, we close the door, fly around for about 5 minutes, then pass again)
The jump was organized in a way so that the more experienced jumpers got out first, and the least got out last. There was very little wind that day, so we only needed about 15 seconds of delay between each jumper.
Each of us had a designated altitude to open at, the 1st at 3500 feet, 2nd at 4000, 3rd 4500, etc… All the way up to 7000 feet on each pass.

I decided that after the day I had, I just wanted to belly fly and take in the view…
At that moment, falling at 120 mph, looking at the city lights from 4 km in the sky, I can honestly say that it was probably the most romantic thing I’ve ever done for myself and I loved my self that much more for giving myself that experience… (Yes, I’m romantically linked to myself and there’s no one I love more than me =P)

I haven’t had the opportunity to jump since, but I’ll keep you guys posted on my progress.
I may end up going to Niagara Falls next weekend, if I do, I’ll be jumping there for sure.

In the meantime: Blue ones!

- Adam

It’s been a while – my apologies. Life has been busy to say the least.

Between planning a move from Cleveland to Chicago (which will be taking place at the first of October…coming up fast!), traveling, and boogies it’s been a busy fall already.

For those who may not know, Labor Day is a busy boogie weekend in the U.S. Last year was my first season as a skydiver, and looking back I was so excited for the Work Stinks! Boogie at Start Skydiving outside of Dayton, Ohio. Though for the life of me I couldn’t find a group of people to go. Luckily, my buddy Rick was willing to go with me.

One year later I couldn’t be more happy that he agreed to go, because this year at the Work Stinks! Boogie he asked me to marry him just before he hucked us out of the CASA into an awesome two-way head down. You’ll have to check out the video on my other blog.

And once we have the engagement photos from Norman I’ll be sure to send those around. The video of the shoot doesn’t look like much, but we saw the proofs and that man got some incredible shots!!

Okay, but enough of that sappy crap! Back to boogies…

So for us, Labor Day means Work Stinks! which included a CASA, R44 Helicopter, Two Caravans and an Otter. It also means lots of jumpers from around Ohio and Pennsylvania which was great fun! Lots of fun freefly takes place…good stuff.

We’ve also talked about going to Couch Freaks, which is in Iowa. I’ve heard great things about this boogie, though from what I understand the part not to miss is the party. Personally, I’m not much of a drinker (yes, I understand that I’m a skydiver and they go hand in hand..really, I do) so the draw hasn’t been that great considering Work Stinks! is much closer for us…though once we’re in Chicago that’ll be an entirely different story.

So let’s hear it fellow skydivers, what did you do with your extended Labor Day weekend? What are some of your favorite Boogies, no matter what time of the year they fall?

Blue ones!

Ashley

As a follow-up to my post My original plan for this year… My actual results

I’m now at 62 jumps, I’ve spent about 5000$ on the sport (not counting the 1750$ for the solo course, the 350$ for the jump suit, the 280$ for my protrack, 260$ for my full face, my 100$ for my Altimaster II or the 1200$ spent going to Florida to take that solo course)

I’ve just passed my B license, (Yes, Got my B 15 jumps after passing my A).
I’ve not only passed the B license exam… I got 96.25% on it… According to my DZO, it’s the highest grade he’s ever seen =D.

I now have an altimaster II galaxy altimeter, a tony suits jump suit, a protrack audible, a factory diver full face, a packing tool and a huge smile on my face.

I did however decide to slow down on the purchases and decided not to buy a rig this year.
I’m going to start paying off some debts for now and maybe buy one next year.

As it stands, I’ve now surpassed my 2 year goal on the sport haha.

Next step: Coach 1 lessons and maybe Rigger A.

If there’s one thing I love about being somewhere between a beginner and intermediate freeflyer is this: ZOO dives!

I know many people who get annoyed by zoo dives. We had a plan, it went to shit, and there’s disappointment and failure in that. So, I kinda get that. But as I see it, even if the plan doesn’t go, well, as planned, it’s still a skydive, and it’s still fun! Besides, when you’re in that experience range of 200-500 skydives, you’re at a place where you can think on the fly (pun intended) and turn the jump into something else entirely.

Take, for example, a 6-way skydive that ended the Jump for Diabetes a couple weeks back. We had a plan to have 4 guys as the base on their bellies and two of us as divers out of the King Air in hopes of catching the 4-way round and selecting one person in that circle to rodeo for the remainder of the jump.

Sounds totally doable, but as I was doing my first rodeo out the door, I realized that this jump was already headed in a different direction – so I held on for a longer rodeo! Funny thing was, Matt didn’t even know I was there till I poked my head around to his right!

After letting go I realized that the 4-way base never made it there, so they ended up improvising and doing a hybrid with the three guys who remained linked. Good stuff right there!

Then, lucky for me, I was able to release into a backfly to check this out, only to see Doug floating away from the attempted 4-way in a sit – so I jumped into a sit with him from afar.

Check it out on the video. It doesn’t look as fun as it was, but let me tell you that everyone enjoyed this skydive more than expected. It didn’t go as planned, at all, starting with me changing the plan immediately out the door, but we all just enjoyed our time in the sky, figuring out ways to make it a bad ass skydive no matter what. The smiles in the LZ were huge after that jump!

This is just one example of the funness (yep, I just made that a word)  that can be had on zoo dives. The other thing, is that when things don’t go as planned, it forces you out of your comfort zone. So say you miss the exit count and everyone loses their grips, you’re the forced to learn how to get it back together – whether it’s on your belly, your feet or on your head. As I see it, zoo dives have the potential to make you a better skydive, if you use that time wisely .

One other thing not to forget, is safety. There are always safety issues that can arise on a skydive, regardless if they go as planned or not. But when they don’t, you get into additional issues like fall rates and separation and deployment. Be sure that, if the dive goes to crap, you know where all of your jumping partners are in the sky. When in doubt, flip over on your back to check out who might be above you before you deploy. And make sure you track away like there’s no tomorrow to ensure safe separation.

Okay, off my soapbox now – but that when promoting zoo dives, that had to be mentioned!

So, if you’re into zoo dives, I highly recommend keeping an eye on the Skydive Chick blog. I’m always posting videos of the crazy things we’re up to in the sky.

Like my friend’s 200th that went from “hey let’s do a hybrid” to total freefly zoo!

Hope everyone had a very jumpable weekend.

Blue skies!

Ashley

So I finally got the chance to jump the full face helmet I had to wait nearly 2 months to get…

It was worth the wait.

I’ve gotten 57 jumps done with an open face helmet wearing goggles…
After having done 2 jumps with a full face, I don’t know how I managed…
I see the ground so much more clearly, it’s not silent, but it’s so much quieter on the way down,
I barely hear the annoying flapping of the slider in the wind…
And all the stuff I heard about peoples’ full faces fogging up has now been 100% clarified to me.
I was sweaty, it was humid out, and I had the helmet on my head. (not over my face, just resting on the top of my head)
It fogged up fairly quickly.
As soon as I took it off, it started to clear up.
While wearing it, if I’d breathe through my nose, it would fog slightly around my nose, but not enough to affect me.
The vents for your mouth are well placed, so you can breathe quite well.
In freefall, the vent around your nose lets in just enough air to keep the visor from fogging up, but not enough for you to be bothered.
My favorite part of the helmet is landing…
It’s got a LOT of visibility, you don’t really have any blind spots which you do have with goggles… You see very clearly and judge distances much easier as well.
My landings were much more easy to gauge with the factory diver then with my goggles and open face.

Cost: 4*
Cheap compared to other full faces, but still fairly expensive

Comfort: 4.5*
It’s very comfortable, but unbearably hot when it’s sunny out, and small amounts of sweat make the material inside feel flooded

Look: 5*
It’s a very sleek and sexy helmet, easy to paint, very little to obstruct your vision.
Velcro on the side to tighten it instead of a strap with a snap.

Durability factor: 4*
The material inside probably won’t ever have any issues, but the Velcro will wear out and I’ve been told that I’ll end up having to add a snap. The lens is EXTREMELY fragile, to the point where even cloth would damage it and replacement lenses are never cheap.

Value: 4.5*
The Factory Diver is about 25% cheaper than the other full faces on the market, the visor doesn’t open, so you won’t have to worry about it opening randomly in free fall… This is both an upside and a downside. The Z-1 offers a safety button that keeps it from opening which gives it points, the FD simply doesn’t open.
The Factory Diver is also a bit bigger of a form, so fits a wider range of faces.
It loses .5 simply because some people want a helmet that can open.
It also has a slot for an audible altimeter on the inside lining.

Availability: 2.5*
I had to order it twice to get it, once through my DZ who never ended up receiving it, and then again through a buddy’s shop who was told that it would be on back order for a month.
7 weeks later, I had the helmet in my hands… That lost some major points for me since I’m looking to buy something now, not in 7 weeks… a 2-3 week waiting period is fine, but 7 weeks… (I waited 1 week for my Protrack to arrive at the DZ and it also had to be ordered… Review coming soon)

Overall: 4/5 Star rating
I’ll say that I’m very happy with my purchase regardless, and I’d suggest it for someone on a budget looking to get their hands on a full face helmet to add to their gear selection.

Let’s get real here for a moment…like really, real.

I love skydiving – for obvious reasons.

I love social media – mostly because I work in this space all day and see the benefits, like keeping up on the latest information, staying in touch with friends, getting updates on products and services you enjoy.

I also hate social media. (Don’t worry, I’m not about to say I hate skydiving…not in the slightest. ) Social media has done things to our society that I fear can’t be undone. Sure, we’re more connected than ever before, but I also believe we’re more lonely than we’ve ever been. Our idea of “community” has been altered. We’re walking down a path that’s slowly putting us out of touch with our humanity (yes, Weeds fans, I did steal that line from the show, but it’s true)!

What’s more is that it’s making us passive aggressive individuals. Instead of talking to people in person or taking someone aside to chat about an issue, we’re publicly calling people out. I’m seeing this more and more with skydiving related topics as well.

In the last week I’ve seen skydivers who have posted about switching from RW to freefly, another who posted about downsizing (which is always a hot topic and everyone has their opinions), and subsequently, I’ve seen “friends” of theirs put them on the spot with things like “you shouldn’t do that, you’ll get hurt,” or “you’re too inexperienced,” or “are you sure about that?”

All this does is put people on the defensive – after all, they were just called out in front of their friends and families in one of the most populated social media communities.

Thing is, I really don’t believe the people who are making these passive attacks see it this way. It’s genuine concern most of the time – which we as skydivers truly love! But if you take a step back and look at how these very public comments come across, the potential outcome probably isn’t what was intended. Think about it, if you were at the DZ, instead of online, would you stand up on the picnic table and yell to the guy who is talking to his instructor about freeflying, “hey, you shouldn’t do that, you’re not proficient on your belly yet, you’ll get hurt, or worse, you’ll hurt someone else!”

Of course not! That would embarrass them, and possibly even make you look like a jerk. Instead, you’d have a personal conversation to express your concern for that person and those with whom they share the sky. That’s just common decency…isn’t it?

As a skydiver, I love having the ability to use social media (such as Facebook and Twitter) to keep up with things that are going on in the industry – updates from USPA, manufacturers like PD and Infinity, getting links to the latest blog posts – and staying updated on my jumping buddies, where they’re headed for the weekend, staying in touch with those I’ve met in my travels, but when I see skydivers who have to get defensive because of someone who didn’t stop to think of the outcomes of a comment they could have sent privately, that starts to make me question how great these tools are after all.

Now don’t get me wrong here, this isn’t an attack on anyone who may have done something similar in the past. I believe everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, so I truly believe that most of these comments are not meant to publicly humiliate other jumpers, or to try to put someone in their place for the purpose of making them feel bad. That’s just not skydiver nature, as far as I’m concerned. We jump together, we beer together (yes, beer can be a verb), we chill around the bonfire together…hell, we do just about everything but sing Kumbaya together at the end of a great day of skydiving. Well, maybe if we’ve had enough of that beer I was referring to, but that’s an entirely different topic altogether.

Point being, I do honestly believe that everyone has the best of intentions in this sport, and those that don’t are quick to be outed by their own behavior. I blame social media for our ability to post anything and everything online and not think for a second that there’s anything wrong with that. But when it involves someone else, that’s when I think it’s time to take an extra second to review how your words could be perceived.

In the end, we’re all here to help each other out. So to the defenders: stop being so sensitive…they likely didn’t mean anything by it. It’s your decision if you want to freefly or downsize or BASE jump or whatever. Just make sure you’re being smart about it. To the antagonists: you’re probably not how your comments make you seem, you’re likely just concerned, but be sure it’s coming off that way, and not as “you’re an idiot, I’m smarter than you and a better skydiver than you so you better listen to me and so should all your friends who will see this post too.”

But then again, this is just my advice, which, given that this is a social media platform, could very well be taken as “skygod-ish” itself.  Though I promise you, that is not my intent. From one skydiving, social media user to another….

Blue skies!

Ashley

Well, as far as I’ve been able to read, as it stand, Lance has got it way better than I do in Canada…

A jump ticket here is 35$ Canadian (34$ us give or take)
Packing is only 6$ though. So if you have your own rig, it’s 41$ if you have your rig packed. Add another 30$ if you rent a rig.
It’s July, I’ve done 2 jumps this month so far, (Not kidding)
I’ve done 48 overall this year, 10 of which were my AFF, 10 were my RW course, 2 were with camera men to film my “flip” attempts and the rest fun jumps and have easily spent 6000$ so far… This doesn’t include buying a jumpsuit or helmet.

As it stands, my money can go much farther in Lodi California than it can here or in South Africa, but it’ll cost me a fortune to go there in the 1st place. (In Lodi it’s about 9$ a jump+ packing) But given the choice, I’d rather jump in South Africa… Lodi isn’t exactly the nicest looking part of the world.

As for wing loading, the DZs here don’t limit you with anything, they just want to make sure you’re comfortable jumping with whatever loading you choose.
Right now, I’m jumping a 1.16 loading and am looking at downsizing to 1.32 by the time I buy my rig next april (We can’t jump in the winter, so it’ll be the equivalent of downsizing in October).

So I stick to my grounds on saying that SA’s got it somewhat better

Then again, I’m not really sure of the average income/cost of living there though but judging from all the “sponsor a child in Africa” commercials, I guess I can see why it’s not affordable for most people.

Fill me in Lance!
- Adam