My feet

...........
can you see my dirty feet in the second pic?

 

Nice feet, they look alot like mine.

 

I can, and I like!

To me, three of the most beautiful things there are: bare feet, and the sky!

So, you in the bottom pic are the same as the passenger on the tandem skydive? Rock on! Have you done any more jumps since that one? I'm going out to do a few tomorrow. Barefoot! Yeeehaaaa!

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

You have some really nice feet there. Keep 'em bare as those feet were meant to be.



Just say "NO" to shoes and socks!

 

I had the wonderful oppurtunity to skydive and fly the plane in mexico...w/ people that I met there..but they lived an hour from me here in illinois....CRAZY...but yeah...i am jumping out there at the end of the summer...and then i plan to do it again in mexico next year...i really don't have the time and money to take the classes...man i would luv that...i used to be a gymnast...so i wanna fly by myself and do some flips ... man that would rock...do u ever travel and jump? cuz i hear you guys travel quite a bit...for 'boggies' or something..i dunno..i'd really like to get involved cuz i met a great group of people..p m me sometime..we should chat here are a few more pics of skydive ixtapa!


STL

 

It's so cool that you like being barefoot and skydiving! So many people I know are "whuffos": that's skydiver-ese for "wha' fo' you do that fo'?!" (The people who just can't understand the desire to skydive, and therefore probably never will try it.)

If you are talking about jumping at Skydive Chicago, you should definitely do it. As I understand it, they run a world-class operation up there. You can even jump from a helicopter with them!

Here is a picture of me after a skydive I did at our "boogie" (those big gatherings you mentioned). I haven't yet had a chance to travel much for skydiving, but I will. In the fall I'm going to go to Skydive DeLand, about 4 hours north of me in central Florida. They have a wind-tunnel there where you can practice freefall maneuvers for minutes at a time. It's expensive to do, but not when you consider that each $20 skydive gets you about a minute of freefall. $300 gets you 60 of them in the wind tunnel!

Sorry, the pic shows neither my feet, nor any freefall action. I need to get friends to help me get some freefall pics. All in good time. Anyway, here's me.

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

Awesome pic man..and..............Yes..that is who I jumped w/ skydive chicago... it was so amazing...they were great people...i made quite a few friends....They worked in Ixtapa from dec-march...it was fabulous...we should chat sometime on yahoo...???????


here's a pic of the set up they had down there..they worked from the bar.carlos n charlies ..drove fifteen min. to the airport...it took like ten to get to the DZ ...and then u landed on the beach right where you started..it was fantastic...we need to talk..i think we r the only 2 people on here into skydiving..hehe

they guy sitting at the table is rook..he's the owner of SDC.....

 

is this the birdman suit?

 

Sho' nuff!

I haven't jumped one of them yet, but the people who have? They call it "Nylon Crack" 'cause it makes them want to do it more and more and ...

-Jeffrey

 

You guys got me interested in this stuff. Great pics.

There's a skydiving place not too far from me. They mentioned that there are jumps called the static line, tandem, and AFF. Anyone got any comments about the different types and which are better to start with? Would it be better to try a wind tunnel first?

The prices aren't too high. About $200 to $300 for the first jump with training. Looks like fun.

 

do a tandom to start off w/.. i thought it was nice cuz i got the feel for the sport and i didn't have to worry about anything cuz i was strapped to an experienced jumper..

 

Waht a great picture! I can see BOTH of you have dirty feet. Is it safe to assume you are a regular barefooter? Yahoo cahat would be cool.

 

Shaggie,
I'm very happy that you're thinking about trying skydiving. I am sure you will LOVE it!

You ask good questions. Rule out the wind tunnel -- that is more of an advanced training aid. I would avoid doing a static line jump since they are very short, and done from far less altitude than a typical AFF or tandem.

AFF is Accelerated FreeFall. It is more of a course of study involving several levels; each level is a skydive that involves accomplishing specific goals (what they call a "dive flow"). On the first several jumps, you exit the plane wearing your own gear (by "your own" I mean separate, not that you have to own gear), and two jumpmasters, a primary and a secondary, exit with you. They hold onto your straps and freefall with you, keeping you stable, while you demonstrate that you are altitude-aware, situationally-aware, and calm and in control. At pull time, you give a signal and deploy your parachute, and the jumpmasters release you when you have done so. They may freefall a bit farther so that when they open, they reach the ground before you do. Either they or someone on the ground may send you radio instructions to talk you in to the right area and prepare you for your landing flare (which is similar in effect to the last few hard flaps that a bird makes when it lands, or when an airplane lifts its nose to touch down).

AFF is the type of jump you would do if you plan to continue to spend mon- I mean skydive. If you do not or cannot, you might want to just spend $200 on a tandem and another $100 or so on a video/still photo package. Some places even burn your video onto DVD for you! You'll also get a roll of film that you can take to develop, usually 27 shots of your freefall. The video flyer usually gets to landing before you so that he can shoot your landing; then he edits it (same-day) and gives you an awesome edited video set to music to remind you and your friends of your incredible skydiving adventure!

The joke I made about spending money is sincere -- lots of skydivers spend lots of money because skydiving is a tremendous amount of fun but it costs pretty dearly to get yourself set up to do it long-term. I spent $4000 in January to buy a USED rig. New ones go from $3000 to $6000 or so. A full $1000 of mine is just an AAD -- automatic activation device -- an electronic altimeter that can fire off your reserve parachute in the event that you are unconscious (or just out of it) and you get too near the ground while still falling at high speed. They save lives, and are worth every penny.

There are very few people I know whose lives would not benefit from experiencing at least one skydive. It can totally change your views of life, for the better. And even if it changes nothing, it's still a wild ride!

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

Thanks for the detailed reply, Jeffrey. Thanks too, Rar, for the response. This is the type of info I need.

I would probably go with the tandem for now. I don't know if I would have the time and money for a more complicated AFF course. AFF might be something I would do a little down the road.

The place near me said the tandem is a half-day training and the first AFF would be a full day, morning till night. They also do videos and still pics.

It would be interesting to go to one of these fields and just see how people do these things. Maybe they have an admission price that allows you to come and view things without actually skydiving. I'll ask.

One of my friends sky dived a while back. She said the first time she did it she was concentrating on the procedures so much that she didn't have time to see the view or get scared of the height. She liked the later jumps better because she had time to enjoy the view.

I'd love to try it barefooted too. The place near me asks people to wear good fitting sneakers and jeans. I don't know how strict they are about the dress code. Anyway, I think it would be a great thing to try, in shoes or bare feet

 

Speaking of the altimeter deploy, I saw a news clip a few years back of a group that sky dived together. One of the woman bumped her head on a fellow diver and got knocked unconscious. Another diver went after her in a dive position, caught up with her, and pulled her rip cord. She landed safely. I can see how a pressure gadget could easily save a life.

 

I don't think I heard that story about the skydiver pulling his friend, but if that's true, that's awesome!

What the CYPRES (CYbernetic Parachute RElease System) does is it remembers ground level as Zero, then senses your altitude as you climb in the plane. It tracks the pressure change as you freefall, and plots it over time, essentially determining how high you are and how fast you're falling through the air. If you reach a certain altitude and you are still falling quickly, a charge is set off which cuts a loop that holds the reserve parachute closed. Since that parachute is packed in with spring tension, it pops out and saves your life.

A few months ago, in the magazine Parachutist, there was an incident in the Incident Reports section about a woman whose life was saved by her CYPRES. She was jumping from a twin engine Beechcraft and they had the right engine fail. Students were told to remain in the plane and the experienced jumpers exited while the left engine only was operating, at full power. Through a combination of the extra wind thrust behind that engine (on the same side as the door) and the different attitude of the plane, she was able to get clocked (on the helmet) by part of the tail of the plane. She was knocked unconscious, and woke up hanging from a tree by her reserve! People were coming from a nearby shopping center to help her. If she had not had an AAD, she would have been dead, for she never woke up until after it was all over. I saw a post she wrote about the incident on Dropzone.com. It's very interesting to read the writing of someone who narrowly escaped death. (CYPRES cannot work miracles. If you are unconscious and land on train tracks or power lines or in a lake, you're gonna hit a lot less hard, but still sorta hard, and you're still gonna die.)

I don't want to overplay the dangers, but it's true, collisions in freefall can be extremely hazardous. I know a guy whose girlfriend kicked him in the face the other week, and he had the marks on his cheek to prove it. It dislodged the chinstrap of his helmet, which he almost lost off his head. (Video shows him slapping it back down just before he deployed in a hurry.)

Someone once pointed out to me that football players can get maimed when someone runs at them at what, 12 mph? If a skydiver is on his belly in freefall at 120 mph and another is on his head, falling faster at 170-180 mph, and he hits the slower freefaller, they can easily both die, and as my friend put it, "that's limb-removal speed." If you've ever seen one of those seat belt demonstrator things where a dummy rides down a slope with and without a seatbelt, you know that they show you how bad the impact is at like 20 mph. Sometimes seat belt advocates dispel the myth of "I'll protect myself by putting my hands out" by asking people to run at their maximum speed ( <15 mph) at a wall, and "just put your hands out." Heh heh, they won't do it. So you can imagine what a catastrophe it would be to close on someone from above at a difference of 60 mph.

That's why skydivers are supposed to stay alert, and take separation very seriously, and give a wave-off so that anyone above them can see that they're about to deploy and they should track the hell away from being above the person deploying!

I don't mean to scare anyone away from skydiving, just to give you a little insight because I suppose most people, myself included, know very little about it when they first contemplate doing it. A whole world opens up when you get going at it.

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

Interesting stuff. I imagine that a tandem dive could be safer in some respects as their is some redundancy (two conscious brains at the start). I was actually thinking the other day what the chances would be of hitting something on the plane while exiting.

The skydive where the woman got knocked unconscious was actually caught on video by another skydiver. I still have it on tape somewhere. You can see the whole thing from start to finish. I saw it on tv perhaps 5 years ago. It's been a while.

I saw a couple of guys that were doing a stunt type dive where they dropped basically a living room type setting on a platform from a large plane. They were sitting on a sofa with a tv and coffee table in front of them all going down together. One of the items that was secured to the coffee table flew off and hit one of the divers in the face and nearly knocked him out. It looked like a funny stunt but I thought it was really risky. They filmed the whole thing on the way down. I have it on tape somewhere. They must have done it over a large uninhabited area. They didn't show what ever happened to the platform.

Not to digress too much from the bare-it forum, but what happens with your ears as you freefall? The pressure changes quickly which would tend to make your ears pop. I imagine it wouldn't be a good thing to jump with a head cold when the ear tubes are clogged up.

Also, when you finally reach a terminal velocity, you're no longer accelerating. That means that all your weight is being supported as if you were standing still on the ground. When you do this in a sitting position, it must feel like a lot of force on your feet and buttocks, yet it's all air flow. It must seem even more interesting barefoot. How does this feel?

 

My ears popped soooooo badly as soon as the parachut opened..but enzo just talked me thru it and had me u know plug ur nose and blow..and it worked...But man...my ears..

During freefall it was sooo cold..i could harldy breathe..infact..i'm not sure if i did breathe...and it was sooo loud and windy obviously....but it was louder than i expected...And it did feel crazy on my belly...i have this photo where my arms and face look like they r smashed up against something..hehehe..

these guys who jump all the time say there ears and stuff don't bother them any more...what about u jeffrey?

 

I'd like to try it barefooted of course ** get "back on topic" **


but what are the chances of doing a tandum and the strap thingie break .. then I'd be screwed and not even kissed. ? the one fear of doing a tandum jump

 

Man..i think it's almost impossible for that strap to break...