Balance - What's that!?

S#1t – Life (skydiving) has been keeping me busy lately, REALLY busy!! My apologies to everyone for being so slack with blogging.

As I am now on my skydiving club’s committee, lots of hours at home are spent working on club newsletters and helping redesign the website. When I am not working on committee / club stuff I am researching my new *possible* project (more about that just now).

I am glad to say that my jump numbers have been racking up very nicely – after this past weekend, I am up to 70 . I know I am still in the very early stages, but hey – it’s not bad since I’ve only been jumping since March!

As I mentioned in a previous post – I’m waiting for my CI’s approval to jump my new 150 Hornet, although my wingloading is less than 1:1, my CI just wants to ensure I don’t break myself on a 150 canopy. Personally, I feel very capable of flying my canopy – but he’s the boss! His requirement of me, is to get my B-Licence and he might then agree to let me jump my rig so – like an excited little boy on Christmas Eve (I used to open all my presents and re-wrap them and stick them back under the tree), I am doing everything I can to get my B-Licence. I passed both CAT 2 jumps this past weekend and am hoping to do my CAT 3 by the end of next month at the ABSOLUTE latest – I have a bit of practising to do in the mean time!

Since I found my new jump partner (Maryke), that moved to my DZ when she found a job nearby, not a jump has passed that we aren’t both working on something (both in freefall and under canopy). So this weekend I guess I’ll be exiting slightly later than her so I can practise chasing her down and pinning the base for my CAT 3 jump .

We are planning a Boogie between Christmas and New Year at one of the towns on the coast line that always buzzes with parties over this period. Again – this is driving me to get my B-Licence, there is no way I’m going to sit and watch on the beach while everyone else lands on it!!

Sorry – I digress.

I have also been spending lots of time helping my coach (Michael) with a Power Point presentation on a First Jump Course, which you can imagine, is quite a bit of typing!
Tonight I am off to Michael’s place to drop off the loan 170 rig that I have been jumping as he sold it, and to pick up my new loan rig.

My *possible* new project :-)


I have decided that South Africa needs a Vertical Wind Tunnel, and who better to build / buy one than me!? Well, probably lots of people, but I want to do it!! So I am investing huge amounts of time and effort researching, meeting with engineers and talking on the phone to suppliers in the States and Latvia.

My main concern is whether it will be financially viable to build one in South Africa; our population is tiny in comparison to other parts of the world that have a wind tunnel, furthermore – the percentage of the population that this would appeal to, is smaller still!

I am determined to do this though, even if it goes belly-up, it will be a good learning experience, but at a cost of about 60 Million Rand, a very expensive one!

I have been trying to decide if it would be financially beneficial to have local engineers design one in South Africa, verses purchasing one from overseas.
I have come to the conclusion that yes, it might be Slightly cheaper, but why save a few pennies and not have the years of experience and trial and error, when for a little extra, I would get all the backup support and a state of the art 14 foot wind tunnel capable of flying a 250lb person on his/her head very easily??:-)

My next big step is to secure financial investors, but this still requires a lot of work to put a financial and business plan together for my proposal.

So – as my heading suggests, there is no balance – I find myself arriving late to just about every function that happens over a weekend because I want to squeeze in just one more jump before I have to leave.

On weather hold days, I am at the DZ watching BASE and skydiving videos, packing and re-packing 150 that I can’t jump yet.

I no longer party on the nights prior to jumping (unless it’s a Saturday and I’m drinking beer at the DZ with my jumping friends), I can’t even remember what I used to do with my weekends before I started skydiving!

Before, I never liked not being in a relationship, now – I don’t mind being single and have given up on the idea of finding a girl that would be happy with me spending me all my time, money and energy on skydiving! I want a skydiving chick!


Needless to say, I LIVE skydiving! My career goals and ambitions have changed, my personality has changed and just life in general no longer contains even a smidget of my previous life – AND I LOVE IT THIS WAY!!

Balance – WHAT’S THAT!?

Blue Skies and Happy Days!

Slightly Confusing Catch-up Post

Firstly – sorry that it has taken me so long to get around to blogging, between work and the DZ, my time is very limited!!

So – I’m on 54 jumps after this weekend…and hoping to be at 100 by the end of the summer :-)

There have been lots of changes with regards to my skydiving life, and I’m loving every bit of it! I am now in charge of our club newsletter and part of “The party committee”, hence why I have been so quiet on the blogging front!

I have also bought myself a “new to me” rig about two months ago, it is a Vortex II container with a 150 Hornet (SA brand canopy), 150 Pilot and a Vigil AAD. Unfortunately because I’m still a newbie, it is sitting in my cupboard while I jump a loan 170 :-( I have done 10 jumps on it so far and I’m loving the Hornet (Yes – my loan is also a Hornet)!

I was expecting to either have to get to 100 jumps, or my B-Licence before jumping my rig, but after chatting to the CI & SO this weekend, he has given me the go-ahead to jump my new rig (Thanks Steve!!) :-) I just need to do another 10 jumps on this 170 and provided he is happy with my landing pattern, accuracy and landing, I can jump it :-) WOOOOHOOOOO…can’t wait!!

I am SO excited to jump my own rig, it just fits me so perfectly which is rare as I’m quite a small guy (5ft 5in and 154 pounds exit weight). Plus it just looks so cool!! Haha – this is important to us skydivers :-)

I recently started free flying and was planning to do my CAT II & III in Free fly for my B-Licence, however – after chatting to my CI on Sat, he has recommended that I first do my CATs in flat fly so I can get my B-Licence quicker, just to have all the perks of a B-Licence, like being able to jump onto the beach at this year’s year end boogie :-) so that is where most of my airtime will be going from now on!

Choosing between flat flying or free flying has always been a tough decision to make, but having a nice cute new female flat flyer doing two-ways with me definitely did help my decision to do my CATs in flat flying ;-) I know – that shouldn’t be a deciding factor, but my goal is to have a consistent jumper that I can jump with, and she will be moving on to free flying once her flat flying CATs are completed. I'm also glad to have another flat flyer & aspiring Free flyer (Lawrance) who I can just with as well.

So – here’s my short term goal list (in order):

-          Beg, borrow and steal money so I can be on my new rig by the beginning of next month

-          Start my CAT II & III training / tests this weekend (in flat fly)

-          Have my B-Licence by the end of the year

-          Carry on with my Free Flying training

-          Do my 100^th jump before summer is over (around the end of March 2011)

Here’s to achieving those goals!!

This weekend we’re holding a Static Line special, as well as having our AGM. This sounds like it is going to be a huge party with lots of new faces around the DZ J As I am part of the party committee, I’m going to steal a saying from our newest female member (Maryke): “We are drinkers with a skydiving problem”.

I have found that skydiving is a way of life, it is not a sport or a hobby that one can do every now and then. Skydiving requires dedication and drive, and LOTS of time and money. No one realizes just how much skydiving actually takes over your life until you do it, it is a HUGE lifestyle change, and it changes your ambitions, your goals and just life in general. Too often I have seen people get through AFF, buy a rig, jump for a month or two and then you never see them again – I have put this down to the fact that they are not happy with the lifestyle change (or at least their partners aren’t).

Sorry – I tend to go off on a tangent every now and then and it’s hard to put everything in writing when I have to mash a few months into one article!!

Cheers everyone, here’s to everyone making their personal goals, lots of “Firsts”, down-down’s, cases of beer, laughs and good times! Plus of course awesome time spent in the sky!

Blue skies everyone and happy days!!

Downsizing Results

On Friday I arrived at the DZ to get my 170 Hornet hooked up to my loan rig. I decided to get this done on Friday so I'd be all ready to jump after my canopy briefing on Saturday morning!

I arrived early on Saturday and read a few pages of Skydiving in 8 Days, this book is actually very interesting, although written in 1997, it is a good story of how you can go from "Wuffo"* to qualified in 8 days.

*Wuffo: These are people that stand around the drop zone with no intention of jumping EVER, and ask you what you jump for, IE: "What for?" - Wuffo!. I read somewhere that there are two types of people in this world: Wuffo's and skydivers! So naturally, "Wuffo" is a derogatory term used for people that do not understand our need / want for jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft.

Anyway (I digress), after getting my canopy briefing from Steve (my safety officer), I was ready to go! And wow, I was excited!

The 12 minute ride up to 12,000ft started getting my mind going - "New rig, reserve repacked, new AAD, leg straps slightly too big, rig not 100% free fly friendly...what could go wrong!?" All of these thoughts should have been dismissed, but you can't help but think of the possible dangers...don't worry, it didn't stop me from jumping out :-)


Because I wanted some canopy time to play with the risers and get used to my 170, I had arranged with the jump master that I'd be waving off and opening at 6,000ft for the first few jumps - This gives me a nice amount of time to play around in the sky a bit and get used to my smaller canopy.

As my rig doesn't have a bungee cord between the two leg straps, I couldn't do any free flying. The bungee cord prevents the straps from sliding up your legs when you are in a sit fly position, so without the bungee, it may be possible to "fall out" of your leg straps (Which can never be a good thing)! So - flat flying it was!

Did a few loops, attempted a few barrel rolls (these worked alright) and dumped at 6,000ft.

After playing with some co-ordinated front riser turns, a bit of back riser input and toggle turns, it was time to setup for landing. The wind was blowing quite gently, but in a different direction to normal. On my approach I thought I'd land cross wind, and down hill as the wind seemed to be blowing sideways on the slope. After realizing that with no head wind, I was coming in very fast, I decided to change my approach to land into the wind, and I'm glad I did because I still over shot my target by quite a bit and landed fast.

My smaller canopy definitely flares harder and I even got a little swoop in on my landing :-)

Jump No. 2 went about the same, although I was no longer nervous about jumping the different rig. I played with riser turns, went into a very strong, fast toggle spiral which scared me a bit as it doesn't come out of the spiral as quickly as the 185 canopies do, but it was still fun! Landing was perfect! I landed into the wind and close to my target and only needed to run a few steps (very quick steps, but landed on my feet).

Jump No. 3. The free fall was uneventful, but still as awesome as always! I think I'm getting the hang of the barrel rolls and tracking on my back, although I seem to go into a bit of a head-down when tracking on my back so I roll over onto my front after a second or two. I guess I just need to work on that a bit, but I am still in the very early stages of my skydiving life so I know I have A LOT to learn! Landing, however was accomplished by coming in a bit too fast, flaring a bit too late and swooping ON the ground resulting in a nice big puff of dust trailing behind me and a lot of sand and grass on the legs of my jump suit. Even though I didn't take a tumble, I still didn't land on my feet - more like my ASS. And got a good few laughs from the people that saw me go down with a puff of dust!

I made sure I dusted myself off before going into the hanger and getting laughed at some more :-) But it's all in good faith!

Unfortunately I was only able to do three jumps this weekend as I had a bachelors party to attend.

This weekend I think I will just be doing DVD edits of tandems to earn some extra jump money!

Blue Skies everyone and happy days!

Friday Write-up

Well, I think a good place to start would be my week so far.

Lets start out on how I got my new rig :-) Well, I originally wanted to buy an audible altimeter so I could begin my free fly training. After I got one from Michael, he mentioned to me that he has a nice Vortex 2 rig, reserve and main for sale. This obviously striked up some interest and got my brain ticking, after chatting to my dad about weather he thought it would be good idea, chatting to Steve, my Safety Officer and advise guru, I decided to buy it, yes - it was an unexpected expense and not budgeted for, but I made a plan. Later in the week Michael emailed me to let me know that he has a 4 year old Vigil for sale with only 26 jumps to it's name - At half the new price, I had to have it (Naturally)!

So, now that I had sort of committed myself to a large amount of cash, it was time to get everything in order. This began with first researching all of the products I was about to buy! There's a wealth of information on the net if have the right facts about what you're buying. I read article after article on everything from Vigil's occasional fires for no reason to the fabric design of the Hornet 150 main canopy I was about to buy. The fabric spec lead me to then start reading up on flying canopies made from ZP (Zero porosity) verses F-111. Shew canopy design and manufacturing is a hugely complicated process with a lot of research involved, makes me feel better considering it is the only thing stopping you from plummeting at 250Km/h into the hard earth below!

Unfortunately, because I'm still an intermediate jumper (only 43 jumps so far), I cannot jump anything with a wing loading of more than 1.0 : 1.0. For those of you who aren't aware of wing loading, basically, it's your exit weight in pounds (your weight + the weight of all of your gear), divided by the size of your canopy in square feet.

IE: My exit weight is roughly 77kg's (170lbs).

Unfortunately, my wing loading on a 150 sq ft canopy is 1.1 :-( this means that until I'm a bit more experienced, I have to jump a 170 canopy which will not fit in my rig.

This posed a bit of a problem: Do I spend all this money to have a rig that sits in my cupboard for a few months? Also - I'm currently jumping a 185 sq ft canopy so it wouldn't be a good idea to downsize from 185 to a 150.

Thankfully, Michael had the answer: He is going to give me a loan rig with a 170 canopy in it to use until I can jump my 150, this solves all my problems as 77kg's is just shy of 170lbs, meaning that my wing loading on a 170 sq ft canopy is 1:1:-)

So, now that all the research was done and plans were made, I got confirmation from Steve to down size to a 170 (provided I have an advanced canopy briefing before my first jump on it). Arranged with the banks to allow me to transfer that amount of cash in one shot and bought my reg :-) WooHOOO!!!

Last night I met up with Michael (my free fly coach who is also selling me the gear), we attached and packed my brand new reserve into the container, attached my canopy to the rig, repacked the reserve and installed the Vigil into my loan 170.

My rig is now completely assembled (besides having to change the risers and install my Vigil before I jump it).

Today I have decided to take half the day off from work, go down to the DZ to get the risers attached to my loan rig and pack the main, all ready and prepared for tomorrow. Then I'll have my advanced canopy briefing tomorrow morning with Steve and hopefully be in the sky bright and early.

I have a bachelors party tomorrow afternoon, so I will have to cut my jumps short, but my plan of action is:

Practise my free flying and open a bit higher than normal to get a feel for the smaller canopy, I've also read a lot of good tips on flying your canopy better so I'm going to be trying a few of those tomorrow as well. Depending on how out of hand the bachelors gets, I might be back at the DZ on Sunday for some more jumping :-)

So, After wanting to buy an audible altimeter, I've ended up with a complete rig, a loan rig and of course, my audible :-) Now I want a camera and camera helmet :-)

Here's to the weekend!

Blue skies everyone and happy days!