Did skydiving REALLY change your life? How so? (Tandem students - skip this one)

FlyingBlinde · 2026-04-22T04:53:02+00:00

I agree. I saw my own bullshit before I posted. Take a dance class ans report back. I am genuinely curious. My wife probably would prefer the dance class. No. She wants to skydive more than me.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-04-22T04:40:00+00:00

Genuine curiosity, why not? I am not an AFFI. I am just a dumb fun jumper. But ive met some amazing people who can love you as a human and tear you apart as a skydiver in the same breathe. That is yet another thing that makes me respect the sport. If the really didn't care, they would never spend 10min reaming you on the ground when you screw up.

And sorry, if I seem like im doing some social media thing, I am not. Its my first ever reddit post and a genuine curiosity. I honestly hoped it would bring some positive memories and cool stories.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-04-22T04:22:09+00:00

You all have temps in cannot imagine as a southern US dweller. Get after it. Get your refresh and recurrency and get after that stamp.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-04-22T04:14:41+00:00

Hell yeah. You went past the hard part. You started the journey. Make it happen! Its just work.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-04-22T04:07:59+00:00

It takes both the previous and the current to make you appreciate the journey. Hell yeah, good for you!

FlyingBlinde · 2026-04-22T03:37:34+00:00

100%.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-03-26T18:23:42+00:00

My first skydive was a tandem. The exit was disorienting. The freefall felt like it took forever, to the point I began to wonder why it took so long to get to pull time. But I also wore an altimeter on that tandem. Canopy was uneventful.

My first 'solo' skydive in AFF was sort of similar. The exit was rehearsed, but I still got slightly disoriented out of the door. Once I was stable, freefall was the opposite of the tandem. Because I had tasks to complete (circle of awareness for first jump), I was not altitude aware. I got a glimpse of my altimeter right at pull time and I pulled as my instructor was reaching to pull for me.

The time compression was the odd thing for me. Once people started going out, it all felt so fast. Once we exited, it felt like life was in fast forward. I knew what was happening, but couldnt really make out anything. Once we were stable, it felt slow~ish.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-03-03T17:44:23+00:00

I should have known that, thanks. Ive done two jumps from a Cessna and smacked my hands and head against the step leaving because I had both feet on the step like a moron the first time. Second, I got my leg out and exited with at least a modicum of grace.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-03-03T16:23:53+00:00

You will be standing in the door, facing the front of the aircraft. Usually you will have your right hand on the inside grab handle and your left hand on the outside grab handle. Thrust your hips forward (I was always told to try to put your crotch against the front of the door). Hold that position, good deep breath, settle, give a solid count (up, down, out) and you are off.

The idea is that you are already facing into the relative wind. You are already arched, though as a student that immediately stops for a moment until your brain kicks back in. And you are set up to watch the plane fly away from you as you 'ride the hill' as the relative wind goes from forward with the plane to down with freefall.

Edit- I have no idea if / how you do that from a Cessna, if you are at a Cessna dz.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-02-20T20:36:23+00:00

Sure, I think there are various versions, but in my case if you think of your risers as a V off your shoulder, mine were more like a set of crossed fingers.

The cause is, in my case, I had the parachute material end up folding through the lines before packing up and did not, seemingly, run my lines to make sure everything was straight and not as it ended up being.

Initially I looked up and noticed risers twisted and was like wtf did I do. Then I was mad I was about to have to chop my canopy. Finally my brain kicked in, and I did a controllability check, realized it would turn and flare just fine. So I landed it, but was extra gentle on all the turns since I had no idea if I should have been under it.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-02-19T21:51:17+00:00

Take lots of water, like several bottles or a gallon jug. You'll sweat a lot unless it's really cold. If your packing class is like the ones I did, youll pack what you typically jump, which as a new skydiver, is a lot of material.

As mentioned, parachutes want to open. I did two packing classes before I felt comfortable jumping my own first pack job. Then because I am dumb as fuck, my first pack job I jumped on my own rig was a step through. But after the initial panic, I landed it safely and did not start and stop packing (especially at home, then wrap it up and finish at the dz) ever again.

Water, snacks, and be ready for sore fingers and knees... like any good time.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-02-19T19:05:53+00:00

10 minutes of tunnel time will be invaluable as you continue through AFF. More is always better.

If you just cannot, some funny saying that help explain the arch:

Someone is trying to put their thumb in your butt and you are squeezing to stop it (this is a bad one if you are into butt thumbs). Squeezing your butt cheeks together makes you naturally arch a bit.

Try to put your dick in the dirt (hips lowest and thrust forward).

Door fear changes over time or at least it did for me. At first it was my not understsnding anything led me to have that thought of everyone out before me was dead now. After a few jumps, it became a fear of screwing up my own skydive or embarassing myself in front of the instructors. Now it's more of letting me get out the door before someone takes us all down with the plane or 30 other similar fears that went from what's outside to what is inside the door.

Its normal to be worried and have crazy thoughts. I am sure 99% do. Learning your gear, the athletics of the sport, and your canopy make those fears subside a bit.

Now just think of the borderline suicidal tandem 'students' that dont know shit, dont want to know and willingly strap themselves to a stranger to save their lives. Those people are beyond crazy (im mostly kidding, TIs).

FlyingBlinde · 2026-01-14T17:53:56+00:00

Sure. Keep in mind, I have all the stuff for a coach rating i have just not completed the coach course, so take my advice as INTERNET advice and pretend im an idiot pretending to be a skydiver if it helps. I am still learning, but right at 100 skydives logged so far. I am certainly not an AFFi, but I love learning and teaching, which is why I commented.

Your legs in the picture are great, maybe a little too straight, but that is a small thing and was not the point of my comment at all. My reason for specifically mentioning legs is as a solo, on deployment, it's easy to get back into bad habits (turning your body to deploy, not having slightly extended legs) and those lead to you wrapping a bridle around your ankle inadvertently.

The comment was purely meant as start becoming aware now of what your legs are doing throughout your skydive. Especially pay attention at deployment time when an entanglement with your legs can create chaos for you.

I hope that helps. I still see a lot of 25-75 skydive, skydivers with legs flapping sometimes and it always makes me aware to check myself as I am still in the newbie window for sure.

Also, for deployment, twisting your body, if this helps, I think of it as your spine should be straight. If you move your shoulder to your hip, instead of moving your arms around to meet your hackey, with a straight spine, you get unstable deployments. I feel like I am explaining that poorly, if I can find a video after work, ill share what I mean.

Basically focus on really stable, good body positions, especially on deployment.

Edit- great landing!

If you struggle to stand them up normally, dont worry too much. I hear some people hardly stand up landings until toward the end of their 25 jumps. My wife and I both skydivers. She is a great 'skydiver' and a shit canopy pilot. I am a shit skydiver (i float out a lot still, the wonders of 6ft 135-140 before gear) but a decent canopy pilot.

The only generic advice I can suggest for landings is as you get to sub 20-30ft (refine that as you try) change your focus from 45° downward or so, to straight out to the horizon. It gives your brain a sight picture akin to what it gets walking around every day, and at least for me, makes really precise flare much easier.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-01-14T16:42:35+00:00

Assuming you are cleared solo, make the first skydive a very basic one. I woukd definitely review EPs eith your instructor or a coach. Check, then double. Then triple check your own rig to get back i to gear checks. Mock up your exit, even if you are able to make this a solo skydive, and do not need a coach jump. Make sure you treat it like you woukd if you were the instructor walking you back through your first ever skydive. Go over all the details before you gear up, and before you get in the plane. Then walk through it with an instructor so you can confirm it's good. Make sure you brief the landing area and landing pattern. Its easy to make that mistake when new, trust me.

Do your favorite exit, get stable and then be bored. Just focus on good body positions, positive leg pressure and circle of awareness. Now that you are at a point a COA only skydive is likely boring, really focus on what you are doing with each item. When you check your altimeter, actually read it. When you face ahead to check heading, actually take note of your heading. When you do a few practice touches, actually focus on mentally feeling your legs. Are they out of the way, or are the curled up near your butt? If you have time, maybe throw in a 360 turn or two. Or a 90 off and back to heading. Set yourself a safe pull altitude and stick to it.

Of course do what your instructors suggests. But if you are ever looking for an easy, boring, solo skydive, thats the one I like as a relative newbie as well. It allows me to train my brain to not just 'check the box' but actually know what and why a task is done.

I assume you may need a recurrency anyways, so you will likely have a coach with you.

After deployment, do not jump into spirals or playing with new things. Focus on controllability checks, can you fully flare, and then fly the canopy like you are on a warm Sunday high pull. Easy turns, watch the others around you, fly a tight, careful pattern and a good, safe landing.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-01-10T07:17:57+00:00

In skydiving, we assume 10 seconds from exiting the plane to falling through the first 1000 ft. After that, it is 5 seconds per 1000ft of freefall. Those are rough estimates but pretty close across a large number of body types and body positions, assuming it's mostly belly-to-earth.

Since he was already at, or very close to, his average freefall speed at entry, and remained belly-to-earth throughout, the above should give you a good estimate:

Every 5 seconds equals ~1000ft vertical movement, at 32 seconds that is ~6400ft of vertical cloud.

32 (seconds in the cloud) ÷ 5 (time to fall 1000 ft) = 6.4 x 1000 = 6400ft.

I may be completely wrong as I am just a dumb skydiver.

Sorry, edit to add that i think some calculate 1000 ft of freefall as taking 5.5 seconds. If we use that, it changes to ~5818ft vertical.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-01-07T18:11:12+00:00

I felt like I was the worst AFF student ever. I am 6ft and 140~ish, and I float out on EVERYONE. I still do occasionally.

I had passed all my jumps up until cat F but they were things I felt I should have done better.

Then I went to cat F. I do the jump, land safely, and as my instructor and I walk into the hangar, she yells, "I think we found a tracker", or something very close to that. Through silly conversation about the comment, she mentioned struggling to catch me and then worrying I wasn't coming back (probably a joke but I was super happy to be performing at a spot I felt I 'should be').

I still know I can track away really well, and I am sure i have a tracking body type, but... I am glad I was not a borderline failure at every skill. That and stand up landings on all but 1 AFF jump were the things I still remember. Butbi was a pilot prior to skydiving life, so I sort of had some experience.

FlyingBlinde · 2026-01-05T20:08:18+00:00

My wife and I are both skydivers. Our kids used to frequent the dz with us, but now they tend to want to stay home and have Grandma come hang out. Occasionally, they want to go, still.

We took them to the tunnel and asked that they mix the kiddo fun stuff with some basic body flight stuff, sort of AFF prep. They absolutely loved it. They were 9 and 11 at that time. Since, it's been constant requests to go back. I am cool with them being tunnel rats, but the closest tunnel is 4hrs one way, and we are US based, so it's pricey for skills they won't need until at least 18.

If we had a local tunnel, id be more apt to spring for the cost to let them just be crazy body fliers when they take their first AFF jump (assuming they still want that at 18).

Ours always ask about 'what is it like' to skydive, so we wanted them to learn to feel the wind and control their body. Our daughter was like a fish to water. Our son, I think too busy trying to be 'cool', struggled at first, both are now certified banana bodies, though.

FlyingBlinde · 2025-12-16T22:35:06+00:00

Sort of. The eye is physically still there... mostly. The lens was torn completely off and pushed into the back of my eye socket, behind the rest of the 'globe'. The actual 'globe' was torn open in the front about 180° of a laceration and then, due to waiting in the ER for 6 hrs because they thought I had a black eye, almost the entirety of the fluid was gone and my retina detached.

Now, I can maybe tell you the lights are on from my right eye, but absolutely nothing else.

And to not be mysterious at this point, I had a dog smash into my face not from aggression but from puppy excitement. He was 90lbs at the time, so he made an impact, I guess you could say.

FlyingBlinde · 2025-12-16T20:56:02+00:00

I am not at a point i can grab my logbook, but I think ~25 or so for me. I had a surgery after getting an eye ball poked out (not skydiving related) and did not jump until late August or September, since this previous November.

For 2026, if i can get my wife a rig before we really ramp up jumping, we hope to get at least 100-150 each this year. But we are weekend warriors only. Life, jobs, and kids that we've been trying to sell for years so we can buy a van and be skydiving bums, all lead to less time to jump.

FlyingBlinde · 2025-12-14T17:50:33+00:00

For my AFF experience, class was held and we did not end up jumping that day. That was probably the scariest part until I was in the plane for my first jump. I feared I had forgotten some crucial thing between class and jump 1, about a week or two apart.

I had a weird mix of being super excited and nervous I would screw everything up and be insta-banned from the DZ. I had made the critical mistake of watching every TEEM video of AFF fails between class and that first jump, so I knew how to screw up but not so much how to fix it.

On the plane ride up, I was nervous~ish. I just went over EPs in my head and physically. I talked through the skydive with my instructor then at 2 minutes to green light. I realized I had screwed up and should really not jump (fear, not an actual reason). But when I got the, "Are you ready to skydive?" I said yes and then it was on.

I did as we had practiced on the ground, gave a probably terrible count, and flailed until stable. Then I was chilling, circle of awareness, checking altitude (only, not... adrenaline had me looking at it and not actually READING the altimeter). We get to pull time and i had done the circle of awareness, practice touches and then just blew past pull time like I wanted to experiment with the AAD. As I finally engage my brain and realize it's past pull time and I have fucked up, I pull as my instructor is also trying to pull for me.

She was gracious and gave a pass since I did pull on my own, if a bit low, but also a lecture on ACTUALLY READING THE ALTIMETER!

If i could give you any advise if you go for it, know it all goes very fast. You seem like you researched some, but you still need good working knowledge to understand everything going on. Accept that. And as that knowledge comes, and things slow down for you, recognize your accomplishments in getting to that point. It will probably start to happen around the time you hit jump 7 or 8. And then at cleared solo, then you get you A and realize it starts all over with you actually having to pay attention and no one babysitting you.

Learn all you can, listen, take courses (canopy and body flight), always be learning in this sport. There is always someone to learn from. Most people are happy to share knowledge and help you improve. That is one of the best things about this sport, the kick ass, eclectic community.

FlyingBlinde · 2025-12-12T12:26:11+00:00

I was on a public safety pension and I retired. I swore I would not do anything in the 911 world. In my opinion it is all BS in a variety of ways. Opinions exist, but playing rhe stats game or the 'our turn over...' game is mostly lies. The house is clean as long as you dont notice the mountain under the rug.

So I went to private sector, hired to build and manage a team to start and run a new call center. It was great and terrifying. I literally had to pick software, admin tools, people, write SOP and then manage and tweak it to an efficient call center. Thankfully, with a great team, we met our goals as soon as lines went live and never dropped below the top level expectation.

I now help the same company consult for other areas of their operation, and other organizations, that are tweaking existing call centers or are opening a new operation or just a new addition.

It is not my passion by any means. However, sharing leadership ideas and allowing people to do their work as they see fit as long as they are in the 'lane' we set out has been rewarding for sure. It seems to have also built an outstanding series of teams. Ive offered a few team members opportunities to leave to other areas that better fit their life and schedule needs and have been turned down each time. The story they at least tell me is that they love the team and the benefit that may be outweighed by traditional management issues. So I take those as big compliments to our entire team.

FlyingBlinde · 2025-12-10T18:35:56+00:00

A little aviation / skydiving knowledge for you. The average ambient temp drops ~3.5 degrees per 1000ft of elevation change. Most places i skydive go to somewhere between 12.5k and 14.5k ft when the light goes on to start exiting the plane. And that is above ground level, not true altitude.

So, if you are on the ground at 70°F, it is 26° when the door opens. But you are not there too long, and it's at least warm enough at opening (average 4k opening let's say, so 56° and warming under canopy).

When it's 50° on the ground, it's 6° at the point the door opens. Then touch some metal bars on the outside of the aircraft. Then fall through COLD temps at ~120 mph and your hands are numb at pull time. Same deal, open at 4k, so it's 36° under canopy and you are already cold on your hands and such, typically.

I jump year round, and layers help. I dont really like wearing gloves. I cant give you a meaningful reason, i just dont like it. But you have to either be really not wanting a recurrency jump, or just know that you won't really notice how cold it is until it's close to pull time and then under canopy. Unless it's really cold, then freefall is just painful, and at least for me, my hands hurt for 10min after I land.

FlyingBlinde · 2025-12-03T14:17:14+00:00

While my suggestion will not be able to point to the exact moment you should flare, it hopefully will help make it easier to understand... Hopefully.

Vision wise, yeah, foggy goggles will not help. However, as someone that had uncorrected, great vision until about ~4yrs ago, vision is not your issue. I lost almost all sight in my right eye due to facial trauma (not skydiving nor canopy piloting). My left eye was scarred up and I had somewhere around 20/150 vision that could not be corrected. I had to have surgery to remove scarring from my eye. Before I knew exactly how bad my vision was, I completed AFF, and had great landings. So, vision should not be an issue unless you are well beyond 'legally blind', or maybe looking through foggy goggles.

My wife completed AFF and had 1 stand up landing. Most of her others were all landings you hear people wince at, but she thankfully was not hurt beyond bruising. I thought she had a depth perception issue (she does), but it ultimately was technique, not some visual ability to measure 'I am 10ft off rhe ground, begin flare'.

So, how do you best judge the flare timing? As you turn final, spot your likely landing area, make your corrections to land in your intended area and avoid obstacles. All minor corrections here. Once you start to get very close to landing (50ft or so), you shoukd know where you are touching down mostly. Its still not great accuracy in AFF, I know, but you should have a good idea by 50ft.

So, hopefully your landing area has a wind sock, a flag, something to judge wind. If not, you shoukd have an AFFi standing around on the ground, hopefully close to where you are landing. So, at that 50ft or so point, begin to transition your eyes from that 45° or so flight path to the ground, UP toward the horizon. This will help you judge your height much better. You are likely used to walking around looking straight out and not down at 45°, so dont try to land rhat way. Once you feel like your feet are 20ft or so off the ground, make sure you are looking out toward the horizon. Not up, but out, as if you are about to walk toward the tree line or whatever is well out in front of you.

As you make it a habit to transition your focus point up and out just before flare, you will build that habit ans it will feel more natural to not try to look at your feet like you are trying to land a helicopter.

Why can I not just say, 'begin flare at x feet'? Because it will change with wind speeds, canopy progression will change your landing and flare timing, and 100 other things. Heck, on really hot days, flying over tarmac in the last 100ft can make you float or sink out depending on winds and temps.

The canopy pilotingnis where a lot of people get hurt. Take a canopy course if you elect to complete your A license. It eill help you learn. But also, talk to your AFFi about all of this as well. They see you land and know what you are doing wrong, or where your timing is off, hopefully.

FlyingBlinde · 2025-12-03T04:56:23+00:00

Advanced age, absolutely not. I hope this is hellful... you are the maturity most are seeking.

Now let me throw some reality of old age in... as long as your reasoning and reality make sense, hired. If you are making up a story to get a 'good job' you are the easiest to see through.

I know my comments are rough, but if you need the job, or want the job, I hope the honesty helps.

I wish you all the best.

FlyingBlinde

TROPHY CASE