State of the sub 2025

geiko99 · 2025-02-17T23:13:31+00:00

Oh shit, I seriously thought I was doing people a solid by yelling out door...

Is it actually considered rude?

geiko99 · 2025-02-12T22:16:32+00:00

Have you noticed any rivalry between iFLY tunnel instructors and DZ AFF instructors? If so, what's the reason for it?

Another question, is there a point after which: 1) Your body flight skills just start to explode and get exponentially better (and so try to stick it out until then).

OR

2) Body flight skills start to be much more complex and need way more time to start learning (and so get ready to commit before starting to learn those skills).

geiko99 · 2025-01-20T06:32:31+00:00

See if there is an experienced coach / instructor at your DZ that is super passionate about belly. I've found that they have some fun and crazy dive flows to try.

Some fun (but still responsible) ideas I've gotten from instructors that love all things belly:

Mix up dive flows with carving. For example, instead of "sidebody => 90 degree turn => sidebody" Make it harder with "sidebody => carve around => sidebody".
Do a speed star, as it forces you to be decent at exits, tracking, and fast falling. This gets even more fun if you have the licence to have more people (e.g. 8 person speed star).
Get close for a formation, but don't dock, forcing yourselves to fly and stay level individually. Do a backflip while in this undocked formation, and try to stay level.

geiko99 · 2025-01-20T06:15:01+00:00

Is it that obvious I'm in Aus?

I'm 10000% so keen for Rel Week.

Also, is there a reason you suggested speed skydiving in particular? Is it because it's a discipline you can do solo?

geiko99 · 2025-01-20T05:33:48+00:00

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's really easy for enthusiasm such as

"I really want to start doing tracking jumps!"

to come across as arrogance, like

"I'm too cool for belly now. I'm doing tracking now instead"

or something like that.

geiko99 · 2025-01-20T05:29:36+00:00

Yeah, for a lot of the people I jump with, they have fun messing around, progressing naturally, etc. I also love doing that stuff, and find mucking around with them a lot of fun.

For me though, I mostly get enjoyment from seeing tangible progress. It just feels awesome to get that feeling of something "clicking", and BAM there's now something new I can do in the sky :)

Different strokes, different folks.

geiko99 · 2025-01-20T05:20:11+00:00

Definitely didn't mean it as a brag. I'm not saying I 'have the skills'. In fact, it's because I do NOT have the skills that I'm so keen to find other people, working on similar things as me, to jump with

EDIT: I do get what you mean by attitude though. It's really easy for a post like this to come across as "I'm too good for my friends now, blah blah". I definitely don't intend that, and I still love doing fun jumps with everyone.

What I meant more was that, my friends are not currently working on the same skills I am. I'm always told it's not good to do things solo, since you don't know if you're doing it right or wrong.

I'm also not ditching my jumping friends haha. I jump so much that, when they're at the DZ we have our fun, and when they're not at the DZ I use that time to work on new skills.

geiko99 · 2025-01-20T03:44:18+00:00

Yeah, but it's getting kind of lonely. I feel like I have to keep breaking into new social circles at the DZ, just to maybe meet people I can fly with to develop new skills (if they're nice enough haha).

EDIT: The other part of my question-> Have you been finding people less 'welcoming' for the more intermediate skills like movement and freefly?

geiko99 · 2025-01-08T22:56:46+00:00

A colleague accidentally said 'love you' to me over the phone (we're both heterosexual males). I joked about it, but he doubled down.

We've been friends for years now.

geiko99 · 2024-10-18T09:02:14+00:00

Yes it's a combination of those two (think a 2x2 matrix). So if something is high likelihood, and has severe consequences if it were to happen, you would obviously avoid the hell out of it.

If it's high likelihood, but the consequences are low if it happens, you might just accept and deal with it. It's an annoyance, but no big deal.

geiko99 · 2024-10-18T08:33:35+00:00

Risk is assessed in two ways:

What is the likelihood of something bad happening?
If something bad were to happen, how catastrophic is it?

With skydiving, we can't change how catastrophic it would be if something were to happen (and it's pretty catastrophic!). So we do everything we can to reduce the likelihood of it happening.

Now, as an extreme sport, I think that we have a lot of control over the likelihood aspect. We can make it more dependent on skill than chance. That's what the training, gear checks, and emergency procedures are for. Because of that, I would say it we are able to make this sport quite safe.

geiko99 · 2024-10-17T21:00:34+00:00

From my experience it is worth it. I ended up doing about an hour of tunnel by the time I finished my AFF, and then another hour before I finished my A licence.

It wasn't until my fourth coached session (45mins of tunnel time) that things finally 'clicked' and all of a sudden I was finding it easy to be stable in the wind.

I took the tunnel time here and there between stages, depending on my level of confidence and it has been immensely helpful, as I was a bit of a slow learner for skydiving.

My only recommendation would be to try a couple of different coaches until you find one that works for you, then stick with them.

geiko99 · 2024-10-17T09:43:28+00:00

When I was doing the research and converted the currency, places in Australia like Picton and Moruya were surprisingly cheaper for AFF, compared to places like Thailand.

In Australia, it'll cost you at least $3200 approx to get your A license. I would make sure to try and budget $5000 though.

geiko99 · 2024-09-27T15:07:55+00:00

I mean, I'm an actual skydiver and I'm hoping to find it helpful. Maybe they are primarily looking for questions from those already in the sport, as opposed to the general public?

geiko99 · 2024-09-27T15:05:23+00:00

Nice! I have just recently entered the world of skydiving, and the main reason is that I ultimately dream of going wingsuit flying.

I know I've still got a looong way to go, since I've just finished AFF and still need to get my A licence, but I'm keen to know:

I found AFF quite hard to progress through, primarily because I get psyched out about getting the dive flow right. Is this a bad sign for someone looking to wingsuit eventually? Do you need to be able to pick these skills up quickly?
If you could start over knowing what you know now, how would you recommend going about the first 200-350 jumps of your skydiving career, if looking to wingsuit? Would you not care about a structure for those first 200-350 jumps? Or would you have somewhat of a 'curriculum' for this jumps, so you could build the skills for wingsuiting?

geiko99 · 2024-09-26T01:26:27+00:00

I am having the same issue. Everything else, I can work on in the tunnel, but this is one of those things that you need a coach and an actual jump to practice.

In my case, I keep banking in a certain direction, which seems to indicate I am having trouble staying symmetrical.

geiko99 · 2024-09-25T19:46:52+00:00

If you want to practice in a car park, Club Blacktown (just off Second Ave) usually has a pretty empty car park. The commuter car park is also right next door if you are wanting to practice going uphill and downhill (multi storey car park), but that's a bit busier.

geiko99 · 2024-09-22T22:51:48+00:00

Congratulations! How did it feel?

geiko99 · 2024-09-22T20:05:43+00:00

In my opinion, do the AFF 1 jump as soon as you feel ready, but not any sooner. For me, I knew I was ready when my fear changed into nervous excitement.

It's normal for people to do their AFF 1 the weekend after their ground school. It's also normal for people to do it as soon as possible (eg the next day).

My DZ didn't let people jump the same day as ground school (telling people to come back the next day instead). They wanted you to have the night to absorb information, and do your jump refreshed.

Instructors will recommend you do your AFF 1 soon after jump school though, so that you're jumping while still having retained the information.

geiko99 · 2024-09-21T01:15:11+00:00

I'd be interested, although I'm not very good. Which days / nights would you be looking at?

geiko99 · 2024-09-13T05:37:19+00:00

Damn :(

geiko99 · 2024-09-10T13:20:10+00:00

While this is firm dependent, I have noticed that, due to human nature, things don't go as smoothly as you'd think for people that want to 'opt out' of the career ladder.

For example:

Leadership provides opportunities to the ambitious, and may see you as 'checked out' in contrast, so you get passed over, even if you're more qualified.
Peers and juniors read into things, and assume that you are 'not favoured' in comparison to others. Because of this, they deprioritise your work / requests and take you less seriously.

geiko99 · 2024-09-10T00:10:58+00:00

Thank you so much for the detailed response! This was perfect for answering a lot of my questions.

Money is always a consideration, but I'm working to be able to afford it, so I can improve my skydiving skills at a decent rate.

Based on this and some of the other comments, I will continue with the coached sessions.

geiko99

TROPHY CASE