Bucket list(What do you want to do)

If you dont mind me asking, how could you not be eligable for a passport? Never heard of such a thing.

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There is about a dozen questions on the application that have to be answered in a specific manner, or you are declared "ineligible" Among them are questions of immigration status, felony convictions, and although it is not on there, public debt (owing taxes) can screw you up.

I'm doing one or two of the things this year. Riding to Stirges then to northern California to check out them big ass red wood trees!! Going down 101 (I think that is the highway)
Coming back across to Mo then on to Florida to start school!! Lol

I am Carbon and Derek, great videos!

I've wanted to get into skydiving and eventually wing suits. I've looked into it and don't think it's a hobby I can afford right now. Those suits are so expensive and you need to progressively work your way up to more aggressive suits so you need to buy several of them. I would still like to get my skydiving A-License someday. All I've done is a tandem jump about 8 years ago.

I would also like to get certified for scuba diving.

Travis said:

I've wanted to get into skydiving and eventually wing suits. I've looked into it and don't think it's a hobby I can afford right now.

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If it's still like it was back in my day, which wasn't that long ago actually, people usually rent their gear from the drop zone place until they have around 30 or more jumps. Really the equipment you use changes pretty quickly until you have at least that many jumps. So find a DZ and make the first jump!

They also offer instruction. I think my first jump was around $120 total, around 1995. And I think subsequent jumps were around $35 ea., including equipment. I was going to jump in the early 2000s with my brother at the place in Monterrey, CA, when I was visiting him but the morning we went there there were three dozen ppl in line and some condition aloft that they were waiting to go away.

Yeah I guess I was more talking about the wingsuits as far as affordability. I've read that you need hundreds of jumps to get to the advanced suits and the jumps and the suits get expensive.

Now for regular skydiving, my local skydive place has a program for $1095 and 7 jumps, where after completion you can jump solo for about $20 at a time plus $15 for the gear rental. That's for accelerated freefall jumping not static line. For those first 7 jumps, instructors jump with you and help stabilize you at first then help you advance your skills with hover control, turning, flipping, and things like that. Once you get to 25 jumps total, you can get your class A license. To get that far would cost about $1,700. Not too bad I guess considering how expensive most hobbies are.. especially if it's spread out over a few months or a couple of summers.

I've been doing some more reading on wingsuits. Apparently you need 200 jumps and instruction from an experienced wingsuiter before your first wingsuit jump. And preferably they want those jumps within the last 18 months. That's a lot of skydiving. Like two times per week and considering you probably don't want to jump when it's cold out or in other bad weather, you'll probably be doing on average like 4-5 jumps a week during the "skydiving season". That could definitely add up in cost.

^After I wrote the prices above I looked up today's prices, and down here in a bigger city. The AFF was a lot less than your quote, I seem to remember. The static line and subsequent jumps were around 2/3 more than the cost where I was. I would just say do whatever is cheapest for your initial jumps. I wouldn't enjoy tandem though.

Yeah prices seem to vary, but I guess you're stuck with whatever the local places want to charge. I've done a tandem jump. It was nice because it only required about 10 min of instruction. I think it's a good first step to see if you're even interested in skydiving as a hobby before committing to the whole AFF program. All this talk of skydiving makes me really want to do it!

Travis said:

All this talk of skydiving makes me really want to do it!

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About the only thing that would make me want to skydive would be a plane on fire.

~ Derek

Derek, that's funny considering you posted the jetman flight video. Skydiving isn't that dangerous. Probably no more than riding a motorcycle.. Or is it just that you don't want to do it or are scared to do it? I've been skydiving, but don't think I could go bungee jumping. Well I probably could, but would be more scared to.

Travis said:

Derek, that's funny considering you posted the jetman flight video. Skydiving isn't that dangerous. Probably no more than riding a motorcycle.. Or is it just that you don't want to do it or are scared to do it? I've been skydiving, but don't think I could go bungee jumping. Well I probably could, but would be more scared to.

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Derek said:

I hate flying, I would never strap myself to that thing.

~Derek

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No desire because I like keeping my feet on the ground, never been a fan of heights much. I guess in its most basic form, yes, I would be scared to do it.

You're probably completely correct, I'd imagine riding is statistically much more dangerous than flying, skydiving and jetmanning. My bike broke down this past week, I just coasted into a parking lot. Doesn't really work that way at 30,000 feet.

~ Derek

Cheryl Ladd,Jamie Lee Curtis, and maybe Nina Hartley.

Derek said:

No desire because I like keeping my feet on the ground, never been a fan of heights much. I guess in its most basic form, yes, I would be scared to do it.

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I wanted to do it just to prove to myself that I could. It took me a while to work up to doing it, same with motorcycling really. Part of it is the perception you have is the common perception, or your personal worst imaginings, not reality.

When I did my jump the training was in the morning and the jump was in the afternoon. We were using Army surplus gear round 'chutes and you had to learn how to fall. In the training I could not do that right, although it seemed to me I was doing exactly what he said. Hang by your hands from a chin-up bar and then let go and collapse a certain way. The instrunctor said I can't let you jump if you can't do it better than that! Finally I guess I did it well enough although I couldn't tell any difference!

There were a lot of ppl in the class that day and it was going to take a while to jump us all in the afternoon, so I said I would come back some other day and do the jump. He said ok, you won't have to do the training then, or maybe just a refresher, but you won't have to pay.

So - there was a well-stocked army surplus store in town with a T-10 parachute manual, the T-10 is what we used, and I bought it and studied the landing fall part of that for several weeks! Fold your arms in front with your elbows together, point your toes down, put your feet together, have your knees bent slightly. And then when your toes touch ground let your feel flatten, then let the knees collapse then roll onto your hip then roll up the side of your back. All to take the shock out of the landing with that pretty primitive but relatively foolproof 'chute.

Several times a day for the next few weeks I jumped off of picnic tables, porches, anything available to practice the landing fall. After I was confident I knew how to do it better than anybody I went and did the jump. It was a perfect landing fall and I got complimented on it by the instructor. I didn't mention that I had gone to the book and studied the whole concept for hours

So I had kind of the same approach to motorcycling. Learn everything there is to learn or everything you can and when you're convinced you can pull it off do it then. You have a lot more confidence and ability at that point. Justifiable confidence.


But I can tell you there's no sensation of height, same as if you were still in the plane. I thought I would be paralyzed some extreme version of being on top of the Empire State Bldg., but it's like still being in the plane. Even when you swing under the canopy it's the horizon tilting and it feels like a plane doing a roll.

one more item for my list is this.

Cool video. You would not want to crash.

xjwmx said:

I skydived once; a solo static line jump with a 'Nam era T-10 round 'chute. From 3000'. From either a Cessna 182 or 186, I forget which, that had the insides totally stripped out as if the thing had been in a fire Like a flying junker VW Beetle with only a driver's seat. I could have jumped for the rest of the day, but that one jump was perfect, including the landing fall, so I thought I would just savor that rather than risk breaking a leg. It's a hoot, I'll tell you.

The instructor was a 'Nam paratrooper. We were told to cover the reserve chutes with our arms on the way up in case their automatic thing fired on its own. On the way up one of the conversations was between the instructor and one of the jumpers about how a few days or weeks before the jumper's reserve had deployed inside the plane and he'd been dragged out of the plane and was caught on the tail for awhile. That's some macho shit.

As for my own bucket list....well, I'd like to go to Mars. We were supposed to land a man there in 1986. Instead we just worry about the price of gas.

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Let me guess, you jumped at a grass strip located between Richmond and Berea. My first jump was there as well. By the time we finished the "training" and preparations to go up we not only looked the part, but we felt like we were "Airborne". That was 20 years ago, what a rush.

I did manage to go dirt biking in the Rocky Mountains, I spent a week in and around Sliverton Colorado. That was a memorable time. If you like dirt bikes in the least, make it a point to grab a big dualsport (small bikes have no HP at those altitudes) and go do it.

I would like to to do the stampeed chopper race from ca to nc on my xs650 bobber.
no big deal for some but I have 2 pins in left knee 4 screws and 2 plates and carbin fiber blocks in my spine L3-L5 and am 49 years old.I want to tri next year if I can get tha bike out there. well it a dream anyway.