August 3rd, 2010 | 7 comments | Skydiving

The newest addition to my family.

I’d like to formally introduce you to my rig (yet to be named), which will be here in approximately nine weeks. After searching high and low for used gear, doing the math on how much longer I could afford to rent gear while I was searching, and taking a look at financial options for ordering new, I finally have gear on the way.

My container (the part that holds the parachute for you non-skydivers) is a G4 from Mirage – which, by the way, feels like a freaking Cadillac compared to the gear I’ve been renting. The rental gear at CSC is awesome (from what I hear, as I don’t have anything to compare it to), but having something that is designed for me is totally exciting.

I’m having mixed emotions about ordering all new stuff for the first go-round, but this was the best option for me, both timing-wise and financially. Sure, I would have much rather saved $$ and landed some sweet used gear, but everything I was finding was way over-priced for what it was, and for a little bit extra, I’ll have stuff that fits me. Gear that I know how many jumps are on it (zero).

This container holds a 150-170 main canopy, so I’m thinking I’ll get at least a season or two on this bad boy. I’m not in any hurry to downsize, in fact, I like the canopy ride part of skydiving, so I’ll sing this song while I float around.

Pretty good looking for a life-saving device.

And this, my friends, is my glorious Sabre2 170. I’m flying the 190 now and by the time my rig actually gets here and gets assembled, I should (hopefully) be ready for the 170. I’ll be rocking a PD 176 reserve, too, so that’s awesome.

This weekend was a bit of a challenge, weather-wise. We didn’t get our first load up until 5:20 on Saturday. Sunday was an interesting experience because there was NO WIND. I had some interesting landings, including one where I came through the last six rows of corn and then into the landing area, side sliding like a soccer player and then standing it up. I would kill to see that on video because the way the landing went, you couldn’t see me, only my parachute, as I went through the corn then I busted out of there like a monster. I have a feeling that was relatively entertaining.

For those of you who may be looking for gear, I have a couple nuggets of wisdom slash resources that might be helpful:

1. Check out the classifieds on dropzone.com. There is a TON of used gear for sale on DZ.com – just not anything that would fit someone 5’3 and looking to fly a 170 to start. But, through my extensive research, if you’re anywhere from 5’9 to 6’2 – you’re golden. So get to hunting. There are people that sell entire systems or you can piece it out. I recommend researching both.
2. Send the stuff you think you like to someone who knows what the hell they’re talking about. I can look at gear for hours in the classifieds, but at the end of the day, especially when I was getting started, I had no clue what half of the numbers, etc means. So send along stuff that you are interested in to someone who knows a thing or two about gear. Fortunately for me, I had three people to bounce this stuff off of. So big thanks to Barry, Chris and Doug for being patient with me and helping me find stuff.
3. Realize that this is an investment. If you’re looking for gear, or if you’re even thinking of doing AFF, you know that skydiving is a huge investment up front. When I was looking I had two schools of thought: I could continue to rent gear this season and hope that I’d find something used or I could bite the bullet and order new. Though I would definitely prefer to order used, if I had continued to rent gear, I never would have had enough money saved up for when/if I found that perfect used rig. And that’s the thing. This brand new parachute is going to be a bitch to pack because it will be so slippery, but at least I know for sure where it’s coming from.

I want to cuddle with it.

Oh, and I’m official. I started ground school at Freefall University on June 11 and finished up my 25 jumps for my A-License on July 10. I want to cuddle with my license, and I’ll want to take my new rig everywhere I go when I get it.

Up next: need to order my RW suit and a helmet.

And save money for Jump for Diabetes since I won’t have my rig by then.

And get pumped about the month of September, which, could probably go down in history as the best month of my life, ever.

September: Skydiving Nationals at SDC, tunnel time road trip to Colorado, tattoo party (more on that later) with the CSC crew and Freefall University student party at the end of the month. Oh, and I’m up for review at work (fingers crossed) – so that could play an exciting part of my month as well!

What are you guys up to? What’s new in your world?