Sunday, November 16, 2008

I'm Really Uncoordinated

Today I turned down my manager's request to stay and work a full shift (I was only scheduled for three hours but one of the other cashiers called in sick) to go rack up some more debt at the drop zone. It's a good (or maybe bad) thing the DZO lets me run up a tab and pay it off every couple weeks. Otherwise my jumping would have to be really spread out.

The weather was actually pretty nice. Some scattered clouds, but mostly blue skies. The only problem was that so few people showed up that we had to sit around waiting for enough jumpers to fill a load.

Jump #29

Eventually some other people arrived and Brad, Dan, Pat, and I went up. This was the first time in a long time that I felt nervous on the way to altitude. Last night I had my first very vivid dream about a malfunction and a hard reserve pull, and I guess it shook me up a little bit, but still didn't stop me from going ahead with the jump. Pat and I did a 2-way again, and Dan followed close behind practicing his camera flying. Our exit went fine--no tumbling or anything of that sort. We planned on releasing and then doing some more fall rate adjustment after just falling face to face for a couple thousand feet. For the majority of the free fall, though, we were in a slow clockwise spin, most likely due to some of my leg asymmetry, so we didn't release our grips until just before time to turn and track off. Despite my best efforts to focus on holding my flare, I let up again about 5 feet from the ground for another rough rolling landing. It's really irritating how I continue to mess up my flare without even realizing what I'm doing.

Jump #30

After taking my sweet time at packing the gigantic, new, and slippery 260sq-ft student canopy I've been jumping, I went up on the third load of the afternoon for a hop-n-pop. Brad got out a couple miles from the DZ--right over his house so he could swoop into his rather tiny back yard. Impressively, he made it into the yard without hitting any houses or fences, and Kevin got it on video. My jump went better that the last few I've done. Although I flared about 5ft early, I managed to actually HOLD the flare all the way through for a decent landing. I stood it up, despite the fact that I had not planned on standing up any landings for a few more weeks.

So I made it through the day without injuring my ankle again... that is until I went to walk to my car to leave. I nearly re-sprained my ankle while walking out the DZ door. Doh.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Bad Habits

Despite the fact that I know I should wait a good six weeks (doctor's orders) before jumping again, I went against my better judgment and drove out to the DZ today to meet up with the few brave souls who were undaunted by the clouds and rain. I came away from it unscathed, so naturally I hope to jump some more this weekend, weather permitting.

Jump #27

The first load of the day made it to 5000ft. Unfortunately the clouds prevented us from going above that. I was apparently a little asymmetrical in the 10 seconds or so of freefall I got. I went into a slow right hand turn and managed to relax and stop myself just a couple seconds before deploying. There was a little bit of precipitation, and the feeling of the rain droplets hitting my face was pretty unpleasant, to say the least. Also, my flare pretty much sucked. I flared early, would have been fine, but then let up on my toggles just before touching down. I didn't bother trying to stand it up--in fact I've decided I'm not going to stand up any landings for a while so I don't put unnecessary pressure on my ankle.

Jump #28

The second and final load went to 4000ft. More rain, and even a little snow this time. My canopy opened into a right turn. Maybe my packjob wasn't so great and therefore the left break came unstowed during opening? The condensation that accumulated on my goggles was so bad that I couldn't even see through them, so as soon as I was under canopy and got both brakes released to stop my turn, I took them off and left them around my neck. Once again I flared early and let up just before landing. Kevin got it on video, so I was able to see what I messed up. Seeing my hands go up when I was supposed to be holding the flare, all I could think was "What the heck?!" I didn't even realize I was doing that... all I knew was that my landings had been kind of rough recently. So I need to work on staying focused and making sure to hold my flare. Strange how bad habits like that can develop... early on in my student training I was doing fine with my landings. It's also strange how oblivious I was to what I was doing.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

You know it's bad when...

...the "Mighty Mend-It" infomercial on the TV Guide channel gives you the itch to jump out of a plane. Somehow I don't believe that the little tube of glue being advertised really works well enough to repair parachutes. I'm also betting that the guy who jumped the mended canopy for the commercial mentally went over his emergency procedures a few times on the way up to altitude.

Although my ankle is getting better every day, I have at least another week before I'll be jumping again. This week I have a huge amount going on. I'm working about 40 hours. I also have a 15 page paper due Tuesday, a math test on Wednesday, and a speech to give on Thursday. How many pages have I written so far? How much studying have I done? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding ZERO. I pretty much did this to myself... again... but this week is still going to suck. At least I've gathered all the info I need for the paper and I've kept up on all my math homework.

After this week it might be longer yet before the weather is conducive for skydiving. The forecast predicts clouds, rain, and maybe even a little snow. Spring cannot come soon enough.