Falling Like a Rock

Jump #23

Tonight's jump was fun. I did a coach jump with Coy, one of the AFF instructors who's not around the DZ very often these days (and who, oddly enough, I met on an internet dating site about a year and a half ago... it's a small freaking world). The plan for the dive was to practice adjusting my fall rate to match his. I did a poised exit and watched Coy follow me out the door as I fell away from the plane. He caught up to me and then sped up to go low. I arched a little harder and caught up to him within a couple seconds before leveling out again to fall with him. Then he popped up above me, and I spent a few thousand feet trying to flatten out and slow down enough to join him. It didn't work out very well. I got my torso de-arched as I was supposed to, but I didn't have my arms and legs out far enough. Around 6000ft I adjusted my limbs to try to slow down more, and then I got really unstable and started wobbling and turning to the right. At 5000ft we turned and tracked away. I took a few extra seconds to re-stabilize before deploying (though my body position still kinda sucked), so I actually pulled a little bit lower than planned (3500-ish instead of 4000ft). On landing I flared a little bit early, but compensated for it as best I could by slowly going to full flare rather than punching it there right away. I was able to run off my extra speed in a few steps for a half-way decent landing.

I was really happy to make it out there for that jump, especially since it had been a full week since my last one. I spotted independently and got us out right where we wanted to be, so there's one more thing checked off of my A-license application card. Now all I have left is some on-ground emergency review and two more jumps. I'm not going to bother saying I'll get everything done this weekend, since every time I do that something gets in the way and I'm not able to jump at all. Instead, I'll just point out exactly how close that license is... only two more jumps!