Mesquite

The weekend was great. We drove down to Nevada on Friday, jumped on Saturday and Sunday, and drove back all day Monday. Getting away from Idaho's wintry weather to enjoy some sunshine and 60-degree temperatures was very much worth the money and the drive.

Jump #35

I couldn't believe how nervous I was to be jumping out of a new plane and over a new dropzone. After hours of watching some rather messy landings (including landings out in the nearby golf course) in the 16+mph winds, I finally got up the courage to manifest myself for a load. Pat and I each did solos. She came along to keep me company (and to push me out the door in case I got too nervous and froze up... haha). I managed to hit the door frame with the back of my right leg as I hopped out into the air, and then tumbled away from the caravan. Freefall from 13,000ft was nice. Even though I pulled high, the extra altitude left me with nearly a minute of freefall. I didn't do much on the first jump--just looked around the area, trying to get a feel for the dropzone and my potential outs.

Jump #36

Later in the afternoon Pat and I did a 2-way... or we tried to, anyway. I dove out after her, got down to the same level, but then started backsliding away. We didn't get back together, and ended up just falling level from a distance.

Jump #37

Sunday morning, Pat and I were on the first load for another 2-way. We went out together, stabilized after a couple tumbles, but as soon as Pat started to turn to do a side-body I backslid away again. I need to pay more attention to where my legs are to stop doing that. The morning winds were virtually nonexistent, and I overshot the gravel landing area by probably 50ft. Thankfully, I flared at the right height, landed on my feet, and easily ran off the leftover speed. I ended up on the asphalt between a couple airplanes and one of the hangars. As my canopy collapsed and fell to the ground, it got caught up on the roof of the hangar, but came down without any trouble so no harm done.

Jump #38

The plan was to do a 3-way with Kelly and Pat. Kelly and I went out together, but I let go of his gripper as I started to tumble. After I stabilized he came back over to me, and we just fell together while Pat worked to get over to us to dock. She didn't quite make it to us, so the jump ended up being another 2-way. To avoid dealing with other canopy traffic, I landed on the strip of gravel between the taxiway and the runway. The wind was really strong (gusting around 20mph), and it almost pulled me over. As I pulled my steering line in, I ran across the gravel and through a small drainage ditch before finally getting the canopy collapsed. I really thought I was going to face plant as I ran across that ditch.

My landings on the four jumps from the weekend were a lot better than those I've had in Star recently. I was comfortably on my feet on all of them. Part of that had to do with the fact that there was some wind for me to land against in Mesquite. Also, I'm getting back in the habit of looking out in front of me instead of down as I'm landing. I'm not sure when the change took place, but somewhere between the nice landings I had during my student training and the rough rolling ones I've had recently, I started looking straight down, which makes it a lot harder to gauge my height above the ground. Hopefully this weekend wasn't a fluke and my landings will continue to improve instead of getting worse again.

Brr!

Finally (after over a month of miserable, snowy weather) four loads went up today to give us all our fix of sky.

When I got out to the DZ after work (or rather... after I convinced my manager to let me leave work 6 hours early), my car thermometer said it was 31 degrees on the ground. The first load didn't go up until about an hour after that, so I figure we probably gained a few degrees. Because of the cold temperatures, we stuck with hop and pops.

Jump #33

On the way to altitude, I was struck by how pretty the valley looked, still sprinkled with snow. Everything was in shades of gray. I ended up a little far out with my landing pattern. Although my flare was still not quite right, I think I could have stood it up if the ground hadn't been so slippery. My feet touched down and slid out from under me, and I gently plopped down on my butt and slid to a stop in the mud. Kevin had to sweep me off with a broom so I wouldn't track a mess into the building.

Jump #34

Another hop and pop from 5k. I did a poised exit, watched the plane long enough to see the pilot start to dive down for his descent, and was under canopy just below 4k. I ended up landing in almost the same spot as on my first jump of the day. I slipped and slid in on the mud again, but before my canopy had even finished floating to the ground I was back up and trying to wipe the mess off of my backside.

Next weekend I'm headed down to Mesquite, NV for their Blue Skies Boogie. I'm both excited and nervous for the trip. It will be fun to jump out of some new planes, and of course it will be great to meet some more new people. Several people from my DZ are going as well, so there will also be familiar faces around if I start to feel too out of my element.