Three posts, in under a week?!

So it has been a fairly busy week for jumping. This is my last week of relaxation before I have to start mentally preparing for my other job, so I'm soaking up as much fun at the DZ as I can get.

Monday I did two more jumps. One was an attempt at sit-flying, which in reality means I just tumbled all over the place. The next was a 3-way with Larry and Jared (a new jumper who just moved to the area). Jared was supposed to dive to the two of us, but he didn't make it. So Larry and I went for a 2-way instead. I landed out in the student area on both jumps because the winds were rather gusty and coming from a difficult direction.

Tuesday I got in two more. One was a 2-way with Kevin... I don't think I've jumped with him since I got my A-license last October. We practiced fly-arounds, using my new side-sliding skills I worked on at the wind tunnel last week. I made it to the second point on his side, but when I went to fly around back of him for a caterpillar dock, I went high and had a hard time catching back up to him... so, the rest of the jump was me trying to match his fall rate. I was going to land in the yard this time, but as I turned in on final I chickened out and stayed just outside the fence line. The next jump (#106) was more tumbling/sit-flying. I actually managed to hold a sit for a few seconds at one point in there. I also managed to commit to my yard landing. I had to make one s-turn to get rid of some extra altitude since I started my pattern just a little too high, but I ended up directly next to the peas for a great landing.

And now... I need to hop in the shower so I can make it out there to get one or two more jumps before I have to go back to work tomorrow!

More night jumps

Last night was another almost full moon, which means we did some more night jumps!

Now that I've passed the 100 jump mark, I'm allowed to start landing in the "experienced" area--the grass lawn directly in front of the DZ. To make things more exciting, I decided to make my first attempt at landing in the yard (and not hitting the barbed wire fence or building that surround it) in the dark. Ok, maybe not a great idea, but I managed to talk myself into going through with it. By the time I actually landed, the winds on the ground were a lot lighter than they had been when we took off. Since I couldn't see the windsocks which would have alerted me to that change, I really overshot where I wanted to be. I still managed to stay inside the yard (though I was only 20 feet away from the fence), but I flared high because I was so nervous and PLFed.

The next load (jump #102 if anyone's keeping track) was a 3-way hybrid attempt turned into a 2-way human propeller with a spectator floating nearby. Not sure why Rob and I couldn't manage to get that spin stopped. Once under canopy, I could see that the general direction of the wind had changed by 90 degrees. Given the new direction, an overshoot on landing similar to the one I had just done would result in me hitting the building, so I decided to go back to the "student" landing area outside the fence for the time being. This time my landing was perfect--I gently stood it up, right on target.

In comparison to setting up my pattern in the dark, landing in the yard in daylight will be a piece of cake. Can't wait for my days off this week to go make a few more jumps!

My first pie

I've been a bad blogger.

It's been about 4 months since my last post, and so much fun has happened in that time. I won't go into all the details, but I will share some of the highlights.

I've been busy with two jobs this summer, so I haven't had as much free time for jumping as I would have liked, but that hasn't stopped me from enjoying the little bit of time that I did get out at the DZ.

June and July were pretty slow for jumping. I made it out for a few afternoons of jumping, and for some good after-hours shenanigans (racing down the runway while holding on to the top of the car... in the rain... anyone?).

I spent the first weekend of August in Lost Prairie, MT. That was a FUN boogie. Got the chance to jump out of a twin otter, as well as a helicopter. I didn't waste any time getting into the swing of the boogie spirit... there may have been some flashing involved at one point or another. I also did my first cross country sunset load. We got out 4.5 miles away from the landing area and had a 20 minute canopy ride down as the sun disappeared behind the mountain tops. It was absolutely gorgeous! On jump #87, I did a 3-way horny gorilla jump with a couple guys from Washington, and one of my shoes got scraped off and lost over the Montana mountains.

The following weekend, I did my first night jump. I was soooo excited for it. I was really nervous about landing in the dark, but it wasn't so bad and I was easily on my feet. As I was gearing up for my second night jump, someone suggested we turn the load into a naked jump. I don't know what got into me, but I agreed to it. That was one awkward ride to altitude, and climb-out was COLD! We managed to hold our naked 4-way all the way to 6k, although we were spinning most of the way down. If you think I was nervous about landing in the dark, just try to imagine how nervous I was about landing in the dark without any clothes on. I decided to land out away from the landing area (which was lighted by car headlights) to avoid getting my white butt in the light where everyone could see it. Instead, I had only the moon light to go by, but still managed to come away from it unscathed. It was a huge relief to not have to experience a naked PLF out in the dirt and sagebrush!

The most recent highlight was my 100th jump tonight. I did a 3-way hybrid (another first for me) on the sunset load with Bill and Tim. Tim went into a stand, swinging on my and Bill's chest straps until about 6k. Then he and Bill were going to switch places, but we ran out of altitude. Still a very fun jump! Bill had a cut-away from diving line twists. After we tracked down his canopy, I got a little bit too relaxed and let my guard down... and then I got a pie in the face for my 100th jump. I think the smell of whipped cream is going to be lingering in my nostrils for at least a day or two.

Somewhere along the way I also got everything done for my B license. I'm still stalling on sending the paperwork in to USPA. Once I have a little bit more money in the bank, that will move up my list of things to get done.

I'll try to remember to post some updates more often, but I'm not promising anything!

El Cinco de Drinko and other fun

I made it out to the DZ for a couple hours on Cinco de Mayo. I missed out on the pinata and didn't participate in any of the drinking activities, but I did get in a hop and pop before heading home to do some homework. 

Today I went out for the weekly Thursday night fun jumps and went up on all three loads. The first two were hop and pops again. I've been having a lot more fun playing around under canopy. The winds were blowing strong, so my landings were really nice... although I was a little bit short of my target both times. My third jump was from 10k. I practiced flattening out my track and turning with my legs. Although the uppers were still blowing hard, there was a lot less wind on the ground this time. I was right on target and had another nice landing. Something was a little off about my flare... ten feet off the ground my canopy started dipping to the right (turbulence? uneven toggle pressure?), but I was able to compensate for it with the left toggle. All in all it was a great night.

Why am I doing this?

This winter I asked myself several times if I really wanted to continue with this skydiving thing. Most of the time, I wasn't really sure. Taking several weeks to a month and a half off between jumps left me nervous about each one. With the increase in jumping opportunity over the past few weeks, though, my enthusiasm has definitely returned. Even though I'm a complete mess in the air, I absolutely love everything about skydiving, and I look forward to how much I have to learn about it.

Oh ya, I got a few more jumps in this week, too. 

I'm back on the gigantic 260 sq. ft. student canopy for a while. The smaller rental rig I used last weekend got damaged on that jump and is now at the rigger's being repaired. Thursday night I went out to the DZ and did one jump (#48). It was just a hop and pop from 5k. My landing was nice. I like having a little bit of wind to land against. 

Saturday I did a 2-way with Bill (jump #49). I dove out after him, docked, then separated and did a really messy backflip/tumble-on-every-axis. We ran out of altitude to do anything else. My flare was fine, but since the winds were so light I had too much speed and ended up sliding in on my butt.

Today was another 2-way with Pat. We got sooo close to making it together this time. We were probably a foot apart when she suddenly went low, and once again we ran out of altitude to continue trying. One of these days we'll get it figured out. I flared a little high and had another ugly PLF landing. One of these days I'll get my no-wind landings figured out, too.

I'm a Slacker

So it's been a while since I've updated this thing. Apparently the excitement of sharing every detail about every jump has worn off. Just because I haven't posted in a while, don't assume I haven't been jumping.

A month or so ago a co-worker of mine came out for a tandem, and I rode along in the plane with her. I went out solo just before her (jump #39). She liked the jump so much that within 10 minutes of getting back on the ground, she had already purchased a second tandem that she's going to do some time this summer. She was also nice enough to stick around long enough for me to go up for jump #40 too.

A couple weeks after that, I came out just to fill the plane when another tandem was going up. Jump #41 ended up being an accidental cloud encounter. Apparently I need to work on my spotting skills when it's not clear blue skies. Falling through the cloud was a really neat sensation, though. It felt like I was spinning out of control, even though I knew that I wasn't. I had paid attention to where the cloud base layer was on the ride to altitude, so I waited until I came out of the cloud at 4k before deploying.

A week and a half ago I managed to spend most of the weekend out at the DZ and got 4 more jumps in between lots of lounging around and enjoying the sunshine. My mom came out to watch me for the first time, and later announced that she wants to try a tandem to see what it is that I love so much about this sport. Jump #42 was a two-way with Pat. She went out long, I dove after her. We never made it together--I didn't put the brakes on soon enough and flew right past her. For #43, we switched roles. Still not a complete success, but we got a lot closer. We managed to at least fall at the same rate, and were only 5ft apart when it was time to turn and track off. Jump #44 was a 3-way with Pat and Bill. Bill went long, I dove from the crotch, and Pat dove from the door. I managed to make it to Bill, but Pat went low and didn't quite make it over to us. Jump #45 was a bit of a mess. Pat, Julie, and I were going to do a 3-way. I went out long, Julie dove from the door, and Pat scrambled out after us. Julie dove down to me and went a little low. When we got close enough to dock, we both had too much speed and just crashed and tumbled apart instead. Pat watched the whole thing from above at a distance--since the exit timing got so messed up, there was no way she could have made it down to us.

I spent most of this weekend at the DZ as well, but didn't do as much jumping. Saturday was pretty cloudy, but I still got jump #46 in. For jump #47 on Sunday, I switched to a slightly smaller canopy for the first time. With the weather warming up and student activity increasing, it was about time I move off of the student gear. I was pretty nervous about the change. My landings have been picture perfect for a couple months now, but this time my nerves got to me and I screwed things up again. I started my flare a little early, and then reverted back to my old habit of throwing my arms straight up instead of punching out the last bit of the flare. So I had another PLF landing, but at least I didn't get hurt. Give it a few weeks and I'll get my landings figured out again. Hopefully I won't re-sprain my ankle in the mean time.

On a different note, I'm almost the proud owner of my first rig. I bought a container and reserve last month from a friend that I met at the boogie in Mesquite. In the next few weeks I'll be getting a used main (maybe Pat's Triathalon), and then I'll be good to go. I'm working on saving up for an AAD as well, but that will probably have to wait until summertime. Ahh... summer... can't wait for it to get here!

iFly Utah

Another month gone by, still no more jumping. It seems that every time I'm off of work and would be able to jump, the weather is awful. And every time the weather clears up, I'm stuck at work staring out the window. Ugh.

I did make it down to Ogden, UT, a few days ago to try the wind tunnel out though. I did 15 minutes on Monday, and another 7 on Tuesday. I worked on basic belly flying skills--turning, controlling fall rate, forward and backward motion, and so on. Having a chance to work on freefall skills for several minutes at a time really helped. I'll plan on heading back for another 20 minutes or so in a month and a half when I'm on spring break from school. Maybe by then I will have forgotten about how sore my upper body is as a result of the 22 minutes I did this week. Ouch.

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.

Three weeks later...

...and I finally managed to find the time to make it out to the DZ again. I'm all for conserving money so I can pay off my credit card and start saving up to buy my own rig, but three weeks really was too long. Between the crappy weather and my financial situation, odds are good that it will be another three weeks before I get to jump next time.

Today was nice--a tad cold (45ish on the ground), but sunny at least. We had a grand total of three loads go up for the afternoon, and I made it on two of them.

Jump #31

The first load was me, Pat, Kevin, and a tandem passenger. This was the first time I've been in the plane with a tandem, and it was kind of amusing to watch him and think back to how nervous I was and how much of a rush I got from my first tandem, which really wasn't long ago. Since it had been a while since I'd been in the air, I went solo to have a chance to re-orient myself and relax a bit. I've been somewhat unstable on deployment in the past, so I took the opportunity to do practice pulls the whole way through freefall until I was totally stable in them. I think I've been bending at my hips when reaching for my hackey, which puts me into a slow turn... not good for on-heading openings. Once again, I screwed up my flare for a rough landing. I also misjudged the winds and ended up a few hundred feet away from my target landing area.

Jump #32

Pat and John went for a 2-way, and I did another solo. I dove out and did a couple somersaults on exit, which was new and fun. I practiced doing turns with my legs--something else I haven't tried before. I dipped a knee and went spinning one direction, straightened back out, dipped the other knee, and went spinning the opposite direction. I'll have to play around with that some more to get the hang of it so that I'm under a bit more control. I was on target for canopy control, but my landing still sucked, and Kevin was there to get it on video again. I'm used to having new things come easily to me, so all this difficulty with flaring is rather irritating.

I'm going to be working full time instead of part time for the rest of the school year. That will be great for saving money, not so great for having free time. After New Year's I'll have to go back to taking Sundays off from work so I can still jump every once in a while.

On another note, I'm hoping to do a bit of travelling next summer and in my year off from school. I've grown rather fond of the little Cessna-182's I've been jumping all this time, but it would be fun to get some jumps out of larger planes... and maybe a hot air balloon or helicopter too.

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.

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.

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.

A Little Something Totally Unrelated to Skydiving

Since I'm pretty sure that very few people are actually reading my blog on a regular basis (and at least two of those that are know me outside of skydiving), I'm going to go ahead and post about what's on my mind even though it does not pertain to skydiving in any way.

I am absolutely shocked tonight, but in a really good way.

A series of personal/family/financial issues have led me to consider taking a year off from school after graduation next spring. I went to one of my faculty members a little over a week ago to discuss this change of plans with him. When he realized that a major part of the reason I was considering taking a year off was my current financial struggles (despite the good news I posted about my mom's job a few weeks ago, not everything has been resolved), he actually offered to pay for some of my graduate school applications out of his own pocket. Today another professor asked to speak with me in his office. He had also heard that I am leaning towards taking a year off and wanted to let me know that if I needed assistance, the mathematics/physics department faculty had agreed that they would be willing to use departmental funds to help me out if it would make the difference between me going to or not going to graduate school. Seriously? Departmental funds? Aren't those supposed to go to things like... oh, I don't know... departmental expenses? When not even my own family is willing to step up to help me, I really never expected such kindness from my faculty. At most I thought they would say something along the lines of "Sorry to hear about that.... But good luck in life!" Instead they're going above and beyond, all to help a student they've only known for a couple years and who will be leaving them in just a few months' time. So I'm slightly overwhelmed and shocked by all this generosity. I mean, that sort of thing just doesn't happen, right?

At this point I don't know what I will be doing next year. I missed a major deadline related to my graduate school applications, so my options of schools to apply to are already limited. I still think I would rather take a year off and start with a fresh opportunity to apply wherever I'd like than settle for going to a school I really have no interest in attending. No matter what, though, I'm not going to take for granted the amazing professors I have had for the past four years. Even though this college was far from my top choice when I was just out of high school, I could not have picked a more amazing bunch of people to spend my undergraduate years with.

Injuries All Around

Last night was the Halloween party at the DZ. Everyone had a lot of fun until some guy visiting from out of town decided to go on a drunken tirade and smash a casserole dish into the side of our pilot's face. Said visitor is currently spending the night in jail awaiting his court appearance, while the pilot is left with a broken jaw.

Jump #26

This afternoon Pat and I went up for a 2-way so I could practice adjusting my fall rate. Our exit went well, but after we released our grips I started to backslide a little because I had my legs bent too far. Even though we didn't do much, the jump was a lot of fun--until it came time for landing. I flared late and upon impact my left ankle made a snap-crackle-pop kind of noise, and down I went. I spent the rest of the afternoon with my leg elevated and on ice. I don't know if my crash was due to the fact that I was jumping a different canopy for the first time and wasn't used to its flare, or if it was just a case of pure stupidity on my part. I knew I would eventually have to deal with skydiving related ankle injuries since my ankles generally find any way possible to hurt themselves. In the past I've had the same kind of injury as the result of walking down a flight of stairs and slipping while playing duck-duck-goose. At least when people ask why I'm limping this time, my story of injury is a little bit less pathetic than my previous experiences.

So I'm out of commission for a while to heal, and in no time I'll be going stir crazy wanting to get back up in the air. On a positive note, though, taking a couple weeks off from skydiving will definitely be a good thing for my checking account.

The A License

Today was supposed to be spent taking the GRE for my grad school applications, but a flat tire on the way to the testing center changed my plans. I missed the test (there's $120 down the toilet) and, after getting the flat fixed, opted to spend the rest of the day at the DZ.

Abbie Mashaal, owner of Snake River Skydiving in Twin Falls, is in town this weekend for a pilot certification course (or something like that) and came by around 3:00.

Jump #24

After sitting around waiting for other jumpers to arrive (though no one else ever showed up), Abbie, Kevin, Brad, and I went up for a 4-way jump. I docked with Kevin, then Abbie and Brad joined us. We all released and did a left-360, and then tried to get back together but ran out of altitude. I, of course, fell below everyone else. I flared a little early (I think...), and although the touch-down was a little rough, I stood it up without a problem. As soon as I got back into the packing area, everyone was sure to point out that this was my FIRST 4-way, so now I owe another case of beer.

Jump #25 (woot!)

Abbie went up with me for my A license check dive. I spotted the load, watched Brad hang from the wing by his feet on his exit, then climbed out with Abbie right behind me. As dictated by the SIM, the dive plan included a right-360, left-360, back loop, and then docking. Abbie started to come in for a kiss pass, but then realized I'd said Kevin had already done that FIRST. Instead he went vertical, pulling me (head-down) along for the ride. I screamed a little out of surprise with that one. My flare and landing went well--not such an impact on my legs as last time.

So I'm done with everything for my A-license (guess what? yep... that's yet another case of beer), except a bit of on-ground emergency review. Tomorrow night I'm going out to the DZ after work for the Halloween party. Kevin and I are going to attempt to find some time to get the review done during the midst of the party, so by Sunday my application will be off to USPA and I'll be able to start jumping with everyone else. In the 7 weeks (plus 1 day) since I started jumping in Idaho, I've jumped 21 times. My non-skydiving friends say I'm obsessed, but an average of three jumps per week doesn't seem like so much to me. I just wish winter, along with a big decrease in jumping opportunity, wasn't so close.

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!

Sick of Waiting

So this weekend is out. After I get off of work I need to help my mom with some more moving. I WILL eventually find time to get my A license... and then my B license... and then...

Docking, Part 2

Jump #22

Tonight I did a coach jump with Bill for another dive and dock. I waited in the door a little longer after he let go of the strut so I would actually have to dive. I didn't dive for very long, though, before I fell below him. I need to lose some weight--I fall like a rock and will definitely have problems jumping with people who can't arch enough to keep up with me. I made an effort to slow myself down by flattening out, and Bill sped up as well. In any case, I got back up to him and briefly docked just before 5,000ft, then turned and tracked before deploying. I'm a little bummed because I don't know how much of the fall rate adjustment was due to my actions and how much was Bill helping out.

That A license is definitely within reach. I'm looking forward to being able to jump with other people without having to pay extra for a coach to come with me. If I make it out to the DZ and the weather is nice, finishing up the last few requirements this weekend is a good possibility.

Docking

Jump #21

I made it out to the DZ before 5 tonight and sat around until a little after 6 when the pilot arrived. We went up for the sunset load and I did a coach jump with Kevin for my dive and dock. I apparently didn't wait long enough after he left to get significant separation between us (he was supposed to be 100ft below me), but I did manage to dock with him--just barely. As I got close to him I pushed my right arm down a little bit and started to turn. After we docked, he came in and kissed me. On landing I flared a little late, had too much forward speed to try to stand up, and went with a PLF. For my first kiss pass I now owe a case of beer. Earlier in the evening Kevin also kissed Keith (yes, Keith is a guy). Kevin is all about free beer.