4 jumps

Stayed in Lancaster last night, got to dropzone about 9:15.

First jump - repeat of last practice pull.  All good, but dropped my head a little when I threw the newspaper.  Not enough to mess me up.  Higher winds today.  Still legal for me, but after all these no wind jumps I was not thinking right.  I opened, did controllability checks, and was over the area where I would have turned from downwind to base.  Tried to get back, but didn't make much progress against the wind.  I didn't do a very good pattern and ended up landing next to the runway down the grassy area to the right.  Stood it up.

Second jump - clear and pull. Bumped my elbow on the step, but no injury, no bruise, no pain.  Broke my arch, legs were a little uneven.  But finally at the point where I deploy my own pilot chute!  Landed next to the runway, down the grassy area to the left.  Jedd says I could do some sashays on final to not overshoot.

Third jump - clear and pull.  Still dropped my head a little.  Worked on canopy skills.  Rear riser turns before unstowing the brakes.  Rear riser turns with the toggles in my hands.  Braked turns.  Landing pattern not too good again.  I wanted to check off the braked approach but I think that was a bad idea given the landing pattern.  On the grass next to the runway.

Fourth jump - 10 second delay from 5000 feet.  Or not.  Mark the pilot said the turbulence at 5000 feet was violent, so he's probably take us to 5500 which was fine.  At 4000+ we were on jump run.  I was spotting.  Supposed to pass over the peas, but we were more toward the parking lot.  Still in the right angle.  I asked for the cut, but Mark was telling Jedd to get us out of the plane.  I don't think we actually got the cut.  I went out, left foot on step.  Jedd next to me.  Out-in-out exit count.  I was totally confused looking at my altimeter with my old man's eyes.  Instead of 5000 down to 4000, we exited at 4000, so I let us go to 3000 because I was looking for the next lower number.  3000 is not a big deal, but not what the jump called for.  Threw, had a fine canopy ride.  Landing pattern was not great.  Winds were definitely higher, and gusty.  Came in next to the runway, down the grassy area to the right.  Flared too high, let it up, then punched it back down.  I was falling straight down with no forward motion.  Just before hitting the ground, a gust started pushing me backward.  My feet hit, my butt hit, and my head snapped down to the ground.  Then the wind dragged me and the canopy until I could get up and more upwind of the canopy.  All were concerned about concussion possibility.  Heather wouldn't let me leave for about an hour.  I feel fine, just a little stiff in the top of the back when I push my chin to my chest.

3 IAD practice pull jumps

 Got here a little later than I wanted to, but in the end that didn't matter.  3 jumps, all practice pull, all with Jedd.

First - Dearched.  Found the newspaper, pulled and threw it.  Even though I dearched, I stayed exactly on heading.  Normal canopy practice stuff.  Another pretty much dead calm day, so I ended up overcompensating for the previous overshoots and landed in the grass next to the runway by the far end of the field.

Second - Same story.  But this time I landed in the corn.  Right at the corner, so easy to get out, but still.  Video shows me with a good arch, but then looking down when I pulled.  Don't know why.  I know I'm doing this by feel, not trying to see what I'm doing, but there is no question what I'm doing wrong.

Third - On "Go" I took a fraction of a second to look up at the wing, then when I let go I focused on watching Jedd watch me while I left the plane and did the practice pull.  That did it.  Head stayed up, kept the arch, threw the newspaper.  There was a little breeze on this one, so I tried to adjust for that.  Overthought it.  Landed next to the runway but next to the field.  Rose up when I flared, so did a PLF.  Austin said it looked like I didn't finish my flare.

During the day, did some packing work with Adam.

After the third jump, I was really feeling wiped out.  Heather asked, "Are you drinking enough water?"  All I said was "Nope."  Did I mention it was 95 degrees?

Back for more tomorrow.

2 IAD Practice Pull Jumps

 2 from 3500.  John S on the first, Josh on the second.  Got the newspaper out on both.  I'm off radio.

First - Slipped off the strut.  Not sure why.  Diverted my attention, so I looked down and dearched while reaching for the newspaper.  Good canopy ride after controllability checks.  Lots of rear riser stuff, braked turns, turns starting in brakes and letting up a toggle.  Probably made my turn onto final a little early.  Landed parallel to the runway.  Flared a bit too high and PLFed, but very close to the X.

Second - I think I slipped off the strut again, but Josh said Go so he's not going to hold it against me.  Decent arch, maybe my legs could have been better, got the newspaper out.  Same canopy stuff as last jump.  Saw that the winds had shifted since we were on the ground, but stuck to the old rule I learned that the landing pattern stays unless everybody agrees to change it.  On the other hand, I was the only one in the landing pattern, so I could have modified it safely.  Landed parallel to the runway a little further down than I wanted.  On the grass, before the line that would be the extension of the corn field.  Hope that makes sense.  Flared just a hair too high, but easy stand-up landing.  Canopy stayed up, then started going behind me so I pulled on a brake line to deflate it.

Think I need to do one more practice pull then I go to 5 second freefall.

2 IAD jumps

Woke up, weather looked better than yesterday's forecast, so headed for Maytown.

First jump was a repeat of my first IAD jump, but this time with John Miller.  Focused on the exit count and got that about right.  Get ready - out the door, on the step, as far out as possible, look back at John.  Get set - hang, keep looking at John.  Go - look up at the wing (which I could have done better), let go and get into an arch.  All good, but need to pull my arms down a little and keep a little tension in my legs so they don't fold up by my butt.

Jed on radio for canopy.  Talked to him before.  Asked him to let me fly unless I was way off course.  He called up that I had a good canopy, asked me to do a 360 to confirm I heard him, then he didn't talk to me again.  This actually messed up Andrew K who was coming out next.  He never heard Jed give me any instructions and thought his radio wasn't working.  Just for practice, I did that 360 with rear risers while my brakes were still stowed.  I entered my landing pattern a little early.  Final was in a west direction parallel to the runway.  I flew almost to the house.  Slid in the landing in the grass on the airport property.

Second jump was another IAD 3500' jump, but this time with a practice throw of balled up newspaper.  Think I was thinking too hard about the timing of the practice throw, so my exit was a little worse.  More on my back.  Instinct was to work on getting belly to earth, but of course the canopy opened long before I could fix my position.  Tried to do a practice throw then, but really wasted effort, and the newspaper had fallen out earlier anyway.  Have to do this one again.  Still need to get my arms down and legs out.

Same story with Jed on radio.  Canopy was good, he never had to talk to me again.  Final was from the runway toward the hangar.  Adjusted my turn altitudes a little to get lined up with the X.  Passed over it and stood up a nice landing about 40' past it in front of the doghouse.

JR Sides was around.  Thought he completely retired to FL, but lives in Chambersburg in the summer.  Good to catch up with him.

First IAD jump

Had some confusion and delays.  John told me and Larry to get geared up, but I honestly thought he just meant Larry because he was in line ahead of me.  So I was manifested on a load, then taken off the load, which led to a scramble to fill the load.  And then that load came down without jumping because the cloud ceiling was too low.

Got on another load later.  Larry and I were students, John S was our instructor, Josh had the radio on the ground.  I was first.  A little tough to maneuver myself from sitting next to the pilot facing backward to kneeling next to the door facing forward, but got there.

Exit was crap for so many reasons.  I got out on the step fine, but didn't reach all the way out along the strut.  Then on "Get Ready" I didn't step off the step and hang on the strut.  Instead, I basically jumped backward off the step.  I knew something wasn't right.  Focused on that and ended up bent forward at the waist instead of arching.  Arched OK just as the canopy was starting to open up, so ended up fine, just absolutely screwed up the exit.

The canopy opening without me pulling the pilot chute was very surprising.  I have 93 previous jumps and I pulled my own hacky 93 times.

I think I did great under canopy, except for some possible miscommunication at the end.  Canopy looked fine, nobody around me, did my controllability checks, then looked around to figure out where I was.  Aimed for the holding area as Josh gave me a couple of instructions.  While in the holding area, did some turns, did some practice flares, and did some rear riser turns.  Josh asked me to do one more practice flare when I was at 1,000 feet, and just as I did that, he asked me to turn left.  Since I was in deep brakes from the flare, I let my right toggle up to do the left turn.

Then the miscommunication.  I thought I was doing everything he asked, and I got a lot of confirmation that I was.  At 600 feet, I started to turn left, which was timed nicely because I was just about to cross the runway.  John wanted me to do my base leg along the area just to the side of the runway.  Josh was aiming me back to the runway.  Not 100% sure what went wrong between us there.  At the end, I kept trying to turn a little left to avoid the runway, but Josh kept directing me toward it.  He told me to flare, I did (and I think it was a good flare), and I slid into the runway rather than PLF on the tarmac.  And I was in the crosswind base leg, not upwind final leg.

Talked to John.  He said I should have landed the way I intended and ignored instructions that didn't make sense.

I'm doing this jump over again, but it really felt awesome to get back in the sky.

Packing training

 Weather forecast said one thing, weather did another.  Too windy for student jumps.

3 of us got some packing training.  Larry - think it's his first time through.  Austin - working on A license, needs one more clean pack job to get the OK to jump it.  Assisted by Colton.

My troubles were flaking the right side and then getting the canopy in a controlled enough condition to be able to get it in the bag.

Safety Day

 Attended Safety Day at Maytown.  Started with a briefing by Dave Grabowski (probably have that name wrong but I'm too lazy to go look it up), the USPA Eastern Region Director.  Follow up briefings by MSPC members on gear checks, aircraft safety, camera flying, angle flying, malfunctions (not in that order).  Winds were pretty strong and gusty, so definitely no student jumping, maybe no jumping at all.

Talked to John (no way I'm getting this right) Stepancik(?) who was my IAD classroom instructor last week.  High points - MSPC has a couple of 260 sq ft student rigs and one 210 sq ft student rig.  The 210 is in high demand.  When I come back to jump, short meeting in the classroom to go over emergency procedures and the dive flow again.  He knows I learned flat packing.  Apparently these days everybody does pro packing.  I should at least watch a video on that.

Talked to Allie, who introduced herself as a packer and gave the gear check presentation.  Wanted to know about the logistics of getting pack jobs and paying for them.  MSPC doesn't have packers, so I'm going to have to get up to speed on packing quickly.  We had a nice chat about how she ended up here (Florida to Univ of Chicago for Marketing, which is no fun anymore because of AI, Chicago to Florida, learned to jump there, followed her instructor to the Northeast and now jumps at MSPC, but will be going to grad school in Nursing at Columbia).

No jumping, but very good trip to Maytown.