Sunday, June 12, 2011

4 jumps, including 2 hop-and-pops

Jump 1
Freefall: Solo, dove out, worked on body position, turns, tracking. I think I'm tracking pretty straight, based on watching a heading.
Canopy: Casey suggested doing front riser turns to get that checked off my yellow card. He went over it with me a couple of times, told me what to expect, and told me that it would be hard under the 280. It was. I barely got the 90 degree turns all the way around before my arms and hands needed a break. I couldn't even pull down hard enough to try the 180 degree turns after that. My hands were shaky when I was writing in the log book.
Landing: Stood up in front of the FBO building.

Jump 2 - 5,000 foot clear and pull
Freefall: Not much! Dove out, went a little steep, got stable and pulled. The canopy opens a bit slower when you're not falling as fast.
Canopy: The 280 I jumped on the first load was being packed. The other 280 I picked up was out-of-date. The third 280 had been scraped along a runway yesterday and was out for repairs. I jumped a 260. Much more responsive to turns. Front riser turns were much easier. Did the 180 degree turns and then did the 90s again.
Landing: Possibly a combination of wind and a smaller canopy. I flew a little long. Stood up the landing on the second field in front of the house.

Jump 3
Freefall: I planned on doing the 3,500 foot clear and pull, but there was no instructor on the plane without a tandem. Instead, I rode it all the way up to 12,500 (cloud layer above that). Floating exit. Arched way back and watched the plane continue on. More turns & tracking.
Canopy: Played with the 260.
Landing: Short. I overcompensated for the long landing last time. I cleared the weeds and landed in the shallow gully. At the last minute, I started steering and moving my feet, which put me into a little turn. PLF in the gully, nothing hurts.

Jump 4 - 3,500 foot clear and pull
Freefall: Dove out, got stable in about 4 seconds, waved and pulled. While I was watching the canopy open slowly at a low altitude, I believe I said, "Open, you son of a bitch, open!" Nobody on the ground commented.
Canopy: Played with the 260 again. A little less time, but I still had from about 2,800 to 1,000 feet.
Landing: Planned landing with buildings on the right. The sock was clearly showing that the winds had shifted to be coming straight from the direction of the hangar. Since I was alone, I could safely have altered my landing pattern. It's pretty firmly embedded in my brain to stick with the plan for the safety of everybody, so I stuck with the plan. Crabbed to my left for most of the final. Landed in front of the FBO. Flared a little high, and ended up drifting backwards before landing. PLFed in the grass.