2 jumps, too tired to do more

It was a beautiful day for skydiving. Well, it was pretty warm, but the skies were clear, there were some fluffy clouds, and the winds stayed under my limit.

I made two solo jumps. They were pretty much the same jump, so I'll talk about them together. First of all, last week Casey said that I was not relaxing enough when I exited the plane, and during freefall. He suggested that I watch the plane fly away after I leave, rather than focus on getting into position. He also told me that the student arm position is not really the optimum body position, and that I should bring my arms in a little. Both of these helped a ton.

On both jumps, I climbed out of the door, held on to the bar, and stepped off the plane into the wind. I watched the plane as long as I could. My arch really did seem to come naturally, and I was totally stable into the relative all the way over the hill.

In freefall, I did some turns and some tracking, mostly to practice relaxing back into a neutral position. Almost no "chipping," and when I did, I found that the answer was not to shove my pelvis out forcefully, but to ease back into position. On the second jump, I worked on the position where my arms are straight out, my legs are straight out, and my arch flattens. That should slow freefall and allow somebody above me to fall down to me. I completely expected to roll over and end up on my back. Nope. Stayed stable, but I have no real way to measure if my freefall rate slowed.

On my first opening, I had line twist. As the canopy opened, I looked up. As always. This time, I saw that the lines were twisted, probably once around, maybe one and a half times. I was completely calm, and let all the emergency procedure training kick in. I reached up for the risers, grabbed them, and started to spread them out. Honestly, I think the twist was untwisted by the time I started to spread the risers, but I'm glad I did the right thing!

On both canopy rides, I played around. Steep turns with aggressive toggle input, rear riser turns, reverse turns.

Both landings were sub-par. The first was in front of the FBO and the second was closer to the other hangar. I'm pretty sure I flared at the right time. I certainly flared all the way. PLFed both of them. Maybe I just need to be better prepared to run it out on low-wind days. Maybe I need to ask somebody to watch my landings to give me some criticism and advice.

During the 2nd ride on the plane, we took a tour of the fire near the quarry. I was amazed that Matt would bank as steeply as he did with that much weight in the plane. Also, I found myself yawning constantly during the plane ride. When I got down, I waited until the next bunch landed, while I thought about whether I should do another one. I decided I was just too tired, and that I'd be more likely to screw up. Discretion is the better part of valor, right?

2 jumps (#26 & #27)

I planned on making as many jumps as I could today. The wind limited me to 2. There was almost no wind at all for the two jumps I made.

First was a solo fun jump to warm up. Dove out, flipped on my back, flipped right back over and got stable. I've got to figure that out. Worked on turns & tracking. On my second 10-second track, I started to turn. Easily noticed, easily fixed.

Under canopy, I did 5 high-speed reverse turns. Started with an aggressive turn 90 degrees right, then swapped which toggle was where for 180 degrees. Did that 4 times, then did one 90 degrees right, 180 left, 180 right. Landed exactly where I planned, flared OK, but slid some partly because there was no wind at all in my face.

Second was a coach jump with Casey to do docking. I did most of the spotting. He was a little surprised at how willingly I stuck my head way out of the door to look in all directions. I need to make my exit count more obvious, for one thing. I tumbled a little off the plane. Casey said I went to rigid and wasn't relaxed enough. Work on this! When I was stable, Casey was way above me. I tried to dearch and come up to him. Didn't get far. He finally dropped down to get level with me. I moved to him to dock, released, and he backed away. Did it again. Then we were at about 6,000 feet, and we stopped maneuvers. I turned, tracked away for 3 seconds, pulled at about 3,600 feet. A lot lower than I should have. Casey said (and I felt it) that I was "chippy" on my turns, and in my transition from neutral to delta. I should do that faster, and relax more.

I spent most of my time under canopy getting over near the 6. At about 1,200 feet, another jumper was in front of me (a long, safe distance away) at the same altitude. Since he was coming across, I hung out and fell in behind him. I didn't want to cause him trouble, so I ended up going a little long on my landing pattern and landed in the cornfield up the hill from the picnic area. PLFed.