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.