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?