I'm finally back in the sky!

It's been a long time coming, but I finally jumped today. Fall sucked - one mandatory social event of the century after another. February grounded me until after Memorial Day with the finger injury. Well, today I came back.

Jump 1
I spent about an hour with Casey in the classroom covering some of the basics. We discussed emergency procedures, changing landing patterns based on wind, equipment, etc. Casey thought I was good with the classroom stuff, so we got on manifest for a jump.

He wanted me to jump the 240. I've jumped it before, so I pulled it, fired up the AAD, and ran through a gear check. This year's King Air doesn't have the souped-up engines, so it took a little longer to get to altitude. I climbed out and took the front position in the door. Casey took the rear. Good exit count, and I got stable on the hill as soon as I remembered to look back at the plane. I turned to face Casey, closed in on him as he dropped down to my level, and we got started. 90 degrees right, 90 degrees left, 360 degrees (with a little stall at about 270), then closed in on Casey again. Gripped from about 7000 to 6000, then I turned, tracked away, got stable and pulled. Enjoyed my canopy time and landed with a PLF in the field just past the picnic tables.

Casey told me to work on getting my turns snappier. "Lumbering" was how he described my 360. How can anything be "lumbering" at 130 MPH?!?!? He also said I should speed up my transition from neutral to tracking.

Jump 2
I went solo. Doug (first time I've met him) asked if I wanted to do a 2-way with him since he was also solo. I really wanted to work on what Casey suggested, so I declined his offer. He was completely cool with it.

Exited as if I was the front float guy. Good arch, watched the plane, stable almost instantly. In freefall, I worked on speeding up my turns and transitioning to tracking quicker. I ended up getting "chippy" a few times, mostly because I was concentrating too hard and tensing up. I get it, now I just have to relax and do it.

When I pulled, I saw that the front and rear right risers had a twist to them, and that the front and rear left risers had a twist. The brake lines went up to the back of the canopy, and in free flight seemed to be completely loose. The canopy was completely controllable. There might have been a slight tendency to pull a little to the right, so maybe that brake line wasn't quite as loose as I thought. It was definitely not something to cut away, but it also wasn't something that I was 100% confident with, so I flew it pretty gently. Disconcerting seems like the right word.

I landed on Rocky's canopy. Ugh. Whether it was gusty winds or the twist in riser, when I went back to free flight after steering left, I got pulled back to the right. Rocky gave me a couple of tips for situations like that.

So now I current. Time to keep jumping and get that license!