1 jump today

After last week's freefall debacle, I wanted to do a solo jump just to get myself back into shape. Frank and Rocky went out first, I got in the door, counted to 5, and dove after them. I made sure that they were a good horizontal distance off, then stopped looking at them. I just thought about having a nice, relaxed skydive. I stuck in a couple of 360 degree turns for fun. Nailed those. At 5000 feet, I turned roughly parallel to the runway (to be perpendicular to the flight line), tracked for 5 seconds, got stable, and pulled.

I was amazed at how quiet it was under canopy. Very little wind? No, that shouldn't be it. I figured it out later.

I played around under canopy. Some flat turns, some aggressive (for me) spirals.

The landing pattern was pretty much straight into the buildings on final. I talked to Frank & Rocky before getting on the plane. They gave me some tips about burning off some altitude with S-turns, flying in half-brakes, making a flat turn into the wind when I was fairly low. In the end, I guess I blew it a little by not being far enough upwind when I entered my pattern. I solved my problem by flying next to the runway for a little extra distance and landing on the flat, grassy area on the other side of the picnic tables. Seemed like a good second choice, and the walk back to the hangar was about the same as from the fuel truck. Stood up the landing.

Now, about the peace and quiet... When I was gathering up my canopy, everything sounded a little funny. When I got back to the hangar, I realized that I could barely hear. After a minute of talking (yelling?) at Brian and a couple of other people, I grabbed my nose and blew. Both ears popped, but the right one hurt. I guess I'm not really quite over that cold from earlier in the week. I decided to call it a day rather than screw up my ears. I still hung around for about another hour and a half just soaking up the drop zone energy.

Only 1 jump, but it was a good one, and I learned a couple of things.