Today, I made two solo jumps. On both, I spent some of the time in free fall just hanging out, relaxing, enjoying the view. This month's profile in the magazine offered advice to try that.
The first jump was uneventful, except for getting kicked off the plane. There was some miscommunication between manifest and one of the instructors, so 2 of the 3 solo fun jumpers had to get off. It would have broken my heart to make Celine get off, so I volunteered. I got on the next load, which was a turn-around load. A couple of turns, some tracking with less de-arching, but mostly just freefalling. Landed in front of the hangar.
The second jump gave me a little scare. Van and Brent went out first for a D-2. I waited 5 seconds, watching them the whole time, then dove out still watching them. I watched Brent tumble, then spin for a while until Van came in and stopped him. I turned 90 degrees away from them to track a little. When it was almost time to pull, I saw a canopy starting to inflate pretty close to underneath me. I quickly got into a track, got clear of him, got stable, and pulled. I looked for Van later to talk to him. He was pretty laid back about it, but said that I should have waited longer to get more separation. OK, lesson learned. Landing patterns were all over the place. Not sure what happened there. I followed Gary down, and landed into the wind, which was coming over the buildings, near the picnic area. There are some little hills there, so I didn't quite stand up the landing.
Another day went by when I really had no opportunity to pack. Maybe I really need to come up on a Friday. It wasn't very busy today, but there were no dedicated packers, so the coaches were scrambling to get the tandem rigs packed.
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