3 jumps

The weather wasn't great. Hazy all day, and a couple of storms came through.

First jump:

3rd out. Dove out. Turns & tracking in freefall. Tracked before pulling @4500.

Tried some braked turns under canopy to see how they felt. Did some spirals.

I checked my altitude at 1,000 feet and entered my landing pattern. Since it was such an easy wind day, and since there wasn't any other canopy traffic at my altitude, I flew the rest of my landing pattern without checking the altimeter. Everything felt right, and I landed straight out in front of the hangar.


Second jump:

Spotted with Mike M. First out. Dove out. More turns and tracking. Worked on how to slow my fall rate.

I got into my landing pattern with another jumper to my right at about the same altitude. Since he was coming down faster, I expected him to cut in and under me, so I stretched out my pattern to avoid a problem. Well, he didn't, so I ended up turning lower than I wanted to to get into base and then final. Not dangerously low, just lower than I should have been. I landed on the taxiway. Beer. Grant and I talked about what I did wrong, and what I should have done. I easily could have turned into base sooner and landed in the other field.


Third jump:

A bunch of tandems, AFFs, and me. By the time we got to 3500, the clouds were coming in pretty heavy. The pilot and the guys up front decided that we weren't going any higher. Kathie asked Mike M and me if we wanted to do a hop-and-pop. Sure. Beats landing with the plane. Mike went first, and I waited about 5 seconds. I got stable in about 5 seconds after diving out, and pulled at about 3000 feet.

Not my smoothest landing. Very low winds. I did a nice landing pattern and landed in the main area a little toward the picnic tables. Ran a few steps, bounced off one knee, and stood back up.