3 jumps and I'm back in the air

About time, right? I finally got a free day to head up to the Burg. I wasn't sure what I'd have to do for recurrency after 7 months on the ground. The guys didn't make too big a deal about it, and things came back easy. Grant told me that I should do a coach jump and just do whatever I wanted to do. Mostly, I think the idea is to see if I can stay stable in the air. I would have waited for a coach, but then Grant said I could get on load 1 and do a 5000' clear-and-pull with John Howard watching if I wanted. I went for that option.

Jump 1 - 5000' clear and pull. Matt (the pilot) trimmed up the 206. I opened the door to spot. Looked good, John said something, so I left. I sat on the edge, grabbed the frame with my left hand, and rotated out into the wind. Easy exit, instantly stable. Counted 5 seconds, during which I went over the hill, and pulled. It turns out that I never asked Matt to cut, so we were going faster than we should have been. Don't think that matters as much in the 206. On final, I thought I was heading for the taxiway. I used some brakes, then I was still looking at the taxiway. Cleared it be about 2 feet, standing up in the PD 280.

Jump 2 - solo. Cessna 186. Doc Larry told me to dive out toward the tail and wrap my right arm around my waist to make me spin. Probably wasn't the prettiest spin, but it worked. Corkscrewed twice, opened up into a neutral position, and got instantly stable. I tried to work on sliding sideways by tucking the same elbow and knee in close. About 1/2 the time it seemed to work. The other half I turned. Something to work on. Landed on the field in front of the other building, flared a little high, and rolled. Made a pretty crappy step-through.

Jump 3 - 2-way with Mark Muller. Cessna 186. He was going to float off the strut and I was going to dive down to him and dock. He got a little unstable and dropped faster than he wanted to. I dove, went a little bit over, got back to a good position, aimed at him, and then overshot him. I turned, he turned, and I was below him. I started to close, then tried to rise up. We got pretty close, but I saw us at 5000 so I waved off the rest, turned and tracked. Higher winds now, so I ended up landing on the end of the field near the picnic tables. Stood it up in the little gully.

I'm back.