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.

2 jumps, mixed results

After dropping off Matt's foot locker and working the temperature table for the summer camp departure, I got on the road for Chambersburg. Drizzly rain, low dark clouds, thought about going back home. I arrived at about 10:15, and got on the first load at about 12:15. Ugh.

NW winds, 11-13 kts. Jumped the same 260.

Jump 1 - solo
Dove out, keeping my eye on the other solo jumper. In freefall, I used him as a point of reference for some 360 degree turns in both directions. Fast turns, stopped them easily, right back on heading.
From pull to fully open canopy - completely on heading the entire way. I attribute that to a good pack (not me) and a stable pull (me).
Worked on braked turns with different amounts of brakes and different amounts of letting up a toggle to see how it felt. Flew around some clouds. Playing a little by skirting the edges of the clouds and trying to stay out of them but close to them.
Flared a hair high, held it for a second, flared the rest of the way. Half-hearted PLF that I easily could have stood up. Landed in front of the other hangar.

Jump 2 - 3-way (sort of) with Brian (Marine) and Frank (coach)
Frank was front-float, Brian was rear float, I exited right after Frank from inside right in his chest. Plan was that Frank and Brian would be gripped, and I would dock with them, then undock so they could back off and sink, then I would redock. I ended up way lower, and they never stopped a slow spin. I didn't think they'd be able to sink down to me (which was the plan), so I tried to spread out and come up part way to them. Never made it. I got unstable, and ended up on my back. No biggie, I just rolled out of that. Then I started spinning horizontally. In my mind, I said that a spin is just a turn, so all I had to do was stop the turn. I still spun about 4 times very rapidly. I think that I was trying to hard, and stiffened up, which was what led to the whole problem starting with the flip. I stopped worrying about fixing the spin, arched fully, relaxed as best as I could, and the spin stopped. Altitude said under 4500, so I waved and pulled. And forgot to track away from Frank and Brian. Honestly, this was the worst freefall I've had since Cat B or so. Very strange, since I've been having so much fun in freefall this summer. Writing this off as atypical, but using it as a reminder that I need to remember to relax.
I had some fun under canopy. Some slightly more aggressive turns and spins. Stood up a nice landing in front of the other hangar.

2 jumps to get back in the swing of it

I jumped twice today, just to really get back in the swing of jumping, and to work on the stuff Casey talked about last week.

Jump 1:

Floating exit, stable quickly. Worked on snapping my 180 and 360 degree turns around more quickly. I used the runway as a reference point.

I planned to land in front of the hangar. At around 2000 feet, I realized there were about 6 other jumpers in the same spot, so I switched to landing behind the fuel truck. Stood up the landing exactly where I planned.

Jump 2:

Clouds were coming in. Grant went out with Meghan to do a check dive first. I waited for 5 seconds and dove out after them. I used them as a reference point to work on turns more. Before I pulled, I tried to track over to an area where there was a better view of the ground.

When I opened, the clouds surrounded me. The opening turned me and I was not sure what heading I was on until I got below the clouds and saw that I was over the neighborhoods on the far side of the railroad tracks. I flew in some brakes to try to keep altitude. It was pretty clear that I wasn't going to get back to the main landing zone, so I started checking for alternate places. My options were to land into the wind in a clear area on the far side of the tracks from the airport or to land downwind at the bottom of the hill just past the runway. I wasn't sure how I would get back to the airport from the first choice, so I decided on a downwind landing in about 12-13 kt winds. Lined up, brought the toggles down, and did an excellent PLF, in my opinion. I ended up with some little scratches on my right wrist and a bruise on my right ankle.

The guy with Tammy suggested that I could do a flat turn even pretty low to get into the wind. Grant suggested that I could pull the risers apart to flatten out the canopy while trying to get back to the landing zone. I need to try both of those things in the air next time.

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!

Skyvan! 3 jumps

I made 3 jumps out of the Skyvan today. We get packed into that thing like sardines, but there's about a 6 1/2 foot ceiling when we're getting out. It was a little surprising when the first big group got out - the whole plane tipped!

Jump 1 - Exited by basically diving out. It took a little longer to get stable, but I didn't tumble. Worked on some turns and did some tracking. Turns, deep brakes, back and forth turns under canopy. Landed past the end of the runway, but flared perfectly and stood up.

Jump 2 - Exited by turning around, holding the bar, and stepping off. Watched the plane go. Turns, deeper arch and plank to change descent rate. More of the same practice under canopy. Landed in front of other hangar and went to my knees. Flared too high.

Jump 3 - Exited by turning around, holding the bar, bending down, and lunging back into the Nestea Plunge. Did almost 2 complete revolutions. As I was about coming up to vertical the second time around, the wind really caught my chest and I went over the hill. Practiced the same things in free fall and under canopy. Landed in front of the other hangar. Flared way too high. Bill Hanrahan came out to talk to me about my landing. He gave me some good advice on when to flare, backing it up with the reason why I want to flare. He told me to wait until I was much lower (look at the top of the fuel truck of the flag poles) and flare in one nice smooth motion.

The Skyvan was definitely cool to jump out of. I'd love to try it again.

2 jumps, too tired to do more

It was a beautiful day for skydiving. Well, it was pretty warm, but the skies were clear, there were some fluffy clouds, and the winds stayed under my limit.

I made two solo jumps. They were pretty much the same jump, so I'll talk about them together. First of all, last week Casey said that I was not relaxing enough when I exited the plane, and during freefall. He suggested that I watch the plane fly away after I leave, rather than focus on getting into position. He also told me that the student arm position is not really the optimum body position, and that I should bring my arms in a little. Both of these helped a ton.

On both jumps, I climbed out of the door, held on to the bar, and stepped off the plane into the wind. I watched the plane as long as I could. My arch really did seem to come naturally, and I was totally stable into the relative all the way over the hill.

In freefall, I did some turns and some tracking, mostly to practice relaxing back into a neutral position. Almost no "chipping," and when I did, I found that the answer was not to shove my pelvis out forcefully, but to ease back into position. On the second jump, I worked on the position where my arms are straight out, my legs are straight out, and my arch flattens. That should slow freefall and allow somebody above me to fall down to me. I completely expected to roll over and end up on my back. Nope. Stayed stable, but I have no real way to measure if my freefall rate slowed.

On my first opening, I had line twist. As the canopy opened, I looked up. As always. This time, I saw that the lines were twisted, probably once around, maybe one and a half times. I was completely calm, and let all the emergency procedure training kick in. I reached up for the risers, grabbed them, and started to spread them out. Honestly, I think the twist was untwisted by the time I started to spread the risers, but I'm glad I did the right thing!

On both canopy rides, I played around. Steep turns with aggressive toggle input, rear riser turns, reverse turns.

Both landings were sub-par. The first was in front of the FBO and the second was closer to the other hangar. I'm pretty sure I flared at the right time. I certainly flared all the way. PLFed both of them. Maybe I just need to be better prepared to run it out on low-wind days. Maybe I need to ask somebody to watch my landings to give me some criticism and advice.

During the 2nd ride on the plane, we took a tour of the fire near the quarry. I was amazed that Matt would bank as steeply as he did with that much weight in the plane. Also, I found myself yawning constantly during the plane ride. When I got down, I waited until the next bunch landed, while I thought about whether I should do another one. I decided I was just too tired, and that I'd be more likely to screw up. Discretion is the better part of valor, right?

2 jumps (#26 & #27)

I planned on making as many jumps as I could today. The wind limited me to 2. There was almost no wind at all for the two jumps I made.

First was a solo fun jump to warm up. Dove out, flipped on my back, flipped right back over and got stable. I've got to figure that out. Worked on turns & tracking. On my second 10-second track, I started to turn. Easily noticed, easily fixed.

Under canopy, I did 5 high-speed reverse turns. Started with an aggressive turn 90 degrees right, then swapped which toggle was where for 180 degrees. Did that 4 times, then did one 90 degrees right, 180 left, 180 right. Landed exactly where I planned, flared OK, but slid some partly because there was no wind at all in my face.

Second was a coach jump with Casey to do docking. I did most of the spotting. He was a little surprised at how willingly I stuck my head way out of the door to look in all directions. I need to make my exit count more obvious, for one thing. I tumbled a little off the plane. Casey said I went to rigid and wasn't relaxed enough. Work on this! When I was stable, Casey was way above me. I tried to dearch and come up to him. Didn't get far. He finally dropped down to get level with me. I moved to him to dock, released, and he backed away. Did it again. Then we were at about 6,000 feet, and we stopped maneuvers. I turned, tracked away for 3 seconds, pulled at about 3,600 feet. A lot lower than I should have. Casey said (and I felt it) that I was "chippy" on my turns, and in my transition from neutral to delta. I should do that faster, and relax more.

I spent most of my time under canopy getting over near the 6. At about 1,200 feet, another jumper was in front of me (a long, safe distance away) at the same altitude. Since he was coming across, I hung out and fell in behind him. I didn't want to cause him trouble, so I ended up going a little long on my landing pattern and landed in the cornfield up the hill from the picnic area. PLFed.