The season of 2011 has been a good one — albeit, very busy with life and kids — and with what time I have to even think about skydiving, I’ve used to actually skydive – not sit and write about it. Though today, I simply had to find the time to write a few quick notes about such a fantastic weekend; and the progress made over the last several months.

Last I’d posted, I’d gone through the a canopy course with Brian Germain – which I would highly recommend for any skydiver. I followed that with a dozen 7,000 feet hop-n-pops to work on the skills learned, then focused entirely on coaching and two to four way skydives — I was trying to prep myself for the AFF course taught by Bram Clement. I could have written a dozen posts about that course – if only I’d had the time. At different points throughout that week I’d thought I was surely going to fail, followed by the next day when my ego would tell my I was head and shoulders above the class, followed by the next day of certain eminent failure.. At least for me, that class was a week of extreme skydiving. Not to mention the heat wave Mother Nature decided to give us!

The 95 degree weather, with just as much Michigan humidity, surely didn’t make it easy – but I managed to pass three of my four evaluation skydives; with all thanks due to awesome Instructor Examiner, his wonderful assistants for the course, each and every one of my classmates, and even one quick prayer to God after landing on my last eval! But by that point in late July, I’d managed to almost fulfill one of my largest desires since first jumping out of a plane five years ago – I was an AFF Instructor. At least my membership card said so.

Real life, as it often does, quickly stepped in; I found myself back into a daily routine.. work, home, and kids.. barely enough time to even look at the skies with wanton lust. August and September soon passed, with barely a few jumps, and none using my new found Instructor rating. Then my unspoken prayers: If only, there could be one more summer weekend – in October.

Well damn it, there was. Seven days of supreme weather made for skydiving; and even more (yes, more!) my schedule for work and children seemed to part like the Red Sea and I found myself at the dropzone. A few coaching jumps and then I got to funnel a two-way train exit into another sit-fly attempt, and then my trusted DZO approaches me to tell me I’ve been cleared for AFF – a privilege previously withheld pending review of my competence for the task – and that’s it. As quickly as the autumn leaves turn from green to red, yellow, and brown – I took to the air today with two first jump students. I was very pleased with both students performances, as well as honored to look across those students and see the Instructor, then a Coach, I met on jump #12.

Today marks the beginning of another long journey for me. No more than my first skydive made me the skydiver than I am today; did my first Instructor jump today make me the competent Instructor I wish to become. As much as the night after my first jump four years ago, I’ll end this post with a simply thought in my mind… I wonder what comes next.

Blue Skies.

I had the excellent opportunity to be in Brian Germain’s Canopy Course over this past weekend and not only did I learn so much more, but I think I gained a glimpse into how much further I can go in this area. Not only was I able to expand on the things I now know I know, but the things I now know I don’t know, grew just as much! And as you will also learn in Brian’s course, both of those are surely outweighed by all the things I don’t yet know, I don’t know yet!

The course began promptly at nine Saturday morning and began with some basic topics, what is pitch, yaw, angle of attack, etc.. As our class was composed of several jumpers still on student status, a few more with the ink still wet on their A licenses, and only two experienced jumpers including myself; if I was initially a tad bit concerned I might not gain as much in a classroom with such a wide range, those concerns were quickly relived. If anything, the skill I saw displayed by Brian under canopy and in freefall, and his vast – nay, from my perspective, I’ll just call it his “infinite” knowledge about canopy design and control, aerodynamics, human psychology and it’s relation to skydiving; all may be overshadowed by his ability to teach and convey that information others.

Those basic topics were quickly built upon in the classroom and expanded in the air – we were again some very lucky Michiganders with two days of perfect weather; and by perfect I mean jumpable all day (a bit cooler and less humid would have been nice). With two canopy skill hop-n-pops from 7,000 feet on the first day, and four more jumps on the second day it was an amazing learning experience! The last jump on Sunday (#426) was truly memorable – a two-way tracking dive followed by two-way canopy relative work with a true “celebrity” of our sport; surely a perfect time for my first try at carving some turns in unison with another canopy!

Though I’m proud of the advancement in my canopy skills this weekend, this post wouldn’t be complete without admitting a mistake of season’s past. As Brian drilled several “new” concepts into me – some started sounding familiar; my own local S&TA (of re-re notoriety), had tried explaining the method and importance of lowering my slider before; and our Rigger on staff took his time as well to explain the dangers of uncoordinated turns in turbulence. Though I’ve truely found joy in every second of freefall (well.. except the last few seconds on jump #4), I’ve always viewed the canopy ride as just a safe way to ground so I could start dirt diving the next jump. I think when I stopped enjoying the canopy ride, I stopped learning more about it, and hence, began to forget some of the lessons I had already been generously taught. It’s time to listen up to the experts that already surround me.

Overall lesson learned this weekend: I need the same attitude upon landing as I do when I exit an aircraft. I’ll still PLF when if I ever need too, but until then, I’m gonna smile at the ground, lean into it, and dare it to try and catch me.

Good luck Mother Earth – I’ve had Planetary Avoidance Training now ;)

For today’s post.. I’m going to tell you about a few other jumps on my mind.

Jump 1: I will always remember my first jump – especially when I see my FJC Instructor across from me on skydive. I’ve met a hundred other Instructors since, but it’s hard to imagine following anyone else out of the door on that first jump. Brenda gave me the confidence that day to take my first one-way plane ride to altitude, and somehow, in eight short hours of instruction: she made me believe I could fly.

Jump 149: It’s all fun and games until suspension lines start snapping. I can very distinctly remember sitting in the saddle at 3,000 feet looking up at my busted parachute. I’d already had a high-speed malfuction and cut-a-way, but this three minute canopy ride was the longest of my life — choosing to land a busted but working canopy, rather than cut and take a chance on a reserve ride, was seriously one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in the sport.

Jump 239: Solo Night Jump, Forth of July. To be alone, falling at 120 mph, slowly turning, watching every firework display for 50 miles around. Simply amazing. I’d never felt how “big” that holiday is – it’s not just your city shooting fireworks into the sky – but the entire Nation at once! You just have to go up a few thousand feet to get a good view of the show.

Jump 371: Over four hundred times I’ve “held my hands up high, feet and knees together, prepare to PLF, and get ready to flare”; it may have been easy for us all to recite those words (or some version of them) when we first got our A license – but are you ready, I mean really ready, to PLF on every landing? Whether it be pilot-error, funky winds, or a hundred other things, sooner or later you WILL have a rough landing – you may break your back, twist an ankle, or just roll it out, stand up and go manifest for the next load — the quality of your PLF makes the difference.

Jump 390: I’ve done Cat-Fly-Arounds dozens of times (it’s my favorite three-way), but when recently asked to sign an old log book entry, I just couldn’t picture the jump. Flipping back through my own log book, I was able to verify the jump – but I still can’t quite picture it in my mind. What can be learned from a jump I can’t remember? A reminder to slow down and value each jump a little more.

Jump 413: Getting coached by a student. As I equaled or surpassed the experience and currency of some jumpers I initially looked up to for guidance, I noticed some tension when I started returning to them – giving advice rather than taking it. Those tensions quickly fading as they realized I was merely trying to help them as they had helped me. The shoe was on the other foot early this year, as I struggled to quickly rebuild my currency, and had a previous low-timer with a fresh Coach rating point out some basic body position errors in my flying. I don’t think I took it as gratefully as I could have, I’ll have to do better next time, all I’ve got to say about that is… “it was April”, and… Thank you. Feel free to signal me some toe-taps anytime. ;)

The weather has been less than perfect through most of April and May, but I’ve been able to get 17 jumps in so far! With a weak last season, a long winter just behind me, and only getting one or two jumps a day, the first dozen jumps were all four-way or smaller and without my camera. Gladly, the weather blessed us last weekend and I was able to get six jumps, including a few bigger groups, and 8-way that went well and an 11-way that could’ve been better. But thats okay, we’ve got a lot of season left in front of us :)

I also picked up the new GoPro Hero HD, so look forward to some really great quality video’s this year! Of course I couldn’t resist putting it right on my helmet, so without further ado, here’s the first video for the year:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150198312734413

Looking forward to a lot more jumps with everyone… so next time you see my cam in freefall, come say hi!

Winter is more than a season, it’s more than bad weather and snow shovels. It’s the long void between one great season at the dropzone and the next. It represents many months of seeing good friends less and your family more. No more long summer nights discussing the days successes and failures or cold spring mornings waiting around for enough skydivers to make a load. No more quietly sitting back and watching the new Tandem students nervously pace around as they wait for their ticket to be called.

I have come to believe, that “Winter”, to a skydiver, is more than just the season of winter from December through March. Winter and all it’s cold, dark, and lonely glory; can be found nearly anytime of the year just where you would expect it – far away from the dropzone. See for yourself.. stop skydiving from July til September, trust me – you’ll start feeling Winter while it’s still hot enough to sweat.

In my few years around, I’ve seen people come and go from the sport, some jump for a year or two, then take up hang gliding or rock climbing instead, they merely prefer spend there “Summer” elsewhere. But sometimes others are forced to take time away from the sport. It’s easy for the weather, career, family, kids, life or a new wife to step in the way. Thats Winter. An unmovable object, keeping you from the things you love.

Luckily, no matter how it appears from the depths of it, Winter is a temporary object. It can fade away slowly for months or years, or even give you few weekend breaks before it suddenly ends one day. It can last one season, or it could be a twenty year stretch.

When a long and slow winter finally begins to wane, it’s good to know the sport you love is still there. When you start hearing the birds chirp, know that you will fly with them soon. Winter does end, Spring will come, just close your eyes and smell the jet fuel. You know when you get back to the dropzone, your friends will be waiting for you, as if you just took too long to pack; no hurry, there’s always room for one more on the next load. Once Winter ends, it’s as if it never even happened.

It’s been a long, long winter. But it’s almost over now.

I’ll be skydiving tomorrow :)

Jeromy

With the help few online calculators, I’ve estimated a force of the impact required to remove the 3M VHB tape was approximately 250psi – 15 times the amount required to crack a skull! So in general — don’t do anything to your GoPro camera, that you wouldn’t want to do to your neck!

In any case, since I first got my GoPro, I’ve been a huge fan. It’s a (relatively) cheap, well made, easy to use, small, point of view camera. It can handle the rigors of practically any extreme sport, in or out of the water! If you don’t have one yet, check them out and get yourself one (after consulting your local Instructors to see if you’re ready to fly with a camera). Word to the wise though, if you jump out of a plane and land on your head – it’s not covered under the warranty!

#——————————————————
Hi Jeromy

Sorry to hear about your crash, it definitely does not sound like fun.

Unfortunately, an extreme crash such as this is not something that we can cover under warranty, so you will have to purchase the housing from our website. I will, however, send you out a couple of stick on mounts. Just specify which stick-on mount you want (flat or curved) and I will send you out three of them.

Let me know.

Many thanks,

GoPro Support

http://www.gopro.com/support

#——————————————————

Anyhow, after initially landing on my feet/knees and leaving a 12 inch divot in the ground, I continued to fly forward another 20 feet where I landing on my head, removing the 3M mounting tape cleanly from the top of my helmet, breaking the mounting mechanism off the bottom of the clear case, and embedding the camera about 6 inches into the ground. I rolled through on my my neck and bounced another 20 feet where I touched down again and finally rolled to a stop.

Amazingly, my camera itself is still functioning perfectly (although, quite sadly, I had forgotten to turn it on for that jump). However, the mount on my helmet that was lost due to the 3M tape losing it’s grip (granted, due to a high speed impact with the ground!), was my last curved mount. Also, although the case itself is still intact, the clip that snaps into the mounting bracket was broken off completely and could not be found. Truthfully, I consider myself very lucky that I was not seriously injured.

My question to you is this: Is this the type of average “wear and tear” that might be covered under warranty for a camera that is designed for extreme sports? Whether covered by warranty or available for a moderate fee, please send me a replacement case and mount immediately, I plan on jumping this weekend, and after this experience, I’ll make sure I always have my GoPro turned on!

Jeromy Alexander

The airplane, often seen from a distance, but now so up close and personal. The ride up, in the beginning seemed to be that last slow walk down the green mile, but later becomes an unbearable delay from your own sweet release. The open door at altitude, the doorway into another world. Freefall, where you finally spread your wings and fly. Pull time, when it all gets serious. The canopy, is it there and is it square. The ride down, can this thing do a cart wheel? The landing pattern, downwind, base, final.. then.. wait for it… wait for it… FLARE!

Yeah, thats how a skydive works in my mind. But “skydiving” transcends the “skydive”. After all, every tandem student has done a “skydive”, but do they understand “skydiving”? So if not just the skydive, what else is there? Well, a lot! Not the least of which is the dropzone’s atmosphere itself!

The friends, the students, the Coaches and Instructors. It’s a beautiful spring day spent waiting in the shade, casual chatter all about. Idle time spent learning about aviation from the pilot and teaching new students about the skydive, explaining the difference along the way between fact and and your own opinion. Enjoying the day at the dropzone, not skydiving, just relaxing.. and waiting for the skydive.

It’s not easy. It’s took me three years to get used to it and another year to learn to enjoy it. It’s hard to understand, much less appreciate this part of skydiving in the beginning - when it’s all about the skydive - but now, a fine spring day, spent outside with friends.. that’s enough to make me smile any day of the week - of course, getting some altitude at the end of that wait is great too!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk8cSEnEd6E

Some find winter hobbies: skiing, ice skating, or snowboarding. Some travel: mostly to boogies all over the south and out west – though this past winter many jumpers I know jumped the ocean and landed in Puerto Rico! (lucky bastards) But mostly, we just sit around, look at the sky, and pout.

So when does it end? Well, when the new season begins of course! But when is that, exactly? Is it the big get together all the skydivers had in the winter where you discussed some of the changes coming this year? nope. Was it a couple weeks ago at Safety Day when we all got together and figured out how to keep our asses alive this year? nope. Is it the “opening day” date on the website? nope. So when, when do you ask? When is the moment that new season begins? Well here is a clue.. First you hear someone yell “DOOR”, then a few seconds later…

A little green light comes on. Your trusty S&TA checks the spot and you look outside of that open airplane door for the first time in months, only slightly scared (not that you would admit it), and you remind yourself that you’ve done this hundreds of times before. Your friends climb out, you know they’re waiting on you to start the count, so you take a diving stance, look up at them, smile and nod.

The 2010 season is here!

Everyone already receives The Parachutist, which as published by the USPA displays the professionalism of our sport.  I think Blue Skies displays us – when we’re not trying so hard to be professional!  If you haven’t already subscribed, get over there and do it!  It’s worth the cost of a jump ticket to read the stuff that got them kicked out of their first printer!

The swoop club event was scheduled for Monday morning, but alas, the clouds and rain just didn’t want to let it happen. Well the rain paused for a moment, so we decided to quickly get the Cessna up and test the ceiling. Well, we were able to get up to 4,000 feet, but it sure hadn’t stopped raining up there! I’m sure someone might have considered not proceeding.. but the next load was already manifested.. and they had already setup the swoop course.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvHq_xvoDWY

Now for a bit of my personal history, I am not a swooper. I hadn’t ever participated in swoop club before. I was on the load for a quick hop-n-pop and I saw the course setup, I thought I’d just use it for a bit of accuracy practice. Of course when I landed, Ryan said I was the only one that had even scored in the round, putting me momentary in first place, so I decided I should stick around and finish it - couldn’t hurt to learn a bit more about my canopy! Many thanks to Ryan for answering all my questions that day, the rules, scoring procedures, the different rounds, etc.. I really learned a lot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNgoHY24g-4

Mostly I focused on just hitting the gates with an accurate approach. In the first round (above) I had a 77′ swoop followed with a 42′ swoop in the second round. The rules changed in the third round (accuracy) so I just tried to land in the square Ryan showed me and in the process I hit three of the four gates. At this point, I was the only person to score in each round and I might have had a chance at placing first or second.

Hellfish Swoop Club 2009 - 3rd Place Medal

However for the final round I decided to put a bit more effort into it and hit all four gates, which I did, but landed 10′ early in the “no mans land” area just before the target landing area! Oh well - How much can you learn if you don’t try hard enough that you might fuck up? All in all, it was a good end to the boogie weekend. One that will be well remembered by myself at the least. And, after a few calculations by Ryan (you’ve gotta love a weighted scoring system) I ended up placing third - in my first try at swoop club!

I’ve got pretty good range with my own jumpsuit, but with all the warnings I was receiving, I thought I’d better grab one of the bigger spare suits in the back. I ended up with giant blue and yellow balloon suit that I could have fit into twice! I was able to do two jumps with the student. The first, I went out poised with her diving behind me. As I released and glided down the hill, I recall wondering if she had let go of the plane yet, she had, but was.. well a bit floaty! I de-arched and “hugged the beachball” as quickly as I could, but to no avail – I was able to keep myself from falling any lower, but couldn’t get back up! I had to turn my head sideways and watch her do her turns from 20 feet below!

The second jump I knew what to expect. I had her go out poised and dove out two seconds behind her and instantly de-arched and then let myself slowly sink to her level. This went much better and I was able to stay on level and watch the dive. The student herself did very well on both jumps, I was easily able to check of her objectives. Unfortunately, she’s had a hard time going through the progression as many of our Instructors and Coaches have had a hard time falling slowly with her.

Anyhow, the definition of good hump day at the dropzone? Being there to help out the anxious students.. the ones that can’t wait until the weekend. Getting more instruction myself from the current Instructors – my Coaches from years past! And ending the night down at Muk’s – 1/2 burrito, hot, sour cream & hot pepper on the side and a tall Labatt – that will be missed as much til next season as the jumps!

So, a perfect day? Almost. The gopro has starting acting up on me a little bit. Each jump the camera didn’t turn on until I thought I was turning it off – two long clips of me flying the canopy (in a huge balloon suit), so every will have to wait until the next post to get their video fix!

The weather on Friday kept me at home, and really, even Saturday and Sunday didn’t look that great. However, things seem to work out when they need too, and this was no exception. Saturday came and the clouds rolled back enough to get out there and get a few in. Of three jumps on Saturday, the second was great. Just a simple three way with Glenn and Mac, but Mac had the great idea for us to swap camera’s (you’ve gotta love the way the gopro’s click in and out of their mount so easily). So below, for the first time on this blog, you can see me in the video!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ttwn5hlCY8

On Sunday, everyone (well, actually just most) that I wanted to be there on my three hundredth were there, so i tried to squeeze onto each load and get the jumps done before the weather went bad. On jump number 298, Jon, Franz, and I went out to do a very common skydive at our dz, a “Cat Fly-Around”, you can see it the first half of the video how the jump is supposed to go.. but towards the end, appearantly Jon and Franz and decided to fuck with me a bit by turning the two way and not letting me get into my next slot!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=duZXjnJ_7g0

Next was my 300′th! In the beginning, this started as just a small jump.. maybe a four way. But one by one I saw people around the dz that I just couldn’t not invite and then someone brought out the hoop. Yes, “the” hoop.. it’s the hoop that set the world record hoop dive (21 people through the hoop, World Freefall Convention, 2002). My first mistake on this dive? Think I should try to go through backwards on my first attempt. My second? Managing to kick both hoop holders.. and my third misktake? Thinking they might let me go through the hoop a second time! Oh well, fun jump!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lWdildIyS8

Just for reference, out of my current jumps, I’ve got 40 on student canopies (from 288 to 210) the next 100 on a Sabre-1 190, and the next 150+ on a Pilot 168. For the day I decided to demo the Pilot 150, as that would be my next logical step down. However, the Aerodyne guy, after watching me land a few times, though I’d be fine with the Pilot 140, not so sure myself, what do you think, with my progression and an exit weight of 190 pounds?

Anyway, on to the days video’s! In the first one Jon does a backflip, Chris does a half barrel roll, I do a strut curl exit and wave goodbye to the pilot!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkwwkamcqLY

Here are to good examples of stable cessna exits: Jim does a diving exit, Ian goes out poised.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSZ4X0F6-P4

As soon as I got to the DZ I could tell the day was a little more hectic than most, Franz was running manifest himself, and it seemed the phone was ringing off the hook.  Rather than bug him to see the next load I could jump on, I just hung out for a moment, next up to the counter was a student looking for coach, good timing. We were quickly manifested and starting some ground training for his jump. Kent had a good jump and was able to get an adjusted fall rate & dock and a swoop and dock checked off his A card.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEsQJuQCEV0

After that, Dale was putting together a small way with some of the newer jumpers around this year, I of course, was glad to jump into the mix!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Z_ffcRcYw

The sad part about days like these?  For me, I know they’re numbered.. my boys will be back to school in a few weeks, and I’ll be back to a weekend jumper :(

The Inaugorial Jump for Diabetes at Canton Airsports in Ohio!  I’d been looking forward to this weekend and a chance to really come down and get to know a new dropzone after having had a brief introduction a few weeks previous.  And as expected, I came away with a lot of new skydiving friends that I’ll be looking forward to jumping with again.  At first take Saturday morning, things weren’t looking to well. We had expected a Caravan to be flying loads by 10AM, so after waking up to get there bright and early, we were disappointed to hear the Caravan had been delayed due to maintenance and would not be arriving until 2PM.

So with 4 hours to spare, we had time to plan the best ever four-way dive.  Then someone asked to join, so we planned the best ever five-way dive.  Then someone asked to join… and yes, we went to a 6 way then 7 way, before finally settling on an 8 way before the plane finally arrived at almost 5PM!!  The finally dive started with a BFR (Big Fucking Round) then with two going into a two way base, with four people sidebodied off the base, with two stingers on either side, next point the stingers come into the be the base, the satelites turn 90′s to sidebody the new base, and the old base backs out to be the next stingers!  It’s a fun dive when it goes well, lucky for us that day it’s also fun when it doesn’t go well!  Luckily that video I forgot to turn off so I didn’t upload it.. it’s one for the personal archieves!

Next was a three way cat fly-arounds with Ashley and Fuzzy.  Log book entry says simply enough “Exit Good”.  This shows why you need to keep positive pressure on a grip (don’t pull/hang on it) else when you let go of the grip, you’ll fly off backwards!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t4WArK33jk

Next up was a fun two-way with Ashley, basically, the goal was just to play keep way, and no - she never caught me :)  Of course today, now wearing her booties for a few jumps, she seems to think she could catch me.. that will be a jump for another day!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUww06GQVE0

The next morning started with a fun five-way with me, Ashley, and a few new guys we had met there, Dennis, John, & John. They each easily outnumbered me in jumps and experience, and I think both me and Ashley were able to learn a lot from the dives we did that day with them.  In the first one, I know we had a dive plan, but Ashley was determined to come onto my side of the formation at exit, so the rest of us did a bit of improv to keep the rest of the jump going.. spider, round, open accordian… who says it has to be slot specific anyway!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqzWRAf4NA8

After the previous success - aww shit, I showed you the video, didn’t I?  We decided to increase our odds by adding three more into the mix, enter Fuzzy, Dave, and Don.  Now I won’t name names.. but found it rather funny (actually hilarious really) that the ONLY person that went low on this jump, was the 50 jump wonder who swore he needed five pounds of lead to keep up with us..   As an extra challenge to myself, as the group exits, you can hear my turn and give a two count before I followed.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA3pBrFFw9I

Next we decided to downsize again and tried to be serious.  Down to just Me, Ashley, Dennis, Fuzzy, John, & John. I think we did a lot better.  The spider exit came off the door so well, I actually went low anticipating I’d have to catch up with a tumbling mess, but once I got back into the formation (on the second attempt - first try I almost came up under the formation, I had to back out and come up a second time) we got a three way donut, each with a single whacker, then the donuts released and we flew each donut/whacker pair into the reverse with the previous whacker become part of the next donut (yes, I know this probably sounds really confusing for my non-skydiving audience - more reason to come jump and learn!) then we got into a round before breakoff.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nonNkcQApJ4

After that success (yes, we finally had a success!) we decided to debrief and try the same jump again, which once again, went off much better.  The next exit didn’t go quite as smoothly, and by time the formation built I was on the wrong side of it, none the less, I think we had a good jump, and a good end to a great weekend of jumping.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=By-GzBRFOCQ

This post would note be complete with out mentioning Rich Simenc.  The Jump for Diabetes was of course hosted by Canton Airsports, but it was the brainchild of Rick - he spent many months organizing and recruiting venders, supporters, donators; he sold raffle tickes, 50/50 tickets, and jumped his a** of (as he had many people donating on a “per jump” basis).

All in all, after the prizes were paid out, he was able to make close to a $5,000 donation to the American Diabetes Association.  I salute your efforts Rick and as you know, I among many have already volunteered to both attent and assist in the 2nd Annual Jump for Diabetes next year - just let us know when, where, and what you need us to do!

Starting back two weeks ago I had a great day jumping at Tecumseh – as I’ve been jumping out of town a lot lately, I really appreiciate the days that I get to jump back at home.  On a Wednesday, the weather was great, and the Otter was flying!  As soon as I drove into the dropzone I saw people gearing up so I rushed out of the car to see what the call was.. 5 minutes!  Sure, I could make that ;)

I jumped with Rob, whom although still on student status was just knocking off the last few jumps to 25, he already had his A license card filled out, so we just went up and did a simple dive, sidedock, round, sidedock, round..  he is still working on staying in control of his levels, but the jump went well with four points.

As soon as I got down on the ground Manifest pointed Ben, a fresh AFF grad student my way.  After going over his log book we decided we would be doing a Category G dive.  We had to wait for the gear he needed to be avaible, so while he waited, I jumped the next load to go up with Dale, Jon, and a few less experienced jumpers.  It was a fun jump – one that pointed out that the amount of fun has nothing to do with the number of points.

Once back on the ground, I went through the ground prep with my student Ben and we got geared up for the next load. He did really well, completing both docks requiring an adjustment in fallrate, as well as one swoop and dock.  Then at the bottom end of the dive, signaled breakoff right on queue and turned his 180 and had a great track away.

After landing I thought that would be the last jump of the day, but Dale was trying to get one last load up before sunset.  It was about time I finally figured out what was going on with my camera, it had some how filled itself with just the canopy flight (not the freefall!) from the first jump, nothing else had been recorded!  Anyway, with the days video’s lost I thought I would test out the picture mode on the GoPro for the last jump, we ended up doing a sunset six-way full of experienced jumpers – 4 points :)

A great way to end the day.

The first jump were some fly arounds with Glenn and Ashley, always a good and fun jump to practice fall rates.  The second dive was a tracking dive with Ashely.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB47BuD6WoE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MdxCWxa4ec

The first jump was with Larry and Glenn, a classic three way Larry special skydive - a circle into an open accordion, then breaking the grips, and rotating the pieces.. over and over.. :)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kYqtAo9UK4

On the previous jump Neil was on the plane doing his last student status skydive to jump his first pack job.. upon landing he earned his A license and was able to jump with us for his first licensed jump, his first jump with non-instructional staff, and his first four way… (haha, can we say BEER!) This was the first time I’d seen him jump and was really impressed with both of his docks. Also, watch his exit at about 12 seconds into the video, he had his legs out a bit too much which was causing him to roll forward and loose stability, but with some quick thinking on his part he grabbed his knees and tucked into a front flip and then came out of it right back into a dive.. very nice Neil - but next time keep your feet on your ass when diving! ;)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aimUDjIRFpQ

Not sure what happened to Glenn and Neil after the last dive, but it was down to me and Larry for the last dive of the night, we tried the same dive plan that me and Jon scored 29 points on a few weeks ago, and it went off well, not quite as many points, but still a great dive. The video cut out just before we got the 12th point, but as i recall we finished that cycle right before the end of the dive, would have been 15 points.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5eazjDaXnE

With that dive done, it’s put me at 275 skydives so far, so I’m starting to put some thought into where and what I want to do for my 300th skydive.. any ideas? Also, yes I’m aware there is an awful whistling sound in some of the video’s this week. The locking mechanism of my GoPro camera got a small crack in and I’m waiting for the company to send out a replacement part. Until I receive the part to fix it, when the wind catches it right… well, you can hear what happends.. :(

I had plans to drive down to Ohio for the weekend to meet with Ashley Mead from SkydiveChick.com and take a small tour of the local dropzones in her neck of the woods while helping her check off the last few items on her progression card and hopefully to be there when she got her license!

The first stop was Cleveland Parachute Center for a few jumps from their Cessna 185, the first jump was Ashley’s hop-n-pop from 5,500 feet followed by my exit.  Watch carefully – you can see how I figured out that the step on a 185 is about six inches higher than a 182!

The second jump was an interesting one.. but no story about it here (go watch the video, be observant), you’ll have to come find me around the bonfire to hear me tell you the story about it!

After the second jump we took off back to Cleveland to meet up with Shawn at http://www.voodoomonkey.org/.  We know how many skydivers wear  a closing pin necklace.. but how many of them would put that pin on them permanently?  Only two that I know of..  but who among us couldn’t use a little good luck charm on that pull hand?

After the tattoo’s it was back on the road the Canton Airsports to meet up with the crew there just after sunset.  I got to meet a lot of great people and couldn’t wait to come back Sunday morning to jump with them.  First jump was with Rick, Christa, and Tkoa – we never quite built the first round, but a fun jump anyhow!

Next I got to fly outside camera for a hybrid attempt, it was the group’s second try at it and they were pretty sure they were going to get it.  The were so sure, they made two of us squeeze onto that camera step to do the video for them!  I couldn’t keep up with the fall rate once Rick stood up under the two way, but I love the footage I got of the first camera guy colliding with group at exit!  I tried to go into a sit, but I just couldn’t hold it stable, I need to practice my free flying abit more for these situations…

And finally, the last jump.  All during Sunday we’d worked on getting Ashley card checked off, three ring maintenance, packing (I got to jump her pack job on the first jump of the day), and she was on the plane during the second jump during her check dive to get her A license!  We thought that was the end of the day, but a few more tandems walked in, and we had just enough to send the plane back up.  For her first licensed jump, she said she just wanted to do something fun.. no learning, no practice.. so I offered to just spin her around and see how far I could throw her across the sky!  This was a great end to a great weekend.. A great new dropzone to visit, a newly licensed skydiver to jump with, a new skydiving tattoo.. it doesn’t get much better than this.

The month started with jump number 229 on the 3rd, a pseudo coaching dive with a Christian, a jumper back from a 7 year layoff.  He’d already done a recent recurrency jump with an Instructor at another dropzone and then another with an Instructor at Skydive Tecumseh.  But on this jump we were still working on some basic fall rate and docking skills.  This jump definetly cemented my decision to enroll in the coach course later in the month.  Later that night we did a 13-way dive that had experience levels from 43 jumps to 12,142 – I remember there was a plan, but the video just shows a big ball of shit!

The 4th of July was very special – a six point nine way, a five point nine way, a four point eight way, and one of my best sunset tracking dives!  Thats my camera on the leader and it’s me docking on the left.  Most importantly, we did night jumps on the fourth, and no matter how much I try, I can not explain how patriotic I felt watching hundreds of fireworks and dozens of grand finallies covering the ground beneath me.  I got video of my solo night jump, but you can’t really see much – hey, it was night time!  But I forgot to turn on the camera for the following four way group jump on the next load!  That Sunday continued the many more bigways, up to a fourteen way skydive!

USPA Coach Rating card

Jump number 250 was my first jump flying outside camera for a four-way (they got three points).  Being a part of Brian’s 1200th, Margret’s 1200th, and Mike’s 1800th skydive was very rewarding, and was a very well done skydive!  On July 16th & 17th I was able to enroll in a Coach Course by Bram Clement at SkydiveRatings.com and got my Coach Rating card in the mail a few days later!

The next day brought my first experience as a Coach – telling my student they were grounded due to weather – even while everyone else was still jumping :(  But she took it well and I was able to do my first Coaching jumps the next day on the 19th.

The jumps got lean towards the end of the month, but the quality surely improved.  There was a 29 point two way with me and jon;  and finally ending the month with Greg back in the air and a five way missing man dancing spider!

All in all a great month… Night Jumps, Big ways, Coach Rating course, my first (and so far only) student, first outside camera jump, and a lot of quality fun jumps in between for a total of 38 skydives!

The first jump was a five way, first point to be a round, then open accordian, then break the two pairs of the ends, rotate them 180, then bring it back into the round.  After getting a four way together our fifth man was just too low to get back up to us, so I keyed the point to move into the open accordian, that went well, but Greg on my left had to clue what to do when I keyed them to do the rotations as he was flying solo on that side!  As you’ll notice, there is no exit in the video, as I’d somehow forgotten to turn on the camera before exit, but realized as I came down the hill and just waited for a good opportunity to turn it on!

The second jump was a bit better, Ian had come into the dropzone saying he needed a real fun jump, so he gathered us all together and decided on a “dancing spider”.  This is a great jump for a five way, one I’ll have to remember and try again.  There is a single man in the base, with each of the other four jumpers taking a single handed grip (an open accordian off the front, and a wedge off the back).  With each key, the jumper off the base’s right leg becomes the next base and everyone else rotating clockwise into the next slot.  There is a lot of flying for everyone!  We lost a man after the first point, so the four us tried to finish in “missing man” style, holding the empty slot for him on each rotation, not the easiest thing to do with this dive.

Without further ado, here are the video’s, hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed the jumps!

Perhaps becuase I did just recently get my coach rating, now was a very good time for me to read back and remember.  And, in the process of that, I’ve went back through my own log book, and the notes I kept then, and have added those stories here.  For any that are interested, here is the journey I took in June, July, August, and September of 2007.

How many of you take your experience for granted?  Do you remember the racing hearbeat of your first jumps?  What was your experience before jumping out of an airplane was just another day?

Now skydivers are certainly a thirsty bunch and I would say all of them (with just one or two exceptions to prove the rule) would take an ice cold beer at the end of any jumping day.  And do you know what makes that beer taste better?  If another skydiver has to buy it for them!  Enter the beer rules.

It starts with the “first”  (as anything should).  The first skydive.  The first skydive with a friend.  The first skydive out of a Cessna.  The first skydive from a turbine.  The list goes on.. and on.. and on..  It is obvoiusly the most senior of the skydivers (in their abundant wisdom, they might say) created these rules, as the vast majority favor them.  The exception of the “first jump on new gear” rule, most skydivers only get stuck by each rule once, in the beginning – right when they’re getting stuck with all other ones too.  However, as each skydiver grows within the community – you’ll hopefully find yourself drinking more beer than you’re buying.  Which is just fine, you’ve paid your dues.

After a recent most successful skydive (#253 a 4 point 8-way) I was challenged by the skydiving beer rule!  As I read through my log book, I did start to get a little worried..  I found a lot more 4, 5, 6-ways than I remembered.. It certainly seemed as if I had made that accomplishment before.  Finally as flipped through the last half dozen pages, the jumps I recalled came out: #232 a 6 point 9-way, #233 a 5 point 9-way, #235 a 4 point 8-way, and even #243 a 3 point 11-way!  Sorry Rhonda, but I’m glad to say that thanks to good logging practice, I do believe I’ve saved myself a case of beer!  To note though, I’ll have ice cold case ready for the first 16-way I can get into, points or not!

Thats right, Labor Day weekend 2009 – SDT is the place to be!  The details are still being worked out, but the legendary Toga party will be held on Saturday September 5th, 2009.  It hasn’t been officially announced yet, but the Toga Party is generally accompanied with free margarita’s all night long!

And yes, it’s not just a four day party… There is also skydiving too, lots of it!  This year there is going to be a Twin Otter, Super Skyvan, and a Cessna available for hop & pops!

Check back here, or on the official Skydive Tecumseh Events Page for more details!

Four point Eight way!

I generally don’t get to jump on the weekends I spend with my sons, but this weekend worked a little differently.  This week my little sister Allie (yes, your friends might call you “Lexy”, but you’ll always be little Allie to me) came to spend the week with me.  So on Sunday night after taking Austin home, Allie, Cole, and I headed out to the dropzone – it’s nice to have good sitter come to visit!

When I first arrived, I was told the winds had been bad all day, very turbulent and gusty.  I’d been hoping to get at least one jump in, as it had already been four days without a jump and I knew it would be five more until I would be able to again.  Dale’s group was there and had appearantly been working towards a goal that day. They had timed out their jumps perfectly to align the numbers.. the next jump would be Brian’s 1200th, Margrets 1200th, and Mike R’s 1800th skydive!  Not that I knew it then!

Once they’d gotten packed back up for another load, Dale asked if I would be joining them for the next load – nonchalantly as ever.  We went through the dirt dive and while we were getting geared up, Ian was nice enough to let me know the jump I was getting myself into.  Talk about putting the pressure on!  But the jump went great, we had a four point eight way – a fitting jump for those numbers!

My apologies for the bad video etiquitte, once again I forgot to turn off the camera once I was under canopy.   Especially since that was one of my worst off target landings all season!  I’m still wondering what kind of pattern Pete was in there, but rather than turn into my crosswind at 600 feet right in front of him, I let him go by then turned 135 degrees onto final at 300 feet, which put me promptly out in the bean field! Better a long walk than a quick fall!

January – 1 – Just one jump, but what a great – and cold – one it was!

February – 18 – What can I can, ELOY baby! Hot Air Balloons & High Altitude Jumps!

March – 3 – Waiting for saftey day was rough, but it sure was nice to be jumping back at home.

April – 25 – Not bad and I bitched about the weather? Even had my first official team jumps :)

May – 8 – This was a rough month personally, way too much RW in the way of my jumping :(

June – 37 – Finally back on track for a great month, ended by following out my good friend Patrick out of the plane on his first AFF jump!

So, wth the first half of the year over and already standing at 92 jumps already, 228 total; and with really the best part of summer still coming.. how many will I end up with this year? 300? 350? 400?!

One thing I know for sure is that I need to learn to stop bitching about the weather! I’m starting to confuse myself with someone still on student status!

Jeromy

Ahh, but thats not even why I’m posting today. All winter long, waiting for skydiving season to open, is no easy wait. Mostly it’s the Michigan winters, the combination between the absence of my favorite past-time and just a healthy bit of cabin fever.. it’s not fun, but once it’s done, it’s done.

Opps.. not this year! We had a great opening day this year.. a little cool and windy in the morning, but that settled down very nicely into the evening; I got eight jumps all day (my best ever)! Then the next day, what happens? SNOW! Can you believe it? 6 inches of snow in April? It’s crazy, though, it does look like it will be gone fast enough not to interfere with jumping next weekend.. :)

Airline tickets are now booked.. come February 11th, I’ll be leaving my way from Jackson to Detriot to board my flight to Eloy, Arizona and Skydive Arizona. Lets all hope the skys are blue, the temps are warm.. and there is NONE of that rare desert snow that week!!

I couldn’t advise this for the faint of heart, but for those die hard fans that need to get a little altitude fix somewhere in between November and April — you’ve gotta try it!

This year I lucked out – although everyone was doing hop-n-pops from 4500, we had gary on our load (3 at a time in the cessna) who was doing a jump with his tandem rig to keep his currency with it, so we went up to 6500.

Me and larry did a nice two way exit, him floating, me diving – for the first few seconds i started to get that swimming sensation – perhaps two months off was just too much, but then the muscle memory kicked in and i felt back in my element :) We got together easily after that, and got three points pretty quickly (round, Larry 360, round, Me 360, round).

So far for the year i’m averaging 3 points per jump!

On the todo list before next new years day — New gloves, my fingers are still de-thawing!!!

(Temp 16 degree F at ground level)

I did three jumps; a two-way with my coach (to get my license current), a four-way (my first), and a solo jump (where i got stable on my back for the first time). I had three stand-up landings, but all were off target. My first was off by 15 yards, the next two by more than 50! I guess I’ll have to get out there and practice some more!

After five months waiting through winter, and a month waiting through spring weather… It was nice to finally get some altitude. All in all, was it worth the wait? Of course it was! Next year, I’ll try to be more patient!

Wow, what a way to spend the last summer of my twenties.

Jeromy D. Alexander
A-51917

Finally here… last dive to get my A license. To celebrate even, my mom and my little sister came up to watch, and i talked my mom into doing a tandem too!

On this jump, i was a little bit nervous again, not because of the jump really, I’m comfortable with that, but i just wanted to make sure this jump went well. I’ve seen a few students go beyond the 25 required jumps to get all the stuff on their A card filled out, their hop & pops, etc.. And I really wanted to have it all done when I landed. So before we went up, me and Todd went over my A card and had to finish up a few of the category quizes, then we got ready for the load. The ride up was pretty nice, everyone knew it would be my check ride, and were really supportive, as always.

The dive was flawless. Todd got out on the rear float, and i took a diving stance and gave the count.. out.. in… go. The exit was really nice, i was about four feet away from Todd all the way down the hill. All i had to do was a 360 right, 360 left, and a backflip, then turn 90 off jump run and track back and forth, five or six seconds in each direction til pull time.

I was done with the manuevers by 9,000 feet, then starting tracking. At 7,000 feet some clouds had blown in (i swear, we didn’t see anything when we spotted ;) ) and i went right through them for two thousand feet! When i first went into them i stopped my track and just held my position until i dropped through the bottom, then started my track again til 4500, did my wave off and pull.

The spot was a little long, but since i had the wind at my back i used my brakes to push myself a little faster forward and made it back for a perfect on-target stand up landing..

Once we got back into the packing area Todd was happy to sign-off and stamp my A card (now my official temporary license untill i get my new membership card from USPA).

And that was it! Now I’m a licensed skydiver!

Well, first I have to send $20 to the USPA…

…then i’ll be a licensed skydiver!

Wow… getting very close! Only one left to go.

This jump was very similar to the last one, another clear & pull, only this time, from ONLY 3500 feet. (Let.s do some math…) I’m sure everyone remembers a mile is 5,280 feet (right?) and 3500/5280 = .663, so my just was from LESS THAN two thirds of a mile… and let me tell you, it looks very close! There were a few clouds up there, so it took us a minute to find a clear spot, then the door opened and I had to lean out and spot the plane (make sure we’d be jumping out exactly over the ground where we wanted to). I climbed out, held onto the strut for just a moment, and then let go.

This time I got my arms down a little more (like I should have last time) and I was deployed within two or three seconds. It really seemed like I was so low that I needed to hurry, although my math tells me I really had at least about 23 seconds until I would have hit the ground! (yeah I know.. to a whuffo, 23 seconds till impact might seem like you’re knocking on deaths door, but really, 23 seconds is plenty of time, an easy margin of safety).

Anyhow, I got this last jump marked off on my A card and got the “spot w/o assistance” and my third “land within 20m w/o assistance” for my Category ‘H’ at the same time!

Right after the debrief, my coach, Allison, let me dis-assembly and re-assemble the three-rings on her rig. (The three ring assembly is what hold your main parachute onto the rig, it’s very strong, but designed to be very easily cut-away at the same time). Then we pulled out her closing loop and showed me that two, my last two check marks off my A card…

Now, just one week away, next Saturday I’ll be taking my 25 jump; my “check ride”. This will be the first in 15 jumps that I’ll have to do with an AFF Instructor again, and basically just show him all that I.ve learned from the AFF jumps and all the coaching jumps… and that.s it… I’ll be a licensed skydiver!

Well, I bummed around the house for an hour or two, and then finally decided to head over to Tecumseh for a few dives. I got there just in time for a caravan load going up, so I started to get my stuff together and be ready. I ended up using a Falcon 215 sq ft parachute, my smallest to date.

The winds were really high at altitude, about 35 mph, and I could almost fell the ‘drift’. For most of the jump I just stayed in a neutral freefall position and tried to measure my drift across the ground… while up there i think i did one front flip and a few 360′s. Only other difference was the handle to deploy my main parachute… instead of the standard orange cylinder, it was a round ‘hackey-sack’ design… no big deal, i just did a few more “handle-touches” in the airplane on the way up to altitude to make sure i had the ‘feel’ for it.

I pulled at 4k and the landing was great, about 15m from target. I think it’s a lot easier for me to land the smaller chutes on target than the larger ones (like the 265 I had to use at Midwest all weekend).

Jump #22

Apparently, once I got to the DZ, that made enough jumpers to fill the caravan for a few more loads, I got on the second load, planning to do another solo, but in line while discussing what everyone on the load was doing, Keith and Karl mentioned they were doing a duo, I asked if I could join is (as they are both AFF Instructors, I could jump with them even though I’m still un-licensed) so I made my first three way.  Some might say my first three-way attempt! But I’ll count it because we did make one point!!!

On the ground we had a few seconds to do a quick dirt dive, we were going to do a “three-way drive-thru”, basically, we make a circle first, then those two would open up there hands and I would ‘drive’ thru the circle, turn on the other side of it and rejoin the circle between them, then each of them would go, then me again. I’m sure ‘experienced’ jumpers could each have four or five rotations doing a simple formation like this.

However, (lol, like you thought this would go well for me on my first time!) Karl was exiting on the rear float position, and I would be diving out right on his chest, and Keith was diving out right beside me, I watched Karl’s count and went with him, that part went really well, I stuck right next to him down the hill then docked once we were stable. I looked up to see where Keith was coming from so we could ‘let him in’ our circle, when I looked up, the wind caught my goggles (my new ones) and pulled them up, the wind instantly teared my eyes and I was probably down to about 40% vision capability. Keith docked in the circle and we had our point! (Yay! my first point!) Those two released their grip on each other and me, for me to drive thru, i drove across the circle but when i turned my 180, i lost a lot of altitude. I spotted them above me, so i de-arched to slow down and rise back up, and rise i did! Right up under Karl slamming into him and pushing him up and out of the circle and he flipped over onto his back before recovering. All this time, my goggles are still on my forehead (letting the wind blind me), so I thought I’d try to pull them down quickly while we waited for Karl to rejoin. When I pulled my hands into my face I front flipped into the partial circle and the whole thing just broke up at about 7000 feet, so I tracked for while (now with my vision re-stored!) and pulled at 4k.

Parachute opening was perfect (my pack job) and landed standing up about 15m from the target again… I would have been spot on the beans; except I flared a bit early and it seemed to give me a little bit of lift that carried me past the beans.

Jump #23

This was a jump I was and wasn’t looking forward to at the same time. My first clear and pull (AKA hop and pop). The idea is that you should be able to exit and immediately deploy your parachute at low altitude, in case you ever need to, such as an airplane emergency. The first one you do (this one) is from 5500 feet, compared to the 13,500 feet I.ve been jumping from, after this one, I have to do another from 3,500 feet!

Also, because it’s a low altitude jump, you do it from a Cessna 182, rather than a caravan (appearantly its more fuel efficient for the smaller plane to go to that altitude). So this was also my first jump from a Cessna.

The idea is, you get to altitude, open the door, climb out onto the landing/wheel assembly while holding the wing strut (so you don’t get blown off!) Then you inch your hands out on the strut to a point where your not over the wheel anymore, and take your feet off the wheel, and just hang there for a few seconds until your body isn’t swinging around anymore.. The wind is strong enough to push your body back at about a 45 degree angle! Once you’re stable… you let go!

The part that had me worried, was I though the strut would be hard to hold onto (clammy hands couldn’t help!) however, once I got out and in position, I paused for a good six or seven seconds just amazed about how oddly natural it felt for me to just be hanging from an airplane wing strut a mile above the ground and just be loving it!

Suddenly the notion of time struck me and I was like “oh yeah, I.m supposed to let go!”

At this point I had one tiny error, my coach had told me before the jump that doing the hanging exit put you in a nearly perfect stable position, except for your arms, and you have to pull them back into the 90 degree ‘goal-post’ position. That part I missed, as I let go of the plane, I kept my arms extended, but also I kept my legs strong in their position too. The result is that when I let go, I stayed in a vertical ‘feet-to-ground’ position, rather than belly-to-ground. But just for a second or two while I lost forward speed and my body leaned forward towards the ground, that.s when I pulled, just as my body went from upright to about 45 degree (about half-way from feet-to-ground to the belly-to-ground position).

The parachute ride was nice… it’s been a long time since i’ve had so much time under canopy… as i’ve progressed from my first jump (wave and pull above 5500) to my last few jumps (wave and pull at 3,500) i’ve gained about 10 seconds freefall, but lost about a minute and a half canopy time.. It was a nice and relaxing (and slow) drift back to the ground.

And now I.ve VERY close to being licensed; only two more jumps! One more clear and pull (from 3500, only about 2/3′rds of a mile high!), and then will be my Class A check ride… AND THAT.S IT!!!

Next weekend, or perhaps the next one for sure… we’ll see!

So what a day it’s been for Labor Day…

My first…
…perfect opening on my own pack job!
…three-way.
…point in a formation!
…jump from a Cessna.
…hop and pop!
AND, no one made me by beer! I love it.

Met up with Mike and got ourselves manifested for the load. We didn’t have a lot to go over on the ground as we would be doing the exact same jump from last night, more swoop & docks until I got them just right (or at least close enough to be safe to other jumpers in the sky).

On this jump we switched up the exit and I took the rear floater position, standing up outside on the back of the door.

I was trying to go a little slower with these docks, I’d done four on the last jump, but I was 0-4 for quality… the first one was good, slow, but good, the second was a little faster, but good… The third one I think I scared him a bit! after the second, I let me legs up and backslide a bit while he was going back to setup for the next dock, so we ended up about 50/60 feet from each other. I knew I had time to get the dock, if I pushed it… so instead of just legs out to cover the distance, i tried cupping my shoulders and slid my arms back abit in a track, i built up plenty of the speed and came rushing at him.. At the last moment, I pulled in my legs, and de-arched my body in a forward position (AKA Slammed on the brakes at the last moment before a stop sign you almost missed). I did effectively stop in the perfect position to take the dock, but because he had thought I was going to slam into him, he had popped up about three or four feet so I would go under him instead of hitting him (head on collision at 20mph horizontal speed is not fun). But I had stopped right were I should have been and just looked up and gave him a look like, ‘get down here’, so he dropped back down and we took a last dock before we turned and tracked away..

Jump #16

One more time, same jump… gotta get it right… slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Switched up the exit again, this time Mike took the rear float and I would dive out after him. I finally got it all right on this one, just slowed it down a little more, and did two perfect swoop & docks.. As he said, doing it slowly might mean less time in the formation once you get there, but it’s a lot safer to everyone than having a mid-air collision. Both docks were great, pushed forward and then coasted into the column of air, then pushed through and took the dock… text book… why didn’t i just do that the first time?

Jump #17

This was my last coaching dive. The idea here was that I, the student, had to make the plan for the dive, and then execute it as planned. The only ‘objective’ I had to do was I was the one that had to signal breakaway. After some thinking, I decided we’d do alternating flips, front & back, separated by 360′s left and right… On most dives, you have a short sequence of maneuvers you’ll do, then you repeat them as much as possible until you get to break away altitude… as he said, he would keep repeating until i told him to break and track.

The dive went just as expected, I kept him on the rear float and I dived out after him. We did our flips and 360′s all the way to 5k, when I gave him a quick wave off and pointed him a direction to track, and that was it.. I turned 180 myself and tracked out.

This is where the moment of truth came for me. Over the last few weeks I.ve been learning to pack my own parachute… and this was the first pack i’d done completely un-assisted with no help, no supervision.. Just me and 265 sq ft of nylon to put into a tiny little bag… Did I do it right? Would it open? Would I have to cut-a-way my first pack job? These thoughts all dropped threw my mind briefly as a tracked away, at 4k I stopped tracking, checked my alt and pulled…

Hey it chute worked!!! The opening was slow, and my slider was stuck up for a second, but it came down with a quick pump of the brakes. It was kind of exciting to knew that I was flying my own pack… until i got the the ground and was reminded of the “first” rule… first jump on your own pack job earns a case of beer!

Jump #18

Well, now I.m all done with the coaching jumps… no longer have to pay for someone else to jump with me… i still have to wait for 25 jumps to apply for my A license, so i’m stuck solo jumping until then. (Other than my two hop-and-pops, I.ll probably do those next weekend at Tecumseh).

This time I wanted to do something different… about ten jumps ago, i was having problems holding a heading because i was looking at the ground and not the horizon, so i stopped looking at the ground, now i wanted to see if i could do it.. And I could…

I basically just did a tracking jump and just watching the airport below me as I flew all around it in the air above… I flew myself right into my holding area then stopped at about 5k and locked on the alt until 4k and pulled…

Another exciting opening… (Very, actually)

I think when I packed this one; I rolled the nose too much, and/or pushed it too far into the chute when I packed it because at open I had two dead cells on both left and right sides… (9 cells, only 5 inflated… AKA cutaway situation)

I really didn’t want to cut-away my own pack job (be another case of beer) so I since I was still pretty high (3200 feet) I though I.d try to work it out.. A few pumps of the brakes and the left side popped out, but the left side refused. I remembered that one-cell dead on either side is okay, as long as you could still control the chute, but two ends cells dead.. I was thinking that was supposed to be a cutaway, but wasn’t sure…

Anyhow, I decided to do a short controllability check, I did two 180′s (left and right) and a flare, and it was all fine… i decided i would keep the canopy and land it gently.. At about 1200 feet, out of nowhere, the two cells decided to pop open anyway and I ended up landing normally without incident.

Oddly enough, on the same load there was another jumper, Shannon that did have a cutaway. I guess she had a spinning malfunction developed after she did her controllability check. She said it started slowly, but kept spinning faster and faster and couldn’t stop it… so she cut and landed safely on the reserve.

Jump #19

Another solo, I had planned to just play around doing some more 360′s and flips, but on the load, I was going out behind a big 8-way formation… i dove out after about 5 seconds and was amazed how well i could still see them.. They were maybe about 1000-1500 feet below me and about 400 feet away. I spend most of the jump just watching them turn points… was kinda cool.

These solo jumps are getting a little bit boring… but until i get 25, i can’t jump with anyone else… :( I pulled at 4500 again, and had a normal parachute ride. Seems my packing skills are improving, it opened just as normally as ever.

Jump #20

What a day, six jumps in one day, double my previous record; and trust me, I feel it now, jumping is actually a lot more physically demanding then you might think.

This would be my last jump of the day. In the plane, I was sitting in front of cliff, the rigger on staff (AKA, the guys that knows everything about parachutes, assembly, design, maintenance, etc…) and he decided to start playing with my parachute… first he unsnapped my riser covers and starting showing me a better way to stow my rsl line, then he finished that (this is something another jumper would never do, especially while on the plane, but he the rigger, and me the student, i quietly let him do whatever he thought he needed to do), then he untucked my pin cover to check my pin, once he closed it he asked who packed my chute, and i told him that i did. He said… “Oh”. Then I asked “why?” And he said, “well it’s packed wrong, but don’t worry, it could still open”.

Wow, let me tell you, this is not what you want to hear at 10,000 feet!

He said the flaps on the container had been closed in the wrong order (bottom, left, right, top, instead of bottom, top, left, right) and I told him I.d just been doing it the same way all day as what I had been shown that morning. He asked who showed me that, and I told him, Mike, my coach had… who happened to be on the plane with us!

The next few thousand feet climbing to altitude were hilarious… a mock argument between cliff and mike on the likelihood of my parachute opening, the proper closing order of Racer parachute rigs, the difference between a “new” model and the “old” model, and of course, all comments from all the other jumpers on the load “oh well, I.d still jump it”, “no don’t trust it, leave it in the plane and jump without it”.. Lol

Basically, I.m to the point where I.ll no longer quite the “newbie” that I was a few months ago… You can tell that most jumpers try to be “nice” while there are new students or tandem jumpers in the plane, to not scare them by “joking” around and such… but at this point, i was just laughing and joking with them… “Hell with it… if the damn thing doesn’t open, Mike, i’ll make you pay for the reserve repack!.

After I finally got out of the plane, I did a lot of 360′s, alternating left and right, but practiced doing them on heading using the sun as my reference point. Trying to stop the turns at exactly 360 degrees, not more or less… by now it was about 8:00 and this would be the last load of the night, and it was getting cool on the ground, and was actually pretty cold up in the air.. But it was a good jump, and a good way to end a long day of jumping…

One more weekend like this, and I.ll be licensed!!

As to the fact that Midwest would be closed on Sunday & Monday for the holiday, I decided to drive up there right after work on Friday. Which in hindsight, driving through Detroit at rush hour is NOT fun… getting there was 10x more dangerous that whatever I could do one I got there!

Anyhow, by time I got up there and met up with Mike, my coach for the weekend, we walked through the jump on the ground.  The jumps we would be doing were called “Swoop & Docks”, basically, he would have to dive out about 20 feet away, and 10 feet below, and I.d have to go to him and take grips (AKA dock on him). He said that this was one of the most important parts of the coaching because being able to safely approach a formation in the sky, without slamming into them, is very important…

On this jump, we had time to do four S&D’s, but each one I was trying to rush out so I keep doing them too hard & fast. The idea is that you push your legs straight out behind to give yourself forward movement, but then about 5-10 feet away, to put your legs back to a neutral position and just ‘coast’ into the dock.. But it’s tricky. Right when you come close to a person there is a column of air coming up around that person (and yourself). The two columns will repel each other… So the trick is, you have to put out the legs to build speed, then coast into the point where you hit the column of air, then legs back out to ‘push’ through and take grips… He said, with practice this looks very smooth… just like making a nice controlled stop at a stop sign.

Anyhow, it was a fun jump, but needed more practice… unfortunately we’d just make it on the second to last load, so when we landed the last load was already going up in the air… beer time! More jumps tomorrow.

After a week of rain, today ending up being great! Blue Skies all over! Anyhow, got to the drop zone and met up with a new coach today, Steve. Working with him went pretty good, I pretty much called out what I planned on doing on the jump and he was just like “wow, okay, we’ll just go with your plan” and that.s what we did. I did a ‘front floater’ exit and he had given a few tips and I pulled it off great, no barrel rolls this time! The jump went pretty well, we finished off the 3rd tracking run I missed on my last jump (because of the rain!) then we did the 2 forward movement to dock, (my first time docking on someone!). I did three attempts to dock, but only successfully did two, on the first one I moved forward but slowly (was too arched) and then reached out unevenly and barrel rolled (had to get at least one on the jump!). But then next two went well.

Another thing I had to do for the jump was initiate the break off at the proper altitude, I almost missed it (4500) but at a 4250 I check the alt, pulled a 180 and tracked out. He had told me I should look between my legs as I tracked away but it slipped my mind at that moment. Stopped the track and pulled at 3700 and was under full canopy by 2800. Would have been faster but I had some minor line twist and my slider was stuck up a bit, nothing to big. That being my lowest opening, I was really kind of surprised by the ‘size’ of the ground when I first looked down… with the low opening (low for me) I pretty much killed about half of my canopy time. Still had enough to pull off two 90 degree front riser turns though… few more marks off my A card…

And, a great standup landing just 15m off target to finish the jump.

Jump #13

Second jump of the day, always nice to get at least two in. We decided to change up the exit this time as Steve (my coach) wasn’t able to see my count very well on the first jump so we did a diving exit this time. As always, even with this exit I tend to either barrel roll or flip, but Steve had told me on the ground that all I had to do was lead with my left foot, and it would put me in a more naturally stable position; and it did! Two great exits today!

This jump was a little bit trickier, same idea as before, motion to dock, but this time I had to go up and down, rather than back and forth. The idea is simply, the more you arch the faster (and more stable) you fall (and move down, relatively), if you de-arch, you slow down (move up, relatively). After we got those done (with only one near miss, when I almost moved down on top of him and he had to dive further out from under me!) and tried to do a “swoop and dock” which is basically the combination of the last two ‘movements’ I’ve done. Steve moved out to about 40 feet away from me, and 20 feet below me, so I had to move diagonally down to dock onto him. I finally (hey, its hard) got almost to him but couldn’t close the distance and checked alt, 4100 feet, so I stopped trying to dock, turned a 180 and tracked off. I think I tracked a little longer than I should have this time (I.m thinking 6 or 7 seconds instead of 3 or 4) because by the time I stopped, pulled, and was under canopy, I was at about 1800 feet! I really need to start watching my low end alt better (or buy a dytter) because at 1800 feet I.d only have about 9 seconds till impact if I had a malfunction… not much time to respond if something happened!

My landing was a little off… i had tried to get in some 180 degree front riser turns, but i was still aways off the airport and being so low i was more worried about getting back. To make it at all, I did an alternative (cross-runway) landing approach and came down… i saw i was gonna over shoot, so i went half-brakes all the way in and still went 40m past.. All the way to the back of the landing area… oh well. But it was a perfect half-braked stand-up landing, so I was still happy…

Wow, this is kind of sad… the novelty is starting to wear off… normally on the drive to the dropzone i’d get butterflies in my stomach… but not so much anymore. It’s definitely something that I love to do, just not with the same anxiety as before. Today I was hoping to get a few jumps in, but the weather turned for the worse, so I only got one. Actually, I could.ve had one more, but after the first, I was done for the day.

This will be a quick post here… nothing real exciting about this jump, just my first coaching jump, and i had to practice ‘tracking’. Tracking is basically forward movement in set direction… you try to maximize your forward speed horizontally vs vertically. Anyhow, when the load before got done (about five minutes before we’d go up) they said they noticed it just started raining at altitude, my coach, Brian, said he’d still go if I wanted to, and I was like “yeah, why wouldn’t I?” and all he’d say is don’t be surprised if I saw him on is back and I was just like okay, whatever..

So anyway, long story short, rain falls at about 15 mph… Standing on the ground, rain hitting you at 15mph doesn’t hurt… but do the math, if you’re falling at 120 mph out of an airplane, and hitting raindrops that are going a slow 15, the effect is being hitting by raindrops at 105 mph. Lets see.. This isn’t as bad as a paintball or BB gun… but close… imagine a raindrop sized paintball… lots of them… all over your face and hands…  according to local myth, it’s hurts because you’re falling on them from the top.. aka, the pointy side.. ;)

Also, do to the fact that I was doing a tracking jump, I couldn’t block my face at all (to track effectively, your legs are straight out behind you, and your arms are swept back to your sides) so I was literally diving face first into the rain. My coach, like he said he would, took the easy route and just flipped onto his back and watched my dive from there.

Once we got down, I could’ve taken the next load… but i thought i could just as well wait for next weekend. Oh well, just wasn’t worth the rain to get in two today. Better luck next time.

Wow, what a good weekend… left town Saturday morning, just before noon and got up to Midwest by 2pm it didn’t take long to get on a load. This was the jump I.d really been looking forward to, back flips!

Still getting used to exiting by myself, I always seem to barrel roll out of the door, but oh well, arch and stable after that with no problem. As soon as I was stable I did a quick COA (Circle of awareness) basically just check heading and alt, then did a back flip (just bring your knees up and flip yourself backwards) which really is pretty fun up there, then did a barrel roll (lol, intentionally, for the first time!) which is really easy too, just pull one arm in and you roll, stick it back out and stop. then had to practice tracking (like, when your in a group of people, right before pull time, everyone ‘tracks’ away from each other so there is enough separation when everyone pulls). Wave and pulled at 5000 and done. Landing was just a little bit off the field in the beans, but I stood it up with no problem (and limited bean damage). Passed the category and on the level 7

Jump #9

This was really the big one. Level 7 is basically the ‘check ride’ to pass the AFF training. The first 7 jumps are always with an AFF instructor to make sure you know all the basics. Then, up till jump 25 when you can get your class A license, you jump with coaches, the big plus here..? Much cheaper to jump with coaches! The first AFF jumps are 185 with two instructors, then 145 with one instructor, compared to the solo and coach jumps for 50 or 70 (depending if your coach makes you pay their spot on the plane, some do, some don’t.. some you just pay with beer at the end of the night!) So on to the jump.

Normally they make you do an unstable exit on this one, a cannon ball or something out of the door, but I think because I always barrel roll out of the door anyway, they didn’t tell me to do anything different! The biggest object I guess of all the unstable exits, flips, & rolls, isn’t about how good you do the maneuvers, but how quickly you can regain stability when you lose it. But I’m having no problems with that. Anyhow, same as before the jump went well, barrel roll out of the door, then a quick COA once I was stable. Started with a front flip, then a back flip, then two 360′s right and left. And then started tracking at 5500, counted to five, then stopped waved and pulled. Landing was great and spot on, dead center of the student landing area, came in and had a nice slide into a stop on my knees.

As soon as I made it back to the hanger, Ed (my instructor) told me the jump was great, and I only had 24 problems to correct…. My first beer rule! Upon any great achievement, any skydiver is required to provide a case of beer for the group. I was immediately sent to the store to solve each of my 24 problems with a beer. (Hence, now I see where all the free beer that I’ve been drinking up there comes from!) Once I was back with the beer Ed was happy to sign off in my logbook and transferring me from “student” status to “unlicensed skydiver”. Yeah!!!

Jump #10

Now this was the one! Actually, this was the one I thought I would be getting the first day! I remember when I first called up Mike at NSC in may, just starting the planning for the skydive on my birthday (jump 1) I had the choice between a tandem jump for 200$, or a solo jump for $300.. (Training 115, jump 185). Now, when I heard “solo”, I thought I.d ride the plane, step up to the door myself, and jump. Of course once I got there that day, I learned how the AFF training works, two instructors, holding your straps to keep you stable, you jump and they jump with you, together as a unit (check my first jump video, you’ll see). Of course, I.d really hate to see how awful I.d flown had I not had nine previous training jumps before I got to do this one! Anyhow…

Now off student status, I had to go up and manifest myself for the next load. Track down my equipment myself, try to rush the packer to hurry up and finish my rig before the plane was ready and all that. Once I was geared up and heading towards the plane, I had to figure out for myself (by discussion with the other jumpers) what the jump order on the plane would be (who goes out first, in what order, with how much time in between) and for the first time, I had no one going out with me!

On the load, we had a three way of experienced jumpers going out first. Then me, then behind me was two sets of tandems and video jumpers for each. On the way up, some asked me what altitude I was pulling at and it kind of stumped me for a second (previously, an instructor has always told me when they wanted me to pull…) so I just answered quickly “5000″. A few minutes later Cliff (one my instructors on jump 4) asked me what kind of dive I was doing… and was again i was stumped (previously, the instructors always told me what to do.. 360′s, turns, flips, whatever) so after a second of “ahh…um..” i answered “i’m gonna do some flips then 360′s down to 5500, then track to 5000 and pull”. He just nodded okay. He was taking a tandem, and you always need to know what the person going out the door in front of you is doing, so you know how long to wait before you follow them out the door.. Such as if I planned on pulling high, he would have wanted to be further away (wait maybe 10 seconds to follow me out the door).

Around about the same I talked to three way, to figure out how long I had to wait after they went, and since they were pulling lower then me (planned on breaking at 3500 and pulling by 3000) we decided I.d give them about five or six seconds lead before I went. Anyhow, we got to altitude and the three way opened the door and spotted the plan. When they went, I stepped up to the door myself (no instructor asking me “okay, are you ready to skydive” or even “okay, lets step up to the door”). I just walked over to the open door and kind of waved by to everyone on the plane, put my toes on the edge of that door, and jumped!

60 seconds. Doesn’t seem like much. Sometime it’s too much time, sometimes not enough. Just depends.

60 seconds at 120 mph. Wow. Jumping out of a plane 2.5 miles high. Wow. Reaching 0 to 60 in four seconds. Wow. Then hitting a quarter mile in about 10 seconds. Wow. Then get stable and look around you… and there is no one there. Wow. Ten jumps, six weeks, and $1,683.00 later, here I was, all by myself, doing back flips at 10,000 feet. Priceless.

No one there to save my ass if something went wrong; No one but me, my training, and my ability to use that training. I did my flips, front and back, then a just started a slow 360 to the left and for the first time, just took a few seconds to look around me. At a mile and a half above Romeo Michigan on a clear day, I could see downtown Detroit, Lake St. Claire, and Canada even.

On my first jump, 60 seconds was barely long enough for me to get out of the plane get stable, do a COA and my three practice pulls. But now, 60 seconds was more than enough time… jump, stable, flips, 360′s, watch the scenery, and still had plenty of time left. So I did another slow 360 and took one last look at everything up there, this time just watching the horizon, seeing clouds coming in from the west. At 5500 I did a ‘break away’ just for practice, just turned 180 degrees and tracked for a few seconds then stopped and pulled at 5000 feet.

Canopy came up as it should have, I did my controllability checks with my toggles, then dropped them and did it the control check again using my rear risers (more practice for some future day if I ever lost my toggles). This time, I wasn’t given a radio, so there would be no help from the ground if I couldn’t find the DZ, but I didn’t need it. Found the DZ, got into my holding area, did some fast 360′s to get down to 1000 feet, then came in for my landing. One more on target standup landing.

Some people have asked me if I kiss the ground when I land, glad to be ‘safe’ again… but i find the ground upsets me… once i land, i just want to go up and be in the air again.

Getting closer and closer, and easier and easier… After a few great jumps last weekend, I just couldn’t bare to wait two more weeks to jump, so I decided to sneak over to Tecumseh this afternoon for a quick jump. Honestly, I felt a lot better about the place and the instructors (at least the one I had today) today, then I did a few weeks ago.

After getting there and meeting up with my instructor, Keith, and after we reviewed all the emergency procedures, and went through the dive flow, we got manifested and started getting my equipment together… unfortunatly, some clouds rolled in and they wouldn’t let me fly on the next load.. So, a bit disappointed I put away all the equipment and got a refund.  Then I ended up bullshitting with everyone for a few minutes before I was going to leave, and then the jumpers came down from the load and said the clouds were moving back up, so I could jump! (Yay!)

So hurry up and get the equipment back on, pay again (lol) and get ready for the load. I thought Keith was really good at this point, as I’ve been going through a few different DZ’s he was more than happy to do the exit routine that I’ve been using, rather than force me to learn something new on a moments notice. Up in the plane I found myself in that same comfort zone I was in last jump… and for the first time, i actually noticed that it DOES get a bit colder up at altitude!

Any how, did a solo exit with one instructor (he jumped at the same time I did, but not holding onto me at all) and actually did a barrel roll out of the door! LOL, all I really noticed is that when I “arched” out of the door, all I saw was blue sky so I just stiffened up my arch real good and it came right around (stable in about 3-4 seconds). Checked heading and alt while waiting for my instructor to come around in front of me then nodded to start turns… This part went great, two 180′s, and two 360′s done by 9000 feet… i had time to do 3 more 360′s before i had to nod “no more turns” to my instructor at 6000, then just locked on and watched my alt drop to 5k.

This part was fun, right when I had to reach & pull, I hit clouds, so at the moment I pulled my chute, I couldn’t see anything but cloud all around me! Anyhow, pulled and landed… not very eventful at all… Although, right at landing I flared a bit early (20′), but I think I was just over compensating for my late flare last week.

And that was it… just an easy & comfortable solo exit from 13,500 feet above ground level, a few 180′s, a five 360′s, a pull in the clouds, and a decent PLF after a  ’stop and drop’ landing. With the in-laws here, I only have time for one jump this weekend… but hey, at least i got my fix to get me through another week!

After a good jump Saturday night I was feeling real good about the jump Sunday morning. I was finally past the Cat C jump, and could move on to my Category D jumps (two jumps in this category). In this jump, I was finally down to only one instructor, which saves some money, jumps are only 150$ instead of 185$. In this jump I had to work on turning, which I really needed the help on after not being able to maintain a heading on the last two… we went over all the techniques on the ground, how to move your arms to make the turns… left arm down, turn left, right arm down turns right.. But it didn’t seem very natural to me… yet.

Once we got on the plane and were headed up to altitude I started to get a little bit nervous again… but then thought about it… after the last jump, I knew that even if I went out by myself, I could arch, get stable and pull on my own.. So what could happen? After that crossed my mind, I was a lot more relaxed… So I started thinking about my movements to do my turns… right about then I was looking out the window, and the plane banked hard to the left to turn… (Think about it) the planes left wing dropped and the plane turned left… and I was like “oh”…. it just kind of clicked. I kept watching the wings for the rest of the ride up… the plane banked right, right wing drops down, plane turns right… I just seemed to make a lot more sense to me.

Came time to get out of the plane, with only one instructor, I had to get out in the door of the plane first… and I noticed there is a lot more wind up there (plane is moving 90 mph) than before, mostly because I didn’t have the wind block (the second instructor!) already in the door in front of me! Anyhow, did my count and got out of the plane… got stable, the instructor came around in front of me. One he released me and nodded yes to start my turns, I started to drift a little to the left like on the last two jumps… but then i got the mental image in my head of the plane banking right to turn right, i banked my arms and turned 90 degrees! Arms back to level and my turn stopped! Banked left and turned back 90 degrees to face the instructor, banked left and turned left again 90 degrees and stopped with arms level. Checked my alt and I was still at 7100 feet (I was told to stop all turns at 7000 feet) so I started my last turn by (like the plane) banking my arms to the right and turned 90 degrees right to be back face to face with my instructor.. At this point, I just held the position and waited for my pull altitude, 5500 feet. My pull was great, the best one yet, hand in good position, and I felt no ‘dip’ when I went to pull, and once again THREW the pilot chute and that was it… under canopy and ready for the ride back to ground level.

Ends up the first jumper out of the plane (I was last out of ten jumpers) ‘spotted’ the plane off a little bit, so I ended up jumping a lot further from the airport than I normally do, which was okay I guess, I just couldn’t do any fun stuff 360′s, turns, flares, etc.. I just had to work up as much speed as possible to get back to the landing area. But it went fine… I think after as well as the whole jump when, I got a little relaxed about my landing, I flared a little bit late (think brakes) and hit the ground with a little bit more speed than I should have, but otherwise, it was fine.. I guess you don’t get a stand up land every time…

And now, I have to wait a WHOLE WEEK to go jump again… it will be my CAT D2 jump… so i get to exit the plane by myself.. Then instructor will be there and will jump at the same time, but not holding on to my straps at all… If the next three jumps go well, I’ll graduate the basic AFF training course on jump 9, then just need 16 more coaching/solo jumps until I’ll be able to take my class A check ride on jump 25, pass that, and I’ll be a licensed skydiver!

Got to get up again this weekend, was nice to get away for a while. NSC is still working out of Midwest Freefall, so it was another hour and a half drive through the highways of Detroit, but oh well, it.s more than worth it.

Had a nice surprise when I got there… no waiting! About 10 minutes after I got there I was manifested and set to go… worked with my two instructors for a few minutes about what had went wrong on my last dive, and what I was supposed to be doing (again) on this dive. At this point I was a little bit leery, as this would be my third attempt to pass the same level (Category C).

Got up in the plane and was a bit nervous… after all, the pull is the most important part of the jump, and last time I.d messed it up… After we jumped out (me with two instructors holding on) I got in good body shape with my arms up high and both let go of me. Same as the last jump, I had issues holding a heading, kept doing a slow turn/orbit to the left… but when pull time came (5500 feet) it went great. Good position, stable, and THREW the pilot chute! Canopy ride was another plus… getting pretty good at that (really easy)… and a good stand up landing. All in all, a successful jump, and… Finally passed Category C!

Well, this was a different one! After the jump last week at Tecumseh, I was looking forward to jumping with my regular instructors again. I finally tracked them down at Midwest Freefall, as there is still an ongoing problem with the airport at Frankenmuth.  Although I will say I liked Midwest, all the people were great (just like the NSC people) so I’ll be happy to keep going there as long as the NSC crew stays there. I guess I was really thinking that this was going to be a quick and easy jump… and although parts of the fall went good, some… well not so good.

First off… for those that don’t know (apparently me included for about five seconds today!) there are essentially two different ways to deploy a parachute on different equipment. The older standard was the ‘rip cord’. Pulling the cord is easy, grab the handle and pull until it comes all the way out of the rig and the pilot chute launches out of the back, and then hold onto it so you don’t lose it (or they charge you 20$ to replace it!). The other way is called a BOC, (stands for Bottom of Container)… here, the handle you pull is attached to the pilot chute. You have to pull it and throw it out the side and into the wind… So far in four jumps, I’ve used each type twice… today it seems, I must have forgot what was on my back because when I pulled, I held onto it .. And nearly developed what is one of the worst types of parachuting malfunctions, a horseshoe malfunction (where the parachute it attached to you in two places, forming a horseshoe shape).

Now, that might sound bad… but wait, there’s more! Lets back up about four seconds before the pull… when you go to pull you have to reach your hand down to the bottom of the parachute on your back (BOC, duh). In order to keep your symmetry and balance, you have to move your other hand to the center of your body… once again, something I know, but just didn’t seem to do at the time. So end result….

… (Wait for the suspense)…

After a mostly good jump, I went to pull, went off balance, pulled and held the BOC (but didn’t realize it at that moment), and did a front flip into and through the horseshoed bridle loop that had developed between my hand holding the BOC, and the parachute… right after I came all the way around on the front flip, I saw I was having the malfunction and though the pilot chute was stuck in the bubble of dead air behind me, so I released the handle (which I should’ve just done in the first place!) and began to reach for my cutaway handle, at which point the pilot chute deployed (and didn’t tangle in me, thank God), and other than a hard deployment, and having to pump the brakes a few times to get my end cells to inflate, all went well!

I had a great canopy flight with another smaller canopy (down to 224 sq ft) and with only 7 cells (the previous ones all had nine) and had another easy landing about 30 meters off target (anything within 100m is passing at my level)… So far I’m starting to see that I’m feeling a lot more natural under canopy than in free fall… but practice makes perfect, and I’m a long ways from done with this.

So… end summary for the jump…
A. work on balance/form/arch position…
B. Stay Stable & balanced when going to pull…
–And–
C. If wearing a BOC chute… pull and THROW the damn handle!!

Oh well… next jump will be better…

Had to wait two weeks for this one, then on Friday the day before I was going up, Mike at NSC calls me and tells me they won’t be flying for the weekend… Thought about letting it drop at that… but could bare to make myself wait another week. So I started looking for another DZ in the area that was open… I found my way to Tecumseh Skydiving… decent place… busy for sure. I got my jump in, but it took awhile though, it seemed like I had to wait in line behind any tandem jumper that walked in. Stayed the night out there, but Sunday morning the winds were to high for me to jump (as a student I can’t jump in anything past 15 mph) so had to go home with only one jump in for the weekend… better luck next time I guess.

Was nice to use some different equipment though, I used a 235 sq ft main chute this time, rather than the 288 sq ft I had been using, also the deployment method of the rig was different, BOC vs. the rip cord. I do have to say I preferred the equipment at Tecumseh…

I think after a day of waiting around for them to find instructors for me kind of blew my nerves. The jump wasn’t so great, I kept “potato chipping”, rocking front to back, so they could never let me go, I’ll have to repeat this jump again :(

Other than that… I’ll just say that there is a difference between DZ’s and there is a difference between different teams of instructors… and next weekend, I.ll find my way back to NSC.

Went up again on Saturday, had a bunch of you that said you were going to come with… but as expected, no one else would go through with it! Except Kat, she made her first tandem jump!

This time they showed me how to make turns… 90º turns, right and left. Anyhow, passed the Cat B jump with flying colors, and on my next jump (Cat C) will be my solo dive… no instructors holding on anymore! Once I pass that, I’ll only need one instructor (save some $$$) for the next ones, and I.m only two or three jumps away from learning the barrel rolls and back flips!

We’ll be going up again two weeks from Sunday… July 8. Everyone says this is something they got to do… lets see who’ll come and do it!?

Okay everyone; check out the new photo album to see all the jump pictures.. In a few days I’ll have all the video too, just have to wait for them to finish it.. I got all the pictures though just about as soon as we landed the plane…

If anyone is interested… I’ll think I.ll be heading up there next weekend for my first Category B jump, as I just passed my Cat A with this first jump…

I can only say that this is an absolutely amazing adrenaline rush… 50 seconds at 120 mph while heading straight AT THE GROUND… I jumped at about 5:30pm (about 7 and 1/2 hours ago) and my heart is still racing… This isn’t no quarter mile sprint… This is a nearly three mile high jump out of a perfectly good airplane, just to see if you can DO IT… AND still save your ass!

Everyone, head over to my pictures and check them out… leave some comments… and hey, let me know who’s joining me next weekend!!?

Here is the video! It was an AFF jump, that I did with Napoleon Skydiving in Frankenmuth, Michigan.  Thanks again to my Instructors Brenda and Todd.