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.