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

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!

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 :(

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 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!

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!

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.