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…