:-))

I live some 25 km away from the DZ, south-west of it (and that happens to be the predominant wind direction over here). So after a rainy morning, when it clears out at home, I leave for the DZ, and we (the nice weather and me) arrive almost at the same time.

We are 14 belly fliers in load 1, we quickly brief a 3 point dive, and it really is a fun one. We are done before we reach 7000 ft. Big smiles all around! Next is a sit/stand-up, where I try to follow two other people. I can't match their vertical speed:-(

Jump 3 is a level 3. I don't know the guy, it's his third attempt at this level. But he did a few minutes of tunnel after the previous one. And it shows. He is very tense, but the jump is not bad. We take an hour to debrief and than brief his level 4, and up we go again. I really put on a show in the air to relax him, and it works. Up there, everything is so much easier when you smile! The tunneltime shows: he can't exit, he can't fly forward, turning is not completely under control (after the 90°, he was supposed to turn back, not to throw in a 270°), but his movements are very crisp, his general flying is OK. In a tunnel, they don't teach you altitude awareness: he almost never checks his altitude spontaneously. Only when I give the example, he mimicks me. That will be an extra TLO for his next jump. A good jump, I had fun just being there :-)



So just a sunny & lazy afternoon: 1 FS, 1 FF, 2 AFF's, and a few beers to round it all up...

Playtime

A lazy day. It's almost noon when I arrive at the DZ. The weather is still unbelievably beautiful, sunny and warm. Yesterday was the hottest Feb 9 since they (whoever they are) started measuring those things.

I join a group of bellyfliers for a 6-way. I am front float and i totally f**k up my exit. The rest of the jump is also not good (in Luk's words: "this was definitely a sub-optimal performance"), but that's no more because of me: we all seem to have an off day (or an off jump at least). There's absolutely no wind, so landing is fun!

Next I make a complete-fun-jump: I exit tracking on my back, wobble a bit, make speed, salto-ing to normal track, going steeper and steeper to an almost vertical dive, even steeper, falling over and coming out of this in a back-track once again, and so on. Drop was much too far: I exited last, 1.6 mile past the DZ centre point, and I did my tracking perpendicular on the jumprun. I open a bit higher, I am under canopy at 4kft. I love floating around up there.

Third jump today is a sit. I can't help feeling a bit ridiculous. Everytime I check altitude, I turn at least 180° :-))

There's time for one more jump. Two guys who are training to become AFF instructors, ask me to film their practice jump. So that's my first "real" camera jump: I mean where I am filming other people, rather than just filming the jump I am doing. My exit works out fine: my timing and position are OK (well of course it could be better, but I have seen far worse than this my first attempt). And for the jump, well, what can I say... They handle the exit very well. The guy in black who comes from inside, I have more than a few jumps with. I know he's good, much better at FS4 than I am, and still... The fake student is not doing very much, but a bit of stress, an unusual situation, and in a few seconds the jump goes from OK to complete mess. That's what training jumps are for, and they sure learned a lot from this. They both gave permission to show the video, so here it is:



We all deserve beer after this :-)