AFF

Mayhem today. A beautiful, sunny day. Very busy, and only 2 AFF instructors on site. And I have to do some other stuff first, so it is almost noon before I arrive. A bit of organising is needed first. Well, this is an understatement: it is actually plain chaos when I arrive, lots of students waiting to jump, wanting to know when they will jump and what's going to happen. Their mother getting angry at us, etc. Not nice. We manifest for loads 7, 9, 11 and 13. Then a pause for briefings and gear organising, and again on load 16 and 18. We expect 19 loads before sunset. We line up the waiting students in order of arrival. The first 6 are happy-lucky, we have to disappoint the others.

First one is OK in freefall, all over the place under canopy, lands OK. Second one is a struggle in freefall. We both hold his harness grip with our elbows tucked under his legs, to push them up. He struggles with his practice pulls, and at pull time, he can't find the hackey, so I have to pull for him. OK under canopy, flairs too high, good PLF. Third we split: my colleague doing a level 5, and me a level 4. Although I had less time to brief him then I would have liked (sorry for that, man), he makes a great jump, flies a clean circuit, and lands nicely!

This was the first time in almost a year that I did one of the higher AFF levels, without my camera. And it made me realise once more what a great tool for de-briefs video is. On the one side, the video always contains more details then my memory. On the other side, images beat words every time. He exited towards the ground, so he wasn't arching towards the relative wind: it takes a second to show something like that on video, but it is much more abstract to just explain, without images. And so on...

Fourth is a a rather uncertain, nervous girl. It takes some reassuring and talking, but she makes a good jump. If there was a prize for best-first-jump-of-the-day, she would be the winner. And afterwards she is elated about it. Next we have our little break, there's almost half an hour between our student landing, and our next call.

Fifth is a young guy, who has been waiting all day, just sitting there, between his mum and dad. But he manages to stay positive, and as soon as he's on, he is enthusiastic, engages, and works with us. He makes a good jump, lands OK, he enjoys it all. And after the jump, he reassures us (!) that it was more than worth the wait.

When we board for our sixth jump, the pilot gets notice from traffic control in Brussels, that it's too busy, and we are on a 5000 ft max height for the next hour. So that's it. No more AFF for today. And this guy has been waiting for what, 9 hours or something, and then, no jump...

I love making lots of jumps, I don't need more than a few minutes to pack, I don't mind eating and drinking on the way up, but I don't like it when the overall organisation (or better: the lack thereof) obliges me to disappoint people. But I do like beer...

AFF

At last, a beautiful blue-sky day. The summer we are having, our climate is really getting confused. I guess we are the last generation that will be allowed to burn fossil fuels just for fun, so we might as well enjoy it, no?

It's busy. The bad weather made for a lot of funjumpers that still have some money left, there are lots of tandem bookings that we had to cancel, and of course lots of AFF students, eager to continue and complete their training.

First there is Mieke, she took her FJC end of june, and only now we can do levels 5, 6 and 7. 5 is a good jump. 6, at one point she funnels, gives me a sad look, I can see her mouthing "sorry", than she turns belly to earth again and continues with the dive. I like it when my students are polite ;-)). On her final level, nothing works: she funnels the exit, funnels her frontloop, funnels her tracking, but apart from looking frustrated, she handles it all and she pulls, at the exact altitude, stable. She repeats the dive for her first solo, and this time, it all comes together. I know it went great before she tells me, just by looking at her smile.

Then there is an older man with whom I already made a few jumps. He is stuck at level 3, it is (if I remember correctly) his fourth attempt now. He has resigned himself to wasting his remaining jump tickets on level 3 jumps, and quitting after that. When he tells me this, I refuse to jump with him, and tell him to come back only if he really wants to give it a try. It takes a bit of time and a bit of peptalk, but we do two jumps today: he passes his levels 3 and 4. I am rather proud of myself. Look at it:



Maybe he's not a natural, and maybe he'll never be a skygod, but he will be able to stay safe and have great fun.

A quick level 1 after this, and then finally, beer!

Zwartberg

My usual DZ is closed this weekend. There's an old timer fly in on the airfield. So, let's make some jumps at Zwartberg. Immediately when I arrive, manifest asks if I can help out with AFF, and of course I can :-)

The student is a super light weight (52 kilo) mexican youngster, and we do levels 3, 4, 5 and 6. A quiet day for me, the day of a life for him. He arrived in the morning, looking shy and stressed. After his first jump of the day, he started smiling. By the end of the day, he face was frozen in a big, happy, not-of-this-world grin. This is his level 5. Good exit, floating around a bit in the beginning, confident on his 360°, flying forward is difficult at first, but than he gets it, great altitude awareness on his second turn, good pull. A very nice jump!



What I don't like about this DZ is the lack of beer at the end of the day :-(

load 1, 3, 5 & 7

So that's 4 jumps before the weather turned bad around 1.30 pm. Not bad :-)

First is a level 4. This guy at first is very nervous, and then he calms down. He becomes very quiet. Seems like he has a full time job containing his fear. But he succeeds in overcoming it and makes the jump



There is always fear in skydiving, but after well over 3000 jumps it has changed a lot for me. It becomes a whole lot less acute, and of course I fear other things than an open door now. It's hard for me to relate to this kind of fear/tension/stress.

Then a level 2. Before the jump, we were joking a bit, but in the end I reassured the guy, that I wouldn't release him. Bit of a pitty really, 'cause he was very good. If we would have released him, he would have stayed right where he was.

Another level 4 with the scared one. He is a little more relaxed (but not that much), and the jump, well euh... A performance like this would probably pass him on level 3, but since this was a level 4, I need to see a bit more control, plus starting/stopping a turn... But, he is altitude aware, doesn't freeze up, tries hard, and lands safely. So even if it won't pass him on his level, it's a good jump, no?

And a quick level 1 next. The man is very focused and really enjoying himself. An almost perfect jump. Under canopy, he doesn't follow the directions we give him, but he does well on his own. He flies something that is recognisable as a pattern, at about 300 ft he is in final. And he makes a good landing. But he has to walk back a few 100 meters more than if he had listened. Well done.

We still board the plane with his friend for his first jump, but John radios the pilot to cancel our jump. The clouds are starting to close in and, more importantly, the wind picks up and becomes very unstable. So it's a plane ride down (long time since I had to do that). But a perfectly good decision from the ground crew. Thx!

And guess what: I feel it's too early yet for beer... Or maybe not... Ok, just a quick one :-)

some shit, some fun, some beers

The day starts with low clouds. Some people could argue that they are too low, but enough people are willing to try their luck, so the first load goes up. I am not on it. The cloud deck is under 2000 ft. To clear some trees, Polleke lands with the wind, on a rough far-end of the DZ. He only just started jumping again after he had both his hips replaced. And he is under his mini-Katana. And he is unlucky. Shinbone fractures. On both his legs. What a lousy start of the day...

About an hour later, the sky is almost blue, and I go up for my first jump of the day. It's a level 7. The guy is a fireman, a medic too. I like working with people who are trained in handling stress and emergencies. He is rather nervous in the plane, and at 11000 ft, I tell him to bring down his hartbeat in the next few minutes. He looks surpried, then smiles and just does it. And that's the start of a great jump! Congrats on graduation!

Next is a level 4 with a very big guy. Well over 2 meters, over a 100 kilos. Exit is good, but then he doesn't arch, and since he has a lot of surface, our average speed for this jump is a mere 105 mph. He is not unstable, he makes a good jump, but without arching. OK, good enough for me. But over a 100 kilo and only 105 mph: I don't think I know any other skydiver who can do that...

On to the next: a level 3, an older man I jumped with last week (or 2 or 3 weeks ago, I don't remember). He has over a 100 jumps from 20 years ago, most of them static-lines, but over 30 freefall jumps nonetheless. Last time, he held on to his PC, so I brief him again on the difference between ripcord and PC. And this time, I make him actually do it a couple of times. Up we go. His exit is not very good. Rather than taking control of the jump rightaway, he more or less falls out of the plane. His body position is not good. Much worse than the previous jump we did. We manage to release him for something like 20 sec, so it's not that bad, but at 6500 I start signalling him to check altitude, at 5500 I give him a shake, Gert gives the pull signal, but there's nobody home. 4500 Gert pulls for him, and only then, while he is pulled out of my hands, I see him waking up and giving the 55 hand signal. And this for somebody with over a 100 jumps?? During debrief, he tells me that next time, he will put on his reading glasses so that he will be able to actually see his alti. ????? Some people, I really have a hard time believing...

To end the day a level 5 with the big boy again. Look at it. What a great jump!



And as always, a few well deserved beers to round up the day. Get well soon Polleke!

:-))

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...

What a day!!

I did a level 3 today where I was "out of my comfort zone". Minimum speed was 104 mph: I can handle that. Max speed was 128 mph: I can handle that. But compensating for those speed changes in the same jump, and at the same time having to side-slip, fast... I got out of position three times. No good.



Two jumps with Inge, levels 4 and 5. She really is incredibly cool. Look at her level 5. A spin is scary for a student (even a small one like this). The first time a student really experiences the force they are dealing with. The speed with wich a jump can go to pieces. The helplessness of being out of control. Well, she doesn't make too much of all this. She just picks herself up, and makes a good second part of the jump. Something I don't see very often. By the way, video is an incredible tool to debrief jumps like this one.



Now look again at the video. The last bit. Her pull. I don't know what to think about this. The gear is OK. The pull is good enough. And nevertheless this happened (or, luckily, didn't happen). I didn't see it in the air. During debrief, I noticed that the bridle went through her burble, but only later at home, I looked at a slomo of that part of the video and realised how close this was.





Lets move on to a more pleasant picture. There was also the last jump of Wesley's AFF course. He did a great level 7. And he enjoys it. Just look at that face :-) It's witnessing moments like this that make my day, that make me love being an AFF instructor.



To end the day (and before celebrating his AFF graduation) one more solo freefly. A funnelled exit, but a nice stand-up for the rest of the jump. The feeling of speed and freedom is incredible!

Have a great skydiving career, Wesley. Cheers!

The season starts

4 AFF jumps today, then it started raining. So plenty of beer time afterwards.

A level 4 and 5 with Wesley. On the first jump, we averaged 134 mph. He weighs a little over 50 kilos, and I had my sweater on, in case we would be going slow... My back aches. I want to show you his level 5. It is a good jump. The problem I had was that in his levels 3, 4 and 5 he never showed me a jump that was OK from start to finish. He showed me everything I need to see to pass him, but I prefer it when they show me at least one jump without shaky bits. In this jump, it takes him over 720° after his (very good) exit. Then there's the good part. Then, when I signal legs-out, he misunderstands this as a second turn-sign. And he doesn't really stop this second turn, and the turning before his pull is not controlled.



The other two jumps were level 3 and 4 with Inge. Level three was a bit shaky (she didn't jump for almost a month) but good enough. Her level 4, she needed most of the jump to sort it all out, but her smile when she is finally flying in front of me says it all.



Under canopy, she is in the right spot at 1000 ft doing her last wind check, but then she flies a circuit that is much too short, so when she is in final, at 800 ft or so already, she realises this is not going to work. She takes a bit of time to decide what to do, and then decides wrong: she starts another circuit, too low. But now that she goes for it, she is determined (and quick) so it works out OK. But her final 90° is (I guess) around 100 ft. Way too low for a student, not something I like too watch. On debrief, she gives a very good account of where she went wrong, and where she lost time. The only thing I have to add is the better way out of her situation: 10 or 15 sec of crosswind flight would have given her all the space she needed.