F***ing close

Started the day with 3 FF jumps. I am starting to make those jumps with other people now: 2-ways and 3-ways. And well, is it just me being complacent after so many years of belly flying, or is FF really lots more difficult?

Next was a refresh-level-4 jump. The guy started skydiving in 2005. He totals some 20 jumps now. Only 2 of those were in 2007. Plus he had some blabla about making more jumps and not filling in his logbook. I stopped believing stories like that some time ago.

But (dangerous as this attitude may be) that's not why I want to talk about this jump. There were a lot of newbies and solo jumpers on this load. For the exit, there was a solo jumper (the big guy in a black suit, right at the start of the video), than 3 other solo jumpers, and than it was our turn. You don't see the actual exit of the guy in black, but it is at least 25 seconds before we exit. And yet. After my student pulled, I made a backloop to video his opening, and next thing I see is this guy, under his canopy, straight underneath me. I ducked, tracked, and fell past him at (I think) between 10 end 20 meters distance. I was under canopy at 2000 ft.



He funneled his exit, then tried to sitfly but kept falling over on his back. About 9000 ft, he had enough of it, and went for a good 4000 ft of tracking. All of this straight up jumprun ...

Next a jump with a recently graduated student. I gave his FJC but didn't do the jumps with him. He weighs some 35 kilos more than me and Werner, his instructor, told me he really burns a hole in the sky. A linked exit (his first, beer!). 360° left, 360° right, backslide 2 meter, stop and redock on me. And than a little fallrate exercise. When I started to accelerate, first there was surprise on his face, and then he started to arch some more, and some more, and then finally he started catching me. When I slowed down, he was lost... We averaged 129 mph, and had a fun jump!

To end the day, two level 1 jumps. The first one, a friendly girl, I wanted to turn her into the sun, but the other instructor was determined to keep her on heading. He won (the video lost). Jump went fine. Second one was a guy, talking too much, but hey, nerves can do things to a person, you know. He went through all the mechanics of the dive, but without really knowing what he was doing. I stopped him from pulling at 7500 ft, he made the movement at 5500, but I had to make the actual pull.

7 jumps, lots of fun, one big scare: that calls for a couple of beers!

Birdstrike

The weather was supposed to be awful this WE, but come Saturday morning, and guess what: it just looks jumpable. So, a quick reschedule of some planned activities, and I'm of to the DZ. We have to wait a bit, before there are enough people to fill the plane, but after a few coffees, we are 10 and we can go.

During take-off, I sit next to the pilot, so I have a front row seat on what follows. Immediately after we are committed to take-off, out of nowhere appear a couple of hundred birds. We go through the middle of the flock. A loud BANG, so there's at least one dead bird. And then we're through. This took not even 5 seconds, but hey, no thanks, not for me any more please! Jump is a lousy try at sitflying. Not more then 10 or 15 seconds of controlled, stable flight. And for the remainder, well I can go headdown in what I thought was a sit-position, and I can definitely start a turn. So, next time, I can concentrate on stopping one :-)

There's just the time for a second jump. Clouds and bad weather are closing in fast. I go tracking on my back, trying to make big curves and barrelrolls without loosing speed. Around 8k, I enter a haze, can't use the sun any more to keep track of where I'm going, so I do a stand-up for the next couple thousand feet. I exited last, so I open a little high, around 4 k. I immediately notice that the wind has picked up a great deal. I turn against it before doing my slider and all the other stuff, and I am blown backwards. It takes a good deal of (frontriser) work, but I manage to land exactly where I want to: a dry patch (our DZ tends to be rather wet and muddy this time of the year), not too far away from the hangar, but well clear of it's turbulence. From the 12 jumpers in the plane, we are only six to land on the DZ. The other six land out. Among those who land in are the first group to exit, and me (the last one to exit). All those who landed out have less than 500 jumps, all those who landed in have over 2000. There's no such thing as a coincidence.

But there is beer, although it is not even three o'clock. It's gonna be a long afternoon :-)

Shit happens

No instruction today, no arrangements to do 4-way, or 16-way, or anything. Just showing up. From the moment I walk into the hangar, Maus looks at me, and I say "yes, first load?" It turns out we are 7, different skill levels, but a very nice jump.

For the next jump, our group has increased to 10, it gets more difficult to organise a jump that is challenging as well as within reach for everybody. We only do 4 points. Better split it up for the next jump.

We split into a 4-way and a 6-way. I'm on the 6-way, and we can brief a more complex jump now. I propose an open accordion exit, and one of the others (whom I never saw before this morning, this is only our second jump together) asks if I am quite sure about that exit. A few minutes later, back on the ground, he agrees that it is indeed not a difficult exit, if everybody does his job and flies his slot. The whole jump was smooth and very nice.

Another 6-way. We exit a star (we funnel it), then donut flake -> donut flake, and we continue with an inter to in-out. Next is a full donut, and back to one. We recover well after the funnel exit, and there is real rhythm in the jump. Under canopy, I am still smiling. I don't go for the usual in-front-of-the-hangar landing, because it is a bit turbulent there, I decide to fly a good 50 meter further away. While I retire from the landing pattern, I see something in the corner of my eye. There is someone under a partly open main, with the reserve hanging out of the harness, not inflated. It was the AAD firing that caught my eye. Things go quickly now. The reserve inflates, but not completely, both canopies are intertwined, it becomes a kind of downplane with two half inflated canopies. It goes down fast (much faster than me anyway) and it spins fast. Ooh shit, too low for cutaway now, ooh fucking big shit. He hits the ground. He must be dead. I fly towards the spot, land some 50 m short. I see Erwin a bit further, already on his mobile phone, so I run towards him. I expect to find a broken body, but he is conscious, he talks ("my canopy spiralled, I don't know what happened, it spiralled so fast" and so on). No visible injuries at first sight. Woow, that's one lucky bastard. It is the same guy I told you about last week, when I saw him having a line-over and cutaway. His leg is caught up in the lines of the reserve. So that's why he went down with it.

We later hear he has some back injuries, but nothing too serious. I wasn't on duty, and I'm not a rigger, so no paperwork or talking to the police for me this time. Just a few beers. By the time I leave, the police are still taking statements (this is parachute-murder country, they want to make absolutely sure there is no sabotage involved), and somebody has put a few stickers with the club's logo on their car :-).

Saturday august 18: a bad day

Yes, there are those as well...

I had to give a first jump course today, not my favourite activity, but hey, I 've survived worse. 8 students, all of an acceptable level of fitness and brains, so no problem there. I even have an apprentice instructor, to help me! After an early start, I 'm done with it around 4 p.m. so finally I can start jumping. I team up with Gert, we start off with a level one, a 50 year old man, remarkably sharp and fit for someone his age. He makes a good exit, I have to help him quite a bit to find the pull during his practice pulls, but he makes a great jump, until...

5500ft, he signals, pulls, and then HOLDS ON TO THE PC!!! I fuck up big time here: he makes the pull, and I let go too soon, before he throws it away. In the 2 seconds it takes me to fly back in place, Gert reaches over the student's back, and starts pulling the bridle. :-(( Luckily, at that moment, the student lets go of the PC, before any real shit happens. Big sigh of releave, fuck, fuck, fuck, no good... Some reflecting and talking to do when we are back on the ground.

I was trained as an AFF instructor back in the ripcord days, when a primary's job was to secure the pull and then back off, to create as little turbulence as possible for the spring to take of. On a PC system, I have to secure the pull AND THE THROW, before I let go! Of course I know this, but fact is I didn't do it: I did as I was trained years ago. I wasn't alert enough, I was flying too much on auto-pilot and apparently I never made the mental switch to the new procedure completely. Well, I talked about it with a few people afterwards, I'm sure it won't happen again, and extra beer this evening for being lucky on a wake-up call. Also a talk with Gert: I made the original mistake, but his reaction was dangerous to himself, and to the student (horseshoe). By the way, when the student came down, first thing he said was "I think I held on to that little thing a bit to long, no?" I agreed and we high fived.

Next jump is a girl, a first jumper from my course that morning. She is nervous, makes a good jump from 13.000 ft till 50 ft, but then she flares much too high. She holds the toggles down, the canopy doesn't stall, but instead of holding her feet together, she reaches for the ground. She doesn't roll but tries to stand it up, and she is unlucky: she brakes her leg. Fuck, fuck, fuck, no good again. I know this one isn't directly on my conto, I know shit happens, and all that stuff, but of course I wonder what I could have said or done different, how I could have prevented this. She made the mistakes, but I feel like it is my reponsibility...

While she is taken away to hospital, I go up again, with a group of 10, to celebrate the 100th jump of a girl I trained last year. I really like that girl, and we make a very good jump, all the others are thrilled, but I can't enjoy it as much as I usually do on such occasions.

Sunset, I feel I deserve a few beers after a day like this, but the nagging feeling doesn't go away...