Unsafe safety bulletin?

Everything is covered in snow, it's a completely white world. Under canopy, it all looks very different from what I'm used to, so much more beautiful. It's been more than 5 years since I had a chance to jump in the snow!. And at the same time there is an inversion, so it is not too cold up there. On the ground, it is freezing, and at 5000 ft, it is not!

3 jumps today. First one is an attempt at a 6-way with some new jumpers (3 of them have less than 100 jumps). We loose one of them in the exit. He's trying all sort of things, but he can't make it back. We continue without him, and the 5-way is quiet OK. Next are 2 2-way sitfly jumps. Grrrr backsliding grrrrr.....

My reserve needs a repack, so at the end of the day, I do my usual routine. I gear up, grab pillow, grab silver, fake-pull pillow, pull silver, and guess what: nothing happens. Yep, you read it correctly: I pull my reserve and nothing happens!!!! It is only when I step out of my harness to check what's happening, that the spring unloads and the pilot chute is free.

My rig is an Atom Legend (Parachutes de France) and in 2007 there was a safety bulletin that the placement of the AAD cutter had to be changed (same as on the Icon). You can see the new placement on the picture. Now this modification made the side flap much more rigid, and what happened was that I pulled my reserve, the container opened, the pilot chute came out for something like 10 cm, and then the spring stayed stuck behind the cutter on the left flap... Only when I moved the harness (to take it off) did the flap open completely and could a reserve deployment start... This is not acceptable.

Since this happened, I have spoken to different people who are aware of this problem. I am not the first one to encounter this. I hope something will be done ASAP.

:-(

Daniel is dead. I lost a friend and a former team mate.

He died on a base jump last monday. He was living dangerously and he knew it. He was warned about it, he sure was a lunatic, and all that. But he was also a great guy, and he was my friend. Last time we talked, he asked me to do a base with him (like he always did), and I turned down the offer (like I always did). Ciao Glou-glou, blue skies to you. Like many others, I'll miss you!

In 2008 I made 222 jumps at my home DZ. 77 of those were instruction jumps. That means I am in the top 3 on jump numbers as well as on AFF jumps. Including the couple of days I jumped in Zwartberg, that brings me on something like 90 AFF jumps. Not bad for a weekender, but I was aiming at 100. Well, I'll try again this year. 250 jumps, with a 100 AFF would be nice for 2009.

And I made my first jumps of this new year: a tracking jump, a solo sitfly, and a 2-way sit. The jumps were great. It was very cold. The beer was good.

:-)

First take-off is only at 11.30 h. And of course I'm on it. A 5-way with me in the middle. On exit the point flips under the formation, but we keep the faith. Eventually it works out allright. The jump is not great, but fun.

Jump 2 & 3 are sitflies. The second one is fine, I jump with two others, they do their stuff, and I manage to follow their level and stay close to them. On jump 3 I once again completely f**k up the exit, and by the time I am level and start to move in, the jump is almost over. Aaaah, frustrating stuff!

Next is a tracking jump. We are just two, and after everybody else has exited, I close the door and signal to the pilot to continue. The other guy starts acting a bit nervous, and I realise I didn't tell him I was planning to exit about 1.75 mile further than the others (I honestly forgot, I wasn't doing it on purpose). So I monitor on the plane's GPS where we are, open the door, quick glance outside, a nod to the other guy, and there we go. I dive towards the tail, immediately in tracking position, but I go too steep and I go off the right axis for a moment. I have to readjust before I can really take off. I don't see my companion, I barrelroll looking for him, but I don't see him. Well, there's no time to loose or I will be landing in the middle of nowhere, and anyway, if I track like hell, he won't be able to follow me and thus we will have enough separation at pull time. I make it back and I am over the DZ when I pull. When I look behind me, the other guy is already open, way higher then me, and way back, but he'll also make it back.

On my way home, I am stopped by the police for an alcohol test, and I breathe clean. So 3 beers in less than 2 hours is fine :-))

Winter

Cold but clear weather. Not much people, so no waiting between jumps. Looks good! For the winter season, we are not jumping out of our usual Caravan, but out of our Pilatus Porter. I like that it is a warmer plane, and that we can go up with only 8 people, so we can start earlier in the morning.

First jump, only belly fliers on the load, so we brief a 10-way. Exit is a funnel (I am backfloater, great view on all that mayonaise) but then we cleanly build the first point, 2 diamonds held together by their tails with a bipole in the center, so that's 8 out of 10 outfacing. Not bad for a zoo jump. Rest ofthe jump is also OK. Our landing zone is full of really big molehills. On landing, I have good speed, my right foot sliding a bit, and then, ouch, those molehills are completely frozen, hard as concrete. That's one blue toe for the next few days :-)

I split off from this group for a solo next. I wanna try out diving, but at a steeper angle then usual, you know, when it feels like you're in a void, you can't hold steady, can't hold a direction. In the beginning I'm all over the place, but then, click, body position matches dive-angle and yahoo! speed again! Did I just invent atmonauti? Naah, just a fun dive...

3 and 4 are sitflies. On the fourth, a bellyflier, only 12 jumps this year, comes with me. When he dives towards me, he has trouble with the my vertical speed, he dives all he has, but it looks so uncontrolled... I spend the whole jump backing off, and keeping some distance between us, while he spends his jump trying to close in :-)

No time for beer (not even one). Must run.

Sorry

11/10/2008 - 2 jumps
12/10/2008 - 3 jumps
18/10/2008 - 5 jumps (1 AFF)
19/10/2008 - 6 jumps (we did 8-way, a very nice day)
25/10/2008 - 4 jumps
02/11/2008 - 4 jumps
08/11/2008 - 4 jumps (1 AFF)
22/11/2008 - 1 jump
29/11/2008 - 4 jumps

Sorry for the pauze in my posting. Back to the good old 1-post-per-day rhythm from now on. But we are off season, and the weather preview for this weekend is not great at all :-(

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...

I like days like this.

2-way sit with Mario to begin the day. Hmmm, nice, OK :-))) !!! I exit facing the prop, no funnelling, oops, where did that 180° turn come from? steady, control, push on my legs, nice, fly towards each other, slow down a bit, hey no backsliding please, cool, I could just touch his foot, beep beep, end of jump, Yahoo!!!

A level 2 jump next. The other instructor doesn't wear his jumpsuit. He wears a jersey and one of those old leather hats. I have a flash back. This is how we were flying last century :-). The jump is OK.

And another 2-way sit, another good one. I really enjoy this stuff. My sit-to -track transition sucks. Have to pay attention there.

Next is the older man from a few weeks ago. He's back for his level 5. On the ride up, we fly over the factory where he works. He points it out to me, it is one of those real heavy industry factories. I say "Glad I'm up here, rather then working down there" and I give that factory the finger. He grins, says "yeah", and also waves his middle finger to his work place. I have a good feeling about the jump. And indeed, it is a good one.

The new load of students from this week's FJC is ready by now, so it's two more level 1's and that will be it for today. First one is a middle aged man (right, that's about my age, maybe even a tiny bit younger), nervous, quite a bit of work in the air, but in the end he does OK, and like all of them, he really loves it. His 9 year old son is waiting for his dad when he comes back, and with his eyes full of admiration, he says "I want to be here on my 12th birthday". 12 is the minimum age for a tandem here in Belgium.

Second student is a girl. A bit of confusion on exit: she doesn't position herself correctly in the door, she grabs the bar above her head with both hands and holds on to it, I am outside, and my inside colleague doesn't react, so I have to let go of her harness grip to take her arm, and position her correctly for the exit. No problem there, but if she chooses this exact moment to exit, we have a (likely) funnel, with me having only an arm grip on her. But she doesn't do it and we make an uneventful jump. After this initial confusion, she 's really good, very aware, doing all the stuff she has to do, and really enjoying it while she does it. Under canopy, she even listens to my instructions (and lands fine)!

I am thinking about something, it starts with the letter "J", it rhymes with "upiler"... Any ideas?