I had planned to try and take the whole week off to take advantage of a possible down time opportunity. Of course, that never works out, but I did take Wednesday off and Thursday morning/early afternoon.

Wednesday turned out to be one of those perfect days. I walked out of our front door at 5AM, looked up, and there was my favorite constellation – Orion. Got to the drop zone early, sat on one of the benches outside and watched the sunrise. Shortly thereafter, I got a call from a friend I hadn’t heard from in a bit and was excited to hear from them. There was just no way it couldn’t be a good day. Oh yeah, I was excited to try out my new helmet. I finally invested in my own helmet after Daniel said I could get a “big boy” helmet 🙂 A $400 helmet for that $10 head of mine.

I got inside about 7:30, grabbed my favorite rig, and started my gear checks. A couple more students showed up, and we were then run through our emergency procedures. I talked to my instructor (Daniel) about the plan for the next jump. He talked me through barrel rolls and what I would need to do. Before long, the propeller was spinning, we were loading on the super caravan, off we went. I did a poised (standing exit) on the edge of the plane as I had before. I got another good exit, and that just set me up for success. My first barrel roll went well, the second one did not have enough momentum, so I stalled out mid turn and had to re-stabilize. I then flew up to, and docked with my instructor. After that it was time to lock on to the altimeter and get ready to pull. The canopy flight down was nice as always. I’m still working on landing right on the mark (I need 5 landings within 20 meters before I can get my license). Here’s the video for that jump.

We reviewed my video and filled out my logbook. Then it was time to wait for my rig to get re-packed and get ready to do flips on Dive Flow 8. I also learned I was going to be doing a diving exit out of the plane rather than the poised exit. I was a little nervous about it; doing something new in that environment always makes me a bit antsy, but not so bad I couldn’t function. I’ve learned relax, arch, and things right themselves; it still takes me a few seconds when I’m in the air sometimes to remember that and make it happen though. My exit wasn’t perfect (I flipped over and had a moment of instability after), but it worked out. Then on to flips. My first flip didn’t have enough momentum, much like my second barrel roll; stalled out and had to recover. My second front flip was much better, carried all the way through. My instructor was signalling to me, but I didn’t quite get what he wanted. He was trying to tell me I forgot to do a back flip. I did my lock on, pulled, and next thing I found myself with line twists.

We had been told in ground school that we would see line twists sooner or later. That time had come for me on my 11th non-tandem jump. I did what I was trained to do; I grabbed my riser straps and pulled them apart while kicking and swinging my hips. Worked like a charm! Up until that point I had been afraid of twists because they were an unknown. Not any more!

OOPS! I didn’t realize what I had forgotten to do in free fall until I was safely under canopy (after getting rid of those line twists). Back in the hangar, Daniel asked me “What I thought about my back flip”, to which my response was “you mean the one I didn’t do?”, and we both laughed. I’m still learning to let things go and not beat myself up over everything. I had proven I could re-stabilize after being unstable, which was the main point of that dive flow.

We had a bit of a wait after that for my next jump. Other students had come in and they needed their turn. Also, there was a “mascot” jump. A local sports team had joined up with Spaceland to get some video of a tandem with the passenger wearing the mascot suit. Pretty interesting turn for the day.

After waiting a couple of hours for my chance at jump 3 of the day. This was my second diving exit, and my first tracking jump. Tracking is where you bring your hands to your side and start moving forward, FAST. My 2nd diving exit was a lot better, I think I remembered to look at the wing tip as I exited. Then Daniel backed away from me, and I started tracking towards him. As I neared, he signaled to me to quit tracking. I had hoped to do that without prompting, but it is still a learning process. I then proceeded to dock with him. After that, I checked altitude, he pointed in the direction to track, and I tracked for about 4 seconds. I have to admit feeling the speed is good. But you can’t enjoy it too much (gotta remember surroundings). Got a good canopy, no line twists this time. Back down, and fill out the log book and talk the dive over with my instructor.

I had come into the day saying I wanted to get 4 jumps in. After the lull in the middle of the day, I was beginning to wonder if that was going to happen. It worked out. I got on the last load of the day for my 4th jump. My instructor added something new, a different exit type. We did what is called an “open accordion” exit. The instructor is outside the plane holding on to the rail facing in. I’m inside the plane kneeling like I’m getting ready for a diving exit. He grabs my rig, I grab his rig.  We do a count, and exit together. I was a bit nervous about it, as it was yet another new thing I had not done yet. But it went pretty well. We got an exit, after a few seconds, he released me, and we went into tracking exercises.  My first two tracks were pretty good. Then for my final track, Daniel had me spin 180 and go the other direction. It was more unstable, all due to the fact that I had done things too quickly, I spun around too fast, then tried to force the track even though I wan’t perfectly stable. I recovered, but it was clear what I had done. Daniel asked me what the problem was on the ground (he already knew the answer, but wanted to hear me say it), and I told him what I thought I did.

I finished up my log book, went over the jump with Daniel and called it a day. It had been a really great day. I can’t say “best day ever”, because all great days are different and not directly comparable (wedding, childbirth, other major milestones). But I hope to keep this day near and dear too. We had a lot of students in that day, we were sharing our dive videos and talking. Some of my favorite instructors were there, and Tyler (my excellent wind tunnel instructor was there too). There’s just something about being on that ride up with folks you know and like.

They say if you use the “first” in the drop zone, you owe beer. But I’m going to use that word here on my blog (sue me). Here are my firsts for the day:

• Jump with a closed face helmet
• Diving exit
• Barrel rolls
• Flips
• Jump on first load of the day
• Jump on last load of the day
• Accordion exit
• Tracking (I’m not counting tracking on my second tandem)
• Line twists

What a day!