jumpin stories...

[froggie 0]

started this week off by making a kick ass tracking dive on monday. Just me and my friend Mikey. The dive went so much better than the one last week, and the one last week was good. I dont jump again until thursday.
Start thursday off with a nice hop-n-pop from 5 grand. Decided to H&P cause i wanted clear airspace to really learn my canopy. I had a radio with me and two people on the ground videoing my landing. So thier telling me all these extra things to do up there. Prolly did at least 5 practice flares. Gotta get that right, these landings hurt like hell!
Even though im on radio im still doing my own thing. Not that that was the right decision, but i had to do what i was comfortable with, even if it wasnt the best desicion. Georgie wanted me to land in a certain (read: smaller) area of the field. I chose to land in the longest section. my call. it was what i was comfortable with. No danger in that desicion.
So the video shows that i flared a little high and that im not finishing my flare. Im doing the second stage after i hit the ground. well duh, no wonder the landings hurt. So i watched that video about 30 times before i manifested for the next jump, which is the wackiest jump ive had so far......
heres the story of my "if everything could ever go wrong it did.." jump
so im the second person out. i give a count but still not enough time before i exited. So im in freefall and at the same time that i realize that i didnt wait long enough i also realize that my helmet chin strap wasnt tighened enough. So im watching the guy below me. our seperation is okay so now i can play around up there. So i do like 4 backloops in a row and the damned helmet is catching massive amounts of air (cause its so loose) and is just throwing me off balance. I go neutral. decide to do some barrel rolls. that doesnt go to stable either. dont like that feeling .roll back to my belly, but my legs are funky so i go into this head over heals forward dive. get stable again. did some right 720's. go stable again. locate the guy. The guy that jumped before me starts deploying. Im watching and analizing, deciding if there is enough horizonal seperation between us two. Im not comfortable with it so i deploy. Get thrown around in the harness, rotating all over the place. rough opening. I didnt pack for myself.. I go to look up (canopy check) and my helmet gets caught/hit on the risers (line twists down to the risers) and the helmet that was too loose from the get go goes "boinnnggg!" and pops off my head. I say a nice F word and catch it as it pops forward. grab the helmet as its above and in front of my head. grab the goggles (which broke) shove goggles in helmet. bite down on chin strap of helmet. Grab the risers and just start pulling apart and kicking. little me, all 115lbs trying to kick out line twists on a massive spectre 190 canopy. The line twists started above the slider, contained the slider, and went below to my risers. Took about 40 seconds or so but i managed to kick them all out. Controlability check. Everythings A okay. So now i notice that im a bit downwind/crosswind. Winds were coming out of the south, and i was East, between daliah ave and the airport, above tuckahoe road.(for those of you familiar with Xkeys) So ive burned off a bit of alti dealing with all these problems. Time to decide if i should land off. Check my position. check for outs. Decide that with a little help i can definitally make it back and still have time to set up a decent pattern.... I headed for the runway and rode the thermals to my holding area. Without the thermals off the runway i wouldnt have tried to make it to the landing area, i would have settled for out front of the airport to land. But i know about the thermals off the runway, and how if youre above it you could just be gaining alitude and not loosing much.. just holding there. So I use the thermals to keep from loosing the alti that i need to make it home safely. Set up a decent pattern, only had to do one S turn to burn alti and headed in for my final. PLFed the landing and my friend sarah around and goes "so how was that landing...?" my answer: "After that fucking skydive i dont care about the landing! im just glad its all over and im safely on the ground...
so, wanna go skydive? i sure in hell do! I LOVE THIS FRIGGIN SPORT!!!
........ expect the unexpected......
kel

[FallinWoman 1]

you go!! sounds like you were very aware in freefall and made some really good decisions. Isn't life grand???

[mountainman 0]

Sounds like you took care of everything like you should have!! I have had several line twist jumps already (in 16 jumps) and have had no trouble getting out. My last one had my slider as well, which was pretty disconcerning.
Glad to hear that you are having fun and keep it up!!! --------------
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[FallingMarc 0]

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I go to look up (canopy check) and my helmet gets caught/hit on the risers (line twists down to the risers) and the helmet that was too loose from the get go goes "boinnnggg!" and pops off my head. I say a nice F word and catch it as it pops forward.

Hehehe... headgear malfuction, helmet cutaway? Is that worth beer?
Nevermind me, I'm going to bed.
Marc

[mountainman 0]

I'll take some Smirnoff ICE. Damn, that stuff is good.
I had a "goggle malfunction" on my AFF VI jump. My goggles weren't tight enough and when I did my first COA, they just flew right up on my helmet. I had to redo it, so that sucked!!
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[froggie 0]

fallinmarc,
ROF. no, that does NOT count as a malfunction. it counts as 'pilot brain fart'. ive got this closterfobia thing and i cant stand having the chin strap even touching my neck. it makes me start to gag, so its almost always a bit loose. Plus, its a protec, and a bit too big for me. it was a gift from stacy. i helped her find a really sweet oxygen (?) helmet and so she gave me her old one as a thankyou. Pre-second piece of skydiving gear. So its got more sentimental value than practical value. i will be buying a new helmet on tuesday. (Damo) one of the guys from sonic boom gave me some info about his helmet. Ill be ordering my own soon. also buying another one too.
but back to the 'beer' wanna be mal. its soooooooooo not! :)
its pretty funny. in 24 jumps ive had some crazy hilarious stuff happen. I cant imagine what stories ill have when ive got 500 jumps.
So how is everybody?
kel

[phatcat 0]

Where ya been Kel? Oh yeah, jumping, of course . If you haven’t read it yet, I’m jumping again pretty soon. Thanks for the kick in the ass when I really needed it. I have the money, so it’s just the fear thing standing in my way now. But I think when I get there, it will be just like the Nike cliché – Just Do it. It can’t go any other way, cause that would be unthinkable. Thanks Kel.
Josh
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar" - Helen Keller

[Zennie 0]

Good job dealing with a whole buncha shit thrown at you at once!
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Blue Skies!
Zennie

[freeflir29 0]

""One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar" - Helen Keller" -Phatcat
Dude, What did I tell you about quoting blind people on a Skydiving sight? It really does scare the shit out of the dog!
"Say sweet thing...Can I buy you a fish sandwhich?"-Leon Phelps
Clay

[skyhawk 2]

why didnt you try and tighten it in freefall ???

[froggie 0]

skyhawk,
honestly, that thought didnt even occur to me. my chin strap can be a bit of a pain in the ass to tighten anyway. i can never seem to get it just right. I tighten it too tight, then i loosen it too much. I never dreamed that it would do what it did when i deployed, but then again i never planned on having line twists like i did either. It taught me how some minor things can really screw up a normally stable body position.
Ill tell you what though, i wont be jumping that helmet any longer than needed. Ill be placing an order online soon to a my friends friend, he makes these really lighttweight helmets, set for an audible and a protrack. spaces built right into the helmet for them. It barely weights anything at all. Hes based out of Austrailia. So it will take a bit of time to get here.

Josh,
in answer to your question "where have you been?".... working at the dropzone, jumping, hanging out. been going out to dinner with folks from the dz most every night. This past friday night i was the lucky camera girl who got pics of her good friend screwing up a pond swoop at the local golf course and crashing in. He was totally fine, just a bruised ego. We were able to save his Cypres. thank god. It was actually quite hilarious. he gives me a wind sock, his camera, his book bag and a pullup cord and sends me off to the golf course to get set up cause we were demoing in.. I got some sweet pics of two friends swooping, and then it was his turn. I get him in the view finder and am following him down from his hook turn. hes about 1 foot of the water. no pics yet.... SMACK!!!! I was so shocked. I looked up and screamed to him. but something inside my head said "he'll want pictures!" so i just started snapping away while still yelling at him to tell us if he was okay. he bounced twice, then went under (its a deep pond). I think i might have gotten some good pics of it. swam to shore and we pulled him out. popped his reserve. saved the cypres. went back to the dz and brought us some beer and some dinner. poor guy. but hes perfectly fine .we were able to dry out his canopy as soon as we got back to the dz.. was jumping his system again in 2 days. another jumper got it all on video. the funniest part is that hes doing the breast stroke towards shore and another jumper comes along side of him and does a perfect swoop while hes struggling to make it to the shore. it was hilarious.
hes planning on getting the video up on a web site in the near future. ill be sure to post the link when he does.
I did a hop and pop from 13'5 with my friend Damo (from SONIC BOOM) today. now that was amazing.... i highly recomend it to EVERYONE!!!!!!!! so much fun.
Josh, when are you going to jump again? hows jumping going for everyone else? any new stories?
kel

[PalmettoTiger 1]

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hows jumping going for everyone else? any new stories?

Inching ever closer to my A license!! Jumps are tough to come by lately, due to a lack of King Airs and moxie. Got 2 yesterday - see the "hoping hoping" thread. If the server decides not to crash at work tomorrow, I might be able to post a full accounting of the weekend.
I'm thinking I'll be at X-Keys for Sunday and Monday of the Labor Day boogie, though I might not have my A-license finished by then. Here's hoping, anyway. Glad to see you back on the boards, and thanks for the stories!!
Blues, squares,
PTiger

[flyhi 24]

Quote

""One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar" - Helen Keller" -Phatcat
Dude, What did I tell you about quoting blind people on a Skydiving sight? It really does scare the shit out of the dog!

Question: Why can't Helen Keller drive?
Answer: She's a woman.
That is SO wrong.

[Dutchboy 0]

I never really told the whole story of my 1st mal at the WFFC. I did a helicopter jump early in the day with a couple friends that I traveled with (Broken Eagle and Dead Bird). It was so incredibly hot that I did something I don't normally do, I paid a packer to pack my rig. It was over 100 degrees up there and I was feeling lazy.
A couple hours later I was manifested on a 23k ft jump from Mike Mullin's Super King Air. As I was getting ready to jump I noticed that I had about three inches of my pilot chute hanging out of the BOC pouch. I just tucked it back in. Big mistake. I should have pulled it out and looked at it. I would have seen that it wasn't folded and stowed correctly. It is hard to describe how they stowed it, but the big problem was that the folded PC wasn't thick enough near the top to keep it from easily coming out of the pouch.
So I took that 14 minute ride up to altitude. Checked my gear several times in the plane, including right before exit. Did some sitflying and did over 10 backloops on the way down. Went to my belly at about 7k because the spot was really long. I was actually going to pull a little high so I could get back (3500) even though they don't like this.
I reach back to grab my handle and it wasn't there. I felt the corner of the rig and groped my way around from there. When I hit about 1800 ft (dytter going off for 1 sec, set to 2k) I gave up on it and went for the silver guy.
I put both thumbs in that handle and before I knew it I had tossed it away. It landed in some crops below me, no chance of finding it. This wasn't the standard scenario that everyone always practices (cutaway, then pull), so I didn' t have the muscle memory that would have had me still holding on to the handle. Oh well, my life is worth more than a $40 handle.
As I was flying toward the landing area under my Tempo, I thought about flying down with the free bag, but it was in the soy beans and I didn't want to land there. I realized I'd never flown this canopy and did a couple test flares along the way. I also had to remind myself to flare higher than I normally would with the Hornet.
As soon as I landed I took my rig off and found that the PC handle had come out a good four inches or more. It wasn't that the roll had come out that far, becuase it wasn't properly rolled. Instead just a single layer of material at the top of the PC had come out that far. Given that my hands were slightly numb from the cold and I was wearing gloves, I couldn't feel that little bit of material.
My friends and I drove to the farm across the street to look for the free bag. The WFFC safety people were already there looking for my stuff. I stayed with one of their guys and after maybe a half hour he found my freebag. It had actually fallen down in the plants and the only reason he saw it was the label on the bag was facing upward. I was impressed with the WFFC staff and the way they went looking for my gear before I even got there. I was also glad that the rigger didn't gouge me for the repack like the store that sold me the handle did just because I needed it immediately.
So I had my first reserve ride at the WFFC on jump 132 and I logged 2:20 of freefall time. It was an expensive jump $48 jump ticket, $50 reserve repack, $40 handle, $6 pack. But at least I learned a few things, and I'm more confident in my emergency proceedures.
The Dutchboy
http://www.geocities.com/ppolstra

[PalmettoTiger 1]

How do blind skydivers know when to flare?
The leash goes slack.
Blues, squares,
PTiger

[Slappie 9]

Oh Gawd!! LOL
Blue Skies!http://www.geocities.com/scollins77057/index.html

[Aviatrr 0]

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So I had my first reserve ride at the WFFC on jump 132 and I logged 2:20 of freefall time. It was an expensive jump $48 jump ticket, $50 reserve repack, $40 handle, $6 pack. But at least I learned a few things, and I'm more confident in my emergency proceedures.

And you probably spent about that much on beer.....RIGHT?! Both of my cutaways were packer induced, so I choose not to use a packer anymore.. One a massive tension knot, one a step through.. There is one packer that I will use, if necessary, and that's only at my home DZ.. Funny thing, though.....a friend of mine that always uses packers, and has 300 jumps now, has 5 cutaways.. Imagine that..
If you choose to use a packer, make damn sure you know that packers skills/experience.. I prefer to use only riggers to pack, but that's not always possible.....it will ALWAYS be, at the very least, a very experienced jumper..
Mike

[freeflir29 0]

I dont give a damn who it is. Rigger or not. I'm not jumping anything that I didnt pack. Except my reserve of course...which the government swears I need someone else to pack it for me. Is my Congressman jumping this rig?
"Gonna need...some cream for ya ass"-Chef/South Park
Clay

[Dutchboy 0]

Oh yeah, forgot to add that in the cost. $14 for booze (Captian Morgan's) for the rigger, and then the normal beer.
Actually, my rigger ended up helping me out on the way back. We had to put down in Northern TN because the little 172 wasn't going to penetrate the multiple lines of thunderstorms between here and there. We had somebody pick us up and drive us home. The next day 3 of us flew up to TN in a 182 and my rigger and I flew back the 172 (I don't quite have the instrument rating yet and it was IMC on the way there).
The Dutchboy
http://www.geocities.com/ppolstra

[chrissylicious 0]

I jumped out of an airplane on several occasions

"I will stick you with a rope"- ME