My Eloy Experience (part 2)

[fred 0]

(continued from part 1)
So, as many of you know, I did jump on day 2. Here's how it went down.
After my less than thrilling experience on day 1, I was undecided. Hell, it's part of my personality. I hate to commit to something, or, more importantly, to commit against something. So when I left after day 1, I told manifest that I would be there at 8am the next day. I figured that the worst case scenario would be that I'd not show up, and forfeit my $25.
Of course, nobody knew that I was even thinking about quitting except me. So I also told my parents (read: my ride to Eloy), that I was supposed to be there at 8 am the next morning.
And the night passed (with some other stories to be told soon), and morning came. I woke up, once again thinking that I would just go to the airport, hang out for a bit, and make up my mind.
Well, Marc (My AFF coach) spotted me as we arrived, and said, "Great! I'll go sign us up," and ran off to get us manifested. There was no "deciding" at all. I was there, therefore, I was jumping, and, as it turns out, I was jumping in 15 minutes.
I got all my equipment together, got suited up, and we went over the dive flow. Now, I'm barely confident that I can fall stable. Hell, I've had 18 hours to forget everything I learned, and now we've got to change some things.
First, poor old me had to jump out of the otter this time. I wanted that skyvan. Two jumps and I'm spoiled. Hell yes, I'm a turbine snob. "I have to leave out of the side of a plane? Hell, I may as well be in a Cessna!"
I force him to let me practice the exit, which involves me climbing on the dummy, rehearsing, "ready set go", and I think he might have glanced over. Anyhow, he said it was perfect, but we need to get to the tram.
Here's the plan: We leave the airplane, and wait to fall belly to earth (to my non-skydiving (whuffo) friends: when you leave the airplane you're traveling about 100MPH horizontally, it takes a couple seconds to slow down from horizontal speed, and gain vertical speed. Skydiver's call it, "the hill"). When I'm belly to earth, I do a full circle (check my heading, check my altitimeter, yell my altitude to Marc, get instructions).
That last step? That's the one I never remember to do. Instead, I stare blankly at the JM for a couple seconds, and continue on. No waiting for the thumbs up, I got stuff to do here!
So, anyhow, the plan. After I do my faux-circle (hee! pun!), he's going to let go of me. I'm to turn right 90° and face him, move forward and dock with him, turn left 90°, turn right 90° and dock. Repeat as time allows. (er, for nonskydiving friends, a dock is what it sounds like: I grab onto my JM)
And, of course, here's how it actually happened.
We ride up to altitude, and my JM is telling me to relax the whole time. Apparently, even when I am relaxed, I still look terrified. I'm not all that surprised by this. Anyhow, many unnecessary deep breaths, and people start getting out.
I don't think I ever made it out without the plane having to turn around, but I also think there was always a group ahead of me, so I refuse to take responsibility for slow exits.
Anyhow, a nice 180 in the otter, and our turn comes. I present, and we climb outside this beast. Surprisingly, it doesn't suck. The back exit of the skyvan is God's gift to skydivers, but grabbing onto a bar and rotating my body out the door? Not even in the same ballpark as climbing out on the strut of the Cessna back home. Hell, even with the 100MPH winds there, I still heard my JM, say, "OK" (my cue to start the count).
And as I was rejoicing in how unintimidating this exit was, that's when I screwed up.
The exit count is: (1) left leg outside, shout, "ready". (2) swing the left leg inside shout, "set", and (3) swing the left leg outside and carry your body and shout, "go!".
And as soon as my jumpmaster said, "OK", I swung my left leg inside and shouted "ready!".
Folks. That screws up the entire count. I screamed, "D'Oh!" And set my left leg back down. In hindsight, I still don't know what I should have done. Maybe I should have held my leg there and made eye contact, but it was too late. Fortunately, Marc knows his shit, and he wasn't fooled. I started over. "Ready! Set! Go!"
Another beautiful exit. Hell, if there's one thing I can do right in skydiving, it's falling stable through that hill. I have a dozen "beautiful exit" comments in my logbook already (actually, I think this jump is the only "weird exit" I ever got, because of the whole, "I tried to trick him" thing).
Belly to earth... Check heading, check altimeter, yell altitude to jumpmaster, and turn right.
That first right turn? It didn't go so well. After we landed, I found out why. I didn't wait for him to give me instructions, or a thumbs up, and he was still holding onto me (trying to stop my turns). Oh well...
He let go, and soon I was facing him. I extended my legs, and brought back my arms just a little bit, and the most amazing thing happened! While I was falling toward the earth at 120MPH, I grabbed onto another human being.
And that's a lie.
My forward motion was a little off target, and I ended up moving close to him while he slid in front of me. We didn't quite get a dock, and he gave me signals that clearly said, "Okay! Good enough, turn left." I ignored him, turned a little more right, and docked.
I don't know how he did it, but he shrugged and conveyed, "Okay, that's fine. Whatever." I let go, turned left, turned right, docked. Turned left, turned right, docked. (for those concerned, yes, I checked my altimeter between every move)
Folks. It was the second most amazing thing that happened that weekend. For those of you who have been there, you know, it's pretty cool to hold on to somebody at terminal. It's pretty fucking cool to be the person doing the docking. I was amazed, I was exhilarated.
I stared at my altimeter from 6,000ft, waved, and pulled. And I saw Marc fall away, looking up at me, giving me a big thumbs up.
I landed, uneventfully, about 10 yards outside of the grassy student landing area (really going to have to work on my accuracy), and made the long trek back to the school.
And he half-chastised/half-praised me for the "watching him fall away" part. He said, "That eye contact. That was the most amazing thing, but you really should have been checking your canopy." He loved that jump, and it showed.
I don't blame him. He had seen me just 24 hours before, pretty much flailing during the freefall and looking like a nervous wreck and having no real control over my body, and *he*'d been the one who taught me. He felt pretty damn good about having brought me so far, and I felt pretty damn good about having made 90° turns! From this point on, instead of feeling like Marc was a bit nervous about jumping with me, we were friends. He was excited to do another jump with me, and I with him. It's amazing the comradery I felt with him after just a couple hours of him, well, saving my life...
Next jump was uneventful. Yes, I manifested right away, but it was a 30 minute call so I was able to go talk to my parents about my amazing jump. We left the airplane, I did a 360° turn to the left while he slid so that he was my end point, we docked, 360° the other way, etc., etc.
They weren't perfect, but they were nothing to scoff at... I think I undershot the first turn, and overshot the second, which is exactly the opposite of what I was afraid of (and therefore, exactly what I expected to do). I landed slightly off the grass.
A word about landings. Yeah, I've got no accuracy, but I land fine. My very first jump, I had to PLF because I didn't flare at all. I PLF'd one other time because, ... Okay, I don't know what was wrong that time... the flare seemed to do nothing. But the other 17 jumps I had at that time were run out. I have yet to just stand one up like the experts can do.
And I mentioned this. And my instructor described the 'two-stage' flare that I'd read about, and said that I should try it. Step 1: Level the canopy. Step 2: stop forward motion. So I made two more jumps that day, and lets just say that my jumpsuit got a little dirty... :)
Anyhow, uneventful (but fun!) 360's behind me, it was time for something that I'd been looking forward to since I first put my foot in that Cessna here in Michigan. Yes, folks, I was to do flips.
First time in a couple jumps that I had some serious "lay on the floor" time, and Marc took me into the room and taught me how to do them. (Simple, bend your knees and bring them up to touch your elbows). It took me a second to grasp that he didn't actually expect me to be a gymnast, and that I didn't need to bring my arms down, but I got it. I also remembered something I'd read on dz.com that said to, "break the broom". It's an easy visualization, and it helped me.
Because folks? My backflips were things of beauty. I was sad that I was only supposed to do two! I wanted to do more. I love that feeling of letting the wind take over, and then exerting control over it.
But in the end, I'm glad that I had to stop doing backflips. Because the other part of this jump was tracking. Extend my legs, and swing my arms back like I'm swimming.
... Er.. and then wobble and tumble, apparently. I was supposed to track for 5 seconds. Considering that after about 1/2 of one, I was all over the place, I relaxed, got into my arch, and got stable. Looked at my JM for approval, and tried again, except this time, I went slowly.
What is it they say? "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast?" Folks, when I get it right, I track like a motherfucker. I could feel it, and I could see it. I saw the ground moving below me and thought, "My god! This is incredible!"
And then we have the #1 experience of the day. While I was feeling this euphoria from tracking well, I looked over, and there was Marc, tracking right beside me.
It's an image I have in my mind that is so clear that I keep thinking I have a picture of it. I'm actually scared that this image might leave my mind, that someday I won't remember how amazing it was to be tracking right along side him.
Of course, another landing just off the student area.
I go back, and he says, "Ready for your graduation jump?" And I said, "No." I let him know that I needed some time, and I went to meet with my parents, and we had lunch, and relaxed, and I told them about my incredible experiences that day, and then we sat down to watch some jumpers.
Seeing as this day was even nicer than the saturday before, I expected more tandems, and I wandered off to tell Marc that I was ready when he was. And, of course, he got us on a load almost immediately.
My graduation dive: *dive* off the airplane. No holding on, pretend that he isn't there. He manifests, and I have almost no time to get loaded up, let alone have him explain to me *how* you dive off a plane. We get near the tram, and hop on the mock-up that's there, and I'm trying to attract my parents' attention, saying, "I'm going! I'm on this load! Watch me graduate! Watch me graduate!"
And, as I should have been, I got chastised. Marc says, "Are you paying attention to me or are you looking at the crowd?" I blush and say, "Yep, looking at the crowd." He says, "Well, you must think you know enough, let's go."
My parents had waved, and I knew as well as I could what I was about to do. Tram, airplane, altitude, 180, jump. Easy as pie.
I was concerned at one point that I was supposed to do a 360 and I was (what I thought was) about halfway through, and he was right in front of me. I figured I overshot him, but stopped where I thought the 360 was. I did my backflip (perfect!), then started to track. Track sucked, and I stopped, got stable, and did another one, and it rocked. I locked on to my altimeter somewhere near 7k.
And so slowly it fell. I knew I was early, but I also knew that I had hit dead-on all of my tasks. I just watched my altimeter drop until 5500, when I waved and pulled.
I played under canopy for awhile, and then had the most off landing of my life. I knew there was almost no wind, but the indicator kept changing directions. When I was at 500ft, I turned into the wind, and knew I was looking at desert.
My graduation jump had the biggest trek ever. I was so tired by the time I got back to the equipment shack. (a 280 sq ft canopy is a heavy little bugger to carry!)
Marc debriefed me. I'm cleared for solo jumps.
That fact didn't hit me for a few hours. Um, Hello? I'm jumping by myself?
Am I really ready? Sure, I know I'll survive a jump. I know I can get stable, and I can turn, and I can read my altimeter, and I can pull.
When I first started, my friend and I were looking at the training program and we were very excited! In 20 jumps, we could jump together! It would be incredible! Now I know that getting off student status doesn't mean that you're a capable skydiver. It simply means that you know how to not die when falling from an airplane.
Still, it's a step in the right direction. And I'm very excited for the day when I can fall from an airplane, and not die--with my friend.

[MarkM 0]

Cool, grats on the graduation. I only have about a gazallion more jumps that ain't gonna happen because it's always fucking raining on the weekend jumps myself to go before I grad.
Can you tell I'm jelous?

[hooked 0]

I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed reading about your experience! I hope in the spring, I can have the same experience. Good job!
J

[Iflyme 0]

Man, I fell like I was right there with the whole time! Thanks for sharing in such detail! Kinda brings back the rush of my first few skydives! I better go and read part one now...

[Jabeln79 0]

ya know for the first time i think i miss being a student again.
Congrats on the graduation.
Blue Skies
Joe
"When they say jump you say how high" RATM

[skymedic 0]

Fast freddy, good stuff man.....
marc
"...a mind stretched with new idea's will never regain its shape"

[Emmie 0]

Congradulations, and thank you for writing this. Reading about your experience just made me realize how much I miss skydiving.

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[bbarnhouse 0]

Great account of your experience thanks for sharing it! I'm looking forward to part 3!
Emmie~ hon get your butt out there!
It only takes a little pixie dust......

[Snowbird 0]

Thank you Fred, and Congrats! Your parents sound very cool.
I'm absolutely aching for spring, so I can jump my a** off! I want that feeling you describe so well. I hope you don't mind, I'm gonna print your story and read it for encouragement.
No one flies too high, who flies on his own wings.

[Skyrose7 0]

fred--
It was great to finally hear about your experience in AZ. If your experience was anything close to the way you described it, I am so jealous! Sure I will see you at the dz this summer! Congrats! YOu finally got it into words, and very nice ones.
The mind is like a parachute--it works better when it is open. JUMP.

[fred 0]

Thanks for all the compliments.
I'm very flattered.