3 attempts to kill myself in one day: I had around 140 jumps. Early spring. Still a lot of snow here. Former military airbase with a lot of concrete taxiing tracks and a huge 10,000 ft long runway. 1) After uneventful free-fall, canopy ride and landing pattern I was on my final leg. Landing direction was along concrete track. The landing area was covered with soft snow so all of us tried to land closer to that concrete track not to walk in the knee-deep snow. At about 80 ft I understand that I'm heading directly into one of my mates. I see him looking at me but instead of just letting him make a couple of steps aside, I decide to "save" him and make a rather perfect 60 degree flat turn towards that concrete track. So I find myself at about 50 ft flying in half brakes crosswind towards very hard surface. What should I do? Have I ever practiced to land that canopy (a 170 sq ft 9-cell) crosswind? - Yes Have I ever landed from half-brakes? - Yes But I decide to flare a little bit higher to be able to land before the snowy area ends. I this half of second I assumed that falling into the snow is better than landing on concrete. Maybe. But we all understand what happened - I flared higher and fell on that goddamn concrete surface from about 10 ft just inches from soft and forgiving snow. PLF saved me. I have torn my jumpsuit, scratched my alti and Z1 and bruised both knees. My fall was so pathetic that a girl who landed next to me thought it was rather my ghost rising towards the skied than me standing up. 2) Later that day. I noted that I had scratched my alti. So I decided to check it and send to the next load with my mate. He reported that it had worked properly during the climb and descend so I calmed down and rushed to the next load. The alti worked well during the climb. Then in the free-fall we were doing a 2-way and we broke-off at around 4500 ft as agreed (I didn't have an audible at the time). On the brake-off I checked my alti and the altitude was correct. I tracked away, checked altitude and deployed normally. Then under the canopy I was busy with some riser turns, flat turns and other exercises and was altitude aware only looking at my alti. I have finished everything at about 1500 ft and decided to waste another 600 ft to start my landing pattern. After floating around for a while I was surprised to find 1500 ft on the alti. At this moment I looked down and understood that it was far from being the truth. Still I had to make my way to the landing area since I was flying above the former bomber fueling station with a web of pipes. I assumed I had enough altitude to make my way back, flew it and landed down-wind in the soft snow ploughing it with my ass. 3) I was (and I think I am) a tough stubborn idiot with some luck. I borrowed an alti from someone, made it back to the plane and triple checked everything: was landing far in the snow not to even have a chance to land on concrete, was controlling altitude visually, was high on the landing spot and.....overshoot it a little bit but this "bit" was enough for me to get too close to the wall which was downwind and was previously used to deflect the exhaust of the bomber engines. So I got into a rotor turbulence just to find myself ploughing the snow one moment after it was time to start the flare. I have spent almost all my luck that day. But I have traded it for a whole bunch of lessons. Thanks God I walked away.
