Well, I jumped on Saturday afternoon, and I'm still here, so I must have done something right. :) The quick summary is that I didn't do everything I needed to do during freefall. Once the parachute was open everything went fine. Landing was fine... I fell backwards but not so as to hurt myself. Read on for all the exciting (?) details... There were thunderstorms (and a nice rainbow) in the morning as I drove to the DZ but I knew it was supposed to clear up later. At the DZ, the staff mentioned some people had called in to cancel because of the weather; I ended up going through the AFF class with two other guys (Kevin and Charles) but I think there were supposed to be a few more. The other two guys knew one another; one is getting married next week and his buddies "kidnapped" him to go skydiving - they didn't tell him where they were going until they got a few miles from the airport! They had brought lunch supplies with them and were kind enough to share it with me at lunch time - thanks guys! Our instructor was Chris and class went pretty well, I think. The sun came out during class, but the wind also came up, so we had to wait a while after we were out of class. All three of us practiced some more with a practice harness and ripcord, clock altimeter, and a creeper. Kevin and Charles wanted to go one after the other, so I ended up scheduled first. After a bit the winds settled down and I got into my jumpsuit, got a rig, helmet, etc. I am wearing different clothes and there is a bunch of hardware strapped to me... I just might jump out of a reasonably good airplane here in a minute. After getting the plane (182) fueled, we all got in and got in the air. It gets kind of small in there with five people. My instructors (Bobby and Andy) talked (well, shouted) to me on the way up about altitudes, things on the ground, etc. Hey... the stuff on the ground is getting smaller and this thing on my wrist has started to work and the needle keeps going up... Three minutes. Two minutes. One minute. Door is opened and it gets breezy in the plane, but not that bad. Chris (also the camera/video man) gets out, Bobby gets out, and then it's time for me to get out on that little step. Once I get out the door, the breeze is just a little stronger. I get out and Andy gets out; I start out up high but get down on the strut like I am supposed to. As I get down on the strut I am looking down at the ground and I get a bit stuck on "I am about to LET GO OF THE AIRPLANE and go DOWN REAL FAST", such that I didn't check in or out. Then I feel both of my instructors tugging up on me and I kick into the sequence... prop, up, down, arch! Well, at least my arms did the right thing. My legs didn't at first - my body was in the same position as sitting in a chair, but with my chest parallel to the ground. I got my legs pushed back up and felt myself level out. The first circle was OK, and as I looked ahead again, I saw the camera man level with me but relatively far out in front of me (20 feet? 30 feet?). First practice touch, I put my left hand almost flat on my helmet, and got a little wobble from that. Second one I got it up above my head and didn't wobble. The cameraman came in closer and I looked at him. I should have been able to look at him for a second or two and then go on to the second circle, but I let myself get fascinated by this guy falling through the air in front of me. I became aware that my left side instructor was slapping my wrist. I looked at the altimeter and it was 5500...time to go. I started to go for my ripcord (and my right instructor actually grabbed my hand to get me to it) but I remembered I didn't wave off and put both hands up above my head to do that. When my right arm went away from my ripcord, my right instructor grabbed it and pulled it. As soon as that happened I knew I screwed up, but I didn't get hung up on it. I did know that my parachute should be opening and I had a split second of "NOTHING IS HAPPENING!" before I settled into my count. I quickly felt a little bump (line stretch? chute coming out of bag?) and then I felt better that it was working. As I kept counting, it opened, and when I got done counting and looked up to check it, it was fine. Flying the canopy was fun. I thought that swinging out to the side during turning might be a little weird, but it felt fine - I wasn't making any sharp turns anyway, but I also wasn't completely vertical all the time. I started getting "turn... OK, stop turning" over the radio and doing them, then I got a "turn" without a "stop turn". Figuring that they knew best, I went through 90, 180, 270, almost back to 360, when the radio came on with "stop turn" with a hint of laughter. I wasn't spinning out, just making a really complete turn. From then on, the directions were "90 degree turn" and I didn't forget. I could look down and see my feet hanging in space... my instructors landing... people standing in front of the hangar looking up at ME! It took me a bit to remember I could still look at my chest altimeter, and when I did, I was at about 1300 feet. I noticed how they were talking me in to the landing pattern, and how things on the ground were getting closer, but not scarily so. I came in to land, put my feet and legs together, flared, and landed pretty lightly. I didn't stand straight up quick enough and the canopy was tugging at me so I fell on my butt, but not hard at all. I had to haul one toggle way in to get the canopy collapsed, then I stood up and hollered for a little bit. :) Bundled the lines, gathered up the canopy, went back to the hangar to debrief. I knew I had spaced the second circle and that my ripcord got pulled for me, but I didn't remember that I had spaced the check in/out until I started describing the dive back to Andy. I got back into my civvies and watched Kevin and Charles leave and land. They did a little better than I did; they had their own ripcords with them when they landed. I think they both enjoyed their dives as well. Chris got my video edited and my stills to me; I watched the video and noticed some more about things I had done and not done. (I didn't remember that I had tried to wave off until I saw it on tape.) I had jumped at about 6 PM and I watched the other jumpers come in until close to sunset. The staff started breaking out the beer, so I went out to my car and got the cooler I had brought. Chris' comment: "We love you." I had a couple of beers and shared KFC with the staff. We BS'd and told stories; it was good. I didn't think they had gotten too many beers out of my cooler, but when I looked, about 4 of the 24 were remaining. :) Finally I took off. I slept in on Sunday and went back out to the DZ in the afternoon, hoping to get another one in (partly to do better, partly on the theory "get right back in the saddle"), but I missed the good weather while I was sleeping. Next weekend. Besides the things that I messed up during the dive, if I was going to do this for the first time over again, I would do two things differently: definitely get more sleep the night before, and probably do a tandem as a first dive, to have that first experience of "oh s--- we let go of the plane and are hurtling towards the ground" happening when you don't have to _do_ anything else. I've attached one of the pictures that Chris took - I have reduced its size and put a caption on it. I do intend to continue and see what happens - I didn't scare myself out of it on the first jump. Since I jumped, I've been thinking about it nearly constantly. I've told some of my friends and I am slowly breaking it to my family, none of whom know I went and did this. :) Eule
