Search This Blog

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Downsizing Results

On Friday I arrived at the DZ to get my 170 Hornet hooked up to my loan rig. I decided to get this done on Friday so I'd be all ready to jump after my canopy briefing on Saturday morning!

I arrived early on Saturday and read a few pages of Skydiving in 8 Days, this book is actually very interesting, although written in 1997, it is a good story of how you can go from "Wuffo"* to qualified in 8 days.

*Wuffo: These are people that stand around the drop zone with no intention of jumping EVER, and ask you what you jump for, IE: "What for?" - Wuffo!. I read somewhere that there are two types of people in this world: Wuffo's and skydivers! So naturally, "Wuffo" is a derogatory term used for people that do not understand our need / want for jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft.

Anyway (I digress), after getting my canopy briefing from Steve (my safety officer), I was ready to go! And wow, I was excited!

The 12 minute ride up to 12,000ft started getting my mind going - "New rig, reserve repacked, new AAD, leg straps slightly too big, rig not 100% free fly friendly...what could go wrong!?" All of these thoughts should have been dismissed, but you can't help but think of the possible dangers...don't worry, it didn't stop me from jumping out :-)


Because I wanted some canopy time to play with the risers and get used to my 170, I had arranged with the jump master that I'd be waving off and opening at 6,000ft for the first few jumps - This gives me a nice amount of time to play around in the sky a bit and get used to my smaller canopy.

As my rig doesn't have a bungee cord between the two leg straps, I couldn't do any free flying. The bungee cord prevents the straps from sliding up your legs when you are in a sit fly position, so without the bungee, it may be possible to "fall out" of your leg straps (Which can never be a good thing)! So - flat flying it was!

Did a few loops, attempted a few barrel rolls (these worked alright) and dumped at 6,000ft.

After playing with some co-ordinated front riser turns, a bit of back riser input and toggle turns, it was time to setup for landing. The wind was blowing quite gently, but in a different direction to normal. On my approach I thought I'd land cross wind, and down hill as the wind seemed to be blowing sideways on the slope. After realizing that with no head wind, I was coming in very fast, I decided to change my approach to land into the wind, and I'm glad I did because I still over shot my target by quite a bit and landed fast.

My smaller canopy definitely flares harder and I even got a little swoop in on my landing :-)

Jump No. 2 went about the same, although I was no longer nervous about jumping the different rig. I played with riser turns, went into a very strong, fast toggle spiral which scared me a bit as it doesn't come out of the spiral as quickly as the 185 canopies do, but it was still fun! Landing was perfect! I landed into the wind and close to my target and only needed to run a few steps (very quick steps, but landed on my feet).

Jump No. 3. The free fall was uneventful, but still as awesome as always! I think I'm getting the hang of the barrel rolls and tracking on my back, although I seem to go into a bit of a head-down when tracking on my back so I roll over onto my front after a second or two. I guess I just need to work on that a bit, but I am still in the very early stages of my skydiving life so I know I have A LOT to learn! Landing, however was accomplished by coming in a bit too fast, flaring a bit too late and swooping ON the ground resulting in a nice big puff of dust trailing behind me and a lot of sand and grass on the legs of my jump suit. Even though I didn't take a tumble, I still didn't land on my feet - more like my ASS. And got a good few laughs from the people that saw me go down with a puff of dust!

I made sure I dusted myself off before going into the hanger and getting laughed at some more :-) But it's all in good faith!

Unfortunately I was only able to do three jumps this weekend as I had a bachelors party to attend.

This weekend I think I will just be doing DVD edits of tandems to earn some extra jump money!

Blue Skies everyone and happy days!