Two down! The second jump was far far better than my first and leaves me with a great feeling of accomplishment. It can’t be described how wacky you get on a first jump. Your senses are overloaded and what that translates into is an easy ability to get lost, bewildered, and confused.
On my first jump I didn’t have a picture of what was to be. I had no map, no fore-knowledge, nothing for me to really be scared of knowingly besides the act itself in a general way. After my first jump apprehension was quick to set in since I now knew what to expect. I understood what was going on and being so helpless due to the influx of new information it was going to allow fear to edge in. I knew if I didn’t get another jump in soon my anxiety level would be raised to a point possibly stalling my progress. With a bit of hesitation and a nod from Robin I gave a call Sunday morning to register with manifest. Once committed a lot of my anxiety dissipated immediately. I think I had more of a commitment fear than an actual fear. Heading down there I was hell bent on practice.
I wanted to ingrain what I was learning into rock solid reactions. You don’t have many luxuries of time to wait and think, you must be ready to act. Utilizing the drop zones tools I began to just exercise what I learned in class and through my first jump. Then I met my instructors for the day Delfina and Pete. I was instructed that we would be jumping in the next few hours on load 12 of the day. Pete walked me through what was to be expected a few times and then left me to my own devices to continue practicing, and practice I did. The exercises of the day including 90′ left, 90′ right, sky tracking forward, along with the prior lessons of circle of awareness’, checking parachute ball, and altitude awareness.
We boarded a Casa. A 22 passenger plane that has a rear hatch door that we get to hop out of. Quite nice! The Casa took us to 14000ft which gives me about an extra 4-5 seconds of free fall which being a heavy guy, the more time the better! Exit was clean, awareness on queue. I was a little soft in my right 90′ rotation. I firmed it up for the left 90′ and was on time for my sky track forward. What a great sensation burning through the air. My instructors said when I came out of my sky track they momentarily were given a little zero G (they are a lot lighter than I am hehehe). I checked my altimeter and it said 6500, and for some reason I locked eyes with Pete and like a programmed monkey told him. He shook his head grinning and told me to pull, so I did. Upon pulling I was very careful to be aware of the 3S’s; Square, Stable, Steerable. Unfortunately my chute had malfunctioned in a common way in a line twist. Quickly I got the direction of the twist and kicked myself counter to it freeing up the lines and being in control at about 3000-or-so feet. The rest of my air time was spent doing circles while tandem flights landed. I enjoyed myself throughly and let Danny guide me down. I would have walked the landing but I started about 3-4’ft too early and ended up doing a PLF onto my side.
I was really happy with myself and Delfina & Pete were too. My debrief went without a hitch. I only wish I had more time in the next few weeks but scheduling conflicts are upon me. I feel fantastic though and am ready for more.
-a
technorati tags:parachute, skydive, AFF