Keeping your guard up - turbulence

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So I visited a drop zone this weekend that I had never jumped at in the winter with its 15 MPH northwesterly winter wind patterns blowing across the hangars before reaching the landing area. (Funny how I never noticed anything in the light southerly winds of summer.)

So my first jump was on my small canopy, and I did a 90 degree turn to landing and swooped in, but unfortunately the wind had changed enough that my calculations about where the clean air were wrong, and I couldn't recalculate and adjust quickly enough.

I got that "sinking feeling" that one gets when they have flared all the way, but the canopy still has a significant rate of descent due to the turbulence. I thought I was playing golf, as I had a divot to replace.

Then I jumped my large canopy on another jump, landed in a completely different area, but when I was flaring it suddenly turned off heading about 20 degrees, and there I was going sideways and falling down, just like I had seen a number of students do earlier. A different hangar this time.

Just a reminder to keep your guard up. You don't want to look as goofy as I felt. I guess they were going easy on me. Nobody said a thing.

[NWFlyer 2]

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Just a reminder to keep your guard up. You don't want to look as goofy as I felt.

Hey, at least all you felt was stupid, and not hurt. Glad it wasn't worse.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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Hey, at least all you felt was stupid, and not hurt. Glad it wasn't worse.

Now wait a minute. All I'm going to admit to is "goofy".

[jdthomas 0]

I think I saw a pic of that landing! I try to land out by the tall grass and away from the ditch on the east side of the filed when jumping at that dz with a North wind, it's the only clean air area!

www.greenboxphotography.com