It's all just pushing wind

[Michele 1]

I am stiff and sore from Wednesday's crash landings. Driving through the mist and fog which uncharacteristically shrouds the hills, creeping onto the freeway, I wonder how I will fare today ...will I land on my feet or my face? And if I land on my face, will I be as lucky as before? I am still shaken. As the glowing orange sun rises and begins to burn off the surface mist, I pull in to the dz.

I go inside Square One, and Frank sees me, greeting me cheerfully as always. He pulls my gear out, and he and I begin to talk. How many jumps are on this canopy, did they fix the wee bitty hole I spotted (not really even a hole, just more like a frayed spot). Frank and I compare riser lengths from "my" canopy to all the others, discuss what to look for for problems with the canopy, and we find the hole. He explains it's far too bitty to worry about, and shows me how they gage if it's spreading. We discuss the differences between a Sabre2 and a Spectre, and we decide that I will remain with the Spectre. I know this canopy, and it just wouldn't do me right to jump a new canopy until we figure out what the issue is: me or the canopy. We talk about wrapping lines around hands, how to see if that's what I need to do; how to check if the brake lines are in trim or not. I bundle up my gear, and take it to the packing area. I ask my packer to please check the brake lines and straighten them out if necessary. I explain the problems I have had flaring, and while I suspect the cause is me, it never hurts to verify that the equipment is in working order, either. He packs me up, and tells me that he has unkinked the brake lines, they were twisted up, but he's seen my landings, and thinks it might be me, too. Damn. I was hoping that I didn't have to be responsible for this flaring thing. Oh well, it's me, and I had best do it right today.

I get to talking to Jack Gramley and Paul Quade. Don Ellisor from Arizona Vengeance shows up, and we go off to breakfast. During breakfast, Quade comes up, and we start talking about techniques for judging flare height and timing, how visual clues are vital. Quade takes me through some "looking" exercises, standing on the stairs and looking at things in the distance, and then standing on a bench, and on ground level, to get a better visual picture. We go back to his trailer, and go over basic canopy physics, using the dry erase board. We decide that I will try a dynamic stall, real fast burying of the toggles, and see how my body feels under the canopy, and then immediately afterwards a static stall, very slow and "quiet", and how my body feels under that. Quade explains I need to be between these extremes, somewhere in the middle, and how to determine if I need to flare faster or slower. I am sitting there, and I understand him intellectually, but will I be able to do this at landing time??? I shudder. But I'll never know if I don't jump.

There is no wind yet, and I decide that until I can get on my feet landing this canopy, I won't jump in no winds. At Quade's suggestion, I sit there, watching load after load of people land, looking hard to see when they flare, and what kind of landing it produces. Quade has pointed out someone who was pumping the toggles - flapping like a bird, and told me here's a bad landing, and voila, Quade was right...the guy tanked. Quick mental note: do not flap like a bird....it doesn't work. Which makes me think maybe I should watch a bird, and see how they land. You know what? They don't flap when they land. They level out and reach with their feet. I go around, scaring the sparrows into flight, so I can watch them land over and over. I watch their chests rise, and their wings extend and change angles, and somehow am able to get a comparison to the canopies I am seeing landing...good landings have the same kind of dynamic going on - tail dropping, mass shifting slightly forward, sort of stretching out...I am not terribly sure if I know what the hell I am talking about, but I think I see it...

The winds pick up enough for me to jump - a solo - I want to open high, do the exercises Quade has suggested, then play a bit. I manifest, and my heart beats harder. I gear up, get ready, my palms are sweaty and my hands are shaking so badly I can't seem to get the chest strap done up. Finally I am set, sitting in the summer heat, fully geared, 10 minutes to take off. I stand up on one of the benches, and practice flaring, drawing odd glances from my fellow jumpers. Never mind, thinks me, I need to get this picture right, and keep on pretending I am landing. Jim Wallace walks up, and I climb down and ask him for a gear check. He obliges, tells me I'll land fine. I guess he knows what I am doing. I blush, again remind myself I can do this, and I'll be just fine. My knees whack together, and I am slowly melting.

Into the plane, light load so there's a bit of room. I rehearse and rehearse the landing, and then remember I should do something in freefall, too. I figure a dive exit, and maybe a backflip or two, and then just some turn practice. Altitude, now to the door. Look at the spot, watch the guy in front of me go, count him down and gone, and then out -reach-stretch-arch, look for the plane, smile at the sky. Here I am, sailing above the ground, feeling the whooshing wind distort my skin, and I giggle...this is the most amazing thing, this flying around, the most exhilarating...hmmm...my goggles are sliding up on my cheeks....that's odd...check alti, 9k, o.k., no problem...what's whapping on my neck? Holy crud, risers? No, geez, my braid has gotten loose and is burble dancing....8K...turn 360, 180, 360, 90, 90 ...now what? Sudden coolness hits my forehead, my bangs are out, 6.5K, my neck is cooling off, my neck is stretching, my head is lifting off, shit, I'm gonna lose my helmet. I decide no backloop, try to remember what to do if the helmet and goggles fall off....I can't recall that...o.k., totally still, no turns, ride this column of air, check alti, time to pull, clear airspace, reach, tug, stand, beautiful opening perfectly on heading, hands to my head, helmet still there, whack it back into place, and I start giggling.

Check out the canopy, all looks good, so I do a dynamic stall. GACK!! my heart begins to pound even harder. As I drop backwards through the air, I feel like I'm falling...but the canopy remains inflated, and I don't loop the loop, so I figure I'm o.k. Then I do a really slow flare. That was neat...sort of hanging there, just still and really quiet. Another dynamic stall, and this time I am more ready for the backwards elevator feeling, but it still is freaky. Once I am flying stable I let go of my toggles, after reassuring myself that the little metal thing won't let them get free, and run my eyes up the brake lines. I am looking for some sort of slack, a little bowing of them; there is none. I reach up and sort of rattle the right one, to make sure I am looking at the right thing. I am. I bring my eyes to the trailing edge, and it is ever so slightly pulling, there is tension, and I am not touching the toggles. I am not going to take a wrap at all - the brakes are off a bit, I think... I look back in front of me, trying to decide what difference this discovery makes, and there, I see a tandem opening to my left and above me. I watch the camera guy return to his belly and take off...tracking across my field of view. How cool to watch the tandem canopy open, blossom and fill out, a rainbow splash against the searing blue sky. How excellent that it is fully open! I want to watch the camera guy track and open too, but realize that I am flying with the wind and I may end up close to him, so I immediately flat turn my canopy around, cruise a little bit, and then hang on the rear risers, trying to put more altitude between he and I. I know he's far better than me, knows what he's doing, but still, I can't be sure he sees me...I fly around, and play on the thermals, and watch a guy actually gain altitude. This is unnerving - I had better start looking for dust devils. I count 7 of them in the next 800 feet, but none near where it looks like I am gonna land. I get set into the landing pattern, but realize I have utterly misjudged the strength of the wind - as I turn into it, I find I am descending rapidly, not getting much forward movement at all. I forgot to do a penetration check high enough to make it back to the peas, so I look out, down, and forward, a deep breath, now the ground is coming, and I start the flare and I plane out a bit, feel the flattening movement this time, but I am still a tad bit high, so I hold it there and now, now, finish it out, no sudden movement, no flapping, smooth, steady. Remembering the birds, I feel the canopy ever so slightly swing me forward, just a tad, and I reach down with both feet...and then I feel the ground under me, and I step out, and turn and collapse the canopy and run around to the other side and just sort of whoop it up and do the Snoopy happy dance - I really don't have to tank every one, not all the time! Yahhhhhhoooooo! I smell the hot dirt and the dryness, and, with sweat pouring off me, I climb into the truck, tool on back to the packing area, satisfied and far more relaxed than I had been 15 minutes before. Nothing hurts, and I have no new bruises to explain...I am all smiles, and Greg, my packer, has seen it, and in his low-key kind of way, tells me "I like that better than watching you crash, Michele.". I giggle. Me too!

I hook up with Don, and we are gonna jump together. Me, with 37 jumps, and him with something like 4000! The winds are being a bit flaky, switching around, but it calms down enough for me to manifest us. Quade gonna come and video us. Ohmigod! How most excellent is this? Rawk on! Oh shit, I am nervous. We decide on a floating exit, with Don grabbing my leg, and it's time to gear up. I am excited now, shaky too, but excited, and Vectorboy comes over and gives me a hug. He says he saw my last landing, and thought it was excellent, and to just do it again, so I promise him I will. After all, landing on my feet is far better than landing on my bumpers....front or rear. We dirt dive, just fall rate control, and if all is going well, he will do a 360 and I should imitate him. We go to the mock-up, and he shows me how he presents - with one foot hanging out of the door...and I try to believe I can do that, too, since I have the count, and get into the position in the mockup, but slip out...oh, he is so going to hate jumping with me, but I am gonna so love jumping with him!!!! I tell him I'm scared I'll kick him in the head or something, and he reassures me he's been kicked by far bigger people than me, and grins. "Let's go play", says he.

Time to go, and in the plane, Don tells me how he mentally goes through the jump, slowly at first, and then speeds it up, till he is blistering fast in his mind, and it's automatic for him - that he is not thinking about the move he's doing right now, but the next one. I try to do this, but still only manage to go molassas slow in my head. It's hot, I'm nervous but not terribly frightened, and I am still preoccupied with the landing. Was the last one a fluke? Or can I repeat it? I see the sparrows' flight and landing in my head again. At altitude, goggles on, braid secure under their strap, helmet on, wipe my sweating palms on my knees, scoot down, shit, there's the open door, wipe my hands again, Quade gets out, I get my hands on the bar, I'm out. I am too scared to stick my foot out like Don, but get my shoulders kind of angled out, look at Quade, nod, then at Don, nod and ready (out) set (in) go release and I am flying again, reaching for the sun, looking for the plane - now Don's in front of me, grasping my arms, and I grin...he's in a fullface helmet, and he grins back...releases me, and down he goes. I arch, and down I go. Up he goes, zooming past me, and I struggle to come up. I feel very flat, and sort of offkilter, and I drift to the right. I of course reach for him with my left arm, which makes me go right even more. Boom, he's in front of me again, and goes down. I go down again, and this time, as he goes up, I kind of get back up there, but get an odd body position - knees low, chest high. No matter, he's grinning at me, and I am grinning back, and then he does this really zippy 360 - had I blinked I'd've missed it. I try one, and he could have taken a nap by the time I got full circle. Break off time, I wave, turn, track, and, in thinking how fun that was, got a stupid chipping track going. I stop, and track again....and then realize everything looks a bit low. Check my alti, and reach and throw in a hurry - not low by anyone else's standards, but opening alti was supposed to be 4k, and I'm at 3700 by the time I reach to pull...I am in the saddle by 2700, and control checked by 2500. I practice stalls again, and just sail around. A 12 way had gone out before us, so there were a lot of canopies around. I do a penetration check, and understand that I will sink like a stone, realize I will be nowhere near the peas again, because I am not getting anywhere on my crosswind but a little more sideways and farther away from the landing area. The winds have picked up again, and, checking for nasty dust devils, I see none. I flat turn onto final, and, as there are no flags near me for me to gage the wind direction, I go by the feel of the canopy...take a deep breath, relax, realize I am not fully into the wind but still a tad crosswise. As I drift toward the right, I gently depress my left toggle, trying to get a bit more into the wind, and begin my flare a bit high. Not a problem, hold it shit I am being pushed hard to the right, "Fly it all the way to the ground, I can do this"...I bring my left toggle down but not the right one, and get back in charge...and here comes the ground, and now, flare. My toggles are not even, but am perfectly balanced under canopy. I stretch my toes - wait - and with a little poof of dust I am perfectly on my feet, this gigantic canopy still inflated over my head. I drop one toggle and pull as hard as I can on the other set of risers, and it still isn't coming down. I am being pulled forward. I reach up, grab the lines, pull, reeling it in like a really big fish, but it won't lie down and I am still getting pulled along so I dig my heels in and lean backwards and finally it whooshes down, and then fills again...so I grab the lines and pull with all my might, and when it lays down this time I run around the back of it, feet all tangled in the lines, and grab ahold of the pilot chute and the canopy starts to come up onto me but I am on the downwind side so it can't go anywhere but in my face. It does, and I giggle...I've landed on my toesies again! And had a great jump before that, and learned tons. I climb into the truck, and Tim says "I saw your landing - good job", as I sit there and grin like a fool...

I hook up with Quade and Don, both of whom have landed in the landing area and not in BFE like me, and we go watch the video. It's a little embarrassing, because Don and Quade are so good, and I am so NOT good, but then Don says, "hell, at 40 jumps, I couldn't have stayed in frame at all. You don't give yoruself enough credit, Michele". I grin like the giggling fool I am. I hand Don my log book to sign, and there he writes: "Good job. Be confident! It's all just pushing wind!".

Phew!

Ceils and Pinks-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[seedy 0]

Congratulations! And once again you have done an excellent job of regaling us with the story. Keep it up.

I intend to live forever -- so far, so good.

[Lindsey 0]

That is very cool, Michelle! Whether it's getting the landing right or stopping a turn, or potato chipping or backsliding........or figuring out how to take off some exit or how to turn on your column of air......or how to keep from corking out of that sit.....getting over those humps is always so exhilarating.

Peas~
Lindsey

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[hawkbit 0]

Congrats on those landings!!! And thanks for another great story... almost as good as being there!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You don't quit playing because you get old, you get old because you quit playing"

[Snowbird 0]

Michele, you rock!

OH yeah, with your determination, there was no doubt you'd nail it. And thanks for the story!

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein

[drenaline 0]

Hey Michele! congrats on the great landings!!

I have 46 jumps and I still funnel my exits

HISPA 21
www.panamafreefall.com

[Viking 0]

you go girl. I wonder if quade will post up the video. I would love to see you flying around.

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[Jasmin 0]

Nice one sista!
Its all part of the learning process....
blue skies and soft landings to ya xxj

[ernokaikkonen 0]

After reading a couple of your stories about your landings, I would have given some advice, but everything I had to say had already been said by someone else. I figured there was no point in repeating the same things.

You do have a gift for storytelling, I found myself holding my breath while a read your story. "Ooh she's getting closer to the ground, how's it gonna go? Almost on the ground now feet touching the ground now YES! She made it!". The story absolutely made my day, sitting at my desk at my boring job...
Erno

[rainman 0]

Michele: you ROCK!!!

I knew you could do it!

Thanks for the great story too!

Blue skies,

Rainman

[CameraGeek 0]

I look forward to reading some of your writing in our sports magazines one day Michele - you have a natural "voice" for this!

PLEASE - keep writing and send some of it in!!!

Robbie Culver

[jfields 0]

I am so relieved. When I saw "Pushing Wind", I thought this was going to be a thread about people farting on the plane.

Nice story, Michele.

[BikerBabe 0]

I love reading about your adventures, Michele.

Don is right...think of all the positive things that happened on that jump!

Congrats on the landings...and next time, if you're getting drug or the canopy won't deflate, as you're walking (or sliding) forward, step on the pilot chute/bridle/D-bag. The canopy might stay inflated for a while, but it can't go anywhere and you can take your time deflating it. It works!

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[Phil 0]

how high can you fly with broken wings ...
life's a journey not a destination

[Deuce 1]

Great narrative. Thanks for sharing.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Congrats on the landings Michelle

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[quade 4]

I have a couple of frame grabs off of the video tape HERE

Michele's skydive is not part of the speed star shown in the first two photos on that page.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Michele 1]

Nope, not part of the speed star thing!

Thanks, Quade! You didn't show my Knock Knee-d position!

Know what? I've watched that video like 50 times, and am learning much from it! Can't thank you enough...Quade, you rawk!

Ciels and Pinks-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[quade 4]

No problem. Glad to be of assistance.

I think you know all of the things you need to work on. Ya just need to come out more and do it!

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[prepheckt 0]

Right on Michele!!!!! I like how you write, I feel I like I was on the jump too..keep working at it.
Blue ones,

"Dancing Argentine Tango is like doing calculus with your feet."
-9 toes

[hohonukai 0]

• Quote

[TEB6363 0]

Great Job Michelle!!! Thanks for the update. We are all glad you are working so hard and doing so well

Once the plane takes off, you're gonna have to land - Might as well jump out!!

[KATO33 0]

Great read michelle. I've said this before you have the "air awareness" to become a great coach or instructor. You are always able to recall and vividly express the details of your skydive. which a lot of people can't do Myself included.

Blue Skies Black Death

[Michele 1]

Hey, Kato!

Thanks for your confidence in me, but I am so not ready to even consider the notion of teaching anyone anything. I know next to nothing about this sport - my skillset leaves a lot to be desired...but! I am learning tons each time I get to jump, and that's a good thing.

Ciels and pinks-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~