Lesson from the mud?

[timbarrett 0]

I think the lesson I learnt yesterday is that when, the DZO posts a 50 jump limit due to wind, think about it a little more and don't just say "okay, i've got 70, so let's go".
The point was not whether I could handle the landing but that with a very conservative canopy loading at 0.85 what was going to happen to my penetration into the wind if we got the spot just a little bit wrong. I guess I did not appreciate the effect of 40 knots at 10,000 ft had on my drift in free fall.

As it happened I picked a nice big brown field for a beautiful soft landing..into 12 inches of thick, goopy mud. It took me 30 minutes to wade and crawl the 100 yards out of there. No-one on the highway would pick up The Swamp Thing (until the DZ van found me). I spent the rest of the afternoon learning from the rigger how to clean a canopy and rig.

Once everyone had finished laughing at me, they also pointed out that had the wind been blowing in the other prevailing direction then my choices for landing would have been apartment buildings or (the better choice) the canals...a lot less amusing.

So the lessons I took from all that mud is that the wind at the point of landing isn't all I should think about. Not sure about the lesson on wing loading..but anyway I grounded myself for the rest of the day while the wind blew.

"Work hard, play hard and don't whinge"

[Peej 0]

I've been helping out on FJC's lately in order to get a JM rating and i think what the JM's tell our SL students when they think they've messed up applies here:

Student: "Yeah but i messed up _____"
JM: "Did you break anything?"
Student: "No"
JM: "Did you learn something?"
Student: "Yes"
JM: "Good skydive"

You learned something here and that's the main thing.

How hard was the canopy to clean?

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