Weekend adventures

[billvon 3,114]

So there I was on Saturday, jumping with the Gypsy Jumpers. We did a bunch of 4 to 12 ways, none too serious. I was demoing the Vision 124 and waiting for Lisa's rig to get packed so we could do a birdman jump. (Note to Lisa - after, say, an hour it's not impolite to sort of ask the packer if he intends to repack your main, or if he plans to wait until your reserve goes out of date so he can do that too.)

Finally her rig got packed and we went up to do a jump. Lisa was grinning from ear to ear as she swooped around. At this point I think she had 3 wingsuit jumps, so much of the jump was me trying to make sure I was out of the way of her enthusiastic approaches. We docked once, I think, before we broke off.

She was done after that; it was drinking time. I had a few more jumps in me, though, so I went back up to do a wingsuit solo. In the plane a freeflyer was asking me about the suit. I asked her what color her canopy was and what altitude she'd be open at.

When I got out I found myself about a mile from the DZ, so I flew a long loop to the east before heading back. And there she was - a yellow and blue canopy at 6000 feet. She was right there; I could fly by her and still have 2000 feet to get clear and open. Common sense (or maybe common courtesy) won out and I gave her a few hundred yards of separation. But I could definitely hear that little devil on my shoulder telling me to go for it, even over the noise of the wingsuit.

The last jump of the day was a hybrid. Kurt had 16 people and planned to break it into two 8-ways. The plan was to meet with gear at the 15 minute call and dirt dive. At the 15 I wandered over with suit and rig in hand; no Kurt. He was off talking to someone. At 10 minutes most of the people showed up and milled about, asking "so whose group are you in?" I had no idea. At the 5 I put my suit and my rig on. Kurt was still talking. The otter landed at the 2 minute call and they rolled the stairs up to it. A few other people got in. Kurt was still talking to someone. The loader started yelling "let's go!"

I felt bad that the load wasn't going to get organized, but I also felt bad for Pat and Melanie losing $12 a minute while we idled the Otter waiting for Kurt. Finally I said "speed star anyone?" and about ten people followed me on the plane.

The other six people trickled on including Kurt. I was sitting all the way up front, and thus had a hard time hearing Kurt as he proceeded to list who was jumping with who. I thought I was with "group B" but I wasn't sure, and a lot went on that I couldn't hear. Finally I clawed my way back and discovered that I was organizing the base for the second group; we would launch a 4-way and then the freeflyers would dock and transition. OK, well, I can do that.

The first group left with a lot of scrambling, pointing and aborted counts. I got into front float and looked to see where the other three people were. There were seven people in the chunk. Hmm! Someone smacked one of the people in the chunk and he left, which now made it six. I realized suddenly that the plan was to launch the four way with the hangers, thus getting a fast falling six way out the door.

No problem. I had figured it out at least a second before I had to give the count. We launched and pulled off a nice exit, the two hangers wobbling below us as we picked up speed. They wobbled more and more until, maybe 20 seconds after exit, it blew apart. Well, hey, that's better than I expected. I dove down to the low guy and waited for the rebuild. Then I made the mistake of looking above me. There were five freeflyers going into sits and stands until they were almost on top of us, then corking out. Yikes. Five? I found someone far away from the action and docked on them. Barb (one of the hangers) came down and we built a four way while we waited for breakoff. At breakoff I went through the center of the 4 way (there was no way I was tracking back through the bugfight going on behind me) and kept going until I knew I was clear.

On the ground Kurt was talking to the fifth freeflyer on our dive - he had not gotten his grips on the first group, which subsequently exited. He became confused and decided to join the next group, ours. And while it certainly wasn't according to plan I could understand his confusion. I was barely sure I was in the right group until well after I climbed out.

Oh well. Live and learn. (Lesson from this one - stick to a speedstar in cases like this.)

The next day I arrived in time for the storm. The thunderheads were a-growin, lightning was a-flashin and thunder rolling, but of course we were goofily optimistic. I even got on a load, which was aborted when a gust front came through and raised an opaque wall of dust. I then got to listen to Dominic groan in anxiety as we landed a full otter in a 20kt crosswind - you could easily see the runway out the side door as we slipped in.

We all waited an hour or so while the clouds slowly dissipated. It was still windy, and my better judgement was telling me to stay on the ground. Then Dan BC came up to me.

"So what are you doing?" he asked.

"Oh, just waiting until my desire to jump overcomes my common sense," I said.

"Common sense is overrated. Come on, let's do something. A four way. We can get some people." Still I hesitated, looking at the winds. "Oh, come on. I mean, I still remember _some_ four way." Which made me laugh - that's like saying that Bill Booth remembers something about rigging.

And of course it goes without saying that when people with five times the number of jumps that you have do something foolish it's perfectly sensible to do something foolish with them.

We rounded up Bob and Kathy Skeie and went up and did a quite smoking 4-way. Watching Dan in freefall is a little like watching a 70's Godzilla movie - real people (and real 70 foot monsters) can't just jerk forward and then stop like that as if the laws of momentum have been temporarily suspended.

As we packed afterwards I listened to Mike's debrief of his 4-way, which had been on our load. Our debrief mentioned things like Kathy being 6 inches too close on one point, and squaring off more on the donuts. Mike's debrief included comments like "No, freefly the exit means you _don't_ take grips!" and "where did you go, anyway?" I was glad I had been on Dan's dive.

I made a few jumps to test out a Crossfire, then did two wingsuit jumps with Scott Smith (he with a brand-new, crispy, never-threaded, how-do-you-fly-this-thing-anyway Skyflier 3) and JP. We had a great time swooping around each other while my eternally lousy riser covers vibrated and flopped in the breeze. That makes 52 jumps on a suit I got less than two months ago. Wow.

Then it was time to go, and I ignored the siren call of the Pyramid Hefeweizen in the bar so I could get home and do all the work I had planned to do on Saturday morning. Till next week.

[Blahr 0]

Dude, I love reading your posts

[freakydiver 0]

Nice perspective, as always Bill.

Sounds scary to say the least.

-- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." --

[skybytch 273]

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(Note to Lisa - after, say, an hour it's not impolite to sort of ask the packer if he intends to repack your main, or if he plans to wait until your reserve goes out of date so he can do that too.)

ROFL! I know, I know... but he's like the only packer out there who doesn't whine about my rig (unlike the packers in Florida, who shortened the closing loop for me).

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Lisa was grinning from ear to ear as she swooped around. At this point I think she had 3 wingsuit jumps, so much of the jump was me trying to make sure I was out of the way of her enthusiastic approaches.

That was actually number 5. I'm still grinning just thinking about it. Flying over and under each other was way cool.

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I made a few jumps to test out a Crossfire

What'd you think?