|
Managed to get three jumps in today to bring my total up to 69 jumps. The first one was a solo and I tried some back loops which were OK. Then I did a two-way jump with Matt from NZONE. I dived out and went into a forward roll and kept it going for ten rolls. Then I found Matt and moved in towards him and we managed to dock. Then he did a 360 degree turn and then I did the same and then we just stayed relative, matching our fall rates until 5,000ft when we broke off and tracked away from each other. I really enjoyed that jump. Matt organised a sports load after that. Six of us went up and I did a three-way linked exit with Matt and Jae. That got a bit messy but it was loads of fun. The guys were then going to do a tracking dive, following Jae and I was going to join in but it was so much fun watching them all flying about I forgot to track after them. It was still great fun. Matt finally persuaded me to collapse my slider and loosen off my chest strap under canopy. It felt really scary just steering with the rear risers and not taking the brakes off straight after the canopy opened. I pointed myself in the direction I wanted to be going in with the rear risers, reached up and collapsed the slider, pulled it right down over the toggles and stuck it behind my head. Then I loosened the chest strap. Then I released the brakes and started flying the canopy with the steering toggles. It makes a huge difference to the way the canopy flies. I loved my canopy before but this was even better - it just seems to steer and fly much more smoothly. The differnce it makes to the flare when I land is just awesome. It really caught me by suprise on my first jump this morning - I had so much more lift than I'm used to and I ended up dropping onto my backside from about 10ft. The second and third landings were much better as I left it later to flare and stood up both times. It's been an awesome day and I can't think of a better way to be spending Christmas - in the air with friends. Cheers, Ian. |
|
|