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More from EthylTheAardvark
One of the perks of being a skydiver and hanging around the dropzone after the last load of the day is you get to have beer often, and play with airplanes. I helped push several of theirs around today, and also served as ballast to help drop the tails of a couple of them. If someone had told me a year ago that I'd be interacting with aircraft in this way, I'd have told them they were crazy! But there ya go!
Category Photography / Miscellaneous
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1280 x 960px
File Size 134.3 kB
Yeah, if you can, hang around the dropzone after hours! It's very easy to find yourself getting drafted into putting planes away, there's always someone bringing beer in for something, and you get all manner of stories from the experienced skydivers. I'd say after hours today was almost as much fun as jumping was earlier, and you really pick up a lot of nifty info and dropzone politics if you hang around.
I did number 49 today! I did my first AFF jump on July 7 (Hooray for log books!) Today I did a tracking jump with a bunch of guys, stayed over and behind them for most of the jump but was OK with that. We all landed one field "out" due to the wind on that one. My pattern mostly consisted of facing straight in the direction of the runway and being blown 90 degrees perpendicular to the runway. I just did that until I found a nice clear area to land, turned into the wind and took the elevator straight down.
Second one was a standard belly fly, trying to slow down my fall speed. Funnily enough I did 125 mph average on the tracking jump and 129 mph average on the one where I was trying to slow down. Go figure. The wind had settled down by then, so I had no problem landing that one.
I was feeling lazy all day or I'd have tried for a couple more. I usually feel like I have to pace myself so I don't spend too much on any given day. Gear rental plus the jump ticket comes out to $53. Once I have my own gear, that'll get cut about in half. I'm dragging my feet on that, thinking I'll use my tax return and any year-end bonus I get to buy new stuff. I'm not particularly interested in down-sizing much more for at least a couple of years, and it's hard to find used gear in the sizes I need.
My medium-term goal is to get into a wingsuit, get reasonably proficient at it, and go fly a wingsuit over Hawaii. That seems like it'd be a suitably epic thing to do.
Second one was a standard belly fly, trying to slow down my fall speed. Funnily enough I did 125 mph average on the tracking jump and 129 mph average on the one where I was trying to slow down. Go figure. The wind had settled down by then, so I had no problem landing that one.
I was feeling lazy all day or I'd have tried for a couple more. I usually feel like I have to pace myself so I don't spend too much on any given day. Gear rental plus the jump ticket comes out to $53. Once I have my own gear, that'll get cut about in half. I'm dragging my feet on that, thinking I'll use my tax return and any year-end bonus I get to buy new stuff. I'm not particularly interested in down-sizing much more for at least a couple of years, and it's hard to find used gear in the sizes I need.
My medium-term goal is to get into a wingsuit, get reasonably proficient at it, and go fly a wingsuit over Hawaii. That seems like it'd be a suitably epic thing to do.
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