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Last Updated: 16th January 1999
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| Date: 4/5/98 | Altitude: 11000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
| Good hotel check and exit.
Circle of awareness. Given legs out by both Jump Masters and responded. 3 Practice Pulls:
Missed on first, assisted on second, 3rd OK. Circle of awareness. Given legs out again and
responded. Altitude awareness OK. Assisted to handle. Pulled OK. Canopy control and
landing good. Jane Buckle, D3363 |
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The training scared the hell out of me because there seemed to be so much to remember and I seemed to keep screwing up. On the dirt dive before my jump (3 days after training because of lousy weather) I managed to screw up again, despite having rehearsed the jump a zillion times: After the second circle of awareness I went for the ripcord pull instead of checking the altimeter until I'd reached 5000 feet.
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| Date: 5/5/98 | Altitude: 10000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
| Bit far back in door so exit a
bit steep. Arched and levelled OK. Circle of awareness OK. Three practice pulls. 1. Left
hand OK, right hand high. 2. No left hand movement, right hand on cutaway, instructor
assisted. 3. No left hand movement, right hand on handle. Small circle of awareness.
Forward movement - fine. Altitude awareness OK. Assisted to handle. Pulled OK. Canopy
control OK and landing good. Level 3 next. Pete Sizer, D5745 |
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I was much more nervous on this jump than on my first - weird! I have no idea why I just don't seem to find the handle. On the ground - I find it every time. In the air - it seems to have moved! What's really worrying is that I don't even remember putting my right hand on the cutaway on the second practice pull. The forward movement was very odd. I didn't feel we were moving at all, but counted the seconds away anyway and added on one or two seconds just in case. When I mentioned to Jane that it didn't seem to have any effect she said "You must be joking. We were tearing through the sky". Obviously my "bubble of awareness" still has some way to go if I'm to take in the ground and mark my forward movement. The landing was a mess. I went with advice on the radio and was told to flare too early, with the end result that I stopped sort of mid-air and dropped a few feet onto my backside. Ouch! I'm convinced they do this on purpose to encourage you to make your own decisions about when to flare etc. In my case it worked - I'll trust my own judgement from now on (which is to avoid flaring until you really think "Oh shit! I've left it too late" - works for me!)
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| Date: 8/5/98 | Altitude: 11000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
| Good A/C drills. Good hotel
check and exit. Good first circle of awareness. Three good practice pulls. On secondary
release was going to roll to left so regripped twice. No more release possible. Good pull
and recovery at 5000 feet. Good canopy check and landing. Level 3 next. Andy Kelly, D8045 |
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This jump seems so long ago that I can't remember anything about it other than thinking "Thank God! the problems with the handle have miraculously disappeared". I have no idea why I had so much trouble with this on levels 1 and 2 - it's EASY to find! I'm pretty sure that, practice pulls aside, the jump was a chaotic mess though! The best thing was that I'd started to get cocky about my landings and asked to be allowed to land on my own without any radio advice. It worked fine - no more requested radio assistance from hereonin.
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| Date: 9/5/98 | Altitude: 11000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
| Good in door and exit OK.
Circle of awareness fine. Bit tense on practice pulls dipping right slightly, otherwise
good. Circle of awareness fine. Secondary Jump Master released. Very slight left turn due
to right leg not being pushed out as far as left. Primary Jump Master release - OK.
Altitude awareness OK. Work on body position and symmetry. Level 4 next. Pete Sizer, D5745 |
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This was a jump with Pete and Andy again. Video shows Andy letting go for a few seconds but redocking and I am pretty sure that Pete didn't let go. I think they were generous in passing me to level 4 and when I queried what the criteria were Pete simply said that both instructors had a meeting and if both felt they would be happy to take the student up on their own then the student would advance to Level 4. It's a relief since the financial costs of level 1-3 retakes are higher than levels 4-8 (because of the need for two instructors), but I really feel we should call my next jump "level 3.1" because I'm not really at level 4 yet.
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| Date: 11/5/98 | Altitude: 11000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
Pete Sizer, D5745 |
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Didn't have a clue what I was doing wrong. The video (taken from above because Simon had problems with his wings and was a bit late out the plane) shows my right leg has more of a straight edge than the angular one my left one has. The trouble is I had no idea of this at the time. I'm finding it very frustrating that it's taking me the whole 30-40 seconds of freefall just to get the body position sorted enough that the instructor is ready to try letting go.
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| Date: 14/5/98 | Altitude: 11000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
| Long way inside door on exit,
otherwise good. Circle of awareness good (instructor was a long way back!). Practice Pulls
could be smoother. Good work on arms and pushing the arch. Right knee down at one point
but corrected. Stopped left turn on your arm. Arms still a bit forward and legs rather
straight but big improvement. Next jump, two practice pulls then turns. Pete Sizer, D5745 |
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Finding it hard not to go into the bungee-position of "arms way out front" - old habits die hard I guess. Feeling VERY wobbly and not at all in control.
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| Date: 16/5/98 | Altitude: 11000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
| Good A/C drills. Good hotel
check and exit. Good circle of awareness. Down tube for whole dive. Good pull and recovery
at 5000 feet. Good canopy check and landing. AFF Level 5 next. Andy Kelly, D8045 |
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I was VERY surprised to get passed to Level 5 and felt that Andy was being generous and trying to help me avoid another retake fee. I had been very nervous about the change of instructor because I've always felt comfortable with Pete's fairly laid-back approach whereas from what I'd seen I thought Andy could be a bit "brutal" or brash. I was way off base on that one. He put a lot of work into the pre-jump briefing and really made me feel at ease. Although I'd been "down the tube for the whole dive" I'd been buffetting all the way down (too tense) and am pretty sure that Andy was held onto me for most of the time. Whatever, it was a fun jump and it's great to be allowed to move forward to level 5, even if I'm really at more of an "AFF Level 3.5".
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| Date: 16/5/98 | Altitude: 11000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
| Good A/C drills. Good hotel
check and exit. Good circle of awareness. On release rapid left turn so regrip. No more
release possible. Legs need to come up more as too far out. Arms forward too. At end of
dive much better position but spaled (?) altitude so pulled out at 4500 feet. Good canopy
check and landing. Level 5 next. Andy Kelly, D8045 |
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Awful, awful jump! I span like crazy and couldn't work out why. Then to add insult to injury I went to pull my ripcord at (what I was sure was) 5000 feet and horror of horrors couldn't find the handle. As my brain froze, thinking "Where the hell's it gone?" the canopy opened and I realised that Andy had pulled it for me, which was why I couldn't find it. To this day I have no idea why he had to pull for me since I am convinced my altimeter said 5000 feet as I made the usual signals and then went in for the pull. To make matters worse my landing was not "good" at all. There were very strong crosswinds and I misunderstood urgently radioed instructions so that I ended up going over the runway. I thought I'd landed OK but was immediately greeted by Swampy and then Clem who gave me a bollicking on disregarding instructions. It WAS my fault because I'd misread the wind drift and interpreted their instructions to "Move away from the arrow" in the wrong way by 90 degrees. But I felt lousy and depressed after the jump and the bollicking about landing was the straw that broke the camel's back (somebody in the packing shed "You look like you're about to burst into tears" - I was!). I'd also had a couple of packing lessons which were a mistake really as it was too much information to take in and made me feel even more useless when I couldn't remember every little step. I ended up talking myself into a "You're just no good at any of this - find something else" rut. Andy was very good on the debrief and tried to make out it had been an OK skydive and nothing to worry about, but I decided to head off for a day or two and think about things instead of sticking to my original plan of hanging around for another day or two for more jumps. To be honest, I left Headcorn thinking I would never be returning, but hadn't realised that once you've got the bug it's very hard to shake off! A few days later I found myself looking up at the skies and thinking "Maybe I should just give it one more go?".
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| Date: 25/5/98 | Altitude: 11000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
| Good A/C drills. Good hotel
check and exit. Good circle of awareness. Good release and hover control to 5000 feet.
Good pull and recovery. Canopy Check OK. Level 5 next. Andy Kelly, D8045 |
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This was the jump I was dreading after the first take on level 5 which had been lousy. In fact it seemed to go OK. We'd agreed beforehand to forget the turns and just try and get stable and this seemed to happen. After the jump Andy asked me what had been the best thing about the jump and told me I was wrong on every answer I gave, before revealing that it had been my best jump because I'd smiled on the jump. "There's no point in doing it if you're not enjoying it is there? Remember to always smile", he said. I left the DZ feeling very cheerful. Devastatingly, I had a phone call a few days later telling me that Andy had been killed doing a hop and pop jump (one from low altitude - 2500 feet in this case - where you "hop" out the plane and as soon as you're stable you "pop" the parachute). Apparently his main canopy malfunctioned and then his reserve had twists and he didn't have the altitude left which would have given him time to clear them. Obviously this is a big blow to everyone at Headcorn. He was only 27. He always told me he'd "get me to level 8" and to quit skydiving now would be a dishonour to his memory I feel. However, it will be hard doing the first jump without him as Jump Master. When I initially jumped with Andy I was worried because I felt he was a bit young and brash for me and there seemed to be a bit of the "Army bullying" style about his teaching which I'd always hated about sport at school. I couldn't have been more wrong of course because he adapted his style according to the student, and proved himself to be a great instructor for me - full of enthusiasm and adopting a friendly but firm manner that I felt completely comfortable with. He will be greatly missed and I shall never forget my jumps with him, nor his friendly support and encouragement.
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| Date: 19/6/98 | Altitude: 11000 ft | Headcorn/Islander | |||||||||||||
| Bit far back in door. Good exit
but de-arched. Jump Master to front and given arch signal. Good flying position but
periodically dropping knees. Released by Jump Master and started to turn. Jump Master
redocked briefly but went unstable. Got stable continued turning and pulled at about 7,000
feet. Jane Buckle, D3363 |
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It was Pete's day off and Jane had been up all night being ill. However she bravely agreed to strap on all the weights she needs to jump with me (I'm 80 kilo's and she's a lot less!). Alas, if only she'd known what she was letting herself in for. I don't think I'll ever forget the look on her face as, thrust by the centrifugal force of my doing an impression of a helicopter in a washing machine, she disappeared off into the distance! The turns that up to now have been slow suddenly became quite violent and fast as soon as she let go of me. I went over onto my back a few times and have to confess I loved it. I'd been worried about the notorious AFF Level 6 "go unstable" test but have to admit I'm now looking forward to it. I arched and got right way up but realised I'd lost Jane. I was still turning quite fast (found it hard to read the altimeter, the centrifugal force was incredible) and decided that although I still had 2000 feet to go it was best to pull since I'd lost the instructor. On the ground Jane admitted she was relieved when she saw me pull as she'd have had to fight really hard to get back to me. She seemed worried that the unstability might have put me off for good, but I was grinning like mad on the ground as it had easily been my most enjoyable jump to date. I got a friendly bollicking from Cathy and Louise at Manifest who'd been watching my escapades on telemetry and reminded me I shouldn't have pulled while spinning (I HAD completely forgotten this - yikes!). I paid the obligatory "case of beer" penalty.
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Ian D Smith, 15 Dean Court, Thorncroft Street, London SW8
2BQ, United Kingdom
Tel: (0171) 7876-123 Fax: (0171) 6420-754
Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk
