Consol 6: 22 Sept 2013
Asked if I could downsize to Nav 240 after the lack of
forward motion on yesterday’s landing and got an extensive lecture on my
abilities, and how I needed to be able to fly my canopy under all conditions,
land on target every time, use front and rear risers, into wind, downwind and
crosswind. That’ll be a no then :-/ My wing loading is only 0.65 so I guess that
means I’ll be sticking with student winds for now.
I spotted the landing zone (with a bit of help earlier
before the plane cut engines),and was by the door so had fairly good visibility
down even when the door was closed.
Straight out, stable. Turns, left
side slide, short track on heading away from dropzone to avoid getting too
close. Rear riser turns up high. Good canopy control, pulled at 4,500. Flared slightly too early, let up too soon
(apparently before feet touched down though I don’t recall that), so landed on
feet, then knees. On grass though!
Consol 7: 22 Sept 2013
Spotted dropzone, looked down out of plane before jumping. Baby steps towards proper spotting! Pulled at 4,500. Close call with AFF Level 1 student who had jumped behind me, steered his canopy right over the top of mine and was dropping faster than me. Couldn’t find him above my canopy with small turns, so did a very aggressive spiral to get clear. Bit shaken as it had looked like he was on target to hit my canopy. Tried to avoid him on landing as he was unpredictable in flight and was obviously moving faster than me and dropping more quickly. Turned into wind and found winds were lighter than previous jump so did S-turns as previously instructed to snake off the distance. Kept seeing 2 students behind me as I did my turns and they appeared to be closing the distance quickly. By 200’, decided it was better to go straight and overshoot, than to risk one of them hitting me. My still point seemed to be halfway between the grass and the hedge but partway there, I wasn’t sure so did a gentle 90 degree turn right to land parallel to the hedge. Good flare, landed a bit faster than anticipated due to being crosswind so landed on feet then stumbled. Complete bollocking for overshooting L Apparently the CCI had been yelling at me to turn right and I hadn’t heard him. Even if I had, I would have ignored him because he was primary with the AFF level 1 student so I would have assumed he was shouting instructions to the student, not me.
Consol 8: 22 Sept 2013
After a break and time-out to lick my wounds and assess
whether I had actually deserved the scolding, I
figured I only had 3 jumps left to finish my consols so would tough it
out and just do the endurance test of getting through them. Neither of the Nav 260’s weren’t available so
I grabbed the last Nav 280 instead. I’ll
probably have another crap landing but at least I’ll get another one over
with. I do my checks and get into the
harness; I’m ready to go when Chris M comes past and asks why I have such a
huge rig on. I explain that the 260’s
are both unavailable and he goes into the kit store and comes out with a Manta
288 in a smaller harness. Oh fabulous,
an even bigger parachute, well, I guess it may be a slightly different design
so maybe it won’t be so different to the 280 to fly it into wind. He gets one of the other instructors to help
me get into the new rig and takes the other one to another student. He seems quite chirpy and doesn’t mention my
previous landing incident so I presume he’s happy for me to jump. I get my pre-jump checks done and signed off
on the manifest and we head out to the emplaning point.
I get through the jump, don’t do much on free-fall, a couple
of turns and attempts at side slides, I am not really enjoying this, just want
to get the landing over with. The
landing plan is going fine, I am nicely lined up on my downwind leg and have
assessed where I will turn to land on the grass. The wind has picked up a little so there’s no
danger of me overshooting. So far, so good. Then it all changes as an AFF student comes
hurtling past me on the downwind leg and after my discussions with Rich and
Chris D about what I could have done differently on the previous jump, I don’t
want to turn in front of him. So I wait
until he turns before I turn behind him and of course, he has enough speed and
drive to go forwards whereas I don’t.
Bizarrely, he continues on his crosswind leg instead of turning into
wind but he is well out of my way so I do a curving 180 and predictably, drift
gently forward instead of flying back to the grass. I end up landing short, on
my feet, but there is no delight in the achievement, just frustration that my
landing pattern got messed up because I had to avoid someone else (he
eventually turned into wind and also landed short, but much closer to the bus
than I did). When I got back to the bus,
Chris asked me how the landing went. I
told him I couldn’t turn when I wanted to because I didn’t know what the other
guy was doing and he replied that he didn’t know what the student was doing
either because he wasn’t doing what he was being told on the radio! Some small comfort then, that I haven’t
actually made a mistake this time.
Consol 9: 22 Sept 2013
My penultimate jump as a student, lift 18 and still 2 lifts
to go. I may just make it onto lift 20
and be done if my Manta gets packed (it’s still in the shed awaiting the
packers) by the time I get down from this jump.
I am back on a Nav 260 this time as I retrieved it from the packing shed
on the way back from my last jump.
Still no real enthusiasm for the jump, but the end is now in
sight. Cecilia is on my lift and she is
very nervous as she is jumping her own pack job for the first time. She wants to pull high but the JM says
no. Eventually they compromise on a pull
at 4,500, the same as me. She is
slightly smaller than me, flying a similar rig (also 260 sq ft) so we work out
a strategy to make sure we are clear about our landing patterns because we are
likely to be coming down at the same time, plus there is another AFF student
behind us. I will look out for her
canopy when we open, whichever one of us gets to the landing area first will
set the pattern for the other, so the intention is for me to follow her in,
even if I end up landing short again. At
least that is less likely this time because we are of similar build on similar
canopies and she is a much more experienced jumper than me. Hopefully I will learn something about
setting up correctly which will be very helpful.
As before, the exit and free fall go fine, once under canopy
I’ve spotted Cecilia in the air and also have an eye on the student above me so
I play with rear riser turns in the holding area. Cecilia seems to be too far over towards the
runway so I decide not to wait for her and start my downwind leg. It all goes smoothly this time, I turn and
hold the crosswind leg a little to lose some height and then turn again into
wind. Slightly more forward motion this
time so I land neatly on the grass on my feet.
This time I’m happier. I start
gathering my canopy whilst looking to see where the other parachutes are. Cecilia lands slightly downwind and to the
side of me, also looking very happy and relieved. She had a good opening and we discuss the
landing pattern on the way back to the bus.
She notes that my turns had caused me to drop more quickly and also I started
my downwind leg a bit higher than she would have, hence she had decided to fit
in behind me. The other student is
talked down close to the bus so we all bundle in and head back.
I am in time to manifest and there are slots but the Manta
still isn’t packed and there are no other student rigs available so I have to
miss out on doing my final consol today.
The light is definitely going, this will be the last lift. I go back to the tent and finish packing
everything up whilst I wait for Rich to come back down from lift 19. The packers are incredibly busy so he will
probably have to pack his own parachute when he gets back and we have two long
drives to do so I want everything to be ready for us to just leave when he is
done. 
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