Improved weather and another competition

Have managed a fair amount of jumping, especially with some decent weather during the week, along with some more training with Mayhem for the Speed 8 Nationals.  We competed in 6 rounds over the weekend, and the training paid off.  Despite one 'bust' from a combat dock that broke up the entire formation, we came third and hence were Bronze medallists! I could get used to this!  

Very steep learning curve again - since we are a large group of flat flyers, we are generally first out of the plane.  Since I was the most familiar with the host dz, and was close to the door, that meant I was doing the spotting for each of our jumps.  In itself that wasn't an issue, but it did bring up some challenges.  Like, the pilot not going up to the altitude we were expecting so our cameraman wasn't ready when the red light went on (he was able to get ready quickly enough that I didn't have to send the plane around again).  And dealing with random solo and 2-way flyers who don't have much experience and who we have no control over, as they will be following us out.   At least I can now manage the Caravan door by myself :-D  

And I'm still on target to complete my C licence before the end of the season.  I'm doing a fun FS 3-way scrambles next weekend plus an FS progression day during the week, and have more big way training at the end of the month so that should be enough to get me to my 200th jump :-) :-)  

I'm now much more excited about continuing to jump next year, as I have been invited to go with a team to France in May and to Germany in August and we are looking at doing some moderately serious training in order to stand a chance of being on the podium there too.  I already have more Dynamic 6 way tunnel time booked, and will now be adding 4-way and 8-way sessions over the winter.  

Not really planning to jump over the winter, it was way too cold last year and I haven't got any plans to head to Spain or Portugal for a bit of warmer weather, especially if I'm going to be heading abroad a couple of times next year already.  Although I still quite fancy beach jumps, having missed out on the Jersey boogie this year.  

 

More crappy weather so back to the tunnel :-)

More Dynamic 6-way with Brian Cumming and some more new moves :-)  Great fun as usual, and the time shot by.  I'm just about managing to remember what actions go with the names, lol.  More Weaves, Do-Si-Do, Washing Machines and Goldfish bowls were joined by Diagonal Swaps, Spinning Plates (which might be renamed Chinook, lol) and some creative ideas that haven't quite made it to actual moves with names :-P 

The wind speed in the tunnel was set at average to start with but even once we had six of us in there, I was struggling a bit without lead.  We dropped the speed a bit for the next session but that turned out to be a bit low for a couple of the fast fallers.  2 of the guys put lead on though the videos indicated that was more because they can't arch than because they needed extra ballast, ha ha.  We compromised and turned the wind speed up a notch and I was happy to continue without a weight belt.  It helps being bendy :-)   

This was an old session:
Dynamic 6 way July 2015 

Do-Si-Do, Washing Machine, Goldfish Bowl and Weave

I'm the one with purple grips, mostly opposite the girl with pink on her jumpsuit :-)