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.