So the new Aeronauts team of Jeff Chandler, Rod Stone, Jonathan Smith and me finally got together for the first time and had a tunnel session.
We had half agreed on who would fly which slot beforehand but that got changed around on the day, and it may change again, lol. But for now, I am flying Point which means I have to try and remember to stay out of the middle of the tunnel !! (too used to being IC or OC, lol).
We were pretty rubbish to start with, but improved a little over the first session and were starting to get it sorted in the second round, then it all went a bit pear-shaped again by the end. I may end up nabbing some of those solo flights back from free-flying and use them on some one-to-one FS coaching instead! I am not bad at flying my slot, but I am not slick either and I do have a tendency to move about rather than staying in one place. Will see how the next session in November goes. The current plan is to buy an hour of tunnel time each at the AGM in January so we will have 4 hours of tunnel for training, then probably around 100 jumps together, plus competitions every month from May to August, including the French POPS meet in Cahors, a couple of the UKSLs, the World POPS meet in Germany and the UK Nationals.
Along with the training for Speed 8 and the Dynamic 6 sessions, and being an FS coach for LPS, it's going to be a busy year!!
Monday, 26 October 2015
Over to the dark side....
So Airkix had a birthday sale of tunnel time - about 1/3 of the usual cost - so I bought 2 hours of solo time for just under £400. And have decided to use it to try free-flying so I can get my FF1 !
Had my first session with Paul Capsey, just 10 minutes to start with, and to my surprise and delight, actually managed to fly around the tunnel a bit on my back before the end of the session! It's quite tricky keeping my legs positioned correctly, I found it easier to get my arms in position and then just forget about them, with my focus purely on keeping my legs strong. That made it easier to correct turns and to stay more stable. We had a little play at the end with walking backwards and forwards in the tunnel at high wind speed - harder than it sounds but great fun :-)
So I have the rest of my intervals booked throughout November and I'm hoping that I should easily be able to progress through to sit-fly and moving myself around the tunnel well enough to have some practice in the air on my own and then aim to have my FF1 signed off. Which will resolve a lot of niggles at various dropzones and will mean more fun when I end up on solo jumps :-)
Had my first session with Paul Capsey, just 10 minutes to start with, and to my surprise and delight, actually managed to fly around the tunnel a bit on my back before the end of the session! It's quite tricky keeping my legs positioned correctly, I found it easier to get my arms in position and then just forget about them, with my focus purely on keeping my legs strong. That made it easier to correct turns and to stay more stable. We had a little play at the end with walking backwards and forwards in the tunnel at high wind speed - harder than it sounds but great fun :-)
So I have the rest of my intervals booked throughout November and I'm hoping that I should easily be able to progress through to sit-fly and moving myself around the tunnel well enough to have some practice in the air on my own and then aim to have my FF1 signed off. Which will resolve a lot of niggles at various dropzones and will mean more fun when I end up on solo jumps :-)
Sunday, 11 October 2015
Next steps
Another weekend at a dropzone, this time at LPS. Only managed 2 jumps in the end, partly due to weather, partly due to ATC holds and partly due to not being very bothered, lol.
Gary has made me a very pretty new purple weight belt for the tunnel - it holds about 12.5lbs of lead so should be enough for the training I'll be doing with Jeff and the others. It's very comfortable as he has put skinny pockets with little pouches (1.25lbs of lead each) rather than the big 2lb bags in my other belt which tend to be a bit lumpy. I actually ended up wearing it today as I lent my other belt to an AFF student who is very light and doesn't arch well (nightmare for Marie-Anne, lol) - it will be fine for the tunnel but it's a bit big for my waist with some of the lead taken out and tends to slip around a bit. Gary will make me some extension clips for the other one so I can fit it on when I'm wearing lots of layers over the winter (and to take account of the fact I'm already at winter weight at the end of the summer - oops!)
And I'm starting my FS Coach rating training with Marie-Anne. I've re-read the manual and I'll be briefing her on a dive next week and hopefully taking her as my 'student' on a jump. Gary will give me my "Methods of Instruction" brief and we should be good to go :-)
My next downsize is imminent as Gary has my rig and will be putting a Pilot 168 into it for me next week. Finally a 1:1 wingloading (well, when I'm wearing a weightbelt anyway, ha ha). I absolutely love the Silhouette so it's going to be a bit strange to jump something else. Funny how I got used to grabbing any old student rig, from a Manta 288 down to a Nav 240 and everything in between, but now that I've put over 100 jumps on the Silhouette, I'm a bit nervous of jumping anything else :-p
Gary has made me a very pretty new purple weight belt for the tunnel - it holds about 12.5lbs of lead so should be enough for the training I'll be doing with Jeff and the others. It's very comfortable as he has put skinny pockets with little pouches (1.25lbs of lead each) rather than the big 2lb bags in my other belt which tend to be a bit lumpy. I actually ended up wearing it today as I lent my other belt to an AFF student who is very light and doesn't arch well (nightmare for Marie-Anne, lol) - it will be fine for the tunnel but it's a bit big for my waist with some of the lead taken out and tends to slip around a bit. Gary will make me some extension clips for the other one so I can fit it on when I'm wearing lots of layers over the winter (and to take account of the fact I'm already at winter weight at the end of the summer - oops!)
And I'm starting my FS Coach rating training with Marie-Anne. I've re-read the manual and I'll be briefing her on a dive next week and hopefully taking her as my 'student' on a jump. Gary will give me my "Methods of Instruction" brief and we should be good to go :-)
My next downsize is imminent as Gary has my rig and will be putting a Pilot 168 into it for me next week. Finally a 1:1 wingloading (well, when I'm wearing a weightbelt anyway, ha ha). I absolutely love the Silhouette so it's going to be a bit strange to jump something else. Funny how I got used to grabbing any old student rig, from a Manta 288 down to a Nav 240 and everything in between, but now that I've put over 100 jumps on the Silhouette, I'm a bit nervous of jumping anything else :-p
Friday, 9 October 2015
Winning 3 way scrambles, 200th and C licence :-)
Wow, definitely got the mojo back :-)
Ended up on a 3-way team with Graham and Andrew and we all had similar fall rates. Graham was the 'expert', I was the 'intermediate' and Andrew was the 'relative newbie', lol. And we flew incredibly well together. We funnelled one exit through having the wrong grips (oops!) and I had a funky exit when we were unlinked but all in the door together, but we still managed 49 points over the 4 rounds and topped the table :-)
I finished the scrambles on 199 jumps, so most people were more than happy to stay on for another lift to do my 200th with me. With a couple of substitutions for people who had to leave, we ended up with a 15 way attempt. Blan suggested a proper formation instead of a speed star, so we ended up with a 5-way base and attempted 2-way loops. Was difficult to tell without external camera but I think we ended up with 12 or 13 people in the formation and Graham and Justin got some great inside footage. A couple of the guys did some editing afterward so I have some great video of both the scrambles and my C-licence qualification jump :-)
3-way Scrambles video
200th jump video
We attempted the FS progression day but the spell of decent weather finally gave up on us and after a few hours of dirt-diving and general bored-skydiver shenanigans, we called it and went to the pub for lunch.
In the meantime, I tried on another rig that was for sale but it was still too long in the body for me, plus it had a 150 in it and would only take a Pulse 170 and perhaps one or two other less well-known low-pack volume canopies. I've had enough of trying to cram canopies into D-bags that are too small so I'll investigate what Gary has and hold out for a proper rig that will comfortably take a 170.
Ended up on a 3-way team with Graham and Andrew and we all had similar fall rates. Graham was the 'expert', I was the 'intermediate' and Andrew was the 'relative newbie', lol. And we flew incredibly well together. We funnelled one exit through having the wrong grips (oops!) and I had a funky exit when we were unlinked but all in the door together, but we still managed 49 points over the 4 rounds and topped the table :-)
I finished the scrambles on 199 jumps, so most people were more than happy to stay on for another lift to do my 200th with me. With a couple of substitutions for people who had to leave, we ended up with a 15 way attempt. Blan suggested a proper formation instead of a speed star, so we ended up with a 5-way base and attempted 2-way loops. Was difficult to tell without external camera but I think we ended up with 12 or 13 people in the formation and Graham and Justin got some great inside footage. A couple of the guys did some editing afterward so I have some great video of both the scrambles and my C-licence qualification jump :-)
3-way Scrambles video
200th jump video
We attempted the FS progression day but the spell of decent weather finally gave up on us and after a few hours of dirt-diving and general bored-skydiver shenanigans, we called it and went to the pub for lunch.
In the meantime, I tried on another rig that was for sale but it was still too long in the body for me, plus it had a 150 in it and would only take a Pulse 170 and perhaps one or two other less well-known low-pack volume canopies. I've had enough of trying to cram canopies into D-bags that are too small so I'll investigate what Gary has and hold out for a proper rig that will comfortably take a 170.
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