After the second big way weekend, I got chatting with some of the guys and some of them are part of a pool of jumpers who form Speed 8 team Mayhem. The team leader invited me to join them for their next training session in August as a couple of the guys were out injured and he wasn't sure how many people he could get together in order to train for their next competition.
In the end, we had 6 people for most of the jumps, then 7 for the final one plus camera. And I had yet another learning curve - this time on how to build a base and a formation when everyone starts inside the plane and exits individually! The rules for the Speed 8 are No Show, No Grips, so the time starts from the moment any part of any member of the team comes past the door frame, whether accidentally or not! So I learned a whole new series of exits as we experimented with the best way to get the entire team out of the door of a Grand Caravan as quickly as possible. Because I am floaty and most of the team are fast fallers, it was decided to put me out early. After the first jump, that moved to putting a load of lead on me, and sending me out first, rofl. The idea being that it's very easy for the second person to catch up with me and for us to form the base for everyone else to dock onto. The points are scored by the number of seconds it takes for everyone to have at least one grip on someone else (so 7 grips), so the lower the score, the better. Bonuses are given for then making formations, though apparently many teams don't get together at all within the time frame allowed to score. Speed 8 is not taken seriously by many people so a lot of the teams are 'scratch teams', put together on the day by people who have never jumped together in that large a formation. And of course, most flat flyers are used to linked exits and being together on a level before trying to turn points. So tomorrow we will see if doing some training jumps, even missing a couple of the regular members, will make enough of a difference for us to be high up in the rankings :-)
It is done over 4 rounds so hopefully will be finished in one day, which will then allow me time to do some fun jumping on Sunday.
And that will go back to yet another learning curve as I am going to be meeting a 4-way team who have just lost their Tail flyer for the Nationals next weekend. I usually fly IC or OC in the tunnel or on fun jumps, so I've now got to relearn all of the Random formations with new grips, plus a different exit. If the weather permits, we'll do some trial jumps on Sunday and decide whether it will work well enough for the team to enter and if we do, I'll be off to Lincolnshire with them on Thursday! Hopefully that will give us Friday for some team training, before the competition starts on Saturday. And if it doesn't work out and they decide not to go, I'll do the next big way training session instead :-)
I also have more Speed 8 training lined up with Mayhem as the Speed 8 Nationals are at Sibson at the end of September. We just need the weather to cooperate a little more than it has done so far - who knows, I may yet make it to my 200th jump by the end of the season in order to collect my C licence :-)
Friday, 14 August 2015
More FS training and slowly increasing jump numbers
So very slowly and steadily, my jump numbers have been increasing. I was hoping to get to my 100th jump on the multi-plane lifts but weather holds meant I still had 3 jumps to go for the elusive milestone. A series of bad weather fronts one after another meant that mid-week jumping was also not possible, so it came down to an overcast day at a very small dz to try and manage 3 jumps. Initially I had hoped to do a wingsuit rodeo for the actual 100th, but my 'bird' decided the weather didn't look great so decided to have a lie-in instead :-( I was disappointed but other friends stepped in and met me at the dz and for once, the forecast turned out to be wrong. Manifest was brilliant, squeezing me in on 2-way jumps in spare slots on tandem loads. There was no chance of doing anything fancy or a biggish formation but I still had 3 great 2-ways to get me to the magic number :-) And at the end of the day, once all the tandems were completed, we also did a 4 way tracking dive. So I finished the day on 101 :-)
As we got towards the end of July, the weather finally decided we could have a hint of summer. I managed several mid-week jumps in between weather holds and rainy days and keep looking out on the Facebook groups for any flat flyers who can jump outside of weekends. I went up to Hinton to meet one person and was asked to join an FS1 qualification dive for a fairly new jumper. It went very well and he passed, which was fabulous.
Last week was another 4-way FS training day and suddenly I found myself as one of the more experienced members of the teams as several coaches had dropped out. Our group never managed a stable exit (unless you count launching an E and flipping it, so flying a lovely formation upside down :-D ) and there was lots of chasing each other over the sky to reform, but it was all good stuff and everyone had a great day. We ended it with an attempt at a 12 way. I was in the base and finally was part of a stable exit, ha ha. We had 3 divers who got down to us, forming a 6 way, but the 6th person did a classic 'combat dock' coming in hard and fast, and he took out one of the base members which then exploded the formation, lol. But everyone had got pretty close, it was just that we ran out of altitude to reform. Roll on the next one!!
As we got towards the end of July, the weather finally decided we could have a hint of summer. I managed several mid-week jumps in between weather holds and rainy days and keep looking out on the Facebook groups for any flat flyers who can jump outside of weekends. I went up to Hinton to meet one person and was asked to join an FS1 qualification dive for a fairly new jumper. It went very well and he passed, which was fabulous.
Last week was another 4-way FS training day and suddenly I found myself as one of the more experienced members of the teams as several coaches had dropped out. Our group never managed a stable exit (unless you count launching an E and flipping it, so flying a lovely formation upside down :-D ) and there was lots of chasing each other over the sky to reform, but it was all good stuff and everyone had a great day. We ended it with an attempt at a 12 way. I was in the base and finally was part of a stable exit, ha ha. We had 3 divers who got down to us, forming a 6 way, but the 6th person did a classic 'combat dock' coming in hard and fast, and he took out one of the base members which then exploded the formation, lol. But everyone had got pretty close, it was just that we ran out of altitude to reform. Roll on the next one!!
Dynamic 6 way in the tunnel
Having failed miserably to get a 4-way team together and actually jump or train in the tunnel, I was curious to find out more when Brian Cumming created a group dedicated to a different type of tunnel flying. Instead of taking grips and turning points, the idea would be to keep moving, to make dynamic patterns in various sequences and then start linking the sequences together.
I did a lot of tunnel time when training for the World Challenge as the costs came down drastically when split between 4 people, so splitting the costs even further made this seem like a great way of improving my flying skills whilst the weather was still hampering my jumping so badly.
I have never laughed so much during tunnel training, even during scrambles!! It was amazing, so much fun and again, so much more relaxed than 4-way and trying to turn points. We did moves with names like Washing Machine and Weave, and we renamed one move to Goldfish Bowl as we took it in turns flying round the tunnel walls, like goldfish circling :-D It's a lot trickier than 4-way in that we have to fly over and under each other a lot (instead of keeping pretty much on the same level) and sets of people are moving all the time unless we are at the Home position. I had one spectacular crash trying to side slide over 2 people at once (hit the tunnel wall headfirst :-( ) but apart from that, it wasn't too daunting. We all improved a lot over the 30 minutes (15 x 2 minute sessions) and were able to link several moves together by the end.
The second session a month later was with different people but it was just as much fun. Another 30 minutes in the tunnel and I was feeling much more confident with my ability to side slide, scoot forward and back under and over someone's burble and to carve my way around the outside of the tunnel. Brian doesn't have enough time in his calendar for more sessions at the moment but as soon as he does, I'll be back :-)
I did a lot of tunnel time when training for the World Challenge as the costs came down drastically when split between 4 people, so splitting the costs even further made this seem like a great way of improving my flying skills whilst the weather was still hampering my jumping so badly.
I have never laughed so much during tunnel training, even during scrambles!! It was amazing, so much fun and again, so much more relaxed than 4-way and trying to turn points. We did moves with names like Washing Machine and Weave, and we renamed one move to Goldfish Bowl as we took it in turns flying round the tunnel walls, like goldfish circling :-D It's a lot trickier than 4-way in that we have to fly over and under each other a lot (instead of keeping pretty much on the same level) and sets of people are moving all the time unless we are at the Home position. I had one spectacular crash trying to side slide over 2 people at once (hit the tunnel wall headfirst :-( ) but apart from that, it wasn't too daunting. We all improved a lot over the 30 minutes (15 x 2 minute sessions) and were able to link several moves together by the end.
The second session a month later was with different people but it was just as much fun. Another 30 minutes in the tunnel and I was feeling much more confident with my ability to side slide, scoot forward and back under and over someone's burble and to carve my way around the outside of the tunnel. Brian doesn't have enough time in his calendar for more sessions at the moment but as soon as he does, I'll be back :-)
Big way training days June & July
So nothing has really changed with regards to me continuing beyond the end of this season, but have been managing a lot more fun in the meantime :-)
Still had lots of frustrating days with weather holds and have countered that with more mid-week jumping whenever possible. Hinton now looks like it will be a good option, as I've met more people there now and have more people who can jump during the week without having to drag myself all the way up to Sibson.
Didn't manage to get a team together for the UKSL at Nethers in the end, so I joined a novice FS big way coaching day instead. I didn't have nearly enough jump numbers for the entry criteria but Rich vouched for me (and several hours of tunnel helped) and the organiser agreed to let me try, with the caveat that I would be taken out of the group if I wasn't good enough yet. And we had the most amazing time! Such fun and so much more relaxed than 4-way :-) There were 10 of us, so not a massive group but obviously a lot more people in the air than I'm used to. We managed to make several formations with all but one person getting into the formation each time. I learned loads about building larger formations, exit order, how to dive to the base, flat tracking etc and all the experienced guys were really friendly and helpful.
At the end of the weekend, I saw a poster for a more advanced group in July and asked if it would be possible for me to join that one. He needed to check with the other organiser since my jump numbers were even further off the basic requirements and we hadn't managed to build a 10 way so my formation size didn't meet the basics either, lol. However, the other organiser also agreed to let me try, given my performance on the first weekend so things suddenly got a lot more exciting. It's not many people who can say they did their first big way multi-plane dives with less than 100 jumps in total!
If I thought it was a steep learning curve for the novice weekend, the intermediate weekend came close to frying my brain, ha ha. So much to remember, though I wasn't the only newbie to big way so everything was explained very carefully several times. And in the end, the weather slowed our jump rate down as we kept being put on wind and cloud holds. So I Iearned about multi-plane lifts taking off in formation (very freaky seeing another plane so close all the way up to altitude!), how to do the first part of tracking off in groups before splitting away from each other, how to look for the exit from the lead plane to know when to leave the trail plane, and how to find my slot in the formation. I didn't quite make it down for the first jump, so just hovered above my slot until it was time to break off (so other people knew where I was). All the of the rest of the jumps were fine and I made it comfortably, having discovered I'm pretty good at diving down to a rapidly departing base, lol. It helps that I am quite floaty so there was never any time when I was likely to drop low, unlike many of the other guys who then struggled to get back up to the base.
I definitely want to do more and had signed up for the next training weekend but that may now get nudged to one side in favour of competing at the FS 4-way Nationals. More exciting news but need to wait a couple of days to find out whether that is going ahead.
Still had lots of frustrating days with weather holds and have countered that with more mid-week jumping whenever possible. Hinton now looks like it will be a good option, as I've met more people there now and have more people who can jump during the week without having to drag myself all the way up to Sibson.
Didn't manage to get a team together for the UKSL at Nethers in the end, so I joined a novice FS big way coaching day instead. I didn't have nearly enough jump numbers for the entry criteria but Rich vouched for me (and several hours of tunnel helped) and the organiser agreed to let me try, with the caveat that I would be taken out of the group if I wasn't good enough yet. And we had the most amazing time! Such fun and so much more relaxed than 4-way :-) There were 10 of us, so not a massive group but obviously a lot more people in the air than I'm used to. We managed to make several formations with all but one person getting into the formation each time. I learned loads about building larger formations, exit order, how to dive to the base, flat tracking etc and all the experienced guys were really friendly and helpful.
At the end of the weekend, I saw a poster for a more advanced group in July and asked if it would be possible for me to join that one. He needed to check with the other organiser since my jump numbers were even further off the basic requirements and we hadn't managed to build a 10 way so my formation size didn't meet the basics either, lol. However, the other organiser also agreed to let me try, given my performance on the first weekend so things suddenly got a lot more exciting. It's not many people who can say they did their first big way multi-plane dives with less than 100 jumps in total!
If I thought it was a steep learning curve for the novice weekend, the intermediate weekend came close to frying my brain, ha ha. So much to remember, though I wasn't the only newbie to big way so everything was explained very carefully several times. And in the end, the weather slowed our jump rate down as we kept being put on wind and cloud holds. So I Iearned about multi-plane lifts taking off in formation (very freaky seeing another plane so close all the way up to altitude!), how to do the first part of tracking off in groups before splitting away from each other, how to look for the exit from the lead plane to know when to leave the trail plane, and how to find my slot in the formation. I didn't quite make it down for the first jump, so just hovered above my slot until it was time to break off (so other people knew where I was). All the of the rest of the jumps were fine and I made it comfortably, having discovered I'm pretty good at diving down to a rapidly departing base, lol. It helps that I am quite floaty so there was never any time when I was likely to drop low, unlike many of the other guys who then struggled to get back up to the base.
I definitely want to do more and had signed up for the next training weekend but that may now get nudged to one side in favour of competing at the FS 4-way Nationals. More exciting news but need to wait a couple of days to find out whether that is going ahead.
Tuesday, 26 May 2015
Scrambles and a possible scratch team :-)
So
the Scrambles on Saturday was great fun - Becs was our team captain and
took the OC slot, Ed was the next most experienced and took Tail. Since
we had a non-FS jumper on the team, he was in Point which left me with
IC. Which worked out pretty well. I was very happy with the way I
flew, considering my lack of experience in the air. Still loads of room
for improvement but generally, I felt pretty comfortable and learned a
lot from doing aircraft exits :-)
We launched an H every time which possibly cost us a couple of points, but more likely, ensured we stayed together instead of funnelling the exit, lol. Overall, we got 4th place and I'm really looking forward to the 6-way scrambles in July. And will be doing some dynamic 6-way in the tunnel in the meantime....
Still not planning to continue beyond the end of the season, just had another Bank Holiday weekend and only managed to jump on Saturday afternoon. Sunday was yet another miserable overcast day with the first lift landing with everyone still on board due to a heavy rain shower. I left just before lunch - they did eventually manage a couple of lifts in the late afternoon but I'm glad I didn't bother hanging around wasting another day. Monday was a little better but I did more clearing out at dad's house, a tip run, went with Rich to fetch his kit car from London and move it to Kent, then collected Mischief and we went for a pub meal and got furball a little more comfortable with other dogs :-)
Another 4-way FS team appears to be falling apart with their trip to the first round of UKSL cancelled along with their replacement team training. Had a chat with a couple of them and they are going to see how their next tunnel session goes, but may well be up for taking a scratch team to Nethers in June so they actually do have some fun!
I'm also signed up for an all-girlie tunnel session for some fun stuff having pretty much given up on the idea of dragging 3 other people kicking and screaming to the tunnel for some vaguely sensible 4-way training :-/
Finally got my landings sorted again and timed my last landing perfectly, landing lightly on my feet in zero wind :-) Very happy with that, as my accuracy is also improving.
We launched an H every time which possibly cost us a couple of points, but more likely, ensured we stayed together instead of funnelling the exit, lol. Overall, we got 4th place and I'm really looking forward to the 6-way scrambles in July. And will be doing some dynamic 6-way in the tunnel in the meantime....
Still not planning to continue beyond the end of the season, just had another Bank Holiday weekend and only managed to jump on Saturday afternoon. Sunday was yet another miserable overcast day with the first lift landing with everyone still on board due to a heavy rain shower. I left just before lunch - they did eventually manage a couple of lifts in the late afternoon but I'm glad I didn't bother hanging around wasting another day. Monday was a little better but I did more clearing out at dad's house, a tip run, went with Rich to fetch his kit car from London and move it to Kent, then collected Mischief and we went for a pub meal and got furball a little more comfortable with other dogs :-)
Another 4-way FS team appears to be falling apart with their trip to the first round of UKSL cancelled along with their replacement team training. Had a chat with a couple of them and they are going to see how their next tunnel session goes, but may well be up for taking a scratch team to Nethers in June so they actually do have some fun!
I'm also signed up for an all-girlie tunnel session for some fun stuff having pretty much given up on the idea of dragging 3 other people kicking and screaming to the tunnel for some vaguely sensible 4-way training :-/
Finally got my landings sorted again and timed my last landing perfectly, landing lightly on my feet in zero wind :-) Very happy with that, as my accuracy is also improving.
Saturday, 16 May 2015
Halfway through May and still having crap weather days
For heaven's sake, what on earth is wrong with UK weather these days??? At least 12 days spent hanging around various dropzones and less than 1 jump per day on average to show for it :-/ Weekends are definitely rubbish - if it's not pouring with rain, the winds are gale force. Two best days so far have been mid-week jumping with 3 jumps at Sibson on a random Wednesday and 4 jumps at Hinton on an FS improvers course. The rest has been one's and two's and LOTS of wasted time. So this weekend I made other plans, having got totally fed up of sitting around drinking tea, and Sod's Law decreed that even LPS fun jumpers got 5 jumps in on one day :-( I need another hobby......
Tuesday, 16 December 2014
FS1 sticker and finally fun jumping with other people :-)
After another tunnel session and a relaxed fun 3-way, it seemed as though all the flat flyers at Nethers had gone into hibernation so I planned a trip back to Sibson to find some FS coaches to do my FS1 dive. Did one relaxed practice jump with Rich and dirt-dived with him, Sam and Fiona but the weather closed in so had to wait until the following day to actually do the 4-way. Sam was working so Pam took the tail slot and agreed to film. And I passed! Still loads to work on, some of which I tackled on another tunnel session but it was fantastic to just be able to turn up back at Nethers and jump with Steve, and then with Neil and Gabriel. The 3-way was great fun - linked exit with Neil and Gabriel diving after, then open accordion followed by flying around the formation to take grips on the other person :-)
And I packed for myself ! Steve helped me get the canopy into the D-bag when I was struggling the first time, then the second time I did it all myself. Lovely soft opening, and very happy that I am now properly independent and can just rock up at any DZ and find someone to jump with. Currently takes me about 30-40 mins to pack (which tends to include a second effort at preparing the canopy to go in the D-bag, lol) but that will improve with practice as I have to take lots of rests. Maddy showed Gabriel a different way to get the canopy into the D-bag so I will try that next time I pack.
Next canopy course with Brian Vacher booked for April though I shall try and keep jumping through the winter to stay current. Maybe a trip to the Algarve boogie in late March, or just a chill-out visit to Spain for a long weekend. My canopy handling has definitely improved as I stood up 2 nil-wind landings at Netheravon and landed neatly on the grass at Sibson even with the wind changing direction whilst we were in the air.
Could have jumped on Sat on the last day of the season for Sibson but I had a nasty cold and couldn't concentrate so went back to bed and had a duvet day instead. Felt very decadent to just laze in bed listening to the tannoy announcements and the plane taking off and landing :-) Turned out to be a very wise decision as my cold developed into a hacking cough and vicious sore throat - definitely not worth the freezing temperatures of freefall and under canopy!
And I packed for myself ! Steve helped me get the canopy into the D-bag when I was struggling the first time, then the second time I did it all myself. Lovely soft opening, and very happy that I am now properly independent and can just rock up at any DZ and find someone to jump with. Currently takes me about 30-40 mins to pack (which tends to include a second effort at preparing the canopy to go in the D-bag, lol) but that will improve with practice as I have to take lots of rests. Maddy showed Gabriel a different way to get the canopy into the D-bag so I will try that next time I pack.
Next canopy course with Brian Vacher booked for April though I shall try and keep jumping through the winter to stay current. Maybe a trip to the Algarve boogie in late March, or just a chill-out visit to Spain for a long weekend. My canopy handling has definitely improved as I stood up 2 nil-wind landings at Netheravon and landed neatly on the grass at Sibson even with the wind changing direction whilst we were in the air.
Could have jumped on Sat on the last day of the season for Sibson but I had a nasty cold and couldn't concentrate so went back to bed and had a duvet day instead. Felt very decadent to just laze in bed listening to the tannoy announcements and the plane taking off and landing :-) Turned out to be a very wise decision as my cold developed into a hacking cough and vicious sore throat - definitely not worth the freezing temperatures of freefall and under canopy!
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