I climbed onto the camera step. Woody reverse mounted CG's rig. Jack took front float.
On exit I caught an odd burble and got spun sideways but was able to arch and keep Woody and CG in the video frame. After that I got a little further away than I wanted.
Woody, CG and Jack came within a foot of an accordion freefly point. Looked great from my perspective.
Under canopy Woody got close to me and gave himself intentional line twists so that he was flying with me, but facing backwards at me! I thought he was having a mal until I realized he was smiling. Then he dove backward and swung out of it. Very nice.
My first jump of the day. Shane M, who jumps the blue and white jumpsuit that may be familiar to joereger.com readers, had already made something like four jumps already.
We didn't have a plan but made the best of it. Some head-down. Some sit. Shane falls quickly... I had to lawn dart to catch up.
When you don't jump for nine months you increase the chance that you'll damage the ground when you forget something important like, say, where your reserve handle is. Hint: it's not on the right and you don't use it when you have to pee.
So you take a recurrency jump. Jack took care of me. He ran me through some groundwork. Some pop quizzes. He strapped me into a harness and ran through some scenarios with me. Then we went for a jump together. He watched over me, checked my head and made sure I came back in one piece.
We did a nice belly jump. Practice ripcord pull. Back flip. Two three sixtys. A dock. I'm no good at belly but was able to muddle through under Jack's capable guidance.
I'm very glad that I get to jump at a dropzone that cares so much about its jumpers. They keep it fun and safe... what more can you want?
Was I nervous? Yeah, driving down. Once I saw the familiar faces, watched a few loads and ran through some scenarios with Jack I felt great.
The new plane at Skydive Atlanta is amazing. Seven minutes to altitude! Yes. Not twenty five. Seven. We were at 6,000ft by the time I got situated. Amazing.
We sit in a straddle position. The plane has felt and music. Great for a jump plane.
The door has a nice bar and space for two jumpers to exit.
My opening was decent... considering that the pack job had been sitting in a cabinet for six months. I had a slight line twist developing but was able to grab the risers and avoid.
The landing was smooth. Toughest part was trying to run in my belly suit... the booties lock me up in full stride.
Great jump. Glad to be back in the air.
Update:
From Jorge: Joe: You can add to the picture: the reserve canopy was condemned by Precision Aerodynamics after two attempts at resolving the built-in reserve canopy turn issue. It's a wonder I survived the jump. Blue Skies!
Shane and I had a great freefly jump. I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to do anything after my hiatus, but I remembered pretty quickly. Felt great. Shane and I did better heads down than we did in a sit. Hardest opening of my short skydiving career. Ouch. Sent the camera out of focus. Almost ripped my head off my neck and implanted my chin into my chest. Very fun nump. Thanks for the jump Shane!
Skydive Atlanta brought a balloon out today. I got up at 4:00AM, showered and hit the road by 4:45AM for the hour long drive.
I passed the balloon van on the way down. When I arrived I expected to see the van about five minutes behind me. Thirty minutes later it hadn't arrived.
It eventually showed up and the wind was cooperating so we found a field just northwest of the dropzone. We setup in about thirty minutes and then we were off.
The amazing thing about the balloon is that there's no noise. I'm fairly accustomed to being at every altitude from zero to 13,500 feet. But normally there's the rush of freefall or the wind of being under canopy. When you're in a balloon there's absolutely no noise.
At about 4500 feet I climbed out of the basket. On the outside of it I pulled a 5.10 friction move on the wicker basket trying to get in front of two guys with cameras.
The fall was amazing. Unlike regular skydiving, I got that weird stomach feeling from the acceleration. The sound slowly built up over about five seconds.
I fell backwards and flailed for a while. Without any airspeed there was nothing that I could do. All of my skydiving skills were irrelevant for a while.
We picked a landing area while we were in the balloon. We didn't see the big horse in the field though. I was the first to land and a little apprehensive about him but he left me alone.
Woody, Trey and others helped us over the fence. Woody and Trey both said "don't step on that piece" no less than three times to me. I stepped on it. And broke it. Woody grabbed a hammer and fixed it as the owner approached. Her number one concern: the fence.
Crainey worked on some head down. I got video for him. We exited and held head- down for a few seconds. I let him go and he wavered in front of me for a few seconds. Then he started to get closer... and closer... and closer. I punched a lawn dart to go under him. It made for good video.
This may very well be the last time I ever do RW work again. Not only do I suck at it... I got hurt at it.
Well, I shouldn't blame RW.
Jim asked me to do video on his 35th jump. I was more than glad to help a fellow Georgia Techer, but I cautioned him that I have zero RW skills.
We exited and, as I had expected, he was much better at RW than I was.
He pulled at 4500 and I caught the opening on video.
I then deployed. What started as an excellent opening turned ugly as the lines twisted. The canopy partially inflated and spun me horizontally to the ground. I fought it for a while as the G forces grew, but eventually cut away.
As I cutaway something hit me in the eye. I don't know exactly what it was, but I suspect it was the three ring system.
I fell about 500 more feet while I flipped onto my stomach and deployed my reserve. The reserve opening was so hard that it shut down my camera.
Immediately upon opening I couldn't see out of my left eye. I thought that I had a cut under my eye and that blood had splattered onto the lens of my goggles. I kept trying to clean the blood out but I still couldn't see.
So I took the goggles off and attempted to clean my eye out directly but I found I couldn't.
Landing with no depth perception was interesting. I flared too high but stood up the landing.
Tim Marek was the closest person to me. I showed him my eye and he immediately said that we were going to the hospital. I'm glad he did.
Michael, Chris and everybody else were awesome about tracking down my canopy. Thanks guys.
Tim drove me to the hospital and sat through all of the paperwork and examinations.
The first doctor had no idea what was going on and gave me a scary feeling. He said "I can't even find the retina." Excellent. Thanks Doc. That's wonderful news. You are an artist of optimism.
They referred me to an optomitrist. Dr. Deen took care of me. He was a character.
He said that my eye appeared to be fine and would recover shortly.
Big thanks to Tim and everybody who helped me out. It meant a lot to me.
Lyle, Caryn, Clay and I exited in head-down and then played around on this jump. Great video. We were all nice and tight well into the dive. A lot of fun.
Lyle proposed a foot exit. Hmmm... what's a foot exit, I wondered. Like it sounds, one person holds onto the other person's foot while exiting.
When we got the call to open the door we did but saw another small plane below us heading in our direction. We requested that the pilot clear the traffic before we jump. He did and we jumped, but we hosed everybody else on the plane. They had to make a second pass. I'd rather be safe than sorry. When we spot the jump we're responsible for everybody's safety when it comes to other air traffic.
I held onto Lyle's foot. Interesting exit. We let go and then reconnected for some transitions. I learned something: my transitions can use some work. I was completely off-axis on every one. It cost me some speed and I was always playing catch-up. Lyle's were solid. It must have something to do with his kickass suit.
Because of the other plane we were well away from the airport when we got under canopy. I didn't think that I'd even make it back to the end of the runway. Then at about 1000 feet I started to catch thermals and wind from behind. It literally threw me over the landing area. I was amazed.
A nice little solo jump. I worked with my freeflying and was able to get quite stable in head-down position. Sure, I may have been cruising across the sky, but it felt stable.
Mr. Jon Pinyon (a.k.a. Superman) organized this jump, a four-way freefly transition thing. Jon, Stephanie, Tom and I were the participants. We exited head-down, spun to a sit position and then commenced transitions on Jon's command.
It was interesting to see Jon organizing in mid-air. Usually organizers do their organizing on the ground or the plane and then hope for the best in the air. Jon was motioning and waving people here and there throughout the dive.
It worked. About 45 seconds into the jump we all found ourselves squared off and facing each other in the perfect square that we had planned on the ground.
My transition was a lame 360 sit spin but I didn't want to lose everybody as I was the only one with a camera. Stephanie had a nice transition. Tom had a nice transition to his moon gazing position (a tough one to pull off with style, which he did).
Great jump.
The Cobalt had been giving me sweet openings all day, but it was tired of giving. It slapped the heck out of me with a hard opening.
That's OK. I absolutely love this canopy and am really enjoying my landings about 50 times more now.
Atair Aerodynamics is on the cutting edge of skydiving technology. From their high performance canopies to their amazing optics, they are positioned to push the sport forward.
While perusing their site at www.extremefly.com I stumbled upon a Hyperbolic Wide Angle Lens. This lens is made to cover a wide angle. Close to 180 degrees in all directions, in fact. The ultra-cool thing, however, is that it doesn't cover the area away from the camera... it covers the area *with* the camera. This means that you can film yourself skydiving, dancing, driving or milking cows. It's up to you, but it's all about me, me, me.
Given my clear initial excitement I contacted Atair requesting pricing information. It turns out that they are just beginning to produce the lenses. They only have one prototype at this point. They offered it to me for a couple weeks to test on a "you break it, you bought it" basis. Cost: $1500. They tell me that with only a few orders they can get that cost down, almost in half. If you're interested, please give them a call or send them an email.
I was expecting to get one lens but when the package arrived it had two in it! One is a smaller version that provides a better area of view. One is a longer version that gets away from the camera more. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
Within minutes I had them onto the camera for some test shots around my loft. I was amazed at the clarity of the image. Essentially the lens is a mirror that projects an image from 180 degrees onto the camera lens. Considering skydiving safety I attached the shorter lens to my camera first. When I mounted the camera to the helmet I found that the shorter lens didn't reach around the helmet and my big head enough. So I switched to the longer lens.
Three hours of running around the loft and surrounding Atlanta neighborhoods with a helmet cam and I felt that I was ready to jump with it.
The weather was bad for two weekends at Skydive Atlanta, the best dropzone in the universe. I asked Atair if I could keep the lens for an extra couple of days for a weekday jump session. They were kind enough to accommodate my unlucky weather self.
The weather was perfect. Clear sky with some puffy clouds. This always makes for great video. I strapped the lens onto my camera and immediately people started to wonder what it was. Lots of questions. Lots of explanations. Before the first jump I already had about ten people who wanted to check out the video.
The lens mirror sticks out from the camera a good bit. I was a little concerned for the safety of the lens so I put it into my pocket while loading the plane. When at altitude I attached it. I had to pay very close attention to it in the crowded plane near exit time. This is the downside of the longer version of the lens. With the shorter version I wouldn't even notice that it was there.
I climbed out and consciously made sure that I didn't smack the lens. Exit was smooth and the lens was unobtrusive. The jump went well. After jumping with a forward-facing camera for so long it's tough to remember to keep people behind you so that they're in frame.
Opening was uneventful. I looked down. The weight of the lens isn't anything to be concerned about. From a safety perspective I practiced cutting away my helmet first, canopy second, etc. The lens is actually a lot less stable than a ring sight. I expect that a line caught in it would break it off which is much better than it being caught. Of course, any protrusion does add extra risk, but this risk appears low given the fact that the lens would break off.
Under canopy I clipped my risers with the lens a few times. Landing was uneventful.
We put the jump onto the big screen and people flocked to it. It creates some amazing video. My head stays completely still while my body moves all over the place. On landing I was able to see all toggle movements and their resultant effect.
This lens is cool. Good for fun. Good for learning.
Order one. You won't be disappointed.
On this jump I also jumped my new Atair Cobalt 135. This canopy rocks. It has great lift on landing.
Mikey and I did our last jump for the scramble. We had a rough time doing the first move. We were supposed to do a hand- to-hand dock. Oh well... fun all the same.
We did a freefly scramble. Six of us drew names from a hat to partner up. We then drew maneuvers from a hat to determine what we'd do. We counted what we were able to do and then switched partners.
Tim and I did the compulsory moves and then one more.
Heading to Doc with Terp
