joereger.com

Jump 263 With Woody, CG and Jack

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.

Jump 262 With Matthias and Shane

Good freefly jump with Matthias and Shane.

Jump 261 - Lame Solo Jump

Just me. Alone. Falling. Boring. Not
even planning on posting the video for this
jump.

Actually, I'm going to post all the day's random photos with this entry.

Jump 260 With Shane M

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.

Fun jump!

Jump 258 - Recurrency Jump

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!

From me: Wow! Glad you did make it!

Jump 259 - Freeflying with Shane

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!

Jump 257

Freeflying with Cranney. I'm lazy and
haven't put the video up.

Jump 256 - Hot Air Balloon Jump!

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.

Excellent experience. Highly recommended!

Jump 252

Excellent freefly jump. I'm feeling very
good about holding head down for the entire
jump. We were able to get close enough to
dock. Fun jump!

Jump 253

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.

Jump 254 - Coach Jump With Andre

Andre took me on a coaching jump. We
worked on my 360 head down turns. I got
three 360's done in the dive and felt good
about my head down.

Jump 255 - Third Malfunction Wins a Bad Eye

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.

Jump 249 - Four Way Freefly

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.

Jump 250 - Foot Exit

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.

Jump 248 - Solo

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.