AFF#2 Redux - 2008-Dec-06

It was overcast when I left Leucadia for Jamul, and just about 7:45am. I drove down the freeway and when I got to the Telegraph Canyon exit off the 805, I couldn't remember the name of the street and wizzed past, but immediately recognized that it was where I wanted to go.

The next exit down the freeway seemed to take longer to reach than its distance would require, but that was probably just my being anxious to reach the Skydive San Diego Drop Zone. When I arrived at the DZ there were a few other cars in the parking lot and some people standing around. It was bright and sunny and very pleasant. The wind was light and out of the west. It was a perfect day for skydiving.

I had forgotten my logbook on the last jump and I got a little bit of hassle about it, but fortunately, the instructor who had taken me on the last jump was there and remembered me. He filled in the log book while I registered for the re-take. After paying, I asked how long it would be until my jump. In true Skydive San Diego fashion, I was told, "I don't know." Not only did she not know, but she didn't know when she would know. She just knew someone would call me when it was time. It's rather disconcerting to be in this position. Will it be five minutes, an hour or five hours? No one knows. Just don't go anywhere, because as soon as you do, someone will come looking for you.

I went out and sat in under the umbrella, reading my copy of Parachutist magazine. I hadn't even turned a few pages when I was approached by one of the instructors. After very quick introductions, he ran me through the jump. It seems to me that each instructor asks the same questions but in different ways. I felt very confused by his question because I had never heard it before. But I asked him to rephrase it, and then it became understandable.

He had me practice turns on a small purpose built device that allowed him to turn my body in the direction that my body would turn during freefall based on the movements I made. It was very uncomfortable, with a bar pushing into my chest. I had to move into a more comfortable position, which was not ideal for practice, but which didn't hurt. After about 5 minutes of practice, i was suited up and ready to board the plane.

Once in the plane, I was excited, but no where near as anxious as I was on the first two jumps. As the plane took off, I actually enjoyed watching the earth get further and further away. When they opened the door and the fresh air rushed through the cabin, I was relieved and excited. The fresh air was cool and the unobstructed view of the earth below was beautiful.

As we climbed, I noticed that my altimeter was significantly off from all of the instructors that were around me. I was a bit disturbed at the inaccuracy, but when I pointed it out to my instructors, they said it was OK because it was telling me I was lower than I actually was and if it had been showing me higher, there would be a problem. I accepted the explination and worked through the jump with my instructors. When we finally reached 4000m, the first group of jumpers exited and it quickly became my turn.

One instructor got positioned outside the door, I moved into position in the doorway and the other instructor grabbed ahold of me from inside the plane. I ran through the sequence and in short order was out the door. Funny thing, just thinking about this is giving me a flashback of the experience. I quickly stabilized myself by relaxing and arching. I felt really positive about the jump as I went into the skills. I did my Circle of Awareness and then started my left turn. The only problem was that I was supposed to do a practice handle touch first. So I was interrupted by the instructor who grabbed my arm and started to pull it back. I immediately knew what I was supposed to do, but that threw me for a loop. I had trouble getting my mind about what I needed to do. I did another COA and then started my left turn again. After doing the left turn, I did a COA and then started the right turn. It felt good, but a bit sharp. I then did another COA, but to be honest, I wasn't noticing the altimeter. I looked at it, but wasn't really aware of the reading. I then started to do the forward track, but one of the instructors signaled me to pull the rip cord. The flight down was beautiful. As I got closer to the ground I started to become very aware of how the parachute worked and the landing was smooth and soft.

I felt that I had clearly improved on some things while other elements of the jump were off. The debriefing went as expected. I had once again failed AFF2. The reason for the sharp feeling of the right hand turn was that I had bent my torso to bring my right elbow closer to my waist rather than rotating my torso. I still had a great time and enjoyed the experience, but the cost is starting to get to me. For the next jump, on 3/Jan, I'm going to do a lot of visualization so that I can operate at peak performance and nail the jump.

AFF #2 2008-Nov-16

The day was sunny, warm and windy. When I left Leucadia for the trip to Jamul, I didn't realize exactly how windy it was, but as soon as I got off the freeway in Chula Vista, I noticed the small palm tree fronds whipping in the wind.

When I arrived at Skydive San Diego, just before 9am, I checked in for my class. The young woman behind the counter told me that there was a strong possibility that I wouldn't be jumping that day because of the wind. There were gusts of over 20 miles per hour and they said it would need to be less than 5 miles per hour. Everything was screwy because of the Santa Ana winds.driving in from the East instead of the normal off-shore winds from the West. I was a bit annoyed that they hadn't called me to let me know, given that it's a 50 minute drive from my house, and I had the class/jump scheduled for a month. They said it was my responsibility to call them. Humph!

I hoped that if I just stuck it out, that the winds would die down for long enough to let me get my jump in. So, I waited. And I waited. And I read, and listened to music and read and went to lunch and read and watched someone in an ultralite play around and I read some more and I waited. It reached about 33°C (91°F), and with all the wind it was very dry. I went through about a 4 liters of water and a liter of diet coke and I was still thirsty.

And still I waited. There was one other guy who was waiting around too. After a while I started a conversation with him. He was from New York City, and was out in San Diego to get his AFF done during his vacation. He had taken the ground school yesterday, but couldn't jump because of the wind. He was hoping to get in at least two jumps today.

After some time, several other people associated with Skydive San Diego were hanging around, talking, but they didn't seem to have any interest in either myself or the guy from NYC. I was hanging in the wings, listening to their conversations, but was never acknowledged, so I just continued waiting.

Around 3:30PM, the owner of the drop zone (DZ) came out and said he noticed I and the guy from NYC had been hanging around all day and asked what we were waiting for. We both explained that we were hoping to jump. He said it might be possible because the winds were slowing and the gusts were decreasing, but we'd have to see. Then, around 4pm, everything too form. The wind came to almost a complete stand still, a group loaded into the plane and up they went.

Communication is something that they don't seem to do very well at Skydive San Diego, so, at 4:10, I was approached by a guy who was to be my instructor. He gave me all of 5 minutes of instruction on how to do turns and forward tracking, got me suited and kitted and at 4:30, I was on the plane headed to 4000m (13,000ft).

I was a little bit less nervous this time than on the first jump, but it was still scary. When my turn came, I went to the door, got into position, did my checks with the instructors, and jumped out the door. The instructor shook me to remind me to relax, and I did so, and everything smoothed out.

I did my circle of awareness, my two practice handle touches, another circle of awareness, and I started my turn. I looked at my left elbow and proceeded to turn my body so that my left elbow was raised. I waited, but didn't seem to be turning at all. So, after a bit, I stopped and went the other way, looking at the line through my right elbow and turning my torso so my right elbow was raised. I though I felt like I was turning, but still didn't really notice any turn. I did another Circle of Awareness and then went into a forward track. That I felt! I was zooming forward with the two instructors in tow.

At 1700m (5500ft) I waved off and pulled my cord. The canopy flight was beautiful with the sun setting over the ocean. I could see all of San Diego and parts of Tijuana, plus the ocean and everything was orange from the last rays of the low slung sun.

As I approached the ground, I was heading in the opposite direction for the landing pattern because of the Santa Ana winds. When I finally got close to the ground, I flared, but I quickly realized that I was way too high off the ground and now it felt like I was falling directly toward the earth below me. It was a hard landing, and I questioned myself why the instructors hadn't been on the radio coaching me. Of course, I probably jinxed myself when I asked the instructor who was kitting me out to make certain the radio worked!

Of course, because I did the turns completely wrong, I 'failed' the jump, so I'll have to do it again. I still had a great time, and it was well worth the long wait to be able to fly through the air.

Updated: Link to the video of my jump

OK, this post isn't about mountain biking, but it's about something just as exciting. Today [26/October/2008] I went skydiving! It was an absolute blast. I took my son for his 19th birthday and enrolled us in the Accelerated Free Fall solo jump course at Skydive San Diego. My dear friend Beth from Martha's Vineyard came along with the intent to do a tandem jump. Due to concerns about her knee she decided that she didn't want to jump, but after watching how smooth and soft the landings were for several dozen other people, she decided to do the tandem jump after all.

We started out early in the morning, leaving Encinitas at around 6:30am and arriving at the Otay Lakes site just a little before 8am. Our course was scheduled to start at 8, but as was to be expected, there was paperwork to do and after waiting for late arrivals, so we finally got started with ground school around 9.

Once we got going, ground school went pretty fast with only 6 people in the class. We learned hand signals that the in-air instructors would be giving us. We also learned the correct position for free fall, how to control the chute once it was open, the mechanics and parts of a parachute and how to recover from possible malfunctions. It was a bit awkward, in my opinion, that the last 45 minutes of the class were about possible malfunctions, rather than ending the class on a more positive note by burying the unlikely malfunctions in the middle of the class.

We also spent a good amount of time going over the airplane exit procedures and body position. The all important "arch" was drilled into us from the moment we got into the classroom.

My son and I were the first to practice the exit procedure with an actual chute on. Man, they were a lot heavier than I would have thought, and after twenty minutes with them on, my shoulders were screaming.

The instructor had us lay on the ground to practice the free fall arch position, while he came around to check whether we were "relaxed" enough and in the right position to allow him to flop us around. With the chute still on, it was not easy to keep in a good position. I was really glad when he told me to let someone else try on the parachute.

After the ground school was finished, we sat around and waited to be manifested on a plane. This was one of the points where Skydive San Diego appeared to be unorganized, at least for the uninitiated. After about an hour of waiting, I decided to ask what the deal was, and was told that we'd be jumping around 3pm. With about 90 minutes to spare, I decided that we should head off to East Lake Village to pick up some lunch (since the only food that they had on site were burgers and pizza, neither of which was very enticing to me. My son decided to order a specially made sushi roll, and the fellow making it was about as slow as he could possibly be and still make progress. After about 10 minutes of making the roll, we were back on the road, and another 10 minutes later we were back at the drop zone.


Just as we got back we heard my son's name being called over the loud speaker and he rushed to get a jump suit, parachute and then kitted up.

Fortunately, we were all manifested on the same plane, but while Hakan was suited up and ready to go, there was no one who seemed to be able to provide any information about me or Beth, other than that we were all on the same plane.

After a while, with only about 20 minutes to go before we were supposed to load up into the plane, someone one of my in flight instructors finally showed up and got me kitted up. After suiting up, he ran me through the exit and jump procedures one more time, and then told me to go to the waiting area. Beth took one more picture of Hakan and I before we headed out to the plane, a twin prop Otter.

On the walk out, our camera flyers (I bought the "delux video package" for both of us) filmed us and asked us how things were going.

Once on the plane we took our seats, somewhat crowded together, with Beth all the way at the front of the plane, Hakan a few spaces further back, and I was somewhere in the middle of the plane. I had one of my in-air instructors to my right and one across the isle from me.

As we climbed, the in-air instructors asked me what I would do at the specific altitude we were at. At 5500' I told them I would pull the rip cord. At 6000' I told them that I would wave off and reach for the rip cord. It was at that point that all the training seemed to disappear from my head. When they asked me what the different hand signals meant I couldn't remember "Circle of Awareness" (checking the altitude on the altimeter and scanning the horizon.) I recovered my composure, but felt very awkward for having forgotten something so basic.

When we got to 13000' they opened the door and people started jumping out. Very quickly the back half of the plane was empty and it was my turn. One in-air instructor positioned himself outside the airplane and the other just on the inside.

I shouted "Check In" to the instructor inside and "Check Out" to the outside instructor, each responding with "Check". I looked down but VERY quickly decided it was best to just look forward at the propeller and wing. I then ran through the three steps: "Drop" (lowering my shoulder so I was no longer wedged in the doorway), "Prop" (I continued to look forward at the propeller), and "Jump" (stepping out of the airplane). Strangely enough, just writing this has caused my heart to race and give me butterflies in my stomach.

As I started to fall, I could feel the turbulance of my body and tried to figure out how to make them stop. Then, one of my instructors shook me, reminding me to relax and arch. I did so, and all the turbulance stopped and the free fall felt very smooth.

They ran me through the different skill checks (altitude awareness, practice handle touches, more altitude awareness) and kept telling me to straighten out my legs. They were giving me hand signals, to do all this, which would have been much better had I been aware of what it would be like because they seemed to be in the periphery of my vision rather than easily seen. Of course, everything was in the periphery of my mind at this point with the exception of falling. I checked my altimeter and we were at 7000'.

The next thing I knew one of the in-air instructors was telling me to pull the rip cord. I reached down, grabbed the handle and threw it as I had been taught. My in-air instructors were quickly gone below me as my chute opened, leaving me by myself.

The parachute had opened properly and I grabbed the toggles and tested out turning to the right and turning to the left, and then finally flaring to slow the parachute down.

I looked down below me and the ground was quickly approaching (all though, not nearly as fast as it had been when I was free-falling at 120 miles per hour.) I turned this way and that, experimenting with the way that the parachute worked, enjoying myself as I watched the ground approach.

When I got to 1000', I started working my way down the air strip as we had been instructed, turning to cross the airstrip at 500' and then heading into the wind at 250'. At this point I heard a crackle on the radio instructing me that I was doing great. As I approached the ground the voice on the radio told me "not yet", "not yet", "not yet", "not yet" and then finally "Flare". I was about 10' feet off the ground and I pulled the toggles all the way down, bringing me to a very soft landing.

I gathered up my parachute and headed back to the waiting area. I was looking for Hakan and Beth as I walked, and just as I got to the fence, Beth and her Tandem Instructor came floating down. Beth had a smile on her face that was so big, it extended past her ears! I still didn't see Hakan anywhere. There was only one more person descending, and I figured that had to be him. He too made a perfect landing.

I dropped my parachute off, got comments on my jump from the in-air instructors who gave me my log book, and decided right then and there that I was going to continue on toward my A-Licence (25 jumps).

We chatted on the way back to Encinitas, everyone was thrilled, excited and stimulated. I feel like I've embarked on a new adventure that will keep me engaged for a long time.

Of course, I still have Mountain Biking, so when I'm not jumping out of planes, I'll be riding single track. Now, if I can just figure out a way to combine the two... :)