carbonel

"I always get the shakes before a drop."

The Sunday before last, I went to ground school for a first jump class. This is part of AFF (Accelerated Freefall), which is a program leading to solo certification. The non-class alternative is to do a tandem jump, but my theory was that I was going to want to do this more than once, and I wanted to learn to do it myself.

Ground school was educational and a bit nerve-wracking. The instructor never downplayed the risks involved, though she didn't tell horror stories, either. She made it clear that if anything went wrong, we were responsible for our own safety; there wasn't all that much that the instructors could do, even if they jumped with us.

I got there at 8 a.m., and finished the class around 1:30. Unfortunately, by then the wind was high enough that student drops weren't allowed (those have to be at under 15 mph), and in fact they shut down everything early because the wind was too high for anyone to jump.

So I went home.

I drove back next Sunday, when the weather was much better. It was hot out, but the winds were quite light. There was a brief review to make sure I'd retained what I'd learned, then the instructor (not the one who taught me last week -- I think she had the day off) got me suited up. The flight suit isn't for protection, as I'd originally thought, but to provide an even surface to the air passing across the body. I wore a jump suit, a helmet (pink, alas), goggles designed to go over glasses, an altimeter, and a one-way radio (from the instructor to me). Oh, and a parachute pack. The pack actually contains two parachutes -- the one you're intended to use, and a reserve chute. The regular chute takes 10 or 15 minutes to pack, whereas the reserve chute takes about an hour to pack and (IIRC) has to be done by someone with a license. The parachute goes over the arms like a backpack, then straps across the chest and around the legs.

Once I was suited up, I just had to wait until they called my flight. The flights are numbered, and you're assigned to a particular one. I don't know how it works for the non-students, but there's a sign-in sheet for the students. I was on jump five, and the instructors kept drilling me while I was standing around waiting for the plane to land from the previous flight. This was probably both for memory purposes and to keep me from freezing up with nervousness.

The airplane is a twin-engine Otter that holds up to 23 jumpers. It has two rows of seats along the fuselage -- very basic and not particularly comfortable. On the other hand, you're not in there long. It takes about 25 minutes to get to 13,000 feet, which is the usual height for jumping.

There's an established protocol for student jumps, of course. First the outside instructor climbed on the outside of the plane and hung on. Then I took my position in the door. Then the inside instructor took hold of me and took his position. I checked with both of them, looked up at the propeller, bent up, down, and stepped out, with an instructor on each side of me, still holding on. I checked the altimeter, took the proper position (with a little reminding from the instructor -- via hand signals -- to arch more and move my legs closer together), and did three ripcord checks. That was the "assignment" of what I was supposed to do while in freefall.

I was in freefall for around 50 seconds. It didn't feel at all disorienting or "floaty." It just felt as if the wind were blowing past me at a great rate. Of course it wasn't the wind, it was me, but the effect was the same. When the altimeter reached 5,500 feet, I waved off the instructors and pulled the ripcord. The ripcord detaches entirely, and we were warned that it was a $20 charge if we lost it. I managed to hang on to mine. The chute opened with a slightly disorienting jerk. When the chute opens, the first thing you're supposed to check is that the chute is both there and square. Actually, it's rectangular, but that doesn't make a good mnemonic.

My chute was both there and square, but the cords above me were exceedingly twisted. This was one of the common malfunctions they'd warned us about. The way to deal with it is to grasp the risers (the straps that connect me to the parachute) to separate them and kick in the opposite direction of the twist. I did that, and everything untwisted as it was supposed to. (Whew.)

Next, I freed the toggles -- the lines attached to the sides of the parachute that let you steer. I tested to make sure I had proper control by doing a right and left turn. After that I had several minutes to play with the risers and enjoy the scenery. At 1,000 feet, I was supposed to turn straight with the wind at the landing zone, then a left turn across the wind at 600 feet, and into the wind at 300 feet for landing, but I didn't quite manage that. I followed the instructions from the radio, but ended up landing cross-wind. About 10-12 feet above the ground, you're supposed to pull both toggles simultaneously to stall the parachute and reduce speed for landing, but apparently I didn't get the timing quite right. I landed on my bum, and tried to do a proper parachute roll -- knees, hips, shoulders. I didn't land hard enough to really hurt, and I waved to the instructor (as directed) to show I was all right. I'd landed a ways out, so I had to bundle up the parachute myself and trundle back to the office building.

My instructor had gone up on another jump right away, so I had to wait for a while to get feedback on my jump. He said that I dealt well with the tangled lines, and he passed me for the next level, though I need to work on my positioning.

That meant I was ready for Level B. In the Level B class, I learned how to turn in freefall (look in the direction of the turn, then lean your arms but not your body) and how to perform forward motion (arms back, legs more extended). I was only supposed to do one ripcord check instead of three. Other than that, the protocol for the jump was about the same.

Things were backed up enough that I had time to drive out for lunch and sit around for a while, but eventually they called my flight. The flight up to 13,000 was uneventful, which is as it should be. I exited the plane and tried to remember to keep my legs together (this bad habit was the subject of several bad jokes), but didn't get it quite right until coached. Have to work on that. Apparently my turning form wasn't quite right either, but I nevertheless did the prescribed 180-degree turn. Or maybe the instructors holding on to me did and I just went along for the ride, as he suggested in the critique. I did the forward motion part (four seconds) properly, and pulled the ripcord at 5,500 feet. This time the chute opened very slowly, which led to a second or two of worry that I wasn't going to have a "there and square" chute and would have to use the reserve parachute. But it did open properly eventually. (I mentioned that to the instructor afterward and he said that a slow opening is ideal -- that way you don't get a jerk when it opens suddenly.)

There was another student below me who looked as if he were going to land smack in the middle of the nearby cornfield, but he ended up in perfect position at the end. I managed to land what would have been against the wind, except that by then the wind had died down so much that it was practically still air. Once again, I didn't get the stall quite right (too early, I think) and had to roll and land, but my roll was much better this time.

The instructor passed me for the jump, so next time it's on to Level C, where the instructors release me for the freefall portion of the flight and I learn hover control.