So this weekend had some amazing weather!
Went to Voltige Saturday night with my girlfriends, had a few beers by the campfire, crashed in a buddy’s trailer on the table we were 8 or 9 people sleeping there haha!
So come Sunday morning, the day began with a 14 way that I woke up too late to participate in, but I got to watch from the ground. Only 2 or 3 people made it back and Skygod bless them for taking it upon themselves to figure out the winds and walk the 2 miles back so that we don’t have to lol!
My day started off with a 5 way that involved my girlfriend and 3 others. We planned to do “Doughnut, star – right, doughnut, star-left then caterpillar (for those of you who don’t understand that, it’s basically the names of the formations we did, doughnut is a circle, star is when people turn in that direction and caterpillar is basically where people are a zig zag in the sky).
The exit went to hell but we managed to recover it and got our 1st point done however, on the 1st star attempt, I lost altitude and couldn’t catch up in time. On the landing, I tried practicing lower altitude turns (still at about 300 feet) to be able to get some speed and work on my control. The landing went smoothly and I got a fairly nice swoop out of it.
As soon as I landed however, I was rushed to catch my “taxi” (a pick-up truck waiting for me) to get back on the plane as I was informed that I was going to fly with two friends of mine who were on a tandem on the next load. The load was supposed to be one later, but got pushed up. Needless to say, I was rushing like hell and the plane was waiting for me at the end of the runway. At this point, I noticed a huge crack in the visor of my factory diver. =( So I unfortunately had to order a new one.
I was the only non tandem skydiver on the plane, so I decided to myself that I’d do a high altitude opening (10 000 feet) and work on my canopy flying skills. I also got to push everyone out of the way while creeping to the back of the plane haha!
I was working on my front riser controls during this flight, got myself kind of dizzy though and nearly puked inside my now “broken visor” helmet. Wasn’t fun, but I kinda laughed to myself for my weak stomach.
Come time to land, I did the same thing as the last jump, but went out slightly farther so I’d have more room. But this time, I noticed something…. There was no wind in my face… Instead of slowing down, I just kept moving forward farther and farther until I was about 20 feet from the picnic tables… Evasive maneuver time! I flared early, ended up stalling at about 7 feet in the air and landed on my knees about 5 feet from the crowd of people who were all cheering… Why were they cheering you ask? Not because I didn’t hit them… But because I had passed the beer line and I now owed a case of beer.
The tandem masters all came and thanked me, and all day I kept being reminded about how I owed beer haha!
I still owe that beer and I plan on bringing it to Voltige in a few weeks when I go back to do my 100th jump with Nicolas Huard (One of the DZOs) who will be taking me on my 1st CRW jump.
I’m stoked as hell!
I’ll be in Victoriaville this weekend, hopefully back at the DZ if the weather permits, so I’ll have a new post for you guys then and possibly a surprise or two before hand.
Blue ones in the meantime everyone!
Adam