Tag: excitement

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Quick update

Hey guys! Quick update while I have time between classes –

This weekend is quickly approaching, and I’m extremely excited about it. Basically the University of Minnesota Skydiving Club is headed out to Skydive Twin Cities in Baldwin, Wisconsin for a day like no other. We’ve succesfully signed up over 80 tandem first-jumpers from the U of M! We weren’t expecting this many people at all, but I’m super pumped.

This club has also afforded me the opportunity to meet some awesome new people. Kaleb Lommen, our club president, introduced me to a bunch of his friends (and coworkers) from Skydive Twin Cities – many of whom have thousands of jumps and hold high ratings within the USPA. Hopefully I’ll be able to probe their minds a bit and find some pieces of skydiving wisdom, as well as improve my overall skydiving career.

So I know it’s the end of the season for most of us. Anyone jumping during the winter? Making any trips to the tunnel or maybe a BASE expedition? I’d love to hear about it!

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Helicopter jump

So it’s nearly the end of the season in Quebec and in most places actually…
Although there’s still a couple of weeks left to the season, it’s over for me at this point.

I ended it with a bang though, got my first helicopter jump done (4000 feet).
And yes, I bought beer… And rum actually haha.

To give some of you a quick description of what it’s like to do a heli jump as opposed to a normal skydive from a plane, when you jump from the chopper, you’re getting off out of a vehicle that’s barely moving, so you actually get that feeling that you’re falling at first. When you jump off a plane, the plane’s moving at about 80 mph, so when you jump, there’s wind pushing you in some direction, the wind you’re feeling (Called relative wind) starts off on the side (opposite direction that the plane is moving in) and ends up in front of you (you’re falling down, wind seems to be blowing up)

I don’t know why for certain, but, once you’re actually in the relative wind, you don’t feel yourself falling, you feel as if you’re static in one place.
With the helicopter jump, you feel yourself falling until you’ve accelerated enough to reach a speed at which you once again feel motionless.
It’s quite the similar feeling to a bungee jump.
Base jumping is also the same feeling as this.
It’s something I’d do again, but it’s not that high on my priority list…

Blue ones everyone!
-Adam

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Where am I?

As a follow-up to my post My original plan for this year… My actual results

I’m now at 62 jumps, I’ve spent about 5000$ on the sport (not counting the 1750$ for the solo course, the 350$ for the jump suit, the 280$ for my protrack, 260$ for my full face, my 100$ for my Altimaster II or the 1200$ spent going to Florida to take that solo course)

I’ve just passed my B license, (Yes, Got my B 15 jumps after passing my A).
I’ve not only passed the B license exam… I got 96.25% on it… According to my DZO, it’s the highest grade he’s ever seen =D.

I now have an altimaster II galaxy altimeter, a tony suits jump suit, a protrack audible, a factory diver full face, a packing tool and a huge smile on my face.

I did however decide to slow down on the purchases and decided not to buy a rig this year.
I’m going to start paying off some debts for now and maybe buy one next year.

As it stands, I’ve now surpassed my 2 year goal on the sport haha.

Next step: Coach 1 lessons and maybe Rigger A.

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Review of my new Factory Diver full face helmet

So I finally got the chance to jump the full face helmet I had to wait nearly 2 months to get…

It was worth the wait.

I’ve gotten 57 jumps done with an open face helmet wearing goggles…
After having done 2 jumps with a full face, I don’t know how I managed…
I see the ground so much more clearly, it’s not silent, but it’s so much quieter on the way down,
I barely hear the annoying flapping of the slider in the wind…
And all the stuff I heard about peoples’ full faces fogging up has now been 100% clarified to me.
I was sweaty, it was humid out, and I had the helmet on my head. (not over my face, just resting on the top of my head)
It fogged up fairly quickly.
As soon as I took it off, it started to clear up.
While wearing it, if I’d breathe through my nose, it would fog slightly around my nose, but not enough to affect me.
The vents for your mouth are well placed, so you can breathe quite well.
In freefall, the vent around your nose lets in just enough air to keep the visor from fogging up, but not enough for you to be bothered.
My favorite part of the helmet is landing…
It’s got a LOT of visibility, you don’t really have any blind spots which you do have with goggles… You see very clearly and judge distances much easier as well.
My landings were much more easy to gauge with the factory diver then with my goggles and open face.

Cost: 4*
Cheap compared to other full faces, but still fairly expensive

Comfort: 4.5*
It’s very comfortable, but unbearably hot when it’s sunny out, and small amounts of sweat make the material inside feel flooded

Look: 5*
It’s a very sleek and sexy helmet, easy to paint, very little to obstruct your vision.
Velcro on the side to tighten it instead of a strap with a snap.

Durability factor: 4*
The material inside probably won’t ever have any issues, but the Velcro will wear out and I’ve been told that I’ll end up having to add a snap. The lens is EXTREMELY fragile, to the point where even cloth would damage it and replacement lenses are never cheap.

Value: 4.5*
The Factory Diver is about 25% cheaper than the other full faces on the market, the visor doesn’t open, so you won’t have to worry about it opening randomly in free fall… This is both an upside and a downside. The Z-1 offers a safety button that keeps it from opening which gives it points, the FD simply doesn’t open.
The Factory Diver is also a bit bigger of a form, so fits a wider range of faces.
It loses .5 simply because some people want a helmet that can open.
It also has a slot for an audible altimeter on the inside lining.

Availability: 2.5*
I had to order it twice to get it, once through my DZ who never ended up receiving it, and then again through a buddy’s shop who was told that it would be on back order for a month.
7 weeks later, I had the helmet in my hands… That lost some major points for me since I’m looking to buy something now, not in 7 weeks… a 2-3 week waiting period is fine, but 7 weeks… (I waited 1 week for my Protrack to arrive at the DZ and it also had to be ordered… Review coming soon)

Overall: 4/5 Star rating
I’ll say that I’m very happy with my purchase regardless, and I’d suggest it for someone on a budget looking to get their hands on a full face helmet to add to their gear selection.

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What a birthday!

It’s been 4 days since then, and I’m still feeling the after effects of Saturday.

I started everything off by partying with some friends Friday night and got to bed around 4:30AM…
Woke up the next morning at 8:00AM to pick up some friends at the Metro (Subway) and then head to the DZ.
My mom, being a pastry chef decided that she wanted to make me some cookies and brownies to bring with me, so I had about 3 boxes of junk food with me along with my skydive gear, a small ziplock back full of cherries, my box of Gatorade powder and a huge smile on my face because the sky was just so perfectly blue!

We arrive at the DZ at about 10:00AM, I have 7 people who came along with me to do a tandem jump for the first time, they’re as excited as I am…
My buddy Alex who’s also a skydiver decided that he wanted to pop in and bring me a gift… The most wonderful gift a person can give a skydiver… He didn’t want to tell me what it was over the phone, all he said was that it’s golden and that he thought of me when he bought it.

I had no idea what to expect, in my head I was thinking “hmm, golden and he thought of me… Does this guy have a thing for me or something?”
After a few laughs at that idea, he pulled the gift out from behind his back… a Heineken Draughtkeg!!!!!
Draughtkeg

This is probably the best thing one can give a skydiver…

So I proceeded to hide it behind the manifest’s desk to be sure no one taps it open before I get to it.
(Many laughs about the disappearing keg followed later on which I’ll write about)

So i manifest myself on a first load, do a 2way with a buddy at the DZ, we decide that today we’re gonna do fun jumps that aren’t serious.
First exit: Roller coaster! I’m in front in a seated position with my legs pointing forward in front of me, his legs are on my sides, I’m holding onto his leg grips and he’s holding onto my shoulder grips.
We jumped out facing the wind instead of back to the wind, so we span all over the place going first feet forward looking down, then ended up looking up towards the plane. Was a blast!

We did some formation work after stabilizing, we grabbed arms, he satellited around me, then grabbed my arms again, then I went around him, grabbed his arms and so on.
This was his official 100th jump. (Unofficially however it was an 8way :P)

We landed exactly on point…. The instructors at the DZ however…. Landed in the soy bean fields hahahahaha!

2nd jump, two of the tandems I brought along were on the plane, one was nervous, the other was extatic.

We decided to do a head down exit, so we grabbed onto each other’s shoulder grips, jumped out, stayed head down for a few seconds, stabilized, did the same thing as the last jump, except this time after going around one side, we’d inverse and go the other side.
Again, perfect landing.

3rd jump, 2 more tandems come on (hopefully one will be doing his AFF soon)
did a 4 way with an H position exit, we were fairly sloppy on the exit (*AHEM* *Fabien* *COUGH* *COUGH*
We lost major stability and took a while to get back together… Actually, we never did, they all fell faster than I did and I couldn’t catch up before 5k feet.

Great landing though…. so golden that I had to run towards my canopy so that it wouldn’t catch wind and pull me off my feet…
Then I realize that I ran onto the runway as the plane is landing, so I have to run back….
running towards canopy

running from canopy

The tandems were extatic at the end of the jump hugging each other and yelling in the field.

4th jump was another 4way, same people, same exit except this time, the person who will remain unnamed took an easier position (tail of the H only has to jump backwards, no need to position himself into the wind or anything)
The exit is flawless this time, we stabilize… Except when we started the 1st point, this same person *COUGH* *COUGH!* Sorry bad cold…
Turned the wrong way.. apparently he doesn’t know right from left 😛

So he ended up face to face with the person next to him, being an open circle, we lost balance with the relative wind and split up again. Well he did, the other 3 of us stayed together… hahaha

Great landing again 😛

Another friend showed up to wish me a happy birthday, she surprised me as I was walking back with my rig on my shoulder from this jump. She came by to simply do one jump with me then continue on her way.
So we did a 2 way, also with a head down exit as before.
During freefall, I turned to my right, she gripped my sides, then went around gripped the other side, then came in front of me, she turned, I gripped her sides, went around, gripped the other side, then went in front of her.

Golden landing, she then went on her way and I planned to do one last jump with the same person as earlier.

6th jump was a solo, practiced for my B license series.

7th jump was a sunset load, I did another 2way with my buddy from earlier, we decided to do some back flying. we basically just spun around in circles for fun for the last jump.
Under canopy at 1 km in the air (3000 feet) while the sun has just finished setting is one of the most amazing feelings ever!

Afterwards, we were all hanging around the DZ trying to figure out whether or not to go out for food or to order pizza.
I broughts out the keg, others cracked open some bottles…
We then realized that there were no cups to be found… SACRILEGE!
I put the keg down, turn my back to talk to someone, turn around to see one of the tandem masters as he says bye to me to then look down and see that he’s hiding something under his shirt.
His statement: “What keg?”

Similar jokes were cracked over the next 20 minutes.

The DZO set up a bonfire and then ordered pizza for everyone. We all sat around the fire, drank, laughed, etc… Until about midnight when people started leaving.
I went to an after hours with my friend and partied till the sun came up… Litterally 🙂

I’m still sore 😛

My Factory Diver should be in this week. I also ordered a Protrack so reviews should be up soon 🙂

Blue ones everybody!

-Adam

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It’s my birthday and I wanna skydive…

WOO HOO!!!
25th birthday today, skies are blue, weather’s warm, I’ve got a rig for the day and a bunch of friends meeting me at the DZ… Gonna be a fun day!

Damn I should’ve gotten more sleep! 😛

Blue ones!

– Adam

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From Whuffo to Licensed in 12 days

First and foremost, I apologize for not updating this page as often as I wanted to. I had initially planned on updating it after every single jump, but things happened extremely fast. As the title describes – I made 25 jumps in just under 12 days time, while still working 45 hours per week. But I can honestly say it’s been one of the greatest 12 days of my life.

Along the way there have been some very notable jumps, here are my favorites:

Jump no. 7

Obviously my first Free Fall jump would make the list. I already wrote about it in “Not Bad, for a Wednesday” but I have to reiterate it here. Freefall is breathtaking. The feeling of just letting go from an airplane is unforgettable, and so is this jump.

Jump no. 9

Two days after my first free fall jump, I started jumping my own packjobs. For someone who can barely fold a shirt, packing a parachute scared the living hell out of me. That first jump – all I could think about was “Will this open?! Will it?!” and totally lost focus on the jump itself. We went out at 6.5, and I was only able to do two 90o turns before I pulled- at 5,000 feet. My coach, Cora, landed next to me laughing, she knew exactly why I did it.

“See? It opened. I told you it would. Now you get to do two more 90o turns plus 180’s and 360’s on the next jump. You’ll have to pull even lower to get them all in on time.”

Jump no. 13 (lucky no. 13!)

This was the second spot I made (a stressful event in and of itself) but this was also my first tracking jump. For those of you who don’t get to routinely fall at terminal velocity, I’ll enlighten you.

Tracking is the art of removing yourself from the arch that was so painfully drilled into your skull during your first jumps in order to move rapidly across the sky. When doing formation skydiving (relative work) it is important that you are clear of the group you exited with when you pull your parachute. Tracking works by placing your hands on either hip, cupped down, while rolling your shoulders down, and pushing your feet together. This allows you to really haul ass away from people, it’s also INSANELY fun. The thing I love about it is the sound. Freefall is loud, but a rather gentle “swish”-ing sound as the air goes by. When you track, you accelerate even faster, which makes a “WOOOSH” sound. Every time I track for more than a few seconds, I feel like Ironman™ breaking the sound barrier.

Jump no. 18

This was my check dive. At 18 I had completed the entire Skydiver’s Information Manual (SIM) manual, and just had fun jumps til I could get my license. I loved this jump because I really feel like I nailed it. For those of you who don’t know, the last 3 or 4 jumps in the SIM are swoop & dock jumps, meaning you have to approach and grab your coach in the air – much trickier than it seems. I always had trouble falling fast enough to keep up with my jumpmaster Paul, so I blew it a couple times.

But no. 18 was different. I jumped with Cora, who’s about the same size as me.  I got to do some backflips off of the step, which were ridiculously fun, and then completed my turns, and then I saw Cora above me. I was able to get back up to her and dock with almost no effort. It felt great to finally get that satisfaction. I was so excited I did another backloop, then tracked and pulled. Awesome.

Jump no. 19

Jump 19 was a fun jump, I had a ton of fun because I got to dive out after Paul. Dive-out exits are awesome. Jump 19 was crazy, because I had also just taken apart and reassembled a 3-ring system with our FAA certified Rigger, Mike. Mike was so concerned that I was putting my side together correctly, that he accidentally put his side on 360o from where it should have been. This caused a line twist about midway up that in effect stopped the end cells on my right side from opening. It was my first true “fast” malfunction. I immediately began spinning, and was about to cutaway when I saw the single twist, and remembered that we had just reassembled that 3-ring system. I twisted at the base of my risers, and that transferred the twist from the lines to the risers, and flew the rig home. Cora was impressed that I didn’t cut it. Teddy wanted me to cut it, because that would be 3 cases of beer I’d have to owe.

Jump no. 20

This jump almost made me poop myself. Paul, Cora and I did a 3-way from 10,000. We planned on exiting in a circle, breaking and turning 360o, then reconnecting and doing it again. Our exit was great, but once we turned, Paul fell under us and I started to side-slide while holding onto Cora. Paul backslid and was starting to come up, but I was side-sliding too fast. He flew directly under me, putting me in his “burble”. I immediately dropped on his back at 8,000 feet into an inadvertent “Rodeo” – it was crazy. Once on the ground, Paul thought it was just the funniest thing.

“I’ve never seen anybody hop off a rodeo so fast, you weren’t quite ready for that, where you?”

Nope. Not at all.

Jump no. 23

This jump went well, Teddy and I exited, but rotated head-down and held it. According to his audible altimeter, we travelled at 190mph as a top speed. The crazy part though, was deploying. This was a chute I had packed, and I had the most insane pilot-chute burble ever. I literally pulled at 4,000 feet and finally came under canopy at 2,800. It wasn’t until I rotated to reach for my cutaway handle that the parachute finally deployed. Crazy.

Jump no. 24

Under this one, in my logbook I wrote “PERFECT” in big, capital letters. Cora and I went from altitude, on the way up we changed our dive plan 3 times (She said it made me a real skydiver.) We started with grips, I then released and went sidebody. Cora held her heading, I side-slid around and got the other side, then back to front dock. We did this twice. I was so incredibly jacked. This was the first jump I did that I really feel like I nailed RW on the first try.

Jump no. 25

Graduation! This jump wasn’t all to spectacular, same plan as 24 only I would have to fall faster because it was with Teddy, who is bigger than Cora. I was only able to get around him once, but then I tracked for 15 seconds at full speed. Landing felt great, I had put the feet on target for the 8th time that day.

What are some of your most memorable jumps? Most insane? Best improvisation? Holler at me in the comments.

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All this planning and I forget to bring my gloves

So in the end, we didn’t do a jump at 20 000 feet, the DZ wasn’t able to get the permits.
So we jumped from 18000.

Everyone on the plane had oxygen masks, we were 4 loads of 8-9 people.
On my load, a buddy who’s birthday it was who they added to our load to accommodate (He wasn’t supposed to be jumping today, they originally limited the day at 30 jumpers)
Most of the load were friends of mine I had met while skydiving, 3 of which were jumping with me.

At 12 000 feet, we were told to put on our oxygen masks, and from 12000 feet until 18000 things were normal… Aside from the cold.

It’s 25 degrees on the ground, I know it’s cold in the sky, yet for some reason…. I managed to not wear gloved… I actually don’t have skydive gloves in my colors, but I usually wear my snowboard gloves instead.

We did a 4way RW (Relative Work) jump. I was the tail, first to jump out while holding in an H position. Our bodies are placed like the letter H with our arms being the middle point. (In reality, it’s more of a domino shape with the top, middle and bottom line being our arms, but it’s called an H position)

We position ourselves, exit, it’s a little unstable and the person to my right ended up coming under us but we replaced ourselves and got good grips onto each other.
We then started doing our formations, or at least tried to…. After the 1st point, (everyone turned 90 degrees clockwise) things started to lose balance, so we basically played a game of tag in the air.

Landing was a bit rough, I jumped a Sabre II 170, loaded at 1.16, wind was very shaky today and lots of people got hurt on our run, I came close.
I was hoping to get a nice swoop in, but I flared about 2 feet too late and didn’t compensate by pulling faster and harder, as I started to swoop, my feet had touched the ground, but I was still coming down a little and my knees touched the ground, then the swoop picked up, lifted me onto my feet then stopped.
I got dirty, but didn’t hurt myself thankfully.
2 people on my load had hurt themselves on the run.

One person came in very close to some trees and got some wind burble due to that, he wasn’t able to keep control 100% and landed a bit hard, another person caught some turbulence and didn’t correct it, he was about 20 feet off the ground, in the end the right side of his parachute folded in and he landed rolling.

Some other people just landed in the middle of nowhere.
On the bright side, I landed exactly on target 😛

The wind picked up not long after the jump to 23 naughts (about 26 mph), so they grounded the planes by the 11th load of the day.
I decided to call it a day and head home to relax.
“You know you’re a skydiver when… You’re able to wake up at 5 am to go to the drop zone and skydive to be there for 7 am, but you have a hard time being up at 6:30 to go to work for 8.” 😀

Blue skies everyone

– Adam

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Not Bad for a Wednesday

“Not bad for a Wednesday?” Ryan yelled over the noise of the small Cessna 206.

“Hell no!” I answered back.

It was almost sunset, and I’d been jumping since three. My training seems to be coming along nicely, I just need to work on targeting my landings better.  But here I was about to get my first real freefall jump.

He flashed the climb-out/get-out signal. Next thing I knew I was hanging on the strut of that little plane, looking back at a big grin and a thumbs up.

“Fuck it.” I remember thinking, then I let go.

Freefall.

There’s no amount of ground training that can prepare you for what it’s like to fall from the sky at 150mph. There’s no video you can watch, or video game simulation to play. A wind tunnel gets close, but only for the physical aspect. You don’t have the falling sensation, or any sense of altitude awareness in a wind tunnel – but I’m sure it’s good practice.

I started on Wednesday still on the static line, doing some practice ripcord pulls. After I made 3 good ones, they gave me a hop n’ pop. After that, I got taken to 5,500ft AGL, and got a 10 second freefall. Not bad Ryan, not bad for a Wednesday.

For those of you not lucky enough to experience this part of life yet, I won’t even make an attempt to describe it. There’s just nothing to compare it to. You’re falling, but you don’t stop falling for a minute or sometimes more. It’s just you – and nothing else, and I wouldn’t trade that feeling for anything. (PS. I owe beer)

So far my skydiving journey has been incredible. The folks over at the Minnesota Skydivers Club are absolutely amazing, and phenomenal instructors to boot. I’ve only been at this a week, but I can tell I’ll be doing this for the rest of my unnatural life.

Once on the ground my first question was, “What do you tell people? How do you explain why you do this?”

The general consensus was that you just don’t. Ryan told me that at first he wanted to tell everybody everything about skydiving – but then he realized that people just don’t understand. Afterwards, he says “You just want to talk skydiving with other skydivers, because they get it.”

Adler told me that he just doesn’t bother telling anyone. If they ask, he says “Well, I like it.”

What do you guys tell your friends or family? How do you explain why we love plummeting towards the earth at terminal?

Looks like it’s time to head out to the DZ again, then a nice 10 hour shift at the bar. Awesome.

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Jumping in SA is cheaper than here =(

Well, as far as I’ve been able to read, as it stand, Lance has got it way better than I do in Canada…

A jump ticket here is 35$ Canadian (34$ us give or take)
Packing is only 6$ though. So if you have your own rig, it’s 41$ if you have your rig packed. Add another 30$ if you rent a rig.
It’s July, I’ve done 2 jumps this month so far, (Not kidding)
I’ve done 48 overall this year, 10 of which were my AFF, 10 were my RW course, 2 were with camera men to film my “flip” attempts and the rest fun jumps and have easily spent 6000$ so far… This doesn’t include buying a jumpsuit or helmet.

As it stands, my money can go much farther in Lodi California than it can here or in South Africa, but it’ll cost me a fortune to go there in the 1st place. (In Lodi it’s about 9$ a jump+ packing) But given the choice, I’d rather jump in South Africa… Lodi isn’t exactly the nicest looking part of the world.

As for wing loading, the DZs here don’t limit you with anything, they just want to make sure you’re comfortable jumping with whatever loading you choose.
Right now, I’m jumping a 1.16 loading and am looking at downsizing to 1.32 by the time I buy my rig next april (We can’t jump in the winter, so it’ll be the equivalent of downsizing in October).

So I stick to my grounds on saying that SA’s got it somewhat better 😛

Then again, I’m not really sure of the average income/cost of living there though but judging from all the “sponsor a child in Africa” commercials, I guess I can see why it’s not affordable for most people.

Fill me in Lance!
– Adam