Month: May 2010

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The hazards of skydiving:

So, as all of you know, skydiving is a sport with certain risks, people can get hurt, people can get scared, people can get sick…
Well, the other day at the DZ, one of the tandem students did just that, he puked all over his tandem master’s leg…
Poor guy’s jump suit went from black to orange….
Now, to make matters worse, the next day, THE VERY SAME tandem master was up with a student who started puking… and guess what…
…
…
…
…
He avoided it hahaha

Seriously speaking though, one of the tandem students didn’t listen to his tandem master for the landing (You’re supposed to lift up your legs, and the instructor tells you to several times if you don’t)
Well, the guy didn’t listen, and broke his lower leg… Note to all of you future skydivers: LISTEN TO YOUR INSTRUCTOR!!!!!!!!!!

That is all.

-Adam

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My mom went co-pilot!

So I was having a very hard time convincing my mom to come jump with me… When she got there, she loved the atmosphere and the people and everything, so I popped up the idea of letting her ride co-pilot.
She asked me to go find out how much it would cost, so I just manifested her, and brought over the form for her to fill out.
She looked at me and said something along the lines of “I didn’t tell you to book me, I told you to ask how much it was!”
So I pulled her chair up to a table and made her sign the form.
Within 20 minutes, she was being explained how to use a parachute in case the plane had a problem.
I was the 2nd to get off that load, so I didn’t get the chance to see her, but she looked ECSTATIC when she got off.
A friend who came along snapped some photos which I’ll post at a later date. (I didn’t get my hands on them yet).

The conditions weren’t that great, it was cold and was raining in altitude… Let me tell you, rain drops sting like crazy when you hit them at terminal velocity!
All in all, was a fun day, got 2 jumps in, practiced some barrel rolls:

Did some more mantis practices as well… I Couldn’t find a good video of it, but basically, you’re in a position where you’re more arched, your arms are a bit more tucked in, with your hands around your chin.
You’re less stable, but you get a lot more control and speed with your movements.

All in all, a great 28 and 29th jump 😀

-Adam

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My mom’s coming along

So my mom finally accepted to come to the drop zone and watch me do some skydives.
I’m actually hoping that once she’s there, she’ll let me pay for her to get a tandem.
She’s somewhat adventurous, but has been extremely against the idea of her jumping.
She’s been super supportive of the fact that I love the sport though, so I’m happy about that one =).

I’ll write up a post about what happened tomorrow next chance I get.

-Adam

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Beers!!!

So the season’s started, and as with every other skydiving first, I had a few firsts myself… 1st time jumping at two different dzs, 1st time jumping a smaller rig, 1st time doing a 2way and 1st time tracking…
That’s 5 beer purchases… I can’t afford that, so I’ll be grouping it all together in 2 beer runs.
I’d say 1 beer run, but I gotta at least buy beers at each DZ I jumped at hahaha.

I’m gonna be outta money before the month of July 😀

– Adam

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So the studying begins…

I finished my A license courses, I’m now at 27 jumps, started my studies for the A license exam…
Basically, I gotta memorize two books about skydiving. That, and finally learn to pack a parachute… Back pain awaits =)

I was playing some Simon says in the sky with Valerie, basically just following her movements (swimming in the sky, learning the mantis position, grabing my foot with my hand, etc…)
Did more Tracking, some dive exits, and ended the day with a huge grin on my face, knowing that 1 month from now, I’ll be doing my A license exam.
As it stands, I’ll probably be doing my B license exam at the end of the summer… I’m going from having planned it for the middle of next summer to planning it for July/August :D.
Damn this sport’s taking all my money!

– Adam

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So it’s official:

After 22 jumps, I’ve spent at the very least 18:32 minutes of my life falling…

(Not including falling on the ground, falling out of trees, bungee jumping, or any other kinds of falls :P)

Today was an AMAZING day for skydiving, got 5 of my VR jumps in for my A license.
The day was mainly aimed at people coming to do free-flying, so I got to see a SICK formation being done with a 15 person big way. I was the last off the plane with my instructor Valerie, who was quick to point out to me that we should watch the plane, (we got to jump at 15000 feet instead of the usual 13500 on this jump, and since we were last off the plane (which is a rare occurrence unless you’re a Tandem) we got to watch it spike (fly downwards about as fast as we were falling) after 10-15 seconds of it spiking, we started out track practice for my 7th VR jump. This was a great way to end a beautiful day before going to another drop zone to meet Valerie again for my last 3 jumps.

This is a video of some great tracking…

[youtube]fJrEWqBDae8[/youtube]

For those of you who don’t know, tracking is very important when doing group jumps and formations… You basically do it at the end to split up in the sky so that you can get enough distance between you to not crash into each other when deploying your parachute 🙂

– Adam

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Mike’s Facebook status…

Earlier, I read mike’s status to say: “so it’s official, I enjoy falling.”

All I have to say to this is:

I don’t enjoy falling… I’m addicted to it… In my dreams, I’m falling, in my nightmares, I’m falling, in my DAY dreams I’m falling… I look outside and I simply want to fall… Soon enough I’m gonna make a living off falling, then I know for sure that I have a problem 😛

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Aggravating day!

So all in all, we ended up being 2 regular jumpers and 19 tandems.
Load 1 got off the ground without a hitch, well apart from a PFF student having a botched landing and face planting and a tandem with a heavier girl landing rolling into the parachute… We had a good laugh :-).

The twin otter stopped to gas up for load 2 which I was on with a buddy.
Jump went impeccably.
Load 3 also went without any problems…

Load 4 however… Never got off the ground, leaving 6 of the tandems I had brought hanging around waiting for their turn…
Turns out that the registration fees for the NAFTA weren’t paid… Or so Transport Canada’s inspectors claimed.
So we waited for 2 hours, and still nothing… By hour 3, the owner of the DZ announced that people could either take the risk and keep waiting, or go come and come back another day.

Needless to say, I decided to go home after having done only one jump, the same goes for one of the other tandem jumpers (who’s also my co-worker)… The others waited and ended up getting onto a load after 6 hours of waiting…
At this point, I’m obviously frustrated, as it was a PERFECT day for skydiving… and By perfect I mean: Not a cloud in the sky, 30 degrees celcius outside… a Perfect, sunny day. Which is something that VERY VERY rarely happens here… Especially in the month of May.

The tandems who got to jump were obviously extatic with the experience, two or three claimed that they want to take lessons… We’ll see where that leads… I know Mike’s in for the long haul, that’s for sure.

By the way: If any of you want to write for our blog, feel free to send us a note, we’re always happy to hear other divers’ stories and of course publish them 😉

– Adam

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Twenty new addicts…

So this friday I’m bringing 20 people with me to have their 1st tandem…. That includes Mike.

Some of these people seem more excited than others… Mike for example kept trying to convince me to move the date forward and skip my trip to the Bahamas so that he could do it earlier haha.

I’m honestly looking forward to seeing everyone’s reactions on the plane and then their final reactions once they land on the ground…
I’ll be jumping out before them so I won’t get to see their faces as they get out of the plane… hopefully some people will get a cameraman haha =D

Note for Mike: If you feel the need to pee while falling… please do 🙂