Jump number 38, I’ve now jumped more times in Wales, UK, than i have in Empuriabrava, Spain 🙂

For this jump, I’, looking ahead to not only having my B license, but also to a tandem jump that my fiancee is booked to do on June 1st. She will be having it filmed, and I’d like to be cheekey and ask whoever is doing the filming of her jump, to also film my exit to go on her DVD, and get me simply falling away from the plane, with my thumbs up, and staying stable and facing the plane whilst doing this. On quite a few jumps, ive exited looking at the plane, as i simply enjoy seeing it get smaller, but im also aware that i turn whilst doing this, so my next few jumps are to practise this stable backwards exiting.

Backtrack a little bit, me and my son get to the dropzone, and i can be on THIS lift, if im quick, theyve been told to wait for me, holy crap, im ready in about 4 minutes, and as i run out of the door, the planes leaving, damn….. but, while we watch the plane, and a police helicopter lift off, i notice how cold it actually is, so a few minutes later, a few more layers of thermals etc are put on 🙂 then im on lift #7 (turned up at dinner time :p ) and lift #9

lift 7, jump 38 is off the ground, ill be 3rd out of the plane, and its a little cloudy with lots of holes in the cloud, i only need my ‘live spotting from above 10,000 feet’ for my JM1 sticker, and dave howerski (legend) has said to give him a shout when on a lift and we will get it signed off, but, allthough hes on this lift, hes with a student, theres 4 people in the plane to exit before me (2 x teams of 2), so i just concentrate on my jump

once im in the door, i exit backwards, and try to stay stable from exit untill im falling at full speed, i turned once or twice, but was able to see the plane moving away from me, i was also very stable at the end of this, not quite on my back, and not quite sitting, but it was working for me, this is something ill play with on future jumps. i then took note of the planes direction, and tracked for a short while, before doing a few 360 turns and opening my canopy at 3,500 feet

Once my canopy was open, i started to make my way to a holding area, and as this is a pre declared landing, i need to land withing 30M of a flag on the landing area. by the time im at about 1,200 feet, i know ive stuffed it up, and am not going to make it as far as the flag. I still land within the landing area, and was a perfect standing landing, but not close enough to the flag for this to be a successfull pre declared landing, this is the first failed landing on my B license sheet

but was still a fun jump 🙂