I arrive at the dropzone, the skys blue, a few clouds, but not many, and a little bit of wind, its perfect. I see the next lift is full, so get my name down for the lift after that, and, get on there for a coached jump to start my FS1 training. FS is formation skydiving, like you see teams etc doing where they link up in freefall, and is the minimum you need to be allowed to jump with other people without any special permissions being granted.

Me and the coach are just about to brief the jump and what will happen, when hes called away, and is unable to do a coach jump. Damn. I start talking to another jumper, and i can jump with him, so we go through a routine that we will do, which is what one of the coach jumps actually consists of, then, 10 mins before we are due to start getting ready, a weather hold is put on, and we are moved onto another lift, but, the other jumper has to go and cant wait. Damn.

In the end, I do a solo jump, on the last lift of the day. Second out of the plane, so a forward rolling exit, and after 2 rolls, open stable. I then do a few 360 turns, before bringing my arms and legs right in to my body, to speed up how fast i fall, before extending them fuly to slow myself down, and then i repeat. Looking at my protrack after confirms i was able to speed up to 130mph, and slow right down to 105 mph. At 5500 feet, i track, before slowing down, turning into the wind, and throwing my pilot chute at 3,500 feet.

My canopy does its usual slow docile opening, with my helping to inflate the ends by flaring the toggles. I check all around me, before turning and heading towards the landing area, and turning back into the wind. At 1000 feet i start my approach, but ive gone a little too far down the runway, and i know i wont get back up as far as the cross, so i do the usual landing pattern, but land about 150 yards away from the actual cross and flags, before bundling up my canopy and heading back to repack it, ready for next week 🙂