went along to the dropzone today, in the hope that the clouds werent too low, but, as i got there in the late afternoon, wasnt too hopefull, but, was hoping that if no jumping was going on, to be able to practice  packing. turned up, and the car park is nearly empty, not a good sign, gets inside, and all the center staff sat around, ‘hope youve not come to jump’ was the first thing i heard, ahh well, lets practice packing instead 🙂 get a rig out, drag it all out and shake it up a bit, get 3/4 of the way through packing it back up (which took me about 15 minutes)when im told ‘we are all going down the pub, having a packing challenge first, leave that there’. Last time i saw this, Will, the boss of the place, did it in 5 minutes, this time, they are betting on 3-4 minutes. I see some interesting ‘procedures’ for packing a parachute, that i wasnt shown, and ive been told not to repeat or attempt, but im sure there was some cheating going on, as manuals were referred to afterwards about proper packing procedures, but, a few people packed, there was fights with getting air out of the canopy, fights with broken elastic bungees that hold all the lines together and a fight with a bin in the corner of the room, but all with times from about 4’58 to around 6′ and a bit (from the professionals, i was just spectating), and from here, off to the local for a pint (of shandy)

as well as this, the canopy handling that was cancelled due to the weather last week, will now be in 2 weeks time, on the 4th oct, briefing, hop n pops from around 7’000 feet, then debriefing, and im really looking forward to this, as id love to improve my accuracy on landing, get my jump numbers up, get my B license, and be able to land on the southern PLA, and also booked on another packing course for the 25th oct