"If I've learned nothing else..."

A Man and his Blog

Mission 100, Day 2

Standing by to stand by. The clouds have closed in, and the ceiling is too low to do any bigway skydives. We've been split into 2 groups of 41 each, we've done our dirt dive, practiced our exit, run it out on the field numerous times, and are ready to go as soon as the skies clear.

Mathieu managed to get himself a ride with Daniel Pacquette in his RV-7, a real slick looking 2 seat airplane. He was grinning like a kid at Christmas as they took the covers and tie downs off. Matt and I were looking at it earlier this morning and speculating about teaming up to buy a kit and build one. I probably won't be able to shut him up now, and should probably start clearing out the garage to have room for it.

As we came in from the landing area yesterday we were checked back in by a girl standing at the end of the path near the beer line. If you cross the line before coming to a stop after landing you owe beer. She's standing there anyway, she has everybody's names, so this morning in my role as Beer Cop I swore her in as a deputy. There were at least half a dozen people who busted the line yesterday, if they do it from now on it will cost them.

A little before noon Martin came up on the PA to page everyone into the barn for a briefing, ending with "Under The Beer Rules, Larry will be charging the last person to arrive with a minor infraction!" The fine for which is a six pack of beer. The goal was to get people to hustle, but as I stepped out of the building there was a veritable stampede of skydivers going at a dead run, headed for the barn. Never be the last for a briefing! Apparently Donald Poulin didn't feel the rules applied to him, as he strolled in dead last, munching on a sandwich. Beer Rules are Beer Rules, no exceptions for anyone.

We were called in so they could outline a plan to pick the entire operation up and move it to their sister operation on the ther side of Montreal where the weather was better. But by the time we were ready to move the ceiling had come down there as well so we stayed put.

A couple of hop and pop loads went up to check the altitude of the ceiling, and when one of them came down saying they had gotten to 13,000 feet we started to get back to our feet and pull on suits in anticipation of a call. We were soon up in the air, launching a mostly successful 41 way from 3 different aircraft. By the time we got back down and debriefed the ceiling had come back down, and it was back to standing by to stand by.

The other group was called to report to a dirt dive with "Full Gear". That means suits, rigs, and helmets. Unless a jump is imminent you normally only wear your jumpsuit so everybody can see your colors to enable them to figure out where they have to go once they get in the air. They were out in the field for 40 minutes in the heat and humidity, running back and forth, with Rob Laidlaw critiquing and detailing every part of the dive. By the time they came back they were tired but smiling, and a lot of the less experienced people felt they had a much better idea of how to do their job.

Late in the day, just as it seemed we would be released, Martin and Donald came out of the building, walked down the steps, looked up at the sky, and ran back into manifest. We didn't even wait for the call, everybody who had seen them run back in started pulling on suits and gear. As we went through the dirt dive before boarding Michel Lemay decided to put me in a different spot for the exit. I was moved from the first row of divers to the second row of divers. For the next run out he had me switch with a girl who wasn't comfortable at front float, and just before boarding he had me switch with somebody else and I wound up being the last diver. By the time we loaded I couldn't remember where the hell I was supposed to be, or figure out what I should see when I finally made it to the door.

On jump run, Michel opened the door when the red light came on, stuck out his head and looked down, and when he saw it was solid cloud below us he closed the door. I was looking out the window across to the other plane and saw they were climbing out! I started yelling at Michel, he grabbed the door and heaved it open, and there was a scramble as all discipline went out the window and people scrambled to get to their assigned exit position. I was so confused from being moved all around for the exit that when I dove out the door I took off in the wrong direction. It took me a few seconds to get sorted out and by then I had a lot more distance to cover to get to my slot. I managed to dock before the formation dropped into the cloud, and while the line I was part of stayed stable some people were distracted by the sudden white out and either floated or sank out.

"If I've learned nothing else, it's that time and practice equals achievement." Andre Agassi

That ended our second day, and at this point we only have 6 jumps in. On Wednesday the plan is to go higher and use oxygen, and the day after that we start the record attempts. 6 Jumps isn't very many to get the lower experienced people up to speed for something like this. There are a lot of good skydivers here, but it doesn't seem that many of them have a lot of big way experience. Everybody is trying, they're all doing their best, but if the weather doesn't cooperate it will be hard to get the needed practice jumps in. One thing that is a big concern at an event like this is the possibility of canopy collisions. That's when somebody flies a perfectly canopy into another one, usually caused by not paying enough attention to where everybody else around you is. Usually with disastrous results. So far everybody has done well under canopy, following the landing pattern, watching out for other canopies, but the sky will just keep getting more and more crowded.

A big storm blew through just after dark, the landing areas will be wet in the morning when we start doing 4 plane formations.