We made first load on Wednesday morning and I was looking forward to jumping my Sabre 2 170 as I hadn't used it in over 2 years. I had gotten it's reserve repacked regularly, and plenty of other people had made use of it over the years but I had long since replaced it with my Stiletto 150. I brought it on this trip in case I wound up being loaded with 30 pounds of lead weights on a no wind day like the last time I was here. That resulted in me tripping and doing a face-plant on a landing I simply couldn't run fast enough on and a snapped tendon on my driving finger, an injury that still hasn't healed 9 weeks later.
When we tracked away after our first jump and I reached in to toss my pilot chute I was looking forward to the nice, soft, smooth, predictable, on heading opening that I remembered being my favorite of the Sabre 2's many excellent characteristics, in sharp contrast to the wild ride I often got from the Stiletto. The thought flashed through my mind as I released the pilot chute that this was going to be like kissing an old girlfriend: familiar, comfortable, and with no surprises. But I guess the old girl felt the breakup wasn't anywhere near as friendly as I did and decided to bite me when I slipped her the tongue. It opened with a snap and promptly took off in a sharp diving turn to the right, then reversed itself and started spiraling to the left. I got my hands up on the risers and was trying to guess what the hell it was going to do next and what I was going to do about it when, all by itself, it settled out smoothly on the heading I'd originally been on. Okay. Message received. As I released the brakes I made a silent promise to pull it out and play with it more often.
On my very first landing I set the tone for the event. Dusty and dirty. My canopy hit the ground in front of me and immediately everything, my main, my container, and my jumpsuit, was coated in a thin layer of dust. I stood up the landing and got dirty anyway. In fact, by the time the camp ended after 4 days everybody was starting to look more and more alike as the dust continued to accumulate. Some people who didn't stand up their landings wound up with so much dirt impacted into their gear that you couldn't tell what color it used to be. Beth Noel drove over from Palm Springs for the weekend and she told me she could tell who had landed on the grass and who had landed in the desert on the previous jump by the dust clouds that came out when their canopies opened.
Later in the day the winds started getting kinda' squirrely as the temperature climbed and dust devils began to form. There will be plenty of chances to get banged up during the camp, so we decided to call an early end to the day.
100 Way Camp
"Eight a.m., in jumpsuits, on the creeper pad, no exceptions, no excuses." That's how it starts every day. The dive plans are posted early and by the time you're standing on the pad you need to know which group you're in, which plane you're on, what your slot is in the skydive, who you're docking on, and have several reference points on the base to be able to orient yourself once you're in the sky.
There were a lot of last minute cancellations and we wound up with a 60 way group and a 100 way group. I've written about several of these events before so I won't go into a lot of detail as most of what happens at this kind of event I've covered before. Mostly.
Diane and I wound up in separate groups when she got swapped into the 100 way to fix a problem. That's not a big thing because at an event this size you rarely seem to wind up on the same plane as the people you came with let alone be anywhere near them in the sky. At least it wasn't a problem until we were on jump run and the pilot passed the word back to "Avoid the emergency vehicles in the landing area. Do not land anywhere near the fire trucks or the ambulance!" Crap! I don't want to sound cold hearted, but if somebody I don't know gets hurt at one of these things it doesn't bother me much. Right then all I could think about was that somebody down there was getting loaded into an ambulance and that there was a one in a hundred chance it was Diane. I don't know what everybody else in the planes was thinking but the last few minutes of that climb to altitude seemed to take forever. The fire trucks had pulled out of the landing area by the time we came down, and it turned out one of the Australians had dislocated an ankle. Diane had stood on the sidelines suppressing the urge to tell the guys to just scoop him up and get out of the way. She scrapes people up off the road every day for a living so she didn't see it as a big thing.
Another guy had a low cutaway and barely had time to release the brakes on his reserve and flare before he landed. Dan B.C. pulled everybody together and read them the riot act about safety and not trying to fix a main canopy that had already decided it wasn't going to cooperate. I thought back to the Canadian camp in March of last year when I burned up far more altitude than I realized as I kicked my way out of line twists. Everybody watching thought I was going to burn in, and I promised myself again that when it comes time I'm reaching for those handles as soon as there's a problem without wasting the rest of my life trying to fix it.
Brian and I were on the 60 for the first 2 days while Diane was on the 100, and her group had 3 successful completions in a row on the second day, earning their P3 100 Way Club patch with style. Brian and I were switched into the 100 way group for the last 2 days and we spent 9 jumps struggling for a completion. We kept getting closer and closer, but on each jump there was a problem. On one jump everybody did make it into their assigned slot and took grips, but not all at the same time as some people left a few seconds before the break-off signal was given. It came right down to the wire, but on the last possible jump, with just a couple of seconds left before break-off, we built it. My first 100-way skydive. And I got a patch to sew onto my jumpsuit to prove it.
After the close out on Sunday the coaches all met to make the selection for the 165-way. There was a hell of a party going on by the time they came out to announce who the lucky ones were, and there were a lot of surprises over who didn't make the cut. I was one of the lucky ones. Sort of. I'm now committed to going up and building one of the most complicated skydives I've ever seen. "The Perris Wheel" It's so complex I can't even begin to describe it, and can only hope they give me a slot I can handle.
Diane and I celebrated our achievement by going to Venice Beach for the day and walking the oceanfront. And getting matching tattoo's. They're just henna so they will fade over time, but for now on our shoulders its says "P3 100 Way Club".
Diane had tickets for us to see Steel Panther at the House Of Blues in LA. It's a big hair band from the 80's, and not normally the kind of show I would go to see, but by the end of the second song the stage was covered with topless women so it wasn't a wasted night.
The Camp was great, it reinforced a lot of the skills that we had learned on previous trips, and we finally earned those big-way patches we'd been working for. But most of what we had done on this trip so far had been low pressure, relaxed, fun skydives. The pressure will be on Wednesday morning when we go up to build The Perris Wheel. We're all going to be under the microscope, with invitations to the next world record hanging in the balance.
The Skydivers Prayer:
Oh lord,
Please don't let,
Me be the one,
Who fucks this up.
On my very first landing I set the tone for the event. Dusty and dirty. My canopy hit the ground in front of me and immediately everything, my main, my container, and my jumpsuit, was coated in a thin layer of dust. I stood up the landing and got dirty anyway. In fact, by the time the camp ended after 4 days everybody was starting to look more and more alike as the dust continued to accumulate. Some people who didn't stand up their landings wound up with so much dirt impacted into their gear that you couldn't tell what color it used to be. Beth Noel drove over from Palm Springs for the weekend and she told me she could tell who had landed on the grass and who had landed in the desert on the previous jump by the dust clouds that came out when their canopies opened.
Later in the day the winds started getting kinda' squirrely as the temperature climbed and dust devils began to form. There will be plenty of chances to get banged up during the camp, so we decided to call an early end to the day.
100 Way Camp
"Eight a.m., in jumpsuits, on the creeper pad, no exceptions, no excuses." That's how it starts every day. The dive plans are posted early and by the time you're standing on the pad you need to know which group you're in, which plane you're on, what your slot is in the skydive, who you're docking on, and have several reference points on the base to be able to orient yourself once you're in the sky.
There were a lot of last minute cancellations and we wound up with a 60 way group and a 100 way group. I've written about several of these events before so I won't go into a lot of detail as most of what happens at this kind of event I've covered before. Mostly.
Diane and I wound up in separate groups when she got swapped into the 100 way to fix a problem. That's not a big thing because at an event this size you rarely seem to wind up on the same plane as the people you came with let alone be anywhere near them in the sky. At least it wasn't a problem until we were on jump run and the pilot passed the word back to "Avoid the emergency vehicles in the landing area. Do not land anywhere near the fire trucks or the ambulance!" Crap! I don't want to sound cold hearted, but if somebody I don't know gets hurt at one of these things it doesn't bother me much. Right then all I could think about was that somebody down there was getting loaded into an ambulance and that there was a one in a hundred chance it was Diane. I don't know what everybody else in the planes was thinking but the last few minutes of that climb to altitude seemed to take forever. The fire trucks had pulled out of the landing area by the time we came down, and it turned out one of the Australians had dislocated an ankle. Diane had stood on the sidelines suppressing the urge to tell the guys to just scoop him up and get out of the way. She scrapes people up off the road every day for a living so she didn't see it as a big thing.
Another guy had a low cutaway and barely had time to release the brakes on his reserve and flare before he landed. Dan B.C. pulled everybody together and read them the riot act about safety and not trying to fix a main canopy that had already decided it wasn't going to cooperate. I thought back to the Canadian camp in March of last year when I burned up far more altitude than I realized as I kicked my way out of line twists. Everybody watching thought I was going to burn in, and I promised myself again that when it comes time I'm reaching for those handles as soon as there's a problem without wasting the rest of my life trying to fix it.
Brian and I were on the 60 for the first 2 days while Diane was on the 100, and her group had 3 successful completions in a row on the second day, earning their P3 100 Way Club patch with style. Brian and I were switched into the 100 way group for the last 2 days and we spent 9 jumps struggling for a completion. We kept getting closer and closer, but on each jump there was a problem. On one jump everybody did make it into their assigned slot and took grips, but not all at the same time as some people left a few seconds before the break-off signal was given. It came right down to the wire, but on the last possible jump, with just a couple of seconds left before break-off, we built it. My first 100-way skydive. And I got a patch to sew onto my jumpsuit to prove it.
After the close out on Sunday the coaches all met to make the selection for the 165-way. There was a hell of a party going on by the time they came out to announce who the lucky ones were, and there were a lot of surprises over who didn't make the cut. I was one of the lucky ones. Sort of. I'm now committed to going up and building one of the most complicated skydives I've ever seen. "The Perris Wheel" It's so complex I can't even begin to describe it, and can only hope they give me a slot I can handle.
Diane and I celebrated our achievement by going to Venice Beach for the day and walking the oceanfront. And getting matching tattoo's. They're just henna so they will fade over time, but for now on our shoulders its says "P3 100 Way Club".
Diane had tickets for us to see Steel Panther at the House Of Blues in LA. It's a big hair band from the 80's, and not normally the kind of show I would go to see, but by the end of the second song the stage was covered with topless women so it wasn't a wasted night.
The Camp was great, it reinforced a lot of the skills that we had learned on previous trips, and we finally earned those big-way patches we'd been working for. But most of what we had done on this trip so far had been low pressure, relaxed, fun skydives. The pressure will be on Wednesday morning when we go up to build The Perris Wheel. We're all going to be under the microscope, with invitations to the next world record hanging in the balance.
The Skydivers Prayer:
Oh lord,
Please don't let,
Me be the one,
Who fucks this up.
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