First Solo, First Innhop

A week of waiting, but finally the time came for my first solo jump. My mom was kind enough to drive me and my sister all the way to the dropzone, and she actually sat down to watch my first solo landing.

Many things were exactly as they've been previously - even being at the solo level, an instructor or jumpmaster still needs to do gear checks at multiple points before the jump, and they still need to give the go-ahead before you're allowed to leave the airplane. But once you leave, you are truly on your own, falling out of the sky with only your own thoughts, trusting that you know everything you need to know in order to save your own life. And I did it - I dived out on my own, allowed myself to simply fall and feel out the handle of the pilot chute a couple of times, and simply looked at the view as well as my altimeter. It felt like the fall lasted an eternity, just like my very first jump. With no program to follow, I truly realized just how much time one has before the free fall is over, and I was absolutely amazed. I flew to the ground with a huge grin on my face, and even managed to land on my feet for the first time! 

It was too late for another jump, but I had an entire weekend of jumping to look forward to. The following day I got five more jumps in, including a coached jump with a jumpmaster and a hop and pop from 1500m where the goal was to deploy the canopy only a few seconds after leaving the airplane. The last jump of the day was the sunset load, where the golden light of the setting sun made quite the view, both during free fall and while under canopy. I ended the day tired, but satisfied.

The following day we got up early in order to go to with the airplane to Odense in Denmark, as the plane was rented out for the day. We got a briefing before leaving and it was decided that based on my level, I would be allowed to do a semi "innhop" along with everyone else. Innhop is where you plan to land in a location you haven't seen before, usually it involves landing in a field, but in this case we would be landing at the dropzone in Odense which I had never seen in-person. To prepare for it, I spent most of the flight looking at the satellite image and memorizing the area. It all paid off, and I was told that my landing was a lot better than the one most of the others had managed during the innhop. The rest of the day turned out to bring cloudy weather, so we only got a single jump in during the hours we were there, before finally flying back to Sweden in the late afternoon, where we also got to jump off the plane before it landed at our dropzone. Even though the day had been pretty easy, we had a lot of fun hanging out and just talking to each other, and I got to continue working on my packing skills, which are getting better since the jumpmaster showed me another kind of trick for grouping the lines. Overall, the weekend was great and even though I returned home tired rather than rested, I can't wait to get to jump even more.

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