Ungripped

Tuesday evening brought clear blue skies, and I rushed to Skydive Syd after work to get at least one jump in. While I did show up with much time to spare, there was a bit of a delay finding the gear and gathering AFF instructors, and before I knew it we had to rush to get to the airplane. 

I got another rig than the one I'd used previously at this drop zone; one with a 240sq. foot canopy, and the harness itself was also smaller and fit much better. Due to the time constraints, we barely had time for briefing before the jump, but I had read up at home and knew my tasks: two 360 degree turns, then flying to the instructor and docking. On the way to the airplane, the instructor told me I'd be jumping out ungripped for the first time, which did make me a little nervous, but there was no time to dwell on it as we were about to get ready.

During the ride up, I once again kept going over the jump in my head, while I kept an eye on the altimeter so I could remove my seatbelt at 300m, and to put on my goggles once we neared 3000m. My instructor asked me if I recognized any landmarks and I looked out the window for a bit, but did not feel like I saw anything familiar. He pointed out Ringsjöarna and the highway while I mostly wondered how I would ever learn to recognize things from up there.

Soon enough, the door was open, and I got up to take my place in the door. It turned out that while I had removed my seatbelt at the correct altitude and closed it to avoid snagging, I had still managed to get it half stuck through my leg strap, which created an awkward moment as I needed help getting it out of the way. I thought about what that could have looked like in an emergency... lesson learned.

As I moved to the door, I allowed myself a short moment of anxiety once again thinking about jumping out on my own, before taking my place in the door. Just like every jump, the very act of getting into position was enough to make me forget anything but my tasks. Check in, eyes to the sky, out-in-jump. And then I'd done it - I'd exited the plane all on my own and managed to become stable, while the instructor caught up a few moments later. 

With renewed excitement, I did my turns and noticed that the instructor had fallen past me a bit, so as I finished my second turn, I lessened the area of my body that was exposed to the wind, managing to catch up with him. Then I had some fun flying up to him and docking twice. The second time he gave me an extra challenge - he had managed to make himself fall slower than me and I had to expose a larger area to the wind to become level with him again. Finally, on his hand signal, I turned to the side and waited for my deployment altitude. While waiting, there were so many meters to go that I figured I could catch a quick glance at the ground for what would be the first time in free fall. 

I've been so focused on my tasks during all my previous jumps, that the ground has barely even existed to me. This time I got to take a proper look and had an experience not unlike something my sister had described to me a couple of weeks ago:

I looked down and thought "Huh, that's right, if I don't pull out my parachute, I'm going to die. The ground really is coming toward me"

Even with that realisation, I did not feel fear as such, it was more of a calm understanding that I had all the power to let it happen or prevent it from happening, and of course wanting to live to jump another day. I "locked on" and only kept an eye on my altitude for the last 300m, then deployed as I should, finding the handle with zero issues, and my parachute opened up beautifully above me.

I was placed perfectly above the drop zone, but the winds were quite strong so far above ground, and even though I tried to zigzag to stay in the area, the winds ended up being my biggest challenge. Once I turned in for my landing pattern, where I had planned to do a minimal downwind, even the base (sidewind) pulled me further away and I suddenly found myself above a row of trees in turbulence. I knew this could become a bad situation and that the wind would not allow me to get far enough back, so I ended up deciding to land as far behind the trees as possible, instead of landing in the drop zone. I made a couple of small course corrections, and finally landed in some unnamed crops, my landing being surprisingly soft. I got up and had to fight to gather up the parachute, as the crops made it more difficult, and finally one of the other instructors showed up and helped me find a way out of the field. We walked the 200m back to the actual landing area together. If I am jump in similar winds again, I will have to turn even earlier in the downwind, and make my upwind the longest part of the pattern. Had I done that, I would have landed perfectly where I was supposed to.

Everyone is going to land away from the drop zone at some point, and even though it annoyed me that I had messed it up, I also found comfort in knowing that I had now experienced it, and that a lot of jumpers had ended up landing away from the landing area that evening. It's a learning process, but it's more fun when you're not alone in your mistakes.

Due to the high winds at altitude, there were no more jumps for students that evening, so I ended up spending time packing my parachute for the third time (spoiler: it's still hard), and finally going home, hoping for better weather the coming weekend.