Jump #4
Well, this was a different one! After the jump last week at Tecumseh, I was looking forward to jumping with my regular instructors again. I finally tracked them down at Midwest Freefall, as there is still an ongoing problem with the airport at Frankenmuth. Although I will say I liked Midwest, all the people were great (just like the NSC people) so I’ll be happy to keep going there as long as the NSC crew stays there. I guess I was really thinking that this was going to be a quick and easy jump… and although parts of the fall went good, some… well not so good.
First off… for those that don’t know (apparently me included for about five seconds today!) there are essentially two different ways to deploy a parachute on different equipment. The older standard was the ‘rip cord’. Pulling the cord is easy, grab the handle and pull until it comes all the way out of the rig and the pilot chute launches out of the back, and then hold onto it so you don’t lose it (or they charge you 20$ to replace it!). The other way is called a BOC, (stands for Bottom of Container)… here, the handle you pull is attached to the pilot chute. You have to pull it and throw it out the side and into the wind… So far in four jumps, I’ve used each type twice… today it seems, I must have forgot what was on my back because when I pulled, I held onto it .. And nearly developed what is one of the worst types of parachuting malfunctions, a horseshoe malfunction (where the parachute it attached to you in two places, forming a horseshoe shape).
Now, that might sound bad… but wait, there’s more! Lets back up about four seconds before the pull… when you go to pull you have to reach your hand down to the bottom of the parachute on your back (BOC, duh). In order to keep your symmetry and balance, you have to move your other hand to the center of your body… once again, something I know, but just didn’t seem to do at the time. So end result….
… (Wait for the suspense)…
After a mostly good jump, I went to pull, went off balance, pulled and held the BOC (but didn’t realize it at that moment), and did a front flip into and through the horseshoed bridle loop that had developed between my hand holding the BOC, and the parachute… right after I came all the way around on the front flip, I saw I was having the malfunction and though the pilot chute was stuck in the bubble of dead air behind me, so I released the handle (which I should’ve just done in the first place!) and began to reach for my cutaway handle, at which point the pilot chute deployed (and didn’t tangle in me, thank God), and other than a hard deployment, and having to pump the brakes a few times to get my end cells to inflate, all went well!
I had a great canopy flight with another smaller canopy (down to 224 sq ft) and with only 7 cells (the previous ones all had nine) and had another easy landing about 30 meters off target (anything within 100m is passing at my level)… So far I’m starting to see that I’m feeling a lot more natural under canopy than in free fall… but practice makes perfect, and I’m a long ways from done with this.
So… end summary for the jump…
A. work on balance/form/arch position…
B. Stay Stable & balanced when going to pull…
–And–
C. If wearing a BOC chute… pull and THROW the damn handle!!
Oh well… next jump will be better…