March [1997] Jump Report

The buds of Spring bring promise.

March provided 8 quality skydives and a ton of production at the office.

After a of Winter soul searching I have decided to concentrate on the regional scene this Summer. My efforts at National level competition have leveled out because of financeing. I have the skills to compete, as shown in my previous 2 years of 300 jump efforts, but without the ability to go 'full time' I have reached a glass ceiling in skydiving. Top teams do 600 jumps a year practice and have to make 2 coastal trips and 2 European trips a year to make it. Homey can't play that game.

I'm trying to pimp clinics on freeflying at 12 different Dz's in my 6 hr. driving radius. Tammy Koyn is my partner and author of the clinic. I'm going along (if we get any bookings) to shoot film and drive and maybe do run off coach dives. We have an ad out on the net bulletin boards and I sent out a bunch of posters and letters. I really don't know what is going to happpen, but, I'm hoping for 6 clinics with 4 people at each one.

I also organized a 4-way VRW camp with Pat Works and World Skydance at my DZ in Kansas City. Mission: Do some 4-way vertical RW with points. I got plans for this. Basically, we jump Cessna's, but we get them to ourselfs and can make 8 a day easy for 12 to 12. Causal VRW in the city....party close in.

I spent one weekend of good weather away from the DZ building my still camera set-up. I put it on my Gath. It looks good. I spent a bunch of time on it...probably 25 hours total. My first run didn't work...too top heavy, but my second try lowered the cg. 4 and 7/8ths inches and took 5 oz. off the weight. The beauty of it all, and I did it without disturbing the original helmet. I'm set now. May start filming this week.

Anyway, back to the skydiving. I worked on skill dives this month and did one flat night dive with extras. I finally learned the 3-DU/Koyn technique in the head-down of keeping the arm cocked. She learned this from the French. Keeping the arms bent at 90 to the ground at the elbow, hands cupped into the most extreme air as feelers relieves the tremendous forearm stress encountered in the 'angled arm' technique. 'Trapped' air between the side of the head and the forearms reduces velocity by 15 % without having to add claw.

I did my first Hale-Bopp nightdive on 3/22, probably about the time the cult folks were putting on their breathing condoms. I went off with a couple of flat people and the dive plan centered on launching a 3-way and rotating slowly to see the comet. It was clearly visible from 105 when we launched, but something went wrong and we tumbled. Instinctively I waited until I cam to the bottom of the tumble, then went into a controlled stand-up. My increased velocity, and ability to control it was like adding weight to the bottom. Quickly, everyone found their air, and we flattened out. It was my first instinctive use of VRW techique tranferred to prone-mode. I really enjoyed viewing the comet over the 80 miles of city scape below after we got into the slow rotation. Tracking off looking over my shoulder at the anomoly ...cosmic, dude.

On one of my skill dives , I worked on transferring a high speed VRW dive into a horizontal track. On 2 occasionasions, I wittnessed a 300 yard in 3 second movement. I jump without instruments and watch the dirt for height reference. I moved along a nearby street and I counted how many houses went by while counting to 3 slowly. And then later measured it.