Inspired by Rotty's journal series in which he keeps track of his flights, i decided to do something similair only not with flying, but skydiving.
Date : 28-12-2008
place : Hilversum - dropzone Westbroek(The field where the road makes a S bend is the landing area).
airplane : C-182 Callsign: PH-TGC
jumptype : Static-Line
exit height : 3500FT
Main chute : Manta
reserve chute : Square
practice : Exit, landing
jumpmaster remarks: On DZ, good exit, next time dummy pull.
The jump happend on a sunday morning 2 weeks ago, i was early on the field so i had a good chance of watching the GA activity, one plane was deperately trying to get his engine started for 10 minutes, which just didnt want to get running due to the cold weather.
The weather was quite nice, a good sun, slight wind in the morning and a little haze. Later on the day the wind picked up.
First we went to check the wind conditions for DZ(dropzone) decision. A few experienced skydivers and instructors went up and would land on the airfield DZ(Hilversum). They reported lots of wind on landing, so we went for the Westbroek DZ. I was in the 3rd stick(a stick is one run with skydivers) and was supposed to jump at 5500FT. unfortunately the airspace got restricted a few minutes after getting airborne, a Airfrance plane had encountered a birdstrike on take-off at Schiphol(EHAM) and thus we couldnt go higher then 3500FT. this caused a problem because we had one AFF(Acellerated Free Fall) student whom would exit as first. I and another student would do a static line(line attached to plane and bag that carries the chute) so we had to switch places, this can be risky for you can really see very well what you are doing and you dont want to accidentally pull open your own or someone else his chute.
After getting everybody on the right place we prepared for exit overhead the dropzone. After climbing out and keeping myself stable on the win strut i got the go from the instructor, the exit went fine and i could see the plane fly away whilst falling. After having confirmed that the chute hade opened correctly i noticed a twist which got instantly in the chute after exit. A twist means the lines of the chute are rotated around eachother, which is rather common for a static line jump and pose no more then a minor inconvienance.
But i go blown far from the DZ because of the moderate winds. so when i finally had the twist out of the lines i had to fly all the way back to the drop zone, quikly realizing that i wouldnt make the 1000FT point(a place you need to be in time for the landing circuit) so i checked for alternative landing places. Meanwhile i managed to fly to the edge of the DZ and arrived there in time at 1200ft. so after make a few circles i finished the circuit and landed nicely in the middle of the DZ.
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