Very appropriately: Michael Kamen, Band of Brothers Suite 2
Drop altitude 1500 feet AGL, time of drop approximately 1045.
WX at 1100, 60/16, DP 37/3, winds NNW 9, unlimited vis. RH less than 40%.
A gloriously great day for a jump. Clear visibility, breezy but not gusting. I also caught a thermal, giving me a birds-eye view of the drop zone from the drop altitude of 2000 feet AGL.
Today also marked the first time in a long time that I've properly verbalized my six-thousand count upon exiting. All too often in the past I've thought that I'd say it, but keep forgetting until my parachute had already opened. This is something I want to keep doing. If I don't have a opening shock and start to gain canopy control by the end of that count, it's time to activate the reserve parachute.
I had enough time during descent that I could actively steer away from the FLS. This is important. I don't want to land on the FLS, having broken bones in the past landing on a comparably hard surface. I steered past it with the wind and buttonhooked my landing. Longer walk, but my ass is in one piece, and that's the preeminent consideration.
I realized some 200 feet above the ground that I was running (steering forward in the same direction as the wind) and turned, but hit remarkably lighter than I expected for such a late change in direction. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Relatively soft landing, uneventful return. Not a bad ride for 2000 feet AGL!
On the down side: I was witness to the most fucked up recitation of sustained airborne training I have witnessed in some four years of jump status. Holy mother of god was this guy ate the fuck up. I don't like to correct other jumpmasters in front of other jumpers, but this was so goddamn unsafe that I had to chime in. To add insult to injury, he was reading off a script. Too bad he didn't bother to check accuracy or currency of his fucking prejump script! This guy was also the JM on my static safety duty. Things that pissed me off:
1 - He didn't bother to check static lines of the jumpers near the front. Never mind that we had more than 10 jumpers (the norm). End result was that I didn't finish checking static lines until we were almost a minute out from kicking troops out the ramp. Never mind that he wasn't jumping, he's a fucking static jumpmaster and he could goddamn help.
2 - He released jumpers early. He either couldn't spot the panels (which is kind of a goddamn SAFETY prerequisite, among other procedural REQUIREMENTS) or he decided to hedge his bets and guess. The drop zone safety officer called up to the aircraft to ask pointed questions about whether this was a CARP (Computed Air Release Point) or GMRS (Ground Marking Release System) jump. This was the latter, it's the way all the jumps with my current unit are done. This guy was just not there.
3 - He was too busy staring out the windows looking at jumpers to bother with helping prepare the aircraft for the next lift.
Notes to self - don't get paired with this guy ever again if I'm safetying. Give the sustained airborne training brief myself rather than witness another public abortion.
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