This morning I went skydiving again. I can’t believe I’m already saying this, but it was a pretty normal jump. I showed up at 10. One plane of students had already jumped, a second plane was getting ready, and there were only two on the third plane, so it worked out great. I wore the same neon green jumpsuit and had the same rainbow parachute, but it’s not about the looks. The weather was gorgeous; even clearer than the first time I went.
I had no problem jumping out of the plane this time. I knew what was going to happen, so a bit of the excitement wasn’t there, but it was still awesome. My exit wasn’t perfect. My arch was fine, but I pushed out of the plane a little aggressively, and rolled a little off axis. The jumpmaster later told me that he had never seen what happened next, but somehow some lines got under my foot. The effect was that I got to watch my chute deploy and then the lines snapped tight and I got rearranged exactly as I should have been. The whole thing happened so fast that I was hardly aware of it.
Once everything was in order, I looked up and watched my canopy finish opening. Then the guy on the radio came on and helped me down. I looked out over the town and enjoyed the ride. As I got closer to the field, I knew I was going to land on the grass, and I could see the guy on the radio hold up his hands and tell me to flare at just the right time. It wasn’t perfect, but I stumbled on the ground and mostly stood. I paid and headed home to make some lunch. It was a good morning.