First day attempts

Riding to altitude

There were nineteen of us JOS (Jumpers Over Seventy) crammed into the plane on our ride to altitude. We made four attempts yesterday (Friday), and we managed to build the formation to about 14 on our best attempt. Part of the problem of building a formation is that the base people, six of them, must build their six-way round before the rest can begin to take our grips. In a Twin Otter aircraft, many skydivers must make their way to the door from behind, and it can take a long time if everybody isn't doing their job. On the first attempt, it took me almost ten extra seconds to reach the door before I could dive toward the formation. I couldn't even see it!

Practicing the shuffle

We were given tips on how to get out faster: put our left foot forward and take fast little shuffling steps to the door. The second time it was a much faster exit, but the base didn't complete, so we couldn't start building the formation. On the third attempt, someone came into the formation so fast that they blew it apart, and we all had what skydivers often call an "air bath" because we still had lots of time in freefall and nothing to head towards. But on the fourth attempt, we must have been pretty tired, as people were exhausted from the hard work on the previous attempts, and it was the best jump of the day.

Quaffing beers after the jumps

After we were done, feeling pretty excited by the improvement on the last skydive, we stood around and drank beer, which is a time-honored activity after a good day of skydiving. These guys all know how to do it, since most of them have been in the sport for a very long time. The smiling lady in this picture is Louise, Scotty's wife, who isn't yet old enough to be on these JOS jumps. We have four men on these attempts who are over 80, and the oldest is 87, Bud LaPointe. The guy in the bright yellow shirt in the middle of the picture, Bill Jones, is 82 and has two artificial knees, one hip replacement, and hardware on a section of his spine. And he's the guy I follow out of the plane.

Today and tomorrow we will have formation loads, meaning that the problem of having such a long distance to get to the formation will be solved, as we will have ten people in two aircraft, which will fly very close to one another. We will build the formation using several time-worn techniques to get us all out of the planes at the right moment. I'll be reporting tomorrow on our progress. The weather is fantastic, it was 78 and clear as a bell yesterday and is projected to be the same all weekend. More later.
:-)