Just a little story about a chop (The gods have a sense of humor...)

[pchapman 279]

Chad, friend of mine, called me up early yesterday evening, looking for a reserve repack that same evening. He had just had his first chop, at slightly over a thousand jumps, and was looking to get back in the air for the rest of the long weekend (here in Canada) without having to borrow gear the whole time.

While he promised to make it up to me, this was one of those inconvenient rigging requests that mess up one's plans for the day. He was at one DZ, while I was at another 45 minutes away (just passing by after a non-skydiving weekend) for a couple jumps before having to get home at the end of the day. I figured I'd help him out, as Chad isn't some random annoying rigging customer, but a friend who shares an interest in some silly skydives -- wingsuit rodeo, Para Commander Mr. Bill, double tandem Mr. Bill, playing with my intentional cutaway rig, and so on.

So I agreed to head over to his DZ after jumping was done, but as it didn't look like I'd be on any good loads right away, I ended up packing up and heading out without another jump. Besides, "we" had C-182s, and "they" had a Caravan. I got to the DZ at 8:15 pm, just in time to make it on the last load. Sweet! Much more fun to jump at a DZ than only go there to do a repack. Chad kindly paid for my load, but stayed on the ground himself, chilling out and watching that last load.

As I deploy after a decent sitfly jump, the canopy goes off heading early in the deployment, the risers cross, and soon I've got a few line twists. The story follows a rather standard course here: on my back in a deep spiral, futile effort to fix, chop, flip to belly, open reserve, land in field with I and another jumper successfully chasing all the stuff, and getting a ride back to the DZ from a local yokel in the bed of his dirty pickup truck.

This was my first sport malfunction, although I had my first mal at the end of last season on jump #1998 on a tandem rig. (Plus there was a CRW related chop years earlier.) I guess I had had it coming, given that the main canopy is a Cobalt 75, kindly sold to me cheap by an experienced jumper who got tired of having to chop small ellipticals. (And upsized to a nice reliable Triathlon 99, which then spun up on her the same day I first jumped the Cobalt 75 -- that story at http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3105615; ) The Cobalt isn't my regular canopy but I've flown it a bunch this year, just because it is sporty and different.

As I joked, "Of course I like to jump it. What can possibly go wrong when someone sells you a 75 square foot non-crossbraced canopy for next to nothing?" Oh yeah, spinning mals.

The gods sometimes really do have a sense of humour. I had shown up at the DZ to pack the reserve of a friend after he made his first chop, and after I made it on the sunset load that he covered for me, I had my first sport chop.

Guess he's a demanding rigging customer, wanting proof that my reserve pack jobs work.

Chad and I are then found sitting in the hallway outside the manifest office, filling in the official CSPA Accident/Incident/Malfunction forms, as if we were kids called to the principal's office. And still laughing at another little skydiving adventure.

[danielcroft 2]

Good story, glad you're ok.

[shropshire 0]

I love it - nice story

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome