SDNM meets The Wicker Clan

Lift off!

Adam landed right next to me in the middle of the stinking desert

Ron Weagley assists with inflation.

Me and Rudi. Rudi always tells his static line students that "gravity does not reward your good intentions"

A shitty self portrait, but the best one I got. Kat says it makes me look old. Hell, I am old!

Last Saturday the weather gods smiled on us and the often rescheduled meeting between Skydive New Mexico and The Wicker Clan finally happened. The Clan showed up in force with 6 balloons of various sizes to accomodate the 10 skydivers that braved the freezing dawn. I had the great good luck to be paired with Rudi in Kevin Cloney's 3 passenger balloon. I like jumping with Rudi because of his vast experience and very dry sense of humor.

The jumps were great. All the balloons launched at more or less the same time, and although we were never very close to each other, we were all within sight as we climbed quickly in the cold dense air. I saw climb rates of 600-800 fpm on the Flytec vario that Kevin had mounted in the basket - I wish the 182 would climb that fast! All too soon we were at 4,500' AGL and starting to drift over a wide swath of unlandable terrain - time to go!

I watched Rudi set up on the edge of the basket and make a perfect jump before I climbed out. I exited head high and transitioned to a track as my airspeed built up. It seemed like I was just starting to really fly when it was time to flare out and pitch my pilot chute. The canopy ride down through the smooth morning air was great and I found a perfect LZ right on a major dirt road that didn't have power lines or fences along it's edges. A few minutes later Adam landed right next to me. Rudi was down safe in his own LZ about a mile up wind of us. We barely had time to high five before Patrick pulled up to give us a ride back to the DZ.

Over the next hour all the balloons and jumpers returned to the hangar and the Wicker folks set up a big tailgate breakfast which looked delicious. I wasn't hungry, so I skipped breakfast and did a hop and pop instead.

After the HAP I packed up and headed over to manifest to see about another jump. Before I got there I was asked by a senior club member if I'd volunteer to go on a couple of loads with our new pilot, Chad. Because these were training flights the club paid for our jump tickets! In exchange, the 3 of us (the 4th slot was taken by one of our regular pilots who was coaching Chad) had to do slow climb outs and spend a little more time than usual hanging out on the strut and step to help Chad get used to flying with a bunch of peeps dangling from his right wing. My first free jumps - Beer!

On Sunday we got in one low load with Chad flying as PIC for the first time. The wind aloft was a bit stronger than the forecast and I wound up spending the whole time under canopy hanging off my front risers in order to penetrate back to the DZ. As I packed up after the jump the surface wind began to howl, so we put the plane away. All in all, not a bad wekend.

Click on the pics to see high resolution versions.