It’s been so long since I’ve been in the sky, it was like being born again. Between having to buckle down and take my life as a horse trainer seriously (well more seriously than being a skydiver), weather, time with my girlfriend and building legs, I just haven’t been able to get a dropzone more than once since Tiki. Finally the world allowed me some time this weekend!

I headed to Pepperell Saturday afternoon because I had jump tix for there in my log book and haven’t been there since Mantas Mayhem in July. It was great to get back to the home DZ. The vibe was a little frenetic being a perfect day with tandems crawling all over the place, students gunning for their licenses, and fun jumpers trying to get the most out of the season.

After three weeks away, I gotta say, I had the serious heeber-geebers about jumping. The last time I packed my rig was in a barn isle doing a show and tell after working horses, and I had little recollection of that pack job. I couldn’t decide if that sense of foreboding meant something, or if it was just low altitude sickness. I did all my gear checks looking for anything that should be a problem, slid my seal-in liner into my now way too big jump leg, which worked out perfectly to take up the extra space, and kept my eyes and ears open for trouble. I think if I received a text message that had so much as the word “don’t” in it I would have bagged. I kept thinking of that scene in Fandango where they spell out “No Go” in laundry on the ground, but someone comes along and starts picking up clothes and kicking things around making the message read “GO ON” just as their friend spots the DZ. It all went great of course. I got a couple of three way dives in and my pre-second Coach jump with a guy named Carlize from the D.R. After three jumps a few beers and some time with my Pep-peeps, I felt a world better!

Sunday it was time to get together with my brother for jumps. We had to start the day doing an annual on my girlfriend’s furnace (which provides jump money for the brother), then we headed out for the DZ. the question was, which DZ? Elizabeth lives south of Hartford, so we were trying to choose between Skydive Danielson, or CPI.

I’ve been having so much fun and Danielson this summer, and I really miss my friends there, so I made the call to head that way. 5 minutes later we get a text from Laura, the DZO at Danielson. “Alternator issues… Won’t be sure for another 30min… If you’re at a crossroad, might play it safe and head to CPI”. Big time bummer! I was really looking forward to getting my brother to the big D! High props to Laura though. There are plenty of other DZO’s that would keep their mouth shut just to be sure they had jumpers on hand if they did get the pane flying again. (which I believe they did)

Pulling in to CPI there were plenty of jumpers on hand, but between an early persistent fog, and a refueling times that made us wonder if the pilot was being hand fed peeled grapes, getting a massage with a happy ending (by Alex), they were only on load 9 at 2:30. With the sun dropping out of the sky like a three hundred pound naked dude falling out of a formation, we weren’t sure we’d get more than one jump in.

Shawn was all about just getting out of a plane. So rather than lobbying around to get together with any of the belly fliers, we figured we’d give a go at our pathetic excuse for free flying. My sitfly looks like a dog that just peed on an electric fence, and Shawn’s is only a little better. We packed up a quick and made another load, so we went for so e head down efforts that worked out a little better except one nice kick to the back of my OEM leg. Way to beat the cripple bro!

As we’re packing up the manifest called out for anyone interested in making the subset load fly. Shawn looked over asked if I felt like packing one more time. “Yes! Yes I do! I absolutely love packing! This is awesome!” I said as I laid down on my flop.
We were geared up for a our third 20 minutes later and headed to the plane with a high pull in mind when Shawn says “Mr. Bill?” “Yes, oh yes, that is an awesome idea!” I reply .

I’ll explain for the non-skydiving readers: A Mr. Bill is when two jumpers leave the plane together holding on to each other, and before the pair can fall far (or fast) one of them deploys their main while the other holds on. If all goes right (because what could possibly go wrong with a plan like that?) you end up the two jumpers hanging off of one canopy. They can fly like that for a bit, then the hanging guy lets go and deploys below. It’s silly and fun and has little other use than to be silly and fun.
Why it’s called a “Mr Bill”, I don’t know. Why we would do one? It’s a natural progression in unnatural selection. Again, what could possibly go wrong?

We asked for a little advise on the move. One jumper told us to hold really close, give a couple seconds out the door before pitching, and hold on tight. Beyond that we just figured we’d wing it. Our fellow jumpers helped boost our confidence on the way to altitude with encouraging words like “haven’t you seen the Mr Bill gone bad videos?” and “I’m worried about you guys.”
My brother’s face in the door looked like a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon when they were ready to attack the next big sledding hill. I grabbed hold of his harness just under the three rings on either side, and wrapped my right leg around his waist as I stood back to the prop. He did a head count, we stepped off, I wrapped my other leg on, he pitched and grabbed ahold of me. It felt like just about any other good exit we’d tried, only a little gayer. I caught a quick sight of his pilot chute trailing away from his back, then a jolt, followed by a hard yank. The jolt was line stretch, and the yank was the canopy beginning to open. For the briefest of moments I thought we might not pull it off and I’d just rip away, but that moment passed as quickly as it came. As his parachute sniveled and opened with a slight turn it got easier and easier to hold on. We nailed it! I looked over my shoulder to see the two wingsuiters flying from the Otter and make their right turn away from us. We flew together for a minute, then played out a cheesy death scene “don’t let go!” “No, I can’t hold on! Go on with out me!” Ya, brothers will never stop being little kids in the back yard, even if the yard is as big as the sky. I grabbed his chest strap, moved to his hands, hung upside down by my legs for a brief second and let go. It’s a very cool feeling dropping into still air as apposed to the rush of wind when leaving an airplane. I waisted no time getting onto my belly and pitching since had plans to play with our canopies on the way down. Opening at sub-terminal falling straight down was a fun surprise feeling with everything deploying above me instead of behind.  Click the picture below for the video!

Ya, it’s great to get some time in the sky again!