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I have taken the plunge with a mate (Timmy) and we have paid up for the first 3 levels of the AFF course, doing our training at the Irish Parachute Club, in Clonbullogue (near Dublin).

The course is 7 instructor lead levels, 1 solo, then 10 consolidation jumps. On this page I hope/intend to keep a short diary of what we learn, more as a reminder to myself that for any other purpose.

Level 1 + Ground School

We arrived in darkness on the Friday night and to our amazement quickly got the tent up, whilst getting eaten by midges. We had agreed to behave and stay of the pints in order to get an early start on the sat. Although I can only speak for myself - i did spend quite a while starting at the top of the tent thinking about what the day ahead might bring.

Sat 13'th August

In daytime we realised that the setup (hangers, clubhouse, etc) were impressive by anyone's standards. Getting breakfast was priority and after a tasty egg and bacon toastie with coffee I almost felt awake.

We put our names down on the manifest and at 10ish in the morning we met our instructors Ronan and Peter, both lovely guys who made us feel welcome, and started training. During the day we had a number of coffee breaks and bits of time to absorb the lessons, below is what I remember.

Equipment

We took a look at the equipment, the pilot chute, the shoot, the reserve, and all the other bits that i need to remember.

Freefall body position

- arch, legs at 45o feeling wind pressure on shins

Deployment

6000ft lock on to alimeter, 5000ft wave, wave, arch reach pull 1.2.3.4 check canopy - there, square, stable - steerable We also learnt about checking for and recognising resolvable issues including:

• end cell closure - pump brakes
• slider stuck - pump brakes
• twists - push open risers - kick out twist
• turning - brake open/brake fire

Hand Signals        

- okay, arch, extend legs, contract legs, pull.

Exiting the Plane

- Check in, check out, propeller up, down, arch, heading, altitude, check left, check right, arch
- Importance of arch for acceptance into slip stream

Practice pulls       

- One of the components of the first jump lesson is to make 3 practice touches on the primary rip cord. This was done by arching, reaching, squeezing, recovering - 3 times, then checking heading and altitude.

Landing patterns   

- 1500ft in holding area, 1000 feet join onto downwind, 600 feet on crosswind/base leg, 300 feet onto finals. flare at 12 feet (45o to item) by pull both breaks fully down.

Parachute Landing Fall/Roll

- arms tucked in, feet together, knees together, side to the group, land feet - knees, roll onto side

Recognising a Malfunction

A malfunction being:

• 2 failed pulls - could not find primary pull cord
• Unrecoverable problem, e.g. end cell closure
• Knotted lines, lack of chute, unsteerable, unopened, streamer

Malfunction drills

Having recognised the malfunction - we learnt how to deal with it:

• look - at the primary release and reserve rip cords
• locate - (take hold of both - thumb into reserve release to prevent hand slippage)
• peel - peel release up and off
• punch - releasing the primary chute
• pull - releasing the reserve chute
• arch - giving the chute the best chance to open correctly

Putting it all together

After all that - a happy jump with no problems should go something like: Check In, Check out, Propeller, Up, Down, Arch, Heading, Altitude, Check left, Check right, 3 practice pulls - arch, reach, squeeze, recover, heading altitude, at 6000ft lock on to altimiter, 5000ft wave, wave, arch, reach pull, 1, 2, 3, 4 check canopy - its there is square and its stable, pump breaks check steering, toddle about, 1500ft be in holding area, 1000 feet start downwind, 600 feet start crosswind, 300 feet join finals, 12 ft flare, 0 feet land - pull brake to deflate chute, collect chute, breathe.

Ground school over (about 4pm) we got some food and started waiting. Waiting continued until we went to the pub at 8.30. We had a tasty chinese, enjoyed some beer and great banter.

Sunday 14'th

So back again, put our names down on the manifest early and got prepared to wait. This time we had Mons & Peter as our instructors, we did a run through of what we had to do, and that was that. I had written Timmy's name down first on the manifest, for no real reason, but it meant he was going first. Timmy got suited & booted and away he went to do AFF Level 1. 25 minutes later he was back on firm ground smiling from ear to ear.

Having asked him a deluge of questions, it actually made me feel better, a bit of a wait, 4 quick visits to the toilet with ever decreasing purpose, and then it was time for me to go and jump.

We went to the plane and practised the exit, then had a 5 minute wait while refuelling went on; it felt like an absolute lifetime, and nerves were certainly building.

Take off, etc, was fine, I was happy looking out the window, at about 5 thousand feet i decided i would be better off thinking about work than falling to earth, that took me to about 7000ft when i started to brick it.

At 13k we levelled off, #!$%, the door opened, Peter took a grip on my inside leg, Mons got out the door and took his grip. Check in, check out, prop, up down, ........ arch, a split second later i felt Peter shaking me back into the world of the living and i arched. It felt great, heading, altitude, check left - thumbs up, check right - extend legs sign, did that, altitude and started the practice pulls, heading altitiude, jesus we were at 6k feet already, lock on, 5k, wave wave, arch reach pull arch, look up at the canopy opening - jesus it opened....sweet.

A lovely, albeit timid play under the canopy, by 3k feet i still had no idea where the strip was and was starting to look for big fields, low and behold it was directly below me. Played my way down did the circuit correctly, flared and landed on my feet. sweet. joy. happiness, etc.

Well that was class, did a de-brief, it turns out i had moved back in the door and got my chute almost stuck coming out the door, so we had turned on the way out - other than that it all went just as it should.

We both passed and got 'Recommend Level 2' in our log books, happy campers! At this stage we both could not wait to do level 2, which we knew was following soon.

The people were great, no snobbery, not attitudes, just a really helpful and fun crowd. I would recommend to anyone thinking of learning to skydive be it for AFF or to do a Tandem Skydive to make a visit to the biggest and best Skydiving Club in Ireland.