Saturday, February 04, 2006
Saturday, three drops scheduled.
There were three loads on the sked, and we were geared up and dirt dived by 0900 with a couple of minutes to spare. Then the news broke of "Maintenance troubles", and the attempt was lost.
You'll hear various versions of this, but essentially most of the team were released until 1330.
Imagine my surprise to find myself in the plane at 1230...
I did /not/ have a good feeling about this jump. It was hastily organised, and suffered a little from too-many-chiefs (I'm going to refer to it as NCOS if it occurs again on this event - Non Commissioned Officer Syndrome). It was filled with the base and two sectors - perhaps because those sectors had people that hadn't left the DZ, or could be retrieved. Nice legwork from Gary from Airtite here, running to hotel whiteboards and pools to retrieve people.
Nonethless, 130ish people boarded a single Herc for a lob. About 270 short of a record attempt by my count.
A few minutes later - having gone nowhere - we worked out that 130 people don't fit in a Herc - seated at least - and I'm not sure if we counted Oxy hoses...
We re-opened the plane, and ejected the late divers. Well... we ejected the later building whackers. This meant pulling people from all over the lineup. A significant part of the dirt dive went out the tailgate with them.
However... there wasn't even a whimper from those remaining. We went up to have a go at a dive that defied convention for this many people. Somehow shoved back to the rear of the plane, only two behind me, I calculated that the base would be some 2500' below me by the time I exited.
As it turned out, the drop was insignificant. The Horizontal distance was unbelievable. The base was out of view, and only the fact we knew it was down jump run had me going in the right direction. Respect, late divers, WT2006.
I think we built it, a 112 way or something. Sector four - full of Aussies - looking real good. If it did complete, I suspect it's a record for the biggest formation from a single plane. Cool.
Then we had to break routine - scramble, pack, debrief, and get back on the pad. Time to do something big on the 1500 lift...
You'll hear various versions of this, but essentially most of the team were released until 1330.
Imagine my surprise to find myself in the plane at 1230...
I did /not/ have a good feeling about this jump. It was hastily organised, and suffered a little from too-many-chiefs (I'm going to refer to it as NCOS if it occurs again on this event - Non Commissioned Officer Syndrome). It was filled with the base and two sectors - perhaps because those sectors had people that hadn't left the DZ, or could be retrieved. Nice legwork from Gary from Airtite here, running to hotel whiteboards and pools to retrieve people.
Nonethless, 130ish people boarded a single Herc for a lob. About 270 short of a record attempt by my count.
A few minutes later - having gone nowhere - we worked out that 130 people don't fit in a Herc - seated at least - and I'm not sure if we counted Oxy hoses...
We re-opened the plane, and ejected the late divers. Well... we ejected the later building whackers. This meant pulling people from all over the lineup. A significant part of the dirt dive went out the tailgate with them.
However... there wasn't even a whimper from those remaining. We went up to have a go at a dive that defied convention for this many people. Somehow shoved back to the rear of the plane, only two behind me, I calculated that the base would be some 2500' below me by the time I exited.
As it turned out, the drop was insignificant. The Horizontal distance was unbelievable. The base was out of view, and only the fact we knew it was down jump run had me going in the right direction. Respect, late divers, WT2006.
I think we built it, a 112 way or something. Sector four - full of Aussies - looking real good. If it did complete, I suspect it's a record for the biggest formation from a single plane. Cool.
Then we had to break routine - scramble, pack, debrief, and get back on the pad. Time to do something big on the 1500 lift...
# posted by L. @ 8:44 PM 
