We’ve focused a lot on our jumps now, they still run the shit out of us in the mornings and throw in some suffering throughout the day, but we’re in the meat parachute flying and land skills. On Friday we did our 10th and 11th jumps, and each time I’m getting better at estimating my flight path and what the winds are doing to my parachute. I still need the streamers on the ground so I can tell which direction to turn to but a landing panel isn’t really necessary anymore. On my 10th jump, I treed up and while I’m not happy about missing the spot, I handled it well and I knew that I was not going to make the spot with enough time to look for where I was going and what to do.
I felt upbeat about the week and about successfully completing rookie training until Friday afternoon when they let a fellow rookie go because of his parachute manipulation skills. I’m not and I don’t think anyone of the rookies in training with me are so dialed with parachute skills that we still couldn’t wash. To be honest I pretty mad at the trainers for failing the guy. He’s a good guy and would’ve made a great smokejumper.
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