Inseparable Nomads

So Shelby and I had another flight-filled weekend. Literally…

With the recent sale of my turntables (and therefore some extra cash) we decided to head up to Nashua again as a follow up to our first indoor skydiving adventure. This time we went with the intent to pick up some new skills instead of just play around.

Shelby was determined to learn how to belly fly and I had set a plan to tidy up my sitfly. Of course at Skyventure there is a heavy emphasis on safety and it’s a requirement to go through a belly-back-sit-headdown progression rather just jump in at the level you’re used to in the sky. After all- in skydiving, once you leave the plane, octagonal 12 foot walls are not blocking you from drifting a lot.

Learning to backfly off the net, practicing turns

Shelby is practicing her turns and fall rate control

We split up 15 minutes of tunnel time and I went in on my back after some training from Kevin (who is the man, by the way). I practiced my 6-points of control and learned to turn left and right on my back, move forwards and backwards and float up and down. I spent a few minutes getting adjusted to backflying in general before feeling comfortable with these aspects of flight.

Shelby was next and completely rocked the house. She has only made one tandem skydive but I swear she was born to fly, she was a complete natural in the tunnel. She is completely stable on her belly and was practicing upward and downward movement and turns. I can say that after our briefings and video analysis it’s clear she is already flying (with only 1 skydive and a few minutes in the tunnel) better than I was even when I already had 20 skydives!

Practicing transitions and coming off the net in my sitfly

Shelby is practicing fall rate control during turns and is completely stable on her own.

I finished up with a transition session where I was practicing transitions between back and sitflying. By the end of the day I was thoroughly exhausted, but was satisfied to have left beginning to work on my stifly in the tunnel. I think I impressed myself more than the instructor with how quickly I progressed. I am by no means a master of backflying but I have a pretty good feel for it and find it fun. I look forward to working a lot on my stifly and seeing Shelby grow into even more of a pro as we prepare for her eventual AFF.

Birds!

On the way back from the tunnel we passed in front of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s in Cambridge. Every time we drive by this area there are always a number of people in a crowd in front of a shopping plaza. Today we decided to finally pull over and check out the situation. It turns out that there is a family of Red Tailed Hawks that has nested on the building in that plaza.

Red Tailed Hawks of Cambridge, MA

This group of Red Tailed Hawks has been growing as a family over the years and is apparently a town favorite of Cambridge. There is always a crowd of “birders” with telescopes and binoculars to check out the growing babies as they learn to fly. It was pretty impressive to see these birds and we caught one of the parents bringing a mouse home for dinner. The young birds were completely thrilled to have dinner, in turn.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 23rd, 2010 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Boston, Miscellaneous, Skydiving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.