Surveying Cameron’s constituency and jumping with a paratrooper


The weather was superb for skydiving yesterday and Weston was alive with skydivers, tandem passengers and their families. Beth caught me on camera a couple of times under canopy:

I jumped three times. The first two were solo jumps for fun — one in shorts, one in my FS suit — allowing me time to survey Mr Cameron’s constituency at my leisure: it looks good. For both exits, I gently forward rolled onto my back for a good view of the Dornier G92 flying away: beautiful.

Waiting to board the plane for a third jump, I bumped into another solo and we agreed to do a simple two-way: 360-360-sidebody-sidebody and repeat. Good exit — my dive to his float — and a pretty good jump. If anything, I fell slowly, which is a marked change, thanks to Chris Shaw of Skyskills and some effective tunnel coaching.

It turned out I had just jumped with a paratrooper. He is choosing to vote for the first time in these elections. In his words, “These guys have taken the p***.” Maybe turnout will be up in the coming elections… We agreed that military paratrooping is a horrible job, as is well illustrated in this shot, where the lads are at only about 1000ft:

Paratroops

Plenty of tandem parachuting was in progress, making for a few good shots between jumps:

Follow the links from the photos for more.

All in all, it was a great day out. If you have ever considered a tandem or learning to skydive, I thoroughly recommend Weston on the Green.

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