OCCOM BILL proves he can fly!

So after watching the Packers first preseason game last Saturday night, my bar manager and I drove to East Troy and partied at my cousin's place till about 4:30 in the morning. Bad plan. I was supposed to be at Accelerated Free Fall School at 7:45. The instructors were cool enough to let me in at about 9:30, but with no guarantees. After proving I had absorbed the information as well as anyone else, they decided to let me jump.



So I left the plane at 13,500 ft. with not one, but two jump masters. Well, sort of. One of the masters was a little late leaving the plane, so instead of flying like you see in the movies right away, it looked more like a three way rolling wrestling match.






Finally, the weaker master was catapulted away from us, and the remaining master and I stabilized pretty quick. It was awesome. At this point I'm heading for earth at 120 mph and loving it! I forgot to execute my practice pulls, but did get the thumbs up for my flying from the more experienced master.




At about 5,000 ft it was time to pull the cord and hope like heck I wouldn't have to remember any of the emergency procedures I'd spent the day rehearsing. The canopy opened textbook perfectly as near as I could figure, but I was still somewhat relieved when ground control concurred via the radio on my chest. Fortunately, it passed all of the steerability checks too!






Now, time to figure out where the hell I was, where I was supposed to be and most importantly, where to land. I drifted pretty far from the playground before ground control ordered me to turn in the right direction. I made the turn before my final approach a little late, so I came up just short of the landing circle they cut into the grass.



I hit the breaks a little early (or late… not sure which) and hit the earth pretty hard. Not perfect, but a small cut on my nose was all it cost.




That was awesome! Out of seven who signed up (at a bar no less), amazingly all seven showed up and jumped. Three of us loved it so much, we're going back next week! Anybody wanna go for a ride?