NSW – Goulburn update Sept 2017
by admin
GOULBURN
Leanna Lewis’ Starcrest Day – 13 August 2017 – Adrenaline Skydive, Goulburn
Another week, another group of fresh-faced, budding starcrestees are ready to start or continue the long, and awesome journey of learning the art of bigway skydiving. The day had originally been set for the Saturday, but the good ol’ Goulburn wind arrived and stayed for the day; so unfortunately, no action on Saturday. We swiftly changed it to the Sunday and all systems were go.
We started a little slowly, as we had a few running late, and with the small group we had, we needed everyone present … hint the coach always appreciates punctuality, and it’s a good practice for when you’re on a much more formal camp, because lateness = missing out! It’s a shame as we probably did one less jump than we would have.
Anyway, we finally had everyone and we grouped together for a brief to run through the usual principles of bigways. We were lucky to have the legendary Steve Smith just happening to be at the DZ who was willing to help us out. We dirt dived and got ready for the first jump, which was interesting and a bit of a warm up. Many new jumpers don’t realise just how much skill and discipline is required to perform well in bigways, it’s a steep learning curve and practice and patience are key! You can’t expect to perform perfectly every time, it’s a lot of understanding your own flying, judging the distance of a dive or the angle of attack or simply when to put the brakes on. We unfortunately only managed a 2 way base which didn’t create the set up required for any starcrests but it was a platform to practice. It really demonstrated the importance of the track off and everyone kept their head on a swivel and safely flew their canopies to the landing area.
The next few jumps we had Mark ‘Higgo’ Higgins and Garnett Znidaric join us which brought our number of experienced jumpers to 3 and 4 which dramatically increased our chance of success. Thank you guys!!
Side note: if you see there is a starcrest weekend going and you are an experienced jumper already with your starcrest please please, please get involved. We were all there at one point in our skydive career, and it creates as much consistency in the skydive and substantially increases the chances of success. Help out the newbies and then they can get on the more advanced camps!
The second and third jump were much better … there was more presenting, identifying and intercepting and we saw Drew Merten and James Pritchard get their 3rd starcrest, and Trent Moloney and Geraldine Martin getting their first. Geraldine Martin performed very well and unfortunately got unlucky for not getting more as she was in slot ready to dock on a base that wasn’t fully built but showed great discipline and great demonstration of bigways skills already so all in all was very happy with the groups performance. Extra shout out to Sumo who joined us a bit later after his flying lesson, and made a good effort but unfortunately didn’t manage; but practice, practice and you’ll be there in no time! Also to Roy for also stepping in to help us make up the numbers. And of course to Kobi for being, as always, an excellent host with the mega plane and Terry for flying it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the day and the potential demonstrated, it makes me very excited for the future of the Aussie Bigways scene. This weekend wouldn’t have been possible without Adrenaline Skydive Goulburn, NSWPC and the Fi Fund so thank you very much, and remember to join the Aussie Bigways mailing list to know about all of the awesome events running!!
I had a great day jumping with new friends, thank you and blue skies
Leanna Lewis
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