Our first big skydiving trip of the fall semester went off surprisingly well considering the mostly cloudy, windy conditions; only one solo student did not get to jump because of the weather.
Since the sky above Canton Air Sports only cleared up occasionally--and even then only in patches--, loads went up in irregular intervals throughout the day. Our group was quite diverse in terms of skydiving experience; it included three students who'd made their first tandem jumps with us a year earlier; eight new tandem students, including our kayaking chair Matt Bernstein; one return student who'd made over 20 jumps in Europe and is working toward his USPA A-license; and Greg MacLean and me. (Greg and I did a freefly jump with a non-CMU friend of ours above a solid floor of white clouds with zero ground visibility, relying on a GPS to determine our exit location. After having spent most of the day below the clouds, in gray drabness and chilly wind, it was stunning to behold a crystal blue sky above an endless rolling floor of clouds.) Adding a little extra fascination to the day were five gorgeous month-old corn snakes brought to the dropzone by its senior rigger, Phil Mihai. The snakes spent most of the afternoon out of their cage, passed from person to person and getting plenty of exercise. I took three of them home with me!
-M. Jehn
Mike and Greg's jump: