Vectors To Final

Got a present from my wife today, a tandom skydive at West Point Skydiving Adventures here in Virginia. It was a absolute blast! The first second of the freefall felt very strange. Not really a feeling of fear, just a general feeling of "this isn't right" - kind of an off-balance feeling. But once the first second of freefall is over it really just felt like I was laying on a bed of air. The temp was around freezing when we went so it really took your breath away (was very difficult to breathe when looking down into the 120mph wind). After the 40 seconds or so of freefall I reached to my right hip and pulled the ripcord (after double checking with my instructor). When the chute deployed, it almost felt like we were being lifted up, not just slowed down (guess my body was getting used to going down very fast). The view was spectacular under the canopy. I pulled the cord around 6,000 feet, so there was still plenty of air under us. We did a few "spins" by pull...

Got to fly a Bi-plane this week while on an extended business/personal trip in southern CA. The company was Barnstorming Adventures . My hope was to be able to do some acrobatics, since that is one of my life-goals, but, alas, it was not to be on this trip. We did do some lazy-8 maneuvers that were pretty fun. We would pull up to about 60 degrees of pitch, kick the rudder out to one side and let her drop out into a medium dive. Then we'd repeat it the other way around. On the way back, we flew over Arnold Schwarzenegger's house, complete with dumb bell shaped pool. My pilot said his boss once faked like he was a rich guy and got himself a tour of the house, just before Arnold bought it. He said there was a dining room that rotated to keep the sun in just the right spot, and to take in all of the view from the little mountain the house was built on. The biplane was a Travel Air 4000. You can check out more info about it at the bottom of this page