World Championships 2003

12-9

2003-09-12T09:31:00.000+02:00

Friday.

Sitting behind my lappy again, trying to get my pics online. Not having much success at it so far... :(

It's really really cold now, I'm having a bit of trouble just typing... Hope it gets warm soon (probably will).

CF is jumping a lot now, they have to, and even then I don't think they'll be able to finish the competition. This is the last competition day I believe. Accuracy finals are under way as well, and when they're jumping the rest doesn't...

11-9

2003-09-12T09:23:00.000+02:00

Thursday.

The accuracy guys are done, so is freestyle female. The rest got in an occasional jump, but then the wind picked up so no more CF. Hung around at the DZ, tried to upload some more pics but couldn't :(

There was a party here yesterday, and a showing of the new Soul Flyer movie. The party was at Icarius, which is a company that does repares on Porters. I kept clear of the punch, which certainly smelled as if it DID have a punch behind it.... Roel certainly lookes woozy enough :)
The band was okay, not great but okay.

Unfortunately we missed the movie due to some uncertanties about the time it would be shown. Turned out it was shown about 15 minutes after we left.... :(

10-9

2003-09-10T14:30:00.000+02:00

Wednesday.

YEAH, I figured out how to hook my laptop onto the network here!!!! Finally, no more french keyboards (AWERTY sucks). And no more waiting in line for ages.... Although now I keep getting interruptions because others want to use my lappy! It's faster, and the letters are in the right place... Sure, go ahead. I'll never get my site done this way tho...

I made my flight with the accuracy team first thing this morning. Cool! Took some pics, but I don't think they turned out very well. Oh well.

I asked if I could do the same with our CF team, and I could (!). So, went up again. This time there was another camera man as well, so we had 4 team members, and 3 camera's. Not much room in the plane this time, and I wasn't sitting in the right sport for pics but had a nice flight anyway. Nice pilot, too.

Our CF team made 2 sequential jumps this morning, after that, the belgians (thanks a lot guys) complained of turbulence. No more CF today....

So, I'm behind my computer again.

9-9

2003-09-10T14:17:00.000+02:00

Tuesday.

Today the weather started out kinda bad as well. I spent most of my time at the Accuracy site. Where there isn't much to do...... :(
At first I took some pictures from outside of the ring, then our team permission for me to go in the 20m circle, putting me at a 10m distance to dead-centre. Makes for much better pictures :)

Our team was (and so far, still is) the only team to score a round of all zeros :)

I asked if I could fly in the Porter with our team the next round, to take pictures. Fun-jumping isn't allowed during the competition, access to the boarding area and landing area is limited to competitors. However, I actually got permission from both the regular manifest and the military one (the accuracy jumpers are jumping from 2 military porters and have a separate manifest). The only guy that stopped me was the security guys (did I tell you I really love those guys....): No you can't go into the boarding area. No you are NOT jumping like that (had my rig on, sunglasses, altimeter-watch and a camera on a strap round my neck).... Sigh, try explaining all that to a french speaking guy.... And I was missing my van, so I ran for it after a wave from manifest.

Strange rules here: no fun-jumping, you can't get access to anywhere but you CAN get on the plane during competition, as long as you don't jump (and if I did I was told to NOT land on the accuracy pad heh heh duh). Strange, but I took advantage of it of course!

The 5th round was to be jumped after lunch, so I returned then. When we were boarding I was stopped by a French official, asking me whether I had asked permission form the RIGHT guy. Ehm, apperantly NOT?? :( He did give his permission, too, tho, luckily. But the load before us landed with the plane, weatherhold, again. Did I mention there is absolutely NOTHING to do over at the accuracy field?? :( :( There is only a place that sells coffee and ice cream, so I ate a lot of ice cream.........

We never did get the 5th round going, because of the wind.... :(

Fell asleep at 7:00, must've needed it............

8-9

2003-09-10T14:10:00.000+02:00

Monday.

Today the weather started out bad, foggy and too many clouds. I browsed the 3 stores that are on site here for the billionth time, chatted with some of the vendors here, but there was nothing else to do here. So I left early to go into Gap. Went to a very large sporting goods store. Went back there again later with Henny, and did some groceries too. We all ate pizza at the house, Uul's was so burned it was absolutely inedible but the rest was mostly okay.

All in all, didn't do much, today....

7-9

2003-09-08T08:10:00.000+02:00

Sunday. First competition day!

The day started for us with Freestyle and CF Rotation. They all completed 3 rounds before 1:00. After that, FS4 was on, they only got to jump 1 round today.

Security is getting more every day :( I tried to get boarding pictures of our CF Team but was stopped at first. 'But I'm their TEAM MANAGER and I PROMISED' got me in after a while. Last time tho, nobody that's not a competitor can get in now.

The landing field was closed of since yesterday. My 'But I'm a jumper myself and I've done this 10.000 times and I've been doing this the whole week' didn't get me anywhere because 'It's dangerous, and if I let YOU, others will want to, too'. Damn.

But when I walked back from the boarding area I stopped to let some jumpers land (and take pics). A security guard came running for me, cutting across the area the jumpers were planning on landing. I explained this to him, wrong thing to say :(

I went to the spectators area and into the field a couple of meters to take pics for landing, and stayed there like 3 hours. I thought, if I keep still, maybe they let me stay for a while, and they did. But a couple of jumpers came carving by, and a third security guy came up to me, saying 'Get back a meter, they're landing here!!!!!!!' Well yeah, duh, that's the whole POINT isn't it..... Sigh. They even put a ribbon up about 12m from the spectators and the tents, to keep the jumpers away :(

Also I laughed my ass off; the jumpers had been landing either at the spectators' area or near the tents, whichever was closer to YOUR tent. But they put up more and more fences, and starting today you were supposed to walk round the fences (not climb them what our jumpers were mostly doing because they kept closing up our 'gates' we made, shaking a finger at us, riiiight....) for boarding, then exit the landing field at the spectators' area and walk back. Yeah right, that's a detour for a lot of jumpers so they didn't do that, at first. If you didn't, you got whistled and shouted back by security :) :( It's SOOO easy to get these guys over-exited......

We were allowed food at the catering tent for the first time. It was okay, with a few things to watch out for (don't get the sausage; it's tripe not sausage, and get in the right queue if you want veggies AND pasta or fries, else you get only one or the other) and with a long time waiting in line.

When the english CF 8way Speed had to jump, we decided to watch this. Unfortunately (?) the were wrap-less (this time? heh heh). Oh well, no spectacle this time. Hope their jump went well...

Then the weather turned a bit worse and since the CF team was free to go, we went for a swim. Hmmmmm, the diving boards were closed :( and it was pretty cold outside :( 3 of our guys had those longish swimming trunks on, quite common in Holland, but not here?! 2 were spotted and stopped. They had to change into speedo-like swimming trunks, the reason for that still eludes me. How is it more hygienic to swim in somebody else's swimming clothes (these were from the lost-and-found) then in your own?? Anyway Roel got away with his, for a while, until he got tipped into the water by Uul and Eric, which elicited a lot of french shouting :) :) :)

So we went away again real soon, bye-bye €3.60 ......

Roel had a flyer from a place with quad cars, there's a tent selling quads and other toys at the DZ. So we went there. Ronald and I didn't really want to go quad-riding, so the other 4 guys went without us. We could've ridden backseat, but I happen to know these guys, and I like to stay alive a little bit longer :) :) :) They said they had experience with cars like this (NOT) so they went cross-country riding with a guide.

Ronald and I went for a walk instead.

On the way back they passed us, with an awful big grin on each face :) :) They'll be back......

Iris, Annelies and Inge arrived today, now everybody is here.

We decided to not stand in line for the food that evening and went for pizza instead. We're getting to be regulars at this place, got 2 free beer this time.

6-9

2003-09-08T08:01:00.000+02:00

Saturday. Opening day!

Today each team had to hand in their training-round video.

After 1:00 jumping was finished. We hung round at the DZ till 4:00 wen we had to be at our tents. At 4:45 we were gathered up, put in line and were marched into a large circle. I wasn't in the line, I was videoing/photographing. An announcement was made (in french only) that the photographers had to move behind the fences. So I hopped the fence, which put me into the VIP area :) :) :) Heh heh. Well they DID say to get behind the perimeter didn't they ?! Heh heh.

There were a lot of speeches (sigh) and a presentation of CF by the french team (nice) and Arizona Airspeed did a hopnpop and flew their famous canopy formation. I saw this a couple of times before during training, it alway brought a smile to anyone (including me) watching!! This time one of the guys had his foot around the pilot chute of the guy underneath, think I got a picture of that.

After that, a presentation of a new kind of Pilatus Porter. Also, nice to watch. Then, more speeches....... sigh.

The belgian delegation tried to get my attention, because I was close to the stands could I pull the plug PLEASE?????!!!! :) :) Well at least they were enthousiastic enough with their flag etc, our team was sorta sleeping (like a lot of other teams I might add) where they were standing, at least from where I was standing :)

Still no food for us here, so we went into town for shoarma.

5-9

2003-09-06T09:39:00.000+02:00

Cloudy today :( It's overcast but still jumpable, sort of.

Made one more jump with the Belgians. Exited in rain/hail, damn that hurts!!!

My landing wasn't the best; I set one foot on the ground, could've run it out but instantly decided I wouldn't 'cause it hurt. So I let myself fall instead.

Turned out I overstretched my foot a bit, so I wanted an ice-pack. Nope, they did have ice-packs they just weren't in the freezer (??!!). Got a whole doctor guy instead, who spoke rapid french only. O-kay......

Had to climb stairs in the hangar to get to a cryo tank machine thingy. THAT was COLD but it did help real quick.

Had to go pick up Uul at the airport at Marseille that afternoon. The weather turned worse. Because of traffic jams and a delay for Uul's flight we were back kinda late.... :(

BTW the turkish jumper was okay-ish, only scrapes and bruises, nothing broken.

The english CF team apperantly had a nice wrap; a jumper came down spiralling under his main and reserve when I was watching our CF team. It looked bad but he seemed to get his main under control and ball it up, he landed under a good reserve (from where I stood, it was a long way away). Another jumper followed him down, the others landed on the field, including one other reserve.

Our CF Team got another made 40 training jumps total.

Had some chinese food and made a nice camp fire were it WAS allowed.

4-9

2003-09-06T09:31:00.000+02:00

I've promised to fly camera for the Belgian CF team, they're only 3 so far, missing their Team Captain and their camera flier.

The first 2 jumps they were doing rotations, after that, sequential.

I really have to work to keep up with them 'cause my chute is too big and flies too fast. So I have to really work for my free jumps :) :)

The video of the first jump includes a nice little wrap. When I was on final during the 2nd jump, an American FS jumper hooked his canopy in front of me, nice shot. Too bad I was focussing on landing and not on filming (I do leave my camera on but it's just along for the ride really)... I didn't follow him down so the landing isn't on tape :( Oh well, I landed okay.

At the end of the day we heard about a Turkish CF jumper who was seen spiralling down under his main untill he disappeared behind a mountain..... Not much further info, except that they knew where he was and that he had exited unstable and pulled anyway.

Met up with Eric and Ronald for some excellent piza from a small restaurant/bar we have had pizza from before. This time we even got a complimentary bottle of rosee :)

3-9

2003-09-06T09:20:00.000+02:00

Made my first jump here! The door is on the wrong side of this plane tho...

Just did a sit-fly jump, just sat still with a 180 here and there, very much enjoying the view!!! It is sooooo pretty here.

Landing at 2000 ft and with zero wind was okay, tho I'm glad I brought my 'big' Spectre, a 135 which gives me a WL of 1.1

Weather still the same. The teams here are training like crazy, although after 4:00 people start leaving.

By now there are at least 15 Porters here.

Went into Gap to eat. Met up with Igor there, and were supposed to meet up with Marjolein and Jaap too. After some misunderstanding (WE are in a square with a fountain and with restaurants, in the centre of Gap!!! No WE are there, but where are YOU?? Okay so there's more then one square there... :) ) we had a nice dinner there.

2-9

2003-09-06T09:17:00.000+02:00

Another 9 training jumps for Team Teuge makes 18 so far, the same number of jumps they'll make during the competition.

I'm still on the ground, shooting video and taking loads of pictures. I'm chatting a lot with various jumpers from various countries, way cool. I think I'll be mailing a lot of pics around, after this competition...

The rest of the day I spent with Jaap, we went hiking into the mountains for about 2 hours, which wore me out good (okay, so work out more!!)

The weather was the same as yesterday, ie excellent tho hot.

Damn they have a lot of Porters here!! I try to take a pic of each one but sometimes one shows up then disappears again real soon.

1-9

2003-09-06T09:14:00.000+02:00

This monday we went to the DZ for the first time. NICE! We checked in, and had our gear checked. Some of the CReW rigs got a looong look accompanied by a flurry of french. Not good?! But we got through. Got the briefing for the DZ too, then we were on our way.

The scenery here is lovely. The DZ is fairly big, and surrounded by mountains.

We are still manifesting and packing at the regular hangar. I decided not to jump myself, being a bit woozy from the long drive yesterday.

Because the DZ is at an elevation of 2000 ft the landings are sometimes interesting to watch :)

The weather was excellent; hot and blue sky with no wind for the morning, with more wind after 1:00

31-8

2003-09-03T11:17:00.000+02:00

Sun 31-8 I left at 3.30 in the morning (!). Besides a closed-off A2 I made fairly good time. The last bit took me way too long because I couldn't find the house we are staying in, but I still made it before everybody else!

The house is okay, it's a 20 min drive to the DZ tho.

2003-08-25T19:04:00.000+02:00

On sunday 31-8 I´m leaving for Gap, France. I promised to go to my DZ first to pick up stuff like weight vests and spare rigs. I want to leave real early sunday morning, since I have to drive the 1200 km on my own :(

I´ve never driven so far in my life, and I´ve also never driven in France. And my sense of direction could be, well, better. I´m glad I have a mobile phone, so the CF Team I´m bringing the stuff over for will probably get their stuff back when they need it! :-)