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| A cool mural on the hangar wall at Skydive Spaceland. |
Date: June 8, 2012
Location: Spaceland, Houston, TX
On vacation here in Houston, I visited Skydive Spaceland for a few jumps. It's a first-rate dropzone with a nice, big landing area, clean and comfortable planes, an air-conditioned packing/hangout room (very important here!) and friendly people. It's also very well organized with a computerized manifest displayed on screens throughout the hangar. I've seen this in a few places, and I really like the idea.
During my second jump on my second day (a two-way sit with a guy named Ethan), I deployed and was having a nice canopy ride when I looked up and saw sunlight. At first, I thought it was a reflection. But after flying around for a while, I realized there were likely holes in the top layer of my canopy.
No worries: The canopy was flying fine and flaring fine. I did a few hard turns and checked again: The tears hadn't gotten any larger, my rate of descent was fine and I felt confident I could land the thing, so I headed home and had a nice landing.
Back in the packing room, I was hoping what I had seen was sun glare after all and that my mind had been playing tricks on me. No such luck. When we spread out my canopy, we saw this:
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| You've heard of shredded wheat? This is shredded canopy. |
Not good. The official cause was ruled to be "line burn." This is when a line-over gets corrected with force and friction and "burns" the canopy. In any case, a major patch was needed and my jumping day was over.
As I packed up my things and logged my jumps, I realized I had quietly hit a new milestone: My 200th jump. Some people do special formations at home with friends and get a pie in the face. I jumped with a stranger at a new dropzone and got a shredded canopy!
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