Day 4 Done! by Kate Cooper

Greetings
I would tell you I'm tired but saying that four days in a row would probably constitute whining. and I don't want a "whiners card" thrown at me.
Short version. 5 jumps, no record.
Long version. Oh. So. Close.
The dives run together in my addled brain--I can't really break them down for you--but I'll tell you that on 3 of the 5 jumps today I though we were going to build a record. honest. That close. Two things are killing us. Levels and fall rate. These are contributing to slow and/or sloppy builds and red zone collisions. We got four jumps in before our 16:00 cut off (sun in the pilot's eyes) and then decided to squeak another in right at sunset, when the sun was low enough not to be a hazard for the pilots. The last jump--complete with So Cal Approach instituted go around at 16,000', was the closest. 6 out of 9 whackers built. A fall rate back-pack issue in the yellow quadrant stopped the other three from building.
But this dive was oh-so-quiet. I was getting excited!
Today was also media day. In Dante's circles of hell a special one must exist where you are followed around my television crews who are sticking microphones and cameras in your face while you are trying to do your job. Inside Edition was the biggie today--we've been promised a 7 minute segment--1/3 of the show. The crew was actually very nice--they even declined to film one of our ladies who had twisted her knee on landing whenI asked them to focus on the positive aspects of the story.
We've had a lot of landing injuries. Too many. I'm not quite sure why--landing stereotypes aside. We've had dead no wind in the morning, followed by steady laminar winds in the afternoon. We have 3 women being helped out to dirtdives on crutches now. Too many. A lot of malfunctions too. I'll have to study this to see why the mal rate is higher than on other big way events (and women's events) we've done in the past. Puzzling. Both my back up rigs are being jumped on the record now--I may not get the one with the Pilot in it back :-) she likes it....
It was hot today--over 100 degrees. Brutal. But the team did a great jump keeping hydrated and cool. Our support group was great. One man spent hours doing nothing but submerging his hands and arms into a bucket of ice water and then giving neck and shoulder massages. Trust me. It was eye -rolling good. He said he couldn't feel his hands for hours afterwards... Sacrifices.
After the 3rd jump we saw a recurring problem with the outer three way pink lines. They were problematic on the build. We had a marathon session with our plane captains plus Tony and Roger and did a dive redesign--a brave thing to do 11 jumps into the event. We brought the anchors on the center of the pink four way lines back into the 3 way lines--forming a 7 way line. The plan was to help the build of the 7 way lines and to give some extra room for the 6 way lines. It worked. The two jumps we did with the new formation were 95% better than all the other jumps we did.
Everyone has docked now. All of the whackers have, in turn, shown that they can dock for 3-7 seconds easily. The record is in reach.
I was really hoping we would get it today--we had champagne on ice and we were hungry for both the record AND the champange, but it's looking like tomorrow will be the day. If it's in the morning we'll have some seriously drunk girls by about 9:00 am in Perris valley..... Keep your cell phones on--you might be the ones getting the phone calls!
I keep hoping I'll be able to update mid day--the entire dropzone is 'hot' with high speed wireless, but I haven't had 2 minutes to spare from 7:00 until 22:00 or more.... Maybe tomorrow... Hopefully tomorrow. DEFINITELY tomorrow!!!
Until then....
blue skies, pink suits
kate