May 2024 was an exciting month. The main events were a trip to New York and a work trip to Fayetteville, North Carolina.
I shot New York almost entirely on film. I had just acquired a Sigma 70-200m DG OS HSM lens, and I was eager to use that in addition to shooting film. However, I found that using this lens and my full-frame Sony in addition to film cameras was super cumbersome, so I ended up shooting film more often. I will make a separate post for the rolls I shot there in a later post.
I didn’t get a lot of photos while in Fayetteville, mainly because I was busy with work. This trip was for a jump DFT (deployment for training) to maintain my currency for jump pay and to sharpen my skills. Out of everything that my MOS entails, this is my favorite activity. Not as many people showed up as we had planned, so we ended up getting extra time in the indoor wind tunnel and plenty of jumps throughout the week. During this week, I completed enough additional jumps to earn my “gold wings,” which is seen as the final piece I needed to be a fully qualified recon marine.
One jump I’ll never forget was with combat equipment, which includes a rucksack that hangs from your front and is suspended between your legs, along with a plate carrier and rifle. This adds another element to the freefall jump because this large object influences your direction during the fall and flight, so you have to counter its effects, especially when exiting the airplane. Typically, you wait a few seconds to jump after the person in front of you; that way, if there is any unplanned movement in the air, you won’t end up too close to them.
I made my exit, and the ruck was definitely having its way with me, although it was mostly under control. I am a fairly heavy individual, especially at this time, so I fall like a brick. I begin to release my drogue at about 5,100 feet and end up with an open canopy above me with one twist in the lines. This is a normal occurrence, and all you can do is untwist the lines, and then you will be headed in whatever direction is forward for your canopy. I get the twist out quickly, and after doing so, someone blazes past me at terminal velocity, maybe twenty feet away. It happened so quickly that it took a moment to process that this was probably a near-death experience. I met the jumper on the ground, and we agreed to give a bigger interval between jumpers and moved on.
Also on this trip, I checked out some of the local parks. There was nothing particularly interesting, except for this turtle that I found crossing the road on my way out. I observed him for a few minutes while he was the subject of some photos with my A7IV and 35mm GM lens.
