What an historic event it was. The East West Kolomna Challenge was challenged by weather and aircraft issues but they did not stop us from completing a difficult 96-way and coming very close to a second very difficult point. It is hard to single out any one special moment but I think the highlight of the event for me was sitting in a log cabin on the last night until the wee hours surrounded by Russian skydivers making heartfelt toasts (HOH!) and singing along to Russian folk songs as Viktor played his guitar.
I’ve made many new friends, learned many things, and as my heart grows bigger my world grows smaller.
‘Interesting’ Day
What an ‘interesting’ Day in Kolomna. First and most important – 5 great skydives after two days of liquid sunshine. Weather forecast today was perfect blue skies, so of course we woke to cloud cover – NYET. Luckily the winds blew the clouds away – DA ! First jump great, considering two days on the ground. 2nd jump: taxiing 5 planes out to runway, one of the AN-28s got into some soft ground off the runway and sunk in the nose gear – NYET.
Taxi back. Enterprising Russians dig the Antonov out of the mud in about 30 minutes and up we go again – DA. 2nd jump better – fall rate is smoking! 3rd jump – at final dirt dive find out one of the LET 410’s needs a new engine – NYET.
Reconfigure 5-plane formation for 4 planes and put 16 people into a smaller group – DA. Make 3 jumps like this–each better and better – 3 out of 4 sectors completing regularly now – DA. See that new engine is hung on 5th plane and we’ll have all planes back again in the morning – DA!
Go to dinner in the restaurant at 21:30 after missing lunch and find out there is only soup left – NYET. Soup is pretty damn good when you’re that hungry – DA! So, after the addition of the NYETs and DAs it still looks like the DAs are in the lead – so a good day after all in Russia! More news tomorrow…
