One or two of you have met my daughter Steph and I suspect, as most of us seem to be getting on a bit, we all know of someone that has suffered a stroke. My daughters mother-in-law, Hazel, was retired but drove to a stable every day to look after and ride her horse. A couple of days before Christmas, she left the stable to go home and had a stroke while driving along a narrow fenland road. The car went off the road, took out two telegraph poles came to a stop in a ditch and she had to be cut out of her Toyota Yaris by the fire brigade.

Steph wanted to do something and, having inherited her father's sense of adventure and lunacy she's doing a freefall parachute jump to raise funds for the Stroke Association. This isn't one of these tandem jumps where someone is attached to an experienced sky diver, she'll be taken up to 13,000 feet, shoved out of the plane but will have a pair of instructors with her, but not attached, just in case she forgets to pull the ripcord when the time comes. So, if anyone feels inclined to bung in a quid or two, how to do it is here https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jump-for-hazel.

Thanks, I'll be there with still and video cameras to prove she actually did it......

Done.

Thanks

Done

also - please post the pics

I will, before, during and after.

Very happy to do that. “There but for the grace of God”.

That's right and it's a pretty horrible thing to happen to anyone. They think she will be paralysed down her left side so it's doubtful she'll ever be able to ride her horse again. The only fortunate thing about the whole episode is that one of the other women, a nurse, had followed her out of the stables and saw her go off the road, otherwise she could have been there for hours before anyone saw her car in the ditch.

My daughter has asked me to thank everyone she has never met for contributing.

Done.

Clive

Done.

Dave

Done

How is this collection for a good cause going Gilbert?

Up to £1126 at the moment so has gone beyond the original target of a grand. Still got just under two months to go before the jump date of 22 April so no idea what it will get up to by then.

I put 20usd in just now. Thanks for steering me in the right direction on at least 3 occasions now. Much obliged.

Looking forward to the videos of a presumably sensible person jumping out of a perfectly good airplane! :)

Thanks, didn't realise you were on here too Lefty.

You mentioned it on another forum, that being one of the 3 times so far you've steered in me in the right direction.

Browsing around the various threads here, I'm beginning to understand exactly why you're so knowledgeable. Thanks again for helping me get along with my P38. :)

Once I've sorted out the current project, I'm sure I'll have more stupid questions. Lulz/cheers!

She did it! It looked a bit touch and go this morning, very little wind and no cloud but the airfield aren't allowed to start operations until after 9:30 in teh morning and by then the wind had got up a bit and the cloud was rolling in. Fortunately the weather was still acceptable for jumping. She did a days instruction yesterday before a final briefing before the jump. Last night she was buzzing with information which she claimed she'd forgotten completely by this morning, in fact she reckoned her mind had gone completely blank...

Thanks to everyone that sponsored her, the final total was £1,628. As they say without pictures it didn't happen, so here's a few.

Suited, chute attached and final radio checks

First one into the plane (so last one out).

Last ones get on board before take off (for the aeroplane geeks amongst us, it's a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan)

Apparently, she was accompanied by two instructors for the first 7,000 feet freefall (with her in case she started to tumble but not actually helping her) before opening the chute at 6,000 feet and then she was left on her own while the instructors had a bit of fun. As it was her first jump, her chute was larger than the normal ones so she would descend slower and as she only weighs about 8 stone that meant she came down nice and slowly.

Coming in to land. A bit away from the drop zone as she was directly above it when still 2,000 feet up, her instructor had landed by then so radioed her and told her to move away so she could glide in but moved away a bit too far.....

which meant that she landed on the other side of the brow out of sight and had a long walk back to the minibus that would take her back to the airfield.

But after getting back to the field, out of the harness and suit she was still a bit shell-shocked. It took her about 2 hours and a bacon and egg butty before she remembered how it all went.....

I suspect the video I shot is a bit crap (not looked at it yet) but she paid to have video shot by the two instructors that accompanied her so that will be uploaded once she has it.

The video is up, https://www.facebook.com/509538518/videos/pcb.10160034835373519/1352692638625194 Steph is from 18 seconds in......

Just noticed this - FANTASTIC !! Well done Steph; Congratulations !

A Big Canopy is a great idea but yes it does mean you might drift a bit, but hopefully still in the same County as the DZ ?!