Few weeks ago I was doing some CRW jumps with my teammate. While getting ready for one more jump I couldn’t find my Dekunu alti anywhere, nothing to worry about I probably left it somewher else, like I did many times over. I took out my spare one and boarded the plane.
Unfortunately that wasn’t the case… Time to get out of the plane, 13,000ft deployment and about 1.5 miles deep. I pitch, the canopy opens, I catch a dark black spot with the tail of my eyes and it suddenly dawned on me: I packed my Dekunu inside the canopy. On the previous landing I piled up my equipment on the landing area and it must have fallen out of my helmet and ended up in the canopy.
I’m there, hanging from my harness, waiting for the second jumper to get to me, and I look with sadness at my alti, falling away from me in the English countryside, well aware that that was the last time I would ever see it. It was quite a sad moment after it stayed with me for exactly 7 years. But it was time to move on with the jump.
Two weeks later I’m back at the DZ and having casual chat around. I was in the office and I told once more the funny story of how I stupidly lost my alti and how sad I was, when an instructor says “hey, we found a Dukunu in the grass, maybe it’s yours”. I said it couldn’t possibly be, I was so far away, up high and on a very windy day when I lost it and so many other people have Dekunus at my DZ.
“Yeah but it has a camera mirror”. WHAT?!? Mine had a camera mirror in the wrist band! My eyes opened wide, other people in the office started laghing in amazement.
No time to loose, I had to see it. We went where they stored it and WOOOW! It was my alti! The screen was broken but it was mine! I couldn’t believe it. Nobody could! It freefalled a path of 2.5 miles to land at my DZ there that instructor found it in the grass while he was having a jog!
I managed to find a screen replacement, quickly put it the new one and it worked!!! So I’m back using it!
Thank you Dekunu for the hidden Satnav feature! The GPS of the alti definitely works!