I was so close. Inches away from a successful dive. The goal on this one was to jump out right after someone and successfully dock with them. He was to jump out and I was to dive out right after him and catch up to him. We planned a routine to execute once we docked, and both of us thought it was pretty ambitious. When the time came, he jumped, and I was out right after him. I’d never dived out before (I’d always jumped out at a 45 degree angle into the wind, but when diving you jump out, well, at a 45 degree angle into the wind, but with your head pointing down instead of up). Anyway, I dived out and didn’t quite stay straight. I flipped onto my back momentarily, so I wriggled out of that, but then wasn’t sure what my heading was or where the other guy was. I spun around a couple times looking for him before I finally found him below me and a ways off. I started heading towards him, and I arched more to get down to his level. We were getting closer and closer, and so was the ground. For a few seconds I was no more than 5 feet away from him. He looked at his altimeter, I looked at mine, and we were at 5000. He waved off, and we both turned around and tracked away from each other. I pulled at 4000 feet so that I could play around with the canopy and do some more of the requirements for getting my license. The front riser dive, which is where you pull down on the front risers to make the canopy collapse a little and dive forward, was exciting. As I approached the field to land, the tandem jumper who had exited the plane after me were landing at the same time, so I turned a little and decided not to go for the center of the target, instead giving him lots of room to work. I had a standing landing, which was nice. Overall, I got two more things checked off on my checklist. I only have a couple more jumps to go before I can get my license. Woot!