The smiles on the faces of the jumpers and pilots look different today as we leave the drop zone. Before, we smiled because were happy to be in Thailand with our friends, enjoying the hospitality of the Udon Thani people, catching some rays in the perfect weather, learning the names of Thai food and how to say the greetings and thank you’s. Sawadee kap and sawadee kah (for the women). Kap kuhn kap (thanks). It makes us happy to be skydiving here, guests of our host country and our teammates from the Royal Thai Air Force. And today, bus after bus brought hundreds of schoolchildren to cheer us on, give us high-fives, and ask for our autographs. One cannot help but to smile here in the Land of Smiles.

Twice today, the RTAF provided us two perfect formations with the King’s C-130s. Our first spot of the day was a bit to the right, which is the safer side of the airport, and everyone landed fine. But the correction for the second run-in placed us perfectly over the upwind end of the 3.2-kilometer runway for an easy flight back under canopy to our designated landing areas. The RTAF are good teammates to have. We are working with them during run-in, moving slowly and orderly toward the tailgate to allow them time to trim. Also, they have decided to perform the rest of the flights with the smaller of the two models of Hercules available to us. They now know the smaller Hercs are easier to maneuver in formation flight than the stretch Herc we had used as the lead plane.