Carolina Sky Sports, Raleigh, NC
|
Skydiving! Who would have thought that throwing yourself out of
a perfectly good plane at 13,500 feet would be considered fun! But WOW. What a rush!
I woke up Alan by telling him that we were going skydiving with Nazir. He thought I meant cliff diving since that was what we had talked about at the party the night before. He was a little stunned when he realized it was skydiving, but he still managed to join up and go with us. Several of us went out there, but only a few of us actually jumped. For myself, Alan and Nazir, it was our first jump. First things first... When you get there you have to expect to spend about an hour filling out the forms that say "if you go *SPLAT*, you can't sue us." Then there is this video you have to watch that has this man in it that is a cross between Rip Van Winkle and Evil Kinevil. Freaky! About an hour later, they put you on the jump plan and then you start getting some training from an instructor. He tells you how to exit the plan and what to do and what not to do in the air. Since there will be someone attached to you during the whole jump, it's not that big a deal. After all of that, you head to get suited. Just something to make the harness work better. Without it, the parachute opening could really hurt. Then it's off to the plane. The ride up takes about 10 minutes and during the whole time, the back of the plane is open. You're sitting on a bench about 30 feet between you and open air. The ears pop a few times on the way up and the ground just fades away. We fit about 20 of us on a plane that's just big enough to hold 16. |
|
|
At the right altitude, people just start exiting the plane. I was working with the instructor tightening the harness and I look up and the plane is missing quite a few people. Now there's only a couple tandem jumpers between me and this big open door. Pretty soon they just walk out of the plane and it's my turn. We step to the edge there is the ground, just waiting for me to plummet towards it. My toes are just hanging off the edge and the instructor is waiting for the right moment to launch us from the plane. The next thing I know... I'm doing a back flip out of the plane, and I see the bottom of it as it flies off. Soon the stabilizing chute is open and we are now stable and falling face down towards the Earth. Soon we reach around 120 miles per hour and the instructor is teaching me how to turn left and right in a free fall. During the left turn we end up diving through a cloud and I just had to stop turning and just realize why the world has turned white. According to my instructor, its not common to dive through a cloud. It's not supposed to be done just in case you hit another skydiver, etc. But it is a really awesome thing. You see the ground and then the world turns white and slightly damp. After a moment, the ground reappears and it is quite a bit closer than when you last saw it. We were about 7,000 feet up at this point after 40 seconds of free fall and in the next 5 seconds we're at the point where the chute is opened. (They open it higher on tandem jumps because of the weight and risks involved.) The chute opens and we slow down to less than a hundred feet per second. The world gets quiet and the instructor removes my goggles. We are about 5,000 feet up still and the scenery is just awesome at this point. It takes more than a few minutes to hit the ground, so we take the time to learn how to steer the parachute and get a few practice lessons in before actually landing. Going from 2+ miles high to ground zero in the matter of a few minutes. It wasn't until the parachutes open that you can actually see us from the ground. You can make out the plane when it flies over, but it's impossible to see the jumpers during free fall. If you want someone to take a picture of you during free fall, it's $75! Ouch! So we just had Marc and Kamran on the ground taking the pictures here. |
|
The landing wasn't bad at all. My friend Marc went skydiving
earlier in the year. He didn't jump with us because last time, Marc landed badly and shattered his ankle. $20,000 worth of surgery and
then therapy later, he's up and walking without a crutch. But things like this don't deter
the rest of us from going out there. He even went with us to take the pictures that you see
here. They wouldn't let us take any cameras up in the plane with us due to the massive winds on the way down.
So we landed. And we didn't fall over! Woooohooo! Walking back with the jump suit and the harness and helmet makes you feel like you just piloted a plane. Alan related it to Top Gun. I don't know if I would go THAT far, but I know I'm ready to try it again. It's pretty expensive the first time ($180) but it gets cheaper each time and even cheaper during the week. So I'm ready to grab some new people and try again. On the next jump, you're in charge of everything. Checking the altitude, pulling the chute, etc. Should be fun! |
|