Who Dares Wins
A couple weeks ago a friend of mine was getting a group of people together to go skydiving. I figured it was about time to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. I was going to do that after I would get my pilot license, but I got my ticket a day before I was moving to Florida so never got to do it (and it was a good excuse). This time I figured no excuses, as SAS moto goes, “Who Dares Wins!”
Since we had a group of people coming, we got a safety briefing and instruction on Friday so we just had to show up, strap in, and go on Sunday. Fortunately, that was not the case - it was a perfect day and there were plenty of people feeling suicidal. We watched a bunch of them jump before us so by the time it was our turn we kind of knew what to expect. I did a tandem jump strapped in front of the instructor. We took off in a Cessna Caravan with another dozen of skydivers, climbed up to about 13,000 feet and then limped out of the airplane. After free falling for about one minute, I pulled the chute at around 5,000 feet and it took us another minute or so to get back on the ground.
I will not even try to describe the feeling while we were free falling. It was a little scary on the climb out, but everyone was so cheerful that it put me more or less at ease. But once the door opened and half a dozen people disappeared, I was just starting to get nervous and the next thing I knew we were out as well. It is definitely a rush on the way down, although a different one from riding a roller coaster or flying a plane. It is “only” one G so after the first few seconds, you do not really feel the pull anymore, except for the overwhelming amount of air rushing into your face that makes you scream more in awe of that power rather than in fear.