Skydiving is Fun!

I’ve always wanted to try skydiving and scuba diving! This summer I was able to accomplish both. This post I dedicate to my first tandem sky dive. Let’s start from the beginning. After 3.5 hour drive from Washington, DC area, Dave and I have arrived at Skydive Delmarva located at the Laurel Airport in the state of Delaware. The main reason for choosing this place for skydiving was its close proximity to the Delaware Beach Resort Areas, which is where we were planning to spend next day, Sunday.

First, we had to review and sign several pages of waivers — including liability and photograph/video releases. The skydiving liability waivers are pretty serious, holding harmless the obvious suspects (your tandem instructor, plane pilot, owner of drop zone, etc.) as well as some unexpected others (people who made and designed the airplane parts and the farmer who owns the field next to the landing site, in case you land in his field.  Basically, it states, in my interpretation, that you can be seriously injured or die during skydiving, but you can’t blame anybody for that but yourself. Interesting facts form the waver:

• You must be at least 18 years old (a valid photo ID is required)
• Your weight limit must be of 240 lbs (in some places 225 lbs)
• It has to be 12 hours since you consumed alcohol
• It has to be 24 hours after scuba diving

After that we were ready to just go ahead and jump, but it wasn’t the case. We did not know that it was normal to spend several hours at the drop zone — sometimes up to half a day, depending on the weather and the staffing situation at that site. We spent 3 hours waiting. During that time we were hanging in the hangar watching employees packing parachutes. It is not that easy…

We heard numerous announcements:  “Jumpers away!” and ran outside of the hangar to watch the jumpers landing.

Training

Next, it was time to meet my “jump master” — very own professional tandem skydiving instructor.  For the record, a tandem jumpmaster has made at least 500 jumps before (and in many cases, several thousand!) and has gone through a rigorous training program. What is tandem skydiving? The word tandem means, one behind the other. Tandem Skydiving derives its name from the fact that two skydivers are connected with one behind the other. With about 15 minutes of training, my USPA certified tandem instructor explained the process and my gear, which was, mostly, “do not do anything to screw up the instructor”. 🙂 No, some things you had to follow and I will mention them later during my jump description. We were dressed in special skydiving suits and a tandem harnesses and then walked to the airplane.

I am ready to pick up a skydiving suit from the coat rack on the left.

On the left is the loading area.

Behind us on the right is the purple building at the end of the hangar called “Manifest”. Here we checked in and got some paperwork to fill out.

Dave with his tandem instructor are walking to the aircraft from the loading area.

Boarding the plane and jump

It was about 20 minutes of flight time to reach 14,000 feet. A few minutes before jump time, the instructor connected my tandem harness to his tandem parachute. My mission was to scoot and waddle together with him to the open airplane door. My instructor asked me to cross my arms over my chest, stand on my knees next to the open door facing the front of the plane. This was the first time that I felt fear, a little panic and excitement at the same time… The next step was just (!) to lean and fall out of the plane, pushed by my instructor.  Everything happened so fast, that there was no time to worry. 🙂

Dave is almost ready to jump. I am getting ready…

The person, who just jumped from the plane was Dave’s cameraflyer (photographer/videograher). Price of the Video & Still Photograph Package was $110, but it was absolutely worth it. One cameraflyer was assigned to each jumper. The camera flyer followed his jumper from the start to the end of the jump and actually jumped with him/her.

Dave with his instructor were performing flips.

I am moving to the door…

Free Fall

Next second I was next to the aircraft in free fall. Woo-Hoo!!! What does free falling feel like? It is hard to describe, but I can tell what it does not feel like. There is no sensation of falling. It is more like floating on a strong updraft of wind. Logically, your mind tells you that you are getting closer to the ground, but your eyes cannot register it, so you feel completely disoriented. Free fall lasted about 60 seconds, and at 120 mph we covered about 2 miles in that time. It was very loud and windy. During free fall, because of my instructor’s body positioning, I had to keep my body in an arched (or U-shape) position and keep my knees bent with my feet up. I received a tap on my shoulder, meaning that I could open my arms into a “touch down” position. My step out of the plane wasn’t as dramatic as Dave’s flip (2 of them) out of the plane:

A drogue parachute in the picture below is used during a free fall for lengthening the duration of the skydive, and allowing the skydivers to fall at the same speed as videographers. A larger parachute will be deployed after free fall.

Parachute Ride

Around 6000 feet, my skydiving instructor deployed the parachute. I felt a sudden jerk that actually stopped our fall and lifted us up for a couple of seconds. At this moment it felt like: “Wow, I am falling!” This was the calm after the storm. After the parachute was opened everything felt nice and quiet. I could talk to my instructor and enjoy the view below. Kyle, my instructor, pointed out Dave’s parachute below us. It seemed like they were close to the ground and ready for landing. Kyle let me steer the parachute, so I did some turns. I had a lot of fun spinning.  Besides, there was no way to hit anything. The ride under canopy lasted anywhere from 4 to 6 minutes.

Landing

Then things on the ground started getting close, so we had to prepare for the landing. Kyle asked me to keep my legs up right before the landing, so he would touch the ground first.  The ground started rushing up at us… I could see my videographer smiling while filming our landing.

Dave was already on the ground. Yay! We landed! It felt incredible!!! Time to celebrate!