Longmont – David Billings scoots confidently toward the open side of the airplane circling more than 10,000 feet above grassy plains. A reporter strapped to his chest does not share his bold fortitude.
“Hold on to your chest harness, not the airplane,” Billings says. Five times.
Billings has jumped from airplanes with skittish first-time sky divers strapped to his chest more than 1,500 times. Somewhere between the door of the airplane and the easy touchdown on the ground several minutes later, fear dissolves into elation for every one of his tandem jumping first-timers.
“I’ve never once – not one time – had a person get to the ground and say, ‘That sucked,”‘ he said. “Almost everyone has said they definitely want to do it again.”
The thrill of leaping from an airplane. The fluttering rush of free-falling at 130 mph. Weightlessness. The crazy wind. The tug of gravity while in a banked turn. The speed. The buzz of adrenaline.
Sky diving is a thrill so overwhelming, some core jumpers liken it to addiction.
“You initially think there’s a danger you might die, but the real danger comes later when you realize you want to sell everything you own to buy the gear you need to go diving every day and you are never getting out of it,” said Boulder bar owner Jason Russell, a sky diver with 1,500 jumps who likes to give this advice to timid first-timers: “Once you get out of the plane, you can’t get back in, so you might as well have fun.”
Tandem jumping is a 20-year-old technique that straps first-timers to experienced sky divers who handle all the technical stuff such as pulling the chute, staying in form during free-fall and landing softly in the right place. In 2001 the Federal Aviation Administration completed its exhaustive study of tandem jumping, approving it as part of its sky diving regulations and eliminating the 15-year-old requirement that sky diving operations inform tandem students they were participating in an experimental jumping technique. Now, it’s a common tool for quickly – and safely – introducing people to the thrills found on the outside of an airborne airplane.
“It’s so amazing. That was the best feeling ever,” said Jordan Lamach, a 22-year-old CU student who joined two buddies for their first tandem leap, which includes roughly 50 seconds of free-fall, from an airplane recently at Mile-Hi Skydiving in Longmont.
“I am doing this again as soon as possible,” Lamach said, his face frozen in an unflagging grin.
The FAA regulates sky diving pretty intensely. The U.S. Parachute Association takes its regulation even further, requiring rigorous certification for instructors, the riggers who pack chutes and sky diving pilots. The FAA and USPA also require intensive schooling for jumpers who want to be certified to jump at any of the nation’s several hundred sky diving schools – or drop zones.
It’s a safer sport than many believe. Last year the USPA estimated 350,000 made more than 3.5 million jumps. In that year, 21 people died sky diving, and a large majority of those deaths were expert sky divers attempting tricks.
And those tricks are what keep the experts jumping. Apparently the thrill of free-fall, the rush of jumping from a plane and a general fear fade after the first several hundred jumps. After that, the internal fireworks are found at the landing. Experienced sky divers say the landing eclipses anything they experience in the air.
Jim Gold, a 27-year-old San Francisco sky diver who travels for business and jumps from just about any plane that lets him out the door, demonstrates an expert-only technique called “swooping.” When he’s about 150 feet off the deck, he points his super-lightweight canopy at the ground, accelerating into a steep dive. At the last second, he pulls hard on the canopy’s steering toggles, flaring the chute and essentially converting his downward speed into lateral speed. He zooms at upward of 80 mph for close to 100 yards, his feet scraping the waving grass. Sky divers in swooping contests strive for distance and accuracy while landing at speeds that earn drivers tickets.
“That is it. That’s the real fun,” said Gold, who wears a helmet equipped with cameras and captures his bird’s-eye view during each jump. “I’ve got nearly 2,000 jumps, and I’m still learning.”
Websites to dive for
For more information, visit www.mile-hi-skydiving.com. The Longmont operation, based at the Vance Brand Airport, offers tandem jumps and training. A tandem jump at Mile-Hi Skydiving costs $195. Sky Dive the Rockies, based at the Fremont County Airport in Cañon City, can be found at www.skydivetherockies.com. Also visit www.uspa.org to learn more about sky diving.
Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
