I remember my first skydive as vividly as the commercial from the night before: “A man falls out of an airplane at 3,600 feet, bounces three times and lives to tell about it.”
Great, I thought afterward. If for some reason the parachute doesn’t open, at least I’ve got a chance to make REAL TV.
There is a rather bizarre sense of humor affiliated with the sport of skydiving. It may have something to do with the altitude. More likely, though, it’s because deep down you realize there is nothing funny about stepping out of a perfectly good airplane some 12,000 feet above terra firma. In fact, you recognize the activity as downright dangerous.
Yet it’s also an exciting test. Squinting to make out the landing target on the patchworked earth below, your mind racing to recall the procedures learned some 2 miles beneath you, knowing your objective is to get back down – without the plane.
I wonder how many times I’ll bounce. There are a couple different ways for the first-time skydiver to jump. The simplest and most popular is tandem jumping, where the novice is joined in a special harness by a skilled jump master who pulls the rip cord and guides the parachute to the landing zone. Instructors at Mile-Hi Skydiving Center in Longmont recommend beginners start here, experiencing the thrill of a 130 mph free fall, but with the security of a licensed professional guiding the jump. The $190 price tag includes a preflight briefing, equipment and a one-way plane ride before approximately one minute of free fall and a five-minute parachute ride back down.
A tandem jump is suggested before attempting the more audacious beginner method known as accelerated free fall (AFF). Here the first-timer undergoes several hours of ground school, learning all the techniques necessary to successfully free fall, pull the rip cord and navigate to a safe landing. To ensure safety, two instructors take the 12,500-foot plunge alongside the student, holding his or her jumpsuit until the canopy is deployed at about 4,000 feet. Then it’s up to the newbie to land through the coaching of a grounded instructor over a radio. The method is both intoxicating and unnerving, but the gratification is nonpareil, serving as the cornerstone of a seven-level student course necessary to jump without an instructor.
Students are warned that jumping from an airplane can lead to all sorts of injuries, including dismemberment and even death. Playing the unwitting straight man, I recall asking an experienced skydiver: Have you ever been hurt jumping? “No,” I was relieved to hear him say. “Never jumping – only landing.”
Still, the emotion I experienced during my first AFF couldn’t be called fear. More like a focused intensity, internalized and manifested in a keen awareness. Donning a colorful jumpsuit and crash helmet, I boarded the plane feeling like a cross between Elvis and Evel Knievel, noticing immediately that the pilot is also wearing a parachute – hardly an auspicious beginning.
It takes about 25 minutes to reach the proper altitude, time enough for doubts to creep in. Watching the faces of instructors on the loud ride, I feel like an intruder in their aerial habitat. They are calm and comfortable, even laughing. I am externally calm, but internally my synapses are going haywire. I’m in a trance.
Cars are reduced to matchbox size as we force our way through the cold, stiff breeze and onto the small step below the wing before the final “OK.” Then we jump. Just like that, the plane disappears over my shoulder. It feels like a dream, falling fast with nothing but air in my path. I’m oblivious to the others by my side, alone with the wind and the thoughts running rampant in my head. I’m experiencing a sensory overload, sometimes known as “temporal distortion,” brought on by a high-stress situation. For a short time, my vision is tunneled and my actions are merely reflex, but it soon passes.
Hand signals from my instructors give me the OK to settle in and enjoy the skydive. I grow comfortable with the speed and now the wind feels more like a cushion, cradling my earthbound body. The awareness returned, I am thrilled beyond description, with no fear of falling as the onrushing ground approaches at what seems a casual pace. Houses and trees grow slowly larger, while, at the same pace, the horizon dwindles. It is a frenzied sort of peace.
A final rush occurs when it’s time to pull the rip cord. My heart skips a beat when I look up to see a faulty canopy, but the twisted lines are quickly remedied by spinning my body in a circle, like a child might on a swing. The ride now becomes a pleasant sightseeing tour from the ultimate vantage point. With the parachute responding perfectly to the directions of the voice in my ear, I swoop and dive to a not-so-perfect four-point landing just a few feet from the target. Back on earth, I recognize my jester friend and nod when asked if I had jumped yet.
“Well, what did you think?”
No longer feeling like an outsider but like a genuine skydiver, I give him the aeronautically universal thumbs up.
“I didn’t bounce once.”
Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
