GLENVILLE, N.Y.-
Falling from the sky doesn't feel like it does in a dream. At 11,500 feet, it's more tactile, more unnerving, fast. In less than 13 seconds you hit terminal velocity, about 120 mph, the whooshing air overwhelming other sounds and flapping your cheeks unnaturally.
For the next 30 seconds, even while arching your back to keep stable, you hurtle toward earth. But there are things to do: check body position, the altimeter, hand signals from both jumpmasters, the altimeter. With good arched position and heading, it's a stable fall. But I began wobbling hard at 5,500 feet, when it came time to release the parachute. It was intense, exhilarating, terrifying.
"It takes focus," jumpmaster Bob Raecke would say later, after he reviewed what went wrong.
In the U.S. Parachute Association's accelerated free fall program, taught at many skydiving affiliates around the country, you can step out of a plane the first day with only a parachute, and no tandem instructor, strapped to your back.
Instead, two jumpmasters, both certified instructors, skydive on either side, actually touching your arms and harness, until you deploy the parachute.
Before we boarded the little Cessna, the 55-year-old Raecke, who goes by "Senor," said they hadn't lost a single student in six years. "We found them all," he joked.
At Mohawk Valley Skydiving in Glenville, on the Mohawk River 25 miles northwest of Albany, the jump followed nearly nine hours of training. We drilled the moves for exiting the plane and free falling, hand signals, opening and steering the parachute, emergencies, winds, altitudes, landings, took a written test, reviewed, waited.
Long after heavy morning clouds pushed the schedule back, Raecke, a cabinetmaker with more than 6,000 jumps, kept drilling my exit and free fall.
"In a high-stress situation, we want you to perform appropriately," he said.
When it came time, he would open the Cessna door and exit first, standing on the step, holding the wing strut. Videographer Jim Stahl would go second, hanging back from the door, against the fuselage.
Jacqueline Scoones, a jumpmaster and Skidmore College English professor, got me into a jumpsuit, the compact backpack with main and reserve parachutes, helmet, goggles, radio, altimeter. She checked the harness and made sure I knew where to find the main chute release, on right rear hip; main chute cutaway, right chest; reserve chute ripcord, left chest.
She would leave the plane last. We would all let go on my three count with corresponding motion: up, down, arch.
The only other student in accelerated free fall this day, Brian Reilly long had wanted to skydive. The 27-year-old Medicaid services coordinator for Catholic Charities didn't sleep well all week. "I feel like I'm waiting for Christmas and my execution," he said, pacing the training room.
The instructors recommended a tandem jump first, to take the edge off, but Reilly and I wanted to get straight to it. We agreed later there was a lot to remember. We signed five-page liability waivers, which was hard to forget.
"It's harder than I thought," he said after the fifth or sixth free fall practice on a Y-shaped dolly. "It's physically demanding keeping that arch."
When it got late, he would have to put his jump off for a week.
Skydiving coach Ed Balmes put us in a parachute harness and reviewed possible contingencies for water landings, power lines, trees, cars, wind shifts, twisted or broken parachute lines, a "ball of garbage" main chute.
"Hard decks you don't want to screw with," said Balmes, referring to the lowest advised altitudes for certain moves. Experienced skydivers have to decide by 2,000 feet with a malfunctioning main chute whether to cut it away and deploy the reserve, he said.
We were to open main canopies by 5,000 feet. The 43-year-old Balmes, with 700 jumps, would be on the ground, talking into the radio strapped to my chest, directing the canopy flight and landing.
"Ninety percent of this is between your ears," instructor Dave Bertrand said. In 30 years, he's deployed a reserve three times. Most crashes and malfunctions are from human error, instructors said. If we didn't touch any ripcord, an automatic activation device should deploy our reserves between 700 and 1,000 feet.
The plane ride on the Cessna's floor, its passenger seats removed, up to 11,500 feet into thin clouds took about a half-hour, flying west near the city of Amsterdam, then north. The low sun was turning the horizon orange. The Mohawk River appeared dark green and narrow, city buildings only a rough landscape. Raecke asked if I wanted to jump. My nod went half sideways.
There was nowhere to go, finally, but out. I pushed hard off the strut, the first mistake, and ignored jumpmaster signals to straighten my legs, the second mistake. They held each side and stabilized the free fall.
"You're not really jumping. It's just like letting go," Scoones said afterward. "It requires balance and grace."
When you reach back for the knob that releases the small pilot chute, which releases the large main canopy, you're supposed to compensate, bringing your other hand over your head for balance. But I wobbled in three practice touches and even harder in the actual pull, kicking like a swimmer, twisting sideways, missing the knob until Raecke pushed my hand to it.
The red and blue canopy opened with a small jolt, the jumpmasters and videographer fell away, and Balmes' voice crackled over the radio in the suddenly quiet sky. I steered gingerly, afraid of collapsing the parachute. Balmes said to turn harder. Finally, I could look down.
It was a five-minute flight over the lush green Mohawk Valley on a soft June evening, with two handles controlling the rectangular canopy for a series of turns and nearly soft landing on the drop zone's wide lawn.
At dinner, Joe Pallone laughed and agreed it was hard to find words. His first skydive, a tandem jump, followed mine. Bertrand, a veteran of 3,000 jumps, called it "permagrin" and "airgasm."
The Level I jump cost $340. They passed me to Level II. I want to go again.
Bertrand said his falling dreams ended after he began skydiving.
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