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On sky diving

By jlynch on December 22, 2006.

So I survived jumping out of a perfectly good plane.

All I can say is what a rush once you get over the "what the hell am I doing here"-feeling that is inevitable. Twenty of your closest friends squeeze into a Twin Otter, climb to 13,000 feet, and amazingly quickly decant themselves (as harnessed pairs) into the void. You rapidly accelerate to approximately 120 mph, freefall for a minute (feeling as, I imagine, a dog must do with its head out the window of a speeding car). At 5000 feet,
you pull the rip cord. You jerk up. All goes quiet. The ride down from here takes about three minutes, and features turns that put you practically horizontal at times ... this is particularly interesting as your instructor gives you the chance to make these turns yourself. Landing is surprisingly easy.

All in all, an amazing experience. Would I do it again? Yeah, I would.

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So, how did your wife like it?

Oh, she probably liked it more than me.

By John Lynch (not verified) on 22 Dec 2006 #permalink

I did a jump, except, as the jump master pointed out, the plane wasn't perfectly good, but rather held together by masses of duct tape. I'm not sure it made the whole thing easier, but it sure was a WOW experience!

Jumping out of a perfectly good plane...I thought you had a PhD!

By Nick (Matzke) (not verified) on 22 Dec 2006 #permalink

Oh, shit. I wish you hadn't done this. I've always wanted to do it (tried a glider once, got incredibly airsick with 1000 foot drops in a few seconds) and hang gliding (don't even ask), but sky diving is one of the things I most want to do. I'm pretty old for it, now, but you reawakened the urge. Why did you have to do that? Have you no shame?

His wife *loved* it . . . yes, probably much more than John. But I also loved the moment when we were back on the ground watching the next batch of jumpers whirling and spiraling their parachutes through the air, and John turned to me and said, we did that!

At 5000 feet, you pull the rip cord. You jerk up. All goes quiet.

You really don't go up you know, you decelerate quickly. I'm glad you and your wife enjoyed your jumps. I fly video and have seen some really scary tandems!

-bill