| Saturday, October 01, 2005 |
| we're leavvvving from a jet plane |
now that i've done the rafting, done the skydiving, i am left with one lingering question: What am i doing with myyy life??? Time to quit school to become rapids guide or a skydiving instructor. So a quick rundown of the experience to make you all wanna get on and out of a moving plane real quick:
the whole experience involves a lot less prep than i imagined. A quick peptalk by a couple of guys, what you sould and shouldn't do and then they throw u on a plane. When we first got on the plane, it was under the pretense to do a "mockjump" just to show u how u're supposed to leave the hatch and enter the skies. Right after that was done with (which lasted in all, a total of 30 seconds), the hatch closed and the plane started up (which got me quite scurred cause i thought we were gonna get off to do some more mock-ups. The plane itself is real tiny so it was just ric, myself, and our two instructors in there with the pilot. We made the ascent for about 15 minutes at which we made 9.7 thousand feet (we overshot our intended altitude of 9.5) and then ric was the first to go....which was really cool to see but really scurry at the same time. They sorta tumbled out into somersaults out of the plane and then dissapeared into the sea of blue. It was then my time to jump and we inched our way to the hatch, sticking one leg out at a time. Giles, my jumpman, did the 1,2,3 Go, and we stepped out of the plane. We spun around a bit at the beginning to get a look at the plane as we made our drop (which was quickly dropping from our view). The first 5 seconds of the freefall is such a rush, kinda like when u make ur first drop from a rollercoaster, except here u're spinning out of control. After 5 seconds, Giles taps me on the shoulder to indicate that I can now stick my arms and legs out and at this point, it doesn't feel so much like u're falling as it does like you're floating in the wind. During this fall, I'm screaming but really u can't hear anything when u're falling at that speed. The view from the fall was just uncanny tho. My goodness. Around 37 seconds later, Giles taps me on the shoulder again to indicate that he's going to open the chute, so I tuck my arms back in, and with the pull of a string, me and all my assets come to a shreaaaaaking stop in our descent (now that's Motrin pain!) which marks the beginning of our 5 minute slow descent from the chute. At this point I break out the camera and start taking pics of the view, my kicks, and the view again. For kicks, I ask Giles if we can do any tricks, so we start doing spins in the chute (which feels like getting ur insides thrown into a washer and dryer). A soft landing on the ground completed the feat. So yeah, the whole experience is about 20-25 minutes long starting from the ascent in the plane. You don't know what it means to live unless you attempt to jeopardize it. Now it's ur turn, friend! |
posted by DarrenGene @ 9:58 PM  |
|
|
|
| about me |
|
|
|
| Archives |
|
|
| Affiliates |
|
|
