My first sky dive
I did my first sky dive today and am very excited to share this with you all. It was an amazing experience and very good. It should be. Don’t you think so, if you jumped off of a plane from 14500 feet (= 2.74621212 miles = 4.4196 kilometers) above the ground and traveled at a speed of 120 miles/hr (193.12128 km/hr) in free fall? Watch the video attached to share my experience.
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During summer 2008, the idea of the jump strike me and stuck in my mind till today. After a long series of unsuccessful planning attempts and research for a good sky dive club to make the jump over the two years, I finally decided to do it at Skydive Milwaukee/Sky Knights adventure club and paid the non-refundable fee yesterday. My friend and I have decided to do it.
We reached the club in East Troy, WI. There is a small airport there nearby and this diving club uses the same airstrip for its plane. We checked in, paid the money. They started off by showing us a video in which a long bearded guy started making statements about how they are not responsible for any of our general mis-expectations of jumping from a plane coming true. It scared us like any thing particularly the bearded (really long) guy. Apparently he invented and his company in Florida manufactures the landing gear (parachute opening kit) that we used for the jump. We had to make a billion initials and a million signatures agreeing to what the video has just explained. My friend told me that if we read the documents, the chances of going to the fall will decrease drastically because it scares. So I just kept the video in mind and signed without going into details. This is the end of the not so fun part.
Going to the fun part, now they took us into a room and our Tandem instructors met us and helped us dressed up. We put a suit and a belt each that actually surrounds the whole body. I assumed this helps the instructors tie us to them. The belt had a danger sign on the back, a big one. A video-grapher came into the room and started shooting some questions and I answered them on the video. They called us out. I think we were all set and ready to go to the plane.
We headed to the plane which is actually parked on a lawn near the airstrip. The plane had a opening to the rear end which had a shutter (just like the one the shops in malls uses). We got onto the plane through this slit. There were two parallel benches and I sat on the left one with my two legs one to the each side of the bench. My instructor sat behind me and the video-grapher in front of me, all facing the tail and the slit of the plane. The plane took off and while we were watching, we left the ground, then the clouds above us, and up. My friend and I were looking at each other and laughing at our craziness. My instructor tied me to himself using the belts while we were sitting and I put my goggles on.
In just 10-15 minutes we reached the altitude of 14500 feet and the shutter flew open. There were some other jumpers in front of us and they jumped. Our instructors asked us who wants to go first and I chose to go first. My video-grapher went out first and she was hanging to the plane waiting for me to jump. It all happened in a split second and there I was at the slit ready to jump.
I could feel the forceful wind blowing outside. It was very chilly. My ears halted functioning for a moment due to sudden air and altitude. I can see the clouds and ground beneath me and they looked very far. I almost forgot how my instructor asked me to hold the hands. I made 2 mix and match combinations and found the right one. Now I felt my ears, held my hands, left my legs free. I left the plane, my feet were outside the plane, and I was still hanging as my instructor didn’t make the jump yet.
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