Falling Through The Clouds

Falling Through The Clouds

by Jeff Davis

Publication Date: December 1997

The view from way above the clouds is never the same after you have fallen through them.

Jumping from an airplane 15,000 feet in the air is a feeling only a small group of people are able to experience. Whether it be for the adrenaline rush or just downright psychotic behavior, over 29,000 people in the United States belong to the U.S. Parachute Association.

Extremz recently went to Skydive Greensburg in Greensburg, Indiana to see what the sport is all about. What we discovered was that these people are fairly normal human beings, they just have an unexplainable desire to float through the sky as though they have wings.

The morning began with several jumpers gathered around the jump zone office telling stories about their leaps to earth. Many of them had been in Vietnam and were experienced jumpers. They mentioned the severity of the sport of skydiving.

"We're not going to sugarcoat anything," one man said. "There's not a guy in here who hasn't had to pull his reserve before. Just the other day, my pilot-chute got stuck in my camera mount."

What they did take solace in is the fact that a major incident like sever injury or death only happens in one out of every 53,000 jumps. Still, they weren't phased by that number either.

"We do it because we love it. We try to come out here and jump everyday," another jumper said.

When ordinary people, whether it be beginner students or first-time jumpers, come to Skydive Greensburg, they put their lives in these men's hands. If the parachutes don't open, there isn't a second chance.

Visitors to the drop zone go through several hours of training with the staff before they are allowed to jump. If a person chooses the tandem jump, the training isn't as intense. Individuals are hooked up to a professional skydiver and go along for the ride and actually experience about 30 to 40 seconds of freefall.

On the other hand, those who are not interested in falling to the ground at over 100 miles per hour can choose to jump with a static line. This program allows students to be dropped from a lower altitude, but with no freefall. The person's parachute pack is connected to the plane with a tether. When they are instructed to jump, the rope pulls the parachute out and the student is directed back to earth through radio transmissions with a ground instructor.

Bob Dougherty, the manager of Skydive Greensburg invited Extremz to jump tandem with one of his staff members so that we too could experience the sensation that everyone was talking about.

Because we were jumping tandem, the instructional course took about 30 minutes and then we suited up and headed to the plane.

As the pilot was warming up the Cessna, we got into our jumping order on the plane. We then taxied to the runway and made our way up into the clouds for what would be a day we would never forget.

When the single engine plane reached about 6,500 feet, the door flew open and a student jumped out on a static line. It seemed fairly painless.

Then the pilot revved up the engines and headed for higher skies, as we would be jumping from 15,000 feet. As we got closer to our jump zone, the instructor attached himself to the harness that would hold us together.

"Put your feet out on the ladder and let go," the instructor said. He then pulled himself out of the plane just enough to hold on to a handle bar in the plane and then let go. Within seconds, we were tumbling to the ground at 135 miles per hour. Falling next to us was another staff jumper taking pictures of our fall.

Right after we jumped, the diver deployed a droughchute, a 24-inch parachute that would slow us down. If we didn't have this, our parachute would have gotten blown to pieces when opened.

After about 40 seconds of freefall, the deafening sound of the wind was halted by the deployment of the parachute. Immediately, the fall became very quiet and graceful.

As we descended towards the ground, the instructor made several turns to line himself up with the landing spot. A couple of minutes later we touched down and the ride was over. The excitement and the adrenaline that lead up to the jump had all been released.

It's hard to believe that the instructors at Skydive Greensburg and around the country dive almost every day. Most people go out to a bar to get a drink after work, these people dive head first from a plane to the ground. It takes a certain kind of person to want to experience this every day.

There are jump clubs and dive schools all around the country available to assist beginner and advanced divers. Although many don't advertise themselves, a call to a small local airport should yield a number of places that are certified dive facilities.

Physically, it doesn't take much to skydive and the training is fairly easy. All a person needs is the ability to jump out of a plane. But, that's easier said than done. It takes guts and a desire to go to the extreme. But it's all in a day's work for the thousand of people who live on the edge and call themselves skydivers.