Jump out of a perfectly good airplane

Airborne School and my 33 subsequent jumps were two of three good things that came from my service in the US Army Reserves – 11th Special Forces, Ft, Meade Maryland!

Fun little story: We had a boarder living in our basement who worked at the local drop zone (skydiving place). One morning she called me and asked if I knew anything about network hardware as their network was down – so I stopped in on my drive to work and swapped out a router that took a lightening strike the night before. The owner wanted to pay me but I refused, so she gave me “One Free Sky dive.” Took me about 2 years to use it, but when I finally did it was AWSOME. I was screaming and flying the chute the whole way down – doing crazy tight turns etc.

M@

It is worth doing once, but scared me. I was hesitated. I waited until my husband landed before I went. I knew if since he lived, I would not hear the end of it if I would have chickened out. It would have been a very expensive plane ride.

39 jumps….that the unit actually logged.

No matter how much one practices, the first time you exit the aircraft and see that beautiful ‘chute open above, the first thought has to be, “Oh thank God it worked!”

I did the tandem jump about two weeks ago and it was the greatest experience I have had so far. The only way to explain to people the true feeling of doing the jump is to simply have them do it. Words cannot compensate. Anyways, I knew before I even did it that I was going to get addicted to it. Now I am planning on doing the AFF program so that I can jump alone and eventually get certified. It is an expensive sport until you are able to jump yourself(rates can be anywhere from $150-300) but once you are able to jump yourself the price goes down. If you purchase your own equipment(parachute, altimeter, etc.) the jump is only about $20. I sound like a sales rep. for the drop zones but I’m not. See you in the skies. Cheers.

I did a tandem skydive five years ago when I was travelling around New Zealand. It was a great feeling, really exhilarating. I considered taking skydiving lessons afterwards but at the time I didn’t have enough money. Maybe some other time…

It was a soviet bi-plane near Irkutsk, Siberia. $15 bought us 15 minutes of hurried instructions in Russian. At those prices, you’d be crazy not to jump! There was no tandem jumpng here, no cord to pull your chute out. The first jump you had to step out the door and pull your own ripchord. Only one person in our party broke an arm. Later we found out that was considered not bad. The day before four people had broke their legs. I didn’t disable my second chute on the way down and it deployed, so I had two chutes out getting tangled up in each other to the amusment of the Russians. It was a good day.

that’s what they call you after you graduate from army airborne school (before you graduate you are a dirty stinkin’ leg)..don’t ya love those military terms of affection
so I was 21 years old, afraid of nothing and determined to prove anything…life was fun.

and I was never afraid…

ps- have you ever done the six flags sling shot ride thingy..I found it much scarier

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