Today we went skydiving to celebrate Nick’s birthday. We all survived.
It was kinda fun :)

To start with they tried to scare us by making us fill in forms nominating our next of kin and sign wavers and written acknowledgements that sky diving was DANGEROUS. The receptionist all the while sought to reassure us. "We haven't lost anyone yet and we've done lots of jumps". The warnings are in writing. The reassurance is verbal.

While we waited for the survivors of the previous jump we watched videos of smiling happy jumpers. There wasn't even one death on the videos so it must be safe.

They fitted us into harnesses and weighed us in much the same way as they do before they hang someone. They gave us a one minute briefing. We didn’t need to know much. We were luggage. I noticed a bright red pocket on the back of the harness with black writing on it, obviously emergency stuff. I asked one of the chute jockeys what it was for and he said “Ummm , thats a barf bag for use if you get a bit queasy on the plane and a umm, err ...” he prevaricated. “What?” I said. “Umm, a knife but we never have to use it.” Then the minibus arrived.

We climbed aboard for the short ride to Redcliffe airport - two runways, small planes only. Out on the tarmac we spotted an ancient bright green aeroplane with teeth painted on the engine cowling. "You'd have to be brave to fly in that" said Nick. Then it powered up and taxied over. It was our plane. It was an old crop duster tarted up in backpacker colours to emphasise the fun aspect and minimise the natural trepidation one would feel on a close disinterested inspection.

Attracted like children by the fun green we all climbed aboard. It was a tight fit. The fuselage was like the tunnel in "The Great Escape", wide enough for two victims to squat side by side. Instead of seats there were two extended boxes 30 cm high running the length of the sweaty interior. We straddled them side by side in jumping order. Phil, my personal life support/chute jockey sat directly behind me in a position of such intimacy that one felt a little foreplay was called for. I remembered the knife and thought better of it. We were second in the jumping order so I sat by the sliding perspex door that I noticed had a runaway crack in it. I could see three previous attempts to stop the crack by drilling a small round hole in the end if it had failed. The first pair of jumpers sat on the floor in front of me. We taxied off with the door open. Briefly I wondered if the door had any function other than keeping the wind to a minimum but my reverie was interrupted by the surge of power as we accelerated down the runway. They slid the door closed and held it closed by hand.

Taking off in a small plane is super fun. It’s something I recommend to anyone who hasn't done it. It roared and shook and rattled and accelerated relentlessly. Before I knew it we were off the ground and climbing, climbing, climbing.

It was a warm windless day with cotton wool clouds hovering here and there. I had a great view through the door of the bay around Redcliffe and Bribie. These are my old sailing haunts and the view was spectacular. I discovered a sand bar off the south-east tip of Bribie that looks like it would provide some epic ramps in a north-easter. It's only a kilometre off shore - something to check up close another day. We climbed to 14,000 feet. I had checked the view on Google Earth the night before. The cursor wouldn't let me stop at 14,000 feet exactly but it was pretty close, close enough to verify that yes, this is the place all right and any minute now we'd have to jump out.

"Time to go" the door slid back. Robin (first in the jumping order) looked at me white faced as we untangled legs and he shuffled his bum to the door with his chauffeur attached to his back . Then they were gone just like that. It was my turn next so we shuffled to the door, I with the full intention of pausing to take it all in before I said goodbye forever. I wanted to make the sort of dignified exit that one would like to be remembered by but no, I was given the bum’s rush off into space, nothing but air and my intimate life support for company. We tumbled over and about and fell with, well "joyous élan" isn't adequate to describe it. It was absolutely ****ing awesome. We settled into an orderly free fall pretty quickly. I had expected a greater sensation of speed. They tell me that terminal velocity in that arrangement is about 220 kph. It didn't feel like a 120 knot wind. Gee maybe all those ten knot days were really fifteen knots? Nah.

We enjoyed the free fall for 30 seconds or so and then the chute opened like a big pneumatic cushion and slowed us firmly but gently to a speed that felt like standing still by comparison. It wasn't the least bit uncomfortable. We cruised about the sky like idle flaneurs out for a stroll. From then on it was a leisurely cruise to the beach. We did a few turns and such enough to give a good feel of parachuting and I have to say it was an enjoyable experience. It would be wonderful to fly. As we neared the ground it became more interesting again whizzing over the tops of the norfolk pines to turn and soar into the beach to land right on the X.

Nick was rapturous about it. He is going to do it again. I hope we haven't started something that could end in tears but I doubt it. It’s pretty expensive at $300 a jump. For me it’s a one off. Next, bungy jumping :) Why don’t they do that off the Gateway Bridge?

Tandem sky diving from 14,000 feet on a warm clear day is definitely something I would recommend to anyone to do at least once.

Hey, and what's that saying?
"If you never get anything right the first time - don't go skydiving"

Skid said...

Notwal, nice read. Well done

For those that are interested, consider doing the 'acclerated free fall' course.

And there is always the static line jumps for the crazy's ( I'm not sure if it is still available any more)

cranky said...

Skid said...

Notwal, nice read. Well done

For those that are interested, consider doing the 'acclerated free fall' course.

And there is always the static line jumps for the crazy's ( I'm not sure if it is still available any more)

Ha, ha, ha lol
Done a couple of those and it was scary but that's why you do it right?
Great read, I think you just about covered it Wal.
The last four weekends been watching them skydive from the top of Mt. Bakewell while hanggliding. They don't like hanggliding, they say it takes to long to come down.

14 TIMES !!
Well, it's good to see you kept at it until you got it right.
An ex tried it on the Gold coast, they asked if she wanted to touch the water, she said yes. When they asked for her weight she lied.
As you may have guessed she hit the water pretty hard.

I did a static jump at byron many years ago... and yes the plane was as bad or worse condition as the one you went up in! We had to do 2 days of training for 1 jump.. but you did get to climb out the door and hang off the wing strut superman style before letting go...

Good story, cheers!

Mr. No-one said...

14 TIMES !!
Well, it's good to see you kept at it until you got it right.
An ex tried it on the Gold coast, they asked if she wanted to touch the water, she said yes. When they asked for her weight she lied.
As you may have guessed she hit the water pretty hard.

LMFAO man..mental image.

I skydived for a couple of years, got up to 250 before I threw in the towel.

You can do some pretty cool stuff at speed and with yo mates in the air stuffin round

Once u pop ur cherry, for some there's no going back. Well written Notwal - I was in the moment man

Sounds just like mine in Qld. As we were boarding the sh1theap a guy down the road bounced (dead) . After the socond jump one of the guys done a roman candle but survived with only minor cuts, I had enough by that stage.

What?? BS, someone bounces they close the DZ..no more jumping that day!

Durks said...

Sounds just like mine in Qld. As we were boarding the sh1theap a guy down the road bounced (dead) . After the socond jump one of the guys done a roman candle but survived with only minor cuts, I had enough by that stage.

What?? BS, someone bounces they close the DZ..no more jumping that day!

The same day but down the road at another sky diving club. He had 3000 jumps under his belt, he turned to close to the ground and drove himself in.
The other guy done a quick repack before sunset and the shoot was twisted, he cut away but pulled his reserve while still tumbling so copped a few cuts to his face. I've never met someone so wired from from a close call.
Most mishaps are from old hands pushing the limits or getting caught up in the moment and forgetting to pull their chute, for us just giving it a go it's very safe. Even if you jumped, didn't pull and passed out your chute will Auto deploy by itself at 1000 ft.

My instructor told me of the death stats.
I don't know the name of the club where the guy died, just that it wasn't far from where we were near Ipswich, it was 15 years ago. As we were boarding a guy ran out to our Cessna and said "a guy down the road just bounced". I asked "bounced, what is that?', he said it's when you hit the ground so hard you bounce. The term "swooping" wasn't mentioned though fits the description they gave.
If you still think I'm full of BS then that's your option