0
christoofar

How I started skydiving

Recommended Posts

all started when i went to great adventure park in new jersey bout 8 years ago they had this thing called a wind tunnel it was outdoors type and my friend worked there and with a small bribe would let me and my other friends fly on it as much as we like untill we were tired he would actually hold back paying customers, so after goin there at least 1 or 2 days a week for a year 1 of the other guys said u getting pretty good at this why dont you go skydiving i had no idea what i had been doing was in any way related to skydiving i just knew it was fun needless to say i enrolled at the ranch in NY did aff ( it was nothing like the wind tunnel ) and the rest is history....www.tumblefuqs.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
My oldest brother owns a paragliding operation in Indonesia. He offered me his old gear and would teach me provided I go there to pick it up. I thought I'd make sure I could handle the height, so August 15 last year I drove to Kapowsin to get hurled off a plane. Been back ever since.

As for paragliding, I think that can wait.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I had been hanging out at the drop zone with the guy I was dating at the time. He was on a 3 month hiatus from jumping due to a broken leg. After recovering, he said to me "I will do my first jump back if you do your first tandem today". I don't think he expected me to call his bluff...but I did. (The crazy things we women do for men....jumping out of airplanes). Little did I know I would get hooked!! So, we both jumped that day. Too bad I still have to see the asshole everytime I have to go out to the drop zone now...but I guess I owe it to him since he got me into skydiving!!


-----------------------------------------------------
When you're going to extremes...you taste adrenaline!!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Year 2000 Summer

Occupation: Bartending in a farming town amidst thousands of acres of wheatfields.

State of mind: Bored Stiff!!

So I decided to do something fun one weekend. Called up the closest dropzone and drove out there. Once, I saw everyone deploying their 'chutes I went back in and signed up for the S/L class.

I was hooked the minute I put my feet out the door.
B|

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Had to look at my pilot logbook and my skydiving logbook for this one...

I went out to the dropzone December 22nd to fly skydivers so the other pilot could get to skydive more... Well, I guess it seemed like a good plan at the time, but I have had an interest in skydiving for a long time, but never took the effort to make it a reality, so 8 days later I did my first tandem, landed and put the IAF program on my credit card, figuring that would be the most considerable expense... then gear, and now I realize that I will probably never be out of debt from this needle that's been stuck in my arm. Now I don't get to skydive so much as I would like, and I'm not flying as much as I should, but life is good. :)

--
Hook high, flare on time

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I'm a college professor and have been a freshman academic advisor for years. In 1997 an incoming freshman asked about the college skydiving club. I replied "What skydiving club?"
He asked how he could start one and I told him the rules, including the need for a faculty advisor. In a moment of weakness I volunteered to be the faculty advisor if he did all the rest of the work, thinking he would never get through all the red tape (I had started a soaring club years ago, and it's a real pain to get everything together).
Well, he did. Two weeks later he came to my office with all the forms completed and just needing the advisor's signature. He had also negotiated a college discount with SDC, got the college lawyer to create a waiver, and got 20 students to sign up to make tandem jumps.

I told him I'd come along with the tandem group as a gesture of support.

I enjoyed the tandem but really wanted to do all it my own self, so I decided to make just enough jumps to get to exit on my own with no harness hold. By the time I'd done that, I was hooked.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
My first jump was in Taupo New Zealand in 95 at the end of a six-month backpacking trip. I figured I had nothing to lose by spending whatever cash I had left and I signed up for a tandem. I was scared Sh*&less and I think I kept my eyes closed for most of it.

I decided that I was not gonna have it that way, so in spring 96 i did another tandem here in Canada. I was going to do a third in 98(?) but the DZO told me I should take my freefall course instead... I had just broken up with my girlfriend of four years, and I figured I had nothing to lose (again) and it was time to do something different.

Interesting side note... I met my girlfriend-now-wife at the end of my first season. We went out on the friday night, and then the saturday, and that night she asked me what I was doing the next day. I said I was going to skydive and asked her if she wanted to come. She surprised the hell out of me and said sure. I knew then I would marry her. It only got better when she signed up for her course. :)
We're the coolest couple we know!B|

_________________________________________
Did I just kill another thread?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Just hanging around with some friends in high school, we wer're looking for something fun to do when school was out. So, in June of 1998, I made my first static-line jump with 3 friends (one of which was deathly affraid of heights... we're talking the shakes here we were very proud of him) I was stoked about jumping out of the a/c but absolutely had to experience freefall. I went back from time to time but had no money, then I went to away to get my pilots licence, now that I'm back, I've noticed that I spend more time jumping out of planes than I do flying them :)



My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
i had seen skydiving in movies and such but i had told myself that i would never do it. Than i got engaged and one day decided i need to do a tandem before i get married. kinda a last "single thing" to do that was over the edge. so one saturday i grabbed my soon to be wife and did one. as soon as we were under canopy i new that i was going to be doing this for the rest of my life. Here i am today 200+ jumps later, and my wife still lets me drag her to the dz every weekend. life couldn't be better..
unless of course i could find someone to pay me 60 thousand a year to skydive....
hey we i can dream can't i;)
if fun were easy it wouldn't be worth having, right?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I was out for dinner on Wells Street in Chicago with some friends on July 30, 1997. The remaining one in our group of 4 was late, not showing up until 8pm. I asked Rob Faurot where he had been, when he explained he had done his first or second AFP at Skydive Chicago. I asked him when he would go again, and he said August 10. I had heard about another friend in California who had jumped and felt quite overloaded by the experience, although he loved it (never went again, though). I told Rob I would go with him. He recalled thinking that numerous others had also said so, only to recant.

The day dawned mostly cloudy at what is now the old airstrip in Ottawa, IL. We were trained and I had to wait between 2 and 3 hours. I was very eager about it to the instructors, although I had no idea what to expect as far as the sensation, and knew nothing about what all these experienced skydivers did once they remained in the sport. They just disappeared into the sky and did some cool landings. It's all a mystery . . .

My tandem master was Ros Brooke, and there was a videographer (I wonder where he is now?). In the plane, I reasoned that this tandem master had done this many times before and that I would just follow instructions and just trust him (not always the best course of action). When we exited, I recall the mouth full of air and the town below. The periphery of my vision was all a haze and wind rushed by. I guess my desire to go again came about 4 or 5 seconds into the jump. The trip under canopy was beautiful and the JM had about 1500 jumps at the time. I bought a license plate rim and a shirt and still remember it as one of the best days of my life. I had been listening to a Tony Bennett CD on the way back home that day, and still play it once in a while with a memory of that time. Some of us are sentimentalists.

Today, I am learning head-down, do a lot of sit fly, and still do a bunch of RW (most of my earlier experience). Most of the same instructors are still at that DZ (now at a newer airport built as a DZ), and can be depended upon for good advice and cheer (and the occasional Nationals or swoop award for some). Those of us who were new 5 years ago make fewer mistakes now, although the first year or two was quite an exerience for me and those who jumped with me. Many of them are still around, too. You know who you are; rest assured I think you are cool and my life is better for having met you and the sport.

Harry
I don't drink during the day, so I don't know what it is about this airline. I keep falling out the door of the plane.

Harry, FB #4143

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
A buddy and I had been talking it about it in an offhand way for about ten years: "...oh yeah, we should try that sometime..", and "...ya, I'd love to try that sometime...".

So he called one day and sid some people from his work were going for a birthday thing ... my brother and I went along, did the FJC, and I was "hooked" (no pun intended).

Of course, I'm the only one who went past 2 jumps. That was in May '98.



Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
saw sport parachute stall in university union building - was with 4 other friends who were all quite drunk (as was i), thought it would be funny as we had just got our student loans through, signed up. did a static line. kind of forgot about it. then got a cheque for £900 - deposit refund on an expensive flat. didn't know what to do with it until a friend pointed out that it was an AFF course in empuriabrava. had booked it within the next day. i went out there with another friend (who was one of the guys i did the static line with). we planned just to do AFF, then go around spain trying to shag as many women as possible, but after our first jumps we decided to stay right there and max out our credit cards. left there 2 weeks later with 40 jumps, an AFF course, 10 consolidation jumps, Sky U course and FS1. got back decided everything else was far too boring, moved next to the dropzone. now i have 150 jumps, i have just quit my job (friday), am learning to pack tandems and am gonna become a dz bum and head off around the world. fuck it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
My self and three friends of mine decided to go to Hinckley for tandems - Pal Dennis had already jumped tandem once in Australia - Just for the heel of and to able to say "been there, done that-" Y'know? So we all go and now I'm the only one who kept up with it! Dennis went on to AFF 3 when he broke a toe landing, never went back to it - Sez he "lost interest" -
I just got all my stuff done for my B license - Hopefully will have my C before the snow flies!
-Lenny

Easy Does It

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I was a senior in high school, and I wanted to do something cool with my date for Prom, so I decided to take her on a tandem...she was totally cool with it. So, I called up Eloy, (My parents live an hour from the dz) and scheduled us....it rocked....jumping the Skyvan for the tandem was cool. B|:)B| I went and got my license. In fact, my TM (Joe)was my ASP JM's when I went back
blue ones
"Dancing Argentine Tango is like doing calculus with your feet."
-9 toes

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I have always had a facination with things that fly. Had always dreemed of becoming a piolt(still on my todo list, fixed and rotory, in that order).

Around April of this year my friend starts telling my about how he is going to learn to skydive. He had been waiting most of his life to do it. He tells me $1350
for the 7 level AFF course. My life at this time was kinda boring and I had some money saved so I think about it for a while and decide that it sounds like a good idea. So i made my first jump in the begining of may. As of last weekend i have 42 jumps and no license or rig. But that should change within a month. And I have spent way more money than i had planned, but no regrets.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
In 1998 in the gym of my former University a guy
was handing out some forms to register to a static-line course. I got one, however I failed at the medical test.

Reasons: I was too young (I was 22), my blood pressure is high (130/80 as far as I know is not high)
I did not say loudly: Good Morning to the Royal Highness Princess Mrs. Doctor (Bitch), and many more reasons. Unfortunately the Doctor who decides who passes the medical tests, is a bit strange.
(how do you say in US mentally ??? something)

So in 1999, than my neighbour offered a free tandem-jump, he was a publisher of an aviation magazine who sponsored a small air-show. So I did it, although I did not want to do a tandem before in my opinion tandems are for those who do not want to jump just try it once. Than at the airport an instructor advised that ther is another hospital where you can do your medical tests and they are really helpfull and just.
So in 1999/10/16 I did my first
static-line round jump with a 10 year old ex-military chute.
This is my story

OVER

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

0