My First Skydive
October 12, 1996 I woke up at 5 am and left my Encino California apartment at 6 am for a 2 hour drive in my trusted Chevy S-10 to the Inland Empire of San Bernardino California.
I was headed for the Perris Valley Skydive Center to complete my first of many skydives.
It was a tandem jump.
A tandem skydive is when you wear a harness that has four clips sewn into it (two at the top and two at the bottom) and the jumpmaster tandem flier hooks your harness to the clips of his parachute harness.
So ya better hope he doesn't forget to do that if you ever decide to do a tandem skydive.
I arrived around 8 am and signed in for the informational readiness class which lasted about 1 hour.
In this class you sign all of the papers declaring that if you create a small crater in the earth no one you know has the right to sue the drop zone or the drop zone owners.
It was a great way to start off my new experience.
On a side note I had three overwhelming fears in my life at the time I was doing this adventure.
Two of which had been flying in air planes and the other was falling to my death.
So after filling out all those legal papers I had a lot of questions to be answered, needless to say.
My first question was "How many falling humans created craters in the area?" The second was if there were some, "How many were tandem jumps?" To my relief the answer was none and then the safety director Vinny showed me how they pack the chutes and the emergency procedures.
This made me a little more at ease! My tandem jumpmaster was a cool dude named Chris.
Now Chris was a short guy, shorter than me (I stand a whopping 5'7'' Chris was about 5'3'').
I also hired a camera flier named Keith because if you think I'm jumpin' out of a perfectly good airplane with no witness to the event your nuts!! We went over how we were going to jump and all of the different procedures.
You know all the crap that makes you say "WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I DOING THIS FOR?" Then they let me know that when we get to altitude if I didn't want to jump to let them know and we would take the plane down, OK sounds reasonable right.
Personally if I go up in the plane unless there is a major malfunction with something, I knew I was going out the door.
I was so focused on doing this that I didn't remember driving for two hours to get there.
We especially rehearsed as much as you can rehearse the landing, like I said Chris was 4 inches shorter than me.
Four inches doesn't sound like much on the ground but when your strapped to a guy shorter than you and your falling at 120 mph through the sky I figured there might be some bumps in the road or air however you want to look at it.
The landing was important to me because if I lived through this experience I wanted to look as cool as possible when landing (like that was gonna happen).
After my friends Kurt, Kim and her two kids were coming and I wanted to look good, at least the landing.
Around 12 pm the twin engine sky van pulled around to load up the skydivers.
At this point my muscles are beginning to get tight, but we loaded onto the plane.
A sky van looks and flies as exactly as it sounds.
It kind of looks like a u-haul with wings, and yes that did freak me out just a little.
There are no seats just seat belts on the floor and now I am more freaked out!!! It takes about 20 minutes to get to altitude which is about 12,500 feet or 2 miles up.
It only takes 55 seconds to get down once you jump out the door...
Anyway we get up around 11,000 feet and the most unbelievable nasty smell starts to encompass the air inside of this tin can.
What they don't tell you before doing this is that most people even the experienced jumpers fart like there's no tomorrow when they get close to jumping altitude because the muscles tense up extremely tight.
The worst part was all these 22 people on this enclosed flying tin can had just finished eating lunch!!!!!!!!!!!!So for 5 minutes I was breathing in enough human expelled gas to knock a fly off a huge pile of cow crap.
The only good thing is that when we got to 12,500 ft I was going out the door because there was no way that I could breathe that nasty air for another 15 minute trip down to the ground.
So now the rear door opens and people start running off the back of the plane and disappearing out of sight.
When people start running and jumping off of a moving plane 2 miles up in the air the plane starts to wobble.
So now I am wide eyed sucking in my immense fear and Chris says are we going and I said "Where".
He started laughing and said lets go!!! OUT THE DOOR WE WENT!!! We did a back flip right out the back of this plane and I was thinking to myself "This is to cool for words", it felt like I was lying on a mattress and yet I am strapped to this guy falling 120 mph through the air.
I had thought the freefall experience would be like a roller coaster ride but it wasn't, thank GOD for that!!! Now the one thing no one told me not to do was to look down when freefalling because it creates turbulence between the jumpmaster and the student.
Well seconds out the door I am fixated on the ground.
The Perris Valley Skydive Center has a gigantic dirt circle on its south east corner of the property that keeps getting bigger and bigger as you fall, makes sense right.
I couldn't stop looking at this thing until Chris grabbed my forehead and pulled my head up towards Keith the camera flier.
Of course as your falling the air exaggerates your facial features so I look like Mr.
Potato head.
On the video I start waiving and having a good time then all of a sudden bam I'm watching Keith fall down farther and farther.
(I don't remember pulling the rip cord.
) As I'm looking down at Keith we start spinning I thought we were out of control but Chris had us flying in circles, not very fast but it seemed like it at the time.
Once that canopy opens everything in your life that is giving you heartaches and headaches don't seem to be such a burden anymore, because I have a good canopy and I'm still breathing.
Now remember the only thing I wanted to do that might be in my control was to have a cool landing.
Well 100 feet from the ground Chris says "I want you slide on your butt when we land" I looked back and said "You're kidding me right" he said"NOPE".
This is when being 4 inches taller than the guy next to you can make or break you..
..
SSSoooo on my butt I slid in front of my friends.
It wasn't too bad and it didn't hurt and you know what, it made for a funny video.
I didn't remember the whole experience until the next day.
My mind when into shock I guess, but what a ride it was..
..
..
...
You know the only thing I remembered was after landing Keith pointed the camera at me and asked me "What I thought" all I could say was "This man is a genius" while pointing at Chris.
It was the only thing that came into my mind, next to lying down on the ground and kissing the dirt (which I didn't do).
I was headed for the Perris Valley Skydive Center to complete my first of many skydives.
It was a tandem jump.
A tandem skydive is when you wear a harness that has four clips sewn into it (two at the top and two at the bottom) and the jumpmaster tandem flier hooks your harness to the clips of his parachute harness.
So ya better hope he doesn't forget to do that if you ever decide to do a tandem skydive.
I arrived around 8 am and signed in for the informational readiness class which lasted about 1 hour.
In this class you sign all of the papers declaring that if you create a small crater in the earth no one you know has the right to sue the drop zone or the drop zone owners.
It was a great way to start off my new experience.
On a side note I had three overwhelming fears in my life at the time I was doing this adventure.
Two of which had been flying in air planes and the other was falling to my death.
So after filling out all those legal papers I had a lot of questions to be answered, needless to say.
My first question was "How many falling humans created craters in the area?" The second was if there were some, "How many were tandem jumps?" To my relief the answer was none and then the safety director Vinny showed me how they pack the chutes and the emergency procedures.
This made me a little more at ease! My tandem jumpmaster was a cool dude named Chris.
Now Chris was a short guy, shorter than me (I stand a whopping 5'7'' Chris was about 5'3'').
I also hired a camera flier named Keith because if you think I'm jumpin' out of a perfectly good airplane with no witness to the event your nuts!! We went over how we were going to jump and all of the different procedures.
You know all the crap that makes you say "WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I DOING THIS FOR?" Then they let me know that when we get to altitude if I didn't want to jump to let them know and we would take the plane down, OK sounds reasonable right.
Personally if I go up in the plane unless there is a major malfunction with something, I knew I was going out the door.
I was so focused on doing this that I didn't remember driving for two hours to get there.
We especially rehearsed as much as you can rehearse the landing, like I said Chris was 4 inches shorter than me.
Four inches doesn't sound like much on the ground but when your strapped to a guy shorter than you and your falling at 120 mph through the sky I figured there might be some bumps in the road or air however you want to look at it.
The landing was important to me because if I lived through this experience I wanted to look as cool as possible when landing (like that was gonna happen).
After my friends Kurt, Kim and her two kids were coming and I wanted to look good, at least the landing.
Around 12 pm the twin engine sky van pulled around to load up the skydivers.
At this point my muscles are beginning to get tight, but we loaded onto the plane.
A sky van looks and flies as exactly as it sounds.
It kind of looks like a u-haul with wings, and yes that did freak me out just a little.
There are no seats just seat belts on the floor and now I am more freaked out!!! It takes about 20 minutes to get to altitude which is about 12,500 feet or 2 miles up.
It only takes 55 seconds to get down once you jump out the door...
Anyway we get up around 11,000 feet and the most unbelievable nasty smell starts to encompass the air inside of this tin can.
What they don't tell you before doing this is that most people even the experienced jumpers fart like there's no tomorrow when they get close to jumping altitude because the muscles tense up extremely tight.
The worst part was all these 22 people on this enclosed flying tin can had just finished eating lunch!!!!!!!!!!!!So for 5 minutes I was breathing in enough human expelled gas to knock a fly off a huge pile of cow crap.
The only good thing is that when we got to 12,500 ft I was going out the door because there was no way that I could breathe that nasty air for another 15 minute trip down to the ground.
So now the rear door opens and people start running off the back of the plane and disappearing out of sight.
When people start running and jumping off of a moving plane 2 miles up in the air the plane starts to wobble.
So now I am wide eyed sucking in my immense fear and Chris says are we going and I said "Where".
He started laughing and said lets go!!! OUT THE DOOR WE WENT!!! We did a back flip right out the back of this plane and I was thinking to myself "This is to cool for words", it felt like I was lying on a mattress and yet I am strapped to this guy falling 120 mph through the air.
I had thought the freefall experience would be like a roller coaster ride but it wasn't, thank GOD for that!!! Now the one thing no one told me not to do was to look down when freefalling because it creates turbulence between the jumpmaster and the student.
Well seconds out the door I am fixated on the ground.
The Perris Valley Skydive Center has a gigantic dirt circle on its south east corner of the property that keeps getting bigger and bigger as you fall, makes sense right.
I couldn't stop looking at this thing until Chris grabbed my forehead and pulled my head up towards Keith the camera flier.
Of course as your falling the air exaggerates your facial features so I look like Mr.
Potato head.
On the video I start waiving and having a good time then all of a sudden bam I'm watching Keith fall down farther and farther.
(I don't remember pulling the rip cord.
) As I'm looking down at Keith we start spinning I thought we were out of control but Chris had us flying in circles, not very fast but it seemed like it at the time.
Once that canopy opens everything in your life that is giving you heartaches and headaches don't seem to be such a burden anymore, because I have a good canopy and I'm still breathing.
Now remember the only thing I wanted to do that might be in my control was to have a cool landing.
Well 100 feet from the ground Chris says "I want you slide on your butt when we land" I looked back and said "You're kidding me right" he said"NOPE".
This is when being 4 inches taller than the guy next to you can make or break you..
..
SSSoooo on my butt I slid in front of my friends.
It wasn't too bad and it didn't hurt and you know what, it made for a funny video.
I didn't remember the whole experience until the next day.
My mind when into shock I guess, but what a ride it was..
..
..
...
You know the only thing I remembered was after landing Keith pointed the camera at me and asked me "What I thought" all I could say was "This man is a genius" while pointing at Chris.
It was the only thing that came into my mind, next to lying down on the ground and kissing the dirt (which I didn't do).