Admittedly, if you were to review the video, it may not look as if I was willing, but I was more concerned with falling out of the plane before I was ready to jump!
On July 18 1999, 22ooft (that's approximately 730m for my metric readers) above March in Cambridgeshire, I became the fourth person to exit the 7 seater plane for my static line jump. The first five seconds while I was freefalling are unaccounted for - I can only surmise that my brain shutdown in abject terror! Five seconds is a long time, world class sprinters will have run most of 60m in five seconds. When my parachute opened, I came back from wherever I had gone and took in the English countryside from my lofty perch. I alternated between running (with the wind) and holding (against the wind) using the toggles on the straps of my chute and it was exhilarating. It was a beautiful summer's day and I could see for my miles.
A big white arrow painted on the ground marked the landing spot and from about 200ft (67m), as the ground approached, I locked my knees together and turned against the wind to ensure I hit the ground at the slowest speed possible. As part of our 8 hour training for the jump we had been told to execute a forward roll on hitting the ground and I duly did so. My landing was so good that I was able to play basketball the next day. The only downside was when I somehow managed to get myself entangled in the parachute while folding it up. However the ex-army instructor's grading of my first jump more than made up for it.
Next up, exiting a plane 5000ft (1667m) over the Grand Canyon.
2 comments:
Awesome! Give yourself some credit.
steelr
Ta very much.
These are the musings of my alter ego.
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