As I briefly mentioned in my last post, a good friend of mine is going to attempt to make 300 skydives in 24 hours to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease. Of course you’re asking yourself “how is that possible?” Well, it’s because he is only going to 2000 feet on each jump, that’s how. Now if leaping from a perfectly good airplane every 3-4 minutes for 24 straight hours (and yes, there is a large part of those hours where the sun is noticeably absent i.e dark or “night” if you will) isn’t impressive enough, Kevin (that’s his name you see) lost the use of his left arm in a snowmobile accident 4 years ago so he will be doing this amazing feat with the use of only one arm! That’s right, 300 skydives, in 24 hours, from 2000 feet, half of them in the dark, with only one arm.
This is his 4th event of this kind and his 2nd after the accident and it is an impressive thing to watch. The high performance takeoff of the lightly loaded PAC 750XL is impressive and the climb to 2000 feet takes only 45 seconds or so. Then Kevin jumps out, deploys his parachute almost immediately and spirals down to the ground where he (hopefully) lands right in front of his crew who help him switch parachutes for a freshly packed one and hop into the same plane he just jumped out of which beat him to the ground and is waiting for him.
You might have picked up on another interesting aspect of this little event. If Kevin is making 300 jumps out of the same plane doesn’t that mean that someone (a pilot perhaps?) have to make 300 takeoffs and landings? Why yes dear reader, it does. And guess who the lucky pilot is that gets to have his rear end glued into the seat for this epic undertaking? That’s right, me. OK, there is another pilot who will be helping me by giving me breaks because let’s face it flying for 24 hours straight would be just a little bit dangerous. I know, I know, Kevin will be jumping for the same amount of time, but if he falls asleep on final the parachute still lands, and no fireball.
The whole thing is going to be a test of endurance and teamwork and we start today at 7:00 pm. I can’t wait.
Here’s a link to the story that the local news did. 300 Imperfect Jumps And of course that’s yours truly in the pilot’s seat.
