Category: Skydiving

This is what it looks like when someone leaves on Ready! instead of Go!

I might not be spending three days in a small single engine plane this weekend but at least I get to do stuff like this.  I’m at the five O’ clock position with the green and black rig.

Just kicking back with a few of my friends.

This is my busy time of year.  In late August early September I average 50 to 7o jumps a week and fly the Grand Caravan whenever my pilot needs a break.  Skydiving that much will keep a guy in shape but makes the evening soak in the hot tub more of a necessity than a luxury. Last Saturday was one of our busiest days of the summer and I was jumping non-stop when my manager asked my to come into the tandem training room for a minute.  She pointed to a rather large young man sitting in the back row and told me that he wanted to make a tandem skydive.  She said that he’d told her that he was quite a bit heavier than our normal 260 lb. weight limit, even more than the 289 lb. man I’d taken on a jump last month.  One look at his hopeful face and I just couldn’t say no, a nasty habit of mine that will be the death of me yet.  My manager suggested we put him on the scale before I make any promises.  When he stood up I realized that this was indeed a BIG boy and the scale confirmed it. 309 lbs!  Hmmm, 309 lbs, oh what the hell.  “sure I’ll still take you”

  Putting the harness on him wasn’t a simple feat but I made it fit and off we went.  Getting to the door of the Caravan with a 309 lb passenger strapped to your chest and a 56 lb. tandem parachute on your back was a challenge but I somehow made it and flopped out for the 13,000 foot plunge.  Boy oh boy was that freefall FAST!  Normal freefall speed is about 125 mph. and we were doing at least 165 mph. My cameraman had his wings tucked in and was arching for all he was worth to stay with us but to his credit he managed somehow.  When I pulled the ripcord the opening was, shall we say, brisk.  My entire staff came out to watch the landing and I thankfully disappointed them by coming in fast but without the huge crash they were hoping for.  It was gratifying to be able to make this young man’s day but I think next time I’ll put him on the scale before opening my big mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  As I mentioned even though I’ve made over 13,000 skydives I’ve yet to make a BASE jump.  It’s not that I’m scared, I’M NOT SCARED OF ANYTHING! I just don’t have access to anything to anything I consider high enough to jump off of.  For non-skydivers that statement might seem wrong.  “Kerry, I think you mean anything low enough to jump from.” No dear reader I do not, and I’ll thank you not to question me in the future. I know what I’m talking about.  Skydivers know that the higher you are the safer you are because it’s the ground, or cliff, that kills you so STAY AWAY!  A jump site that’s really high allows the jumper to fly away from the cliff and open his parachute safely without the risk of an off heading opening flying him back into the cliff with predictable results.  No need to talk about the guys who try and see how low they can open, that’s just Darwin at work.  If you look at the statistics BASE jumping is an extremely dangerous sport, but if you take out the jumpers who jump from low objects it’s not as bad, still dangerous but not crazy stupid dangerous.   When a non-skydiver looks over the edge of the 800 foot New River Gorge, a popular BASE site, they say “Oh my God, look how high it is!”  A skydiver say’s “Oh my God, look how low it is!”

   All I’m really looking for is the rush of jumping off of a cliff, not the sight of the ground coming up to smite me.  That’s why when I finally make a BASE jump it’s going to be from something so high that it’s almost like a skydive.  Someplace like this.

Mt. Thor on Baffin Island.

  Someday.

A few days ago I posted a video of three wingsuiters doing some “amazing” close proximity flying.  I put the word amazing in quotes because one man’s amazing is another man’s freaking nuts.  It’s a crazy video to watch with the pilots flying extremely close to the ground and the skiers they were filming with.  Now I’ve wanted to fly my wingsuit close to the ground or cliffs for a long time and watching videos like that really gets my heart pumping.  Ripping along at 80 mph with my face just inches from the ground would crazy fun, I mean I’ve literally had dreams like that for years. What can I say? I’m not normal.  But even though I live what most people would call a very dangerous and risky life I do know that some things are just a little too dangerous.  That’s why I don’t BASE jump, so far.  If I ever do start BASE jumping it will be from someplace really high like the 3,500 foot fjords in Norway or the 4010 foot drop of Mt. Thor in Baffin Island, and even though it would be fun to fly next to the rocks I’ll just jump and track away from the wall and open my parachute, so it would be, you  know, safe.

  Yesterday the three jumpers in the video jumped out of a helicopter in Switzerland and were playing “follow the leader” We’re not sure exactly what happened yet but it appears that they got too low and couldn’t recover.  Two of them died and the third is in critical condition.  Here are two screen shots from the video that show then flying just inches from the snow.  Sure hope it was fun, cause you’re done.

 Being lazy to day, OK not lazy just trying to get my taxes done before my Bangkok trip.  So for now here’s a skydiving video that was all the rage a few years ago.  It does a good job of showing most of the aspects of skydiving that us jumpers get excited about.  Enjoy! (If you have an hour to kill)