Skydiving

A year ago, I reprinted a travel article I had written in my youth, one that had been published in my home town newspaper.  Readership of that post was high, somewhat to my surprise.

I'll tempt fate and now offer another product of my younger years, written the same summer for the same newspaper -- a summer when I was contemplating what to do with the rest of my life.  Newsprint yellows and crumbles with age.  If nothing else, adding these two articles to my blog may ensure their survival for a few more decades.

Anyone who has been skydiving for the first time recently will recognize that techniques have changed over the past 45 years.  Landings today are gentler.  First dives are made in tandem with an instructor, and are made from much higher altitudes -- providing a much longer experience of free-fall.

As with my prior "blast from the past," I reprint this story exactly as it appeared in the newspaper.  Outdated slang and unfortunately chauvinistic attitudes or language have been left intact.  The article was published in the Longview Daily News on July 4, 1970.

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"Once you're in that plane, you're going to make the jump.  No one comes back down with the plane."

You sit crouched on the floor of a stripped-down Cessna 170 and recall your instructor's warning earlier in the day.  Your decision is irrevocable.  You go to your first sky dive.

Early on this fair Saturday, after months of thought and conversation, you and a friend walked bravely into the office of Seattle Sky Sports, a non-profit outfit in Issaquah.  You forked over $35 each, signed liability waivers with some trepidation, and were enrolled in a 10:30 a.m ground school class.

Although students from 16 to 60 are welcome, your classmates, 11 men and two girls, all appeared to be in their twenties.  The instructor, a lithe, sharp-looking blonde named Gloria, was personable, articulate ("I teach high school when I can spare the time from jumping") and possessed of a subtle, ironical sense of humor.

After a couple of movies illustrating the beauties of the art, Gloria did her classroom bit.  She painstakingly outlined steps for each procedure, the essential theoretical background, and courses of action to be taken in any emergency.  She reassuringly detailed her company's safety record.  She stiffened your determination.  "None of my pupils has ever backed out of his jump after going through ground school."  ("There are many paths to distinction," your companion muttered.)  A final slap on the back before lunch.  "Even if you screw up everything, you'll live to tell about it, but the idea is to do it right."

In the afternoon, she put you through a series of physical exercises designed to simulate different aspects of the jump.  For example, you repeatedly did a jump and roll from a four-foot platform, an impact equivalent to that of the actual landing.

You completed a short written test on the morning's lecture (grades are strictly pass-fail, and everyone passed).  Dressed in white coveralls and helmets, you and your classmates were grouped by threes into planeloads.

You stumbled aboard the plane, encumbered by the heavy parachute pack on your back and the reserve chute and ground-to-air radio on your chest.  The static line, which on a first jump will automatically open your chute, was fastened with care to the pilot's seat. 

Why are you doing this?  Maybe you fear heights and want to face that fear.  Maybe you fear death and want to cheat it   Maybe you fear a purely mental and abstract life, devoid of physical challenges and dangers.  Or maybe you simply seek a groovy feeling.  Whatever your motivation,you find yourself now aboard a tiny plane which taxis across the field and lurches into the sky. 

For some reason, you are strangely calm.  Mt. Rainier towers reassuringly familiar to the south, and you note with interest how Interstate 90 blazes through the center of the green Snoqualmie valley.

The plane climbs.  At 2,000 feet the door is opened, and your new instructor hurls out a yellow streamer to check wind patterns.  He watches intently as it falls to earth.

Far below you see the air field and the small circle which you know is your gravel landing target.

At 2,800 feet, the door again is opened.  Your buddy goes first.  He creeps out and suddenly, alarmingly, is gone.  The plane circles while the instructor watches.

"Real good," he says.

You look down and see his chute far below.

Your instructor searches your face.

"Scared?"

"Yeah."

"Good.  Then you'll make a good jump."

The door is still open.  The air rushes by.

"Okeh.  Sit in the door."  You throw your legs over the edge, eyeing the ground between them.  Although far below, it looks like an aerial photo stretched out at your feet.  The illusion is too compelling to permit fear.  You've actually felt more panic standing on a 10-foot stepladder.

"Okeh.  Get out there."  Your feet rest on a rod jutting out from the cockpit.  You stand up, grabbing the wing strut.  You edge out to the very end of the rod, standing on one leg, raise the other into the air.  You await the order.

"Go."

He slaps your leg.  At some mental level below that of rational thought, you respond by pushing off from your only link with the rest of the world.

Rush of air.  No spatial orientation.   Train of thought impossible.  "Man's not made for this."  A two dimensional creature thrust suddenly into a 3-D world.  "Forgot ... suppose to arch back ... gotta try to do it."

Within five seconds, your chute is open.  Utter confusion is transformed into utter joy.  You forgot to count, forgot to hold your arms and legs correctly, forgot to check that your chute was opening.  And yet you are overwhelmingly happy.

You are scared of heights, but you feel not the slightest fear.  A world of serene beauty surrounds you, your great orange and white canopy shelters you.  You  are enveloped by a soft silence, a feeling of great peace.

Suggestions for steering your way down crackle over the radio.  You obey almost automatically, almost annoyed at the intrusion.  Not even apprehension about the landing can disturb your euphoria.

But the ground nears and rushes up, and you see figures moving about as you zero in on the target circle.  You press your legs together and remember to look away to the horizon, avoiding an otherwise inevitable misjudgment of the impact time.

You hit and roll instinctively, and easily to the ground, then stand to help the ground crew fold the parachute.  You are, perhaps, suffering rather pleasantly from mild mental shock.

"Hey, this is a first-timer.  Landed right on the target.  What's this world coming to?"

You know that you should give full credit to the expert radio guidance, but you just stand there with a big, silly, happy grin on your face.

You've been sky-diving, and the world is yours.