Some of my friends have been for a skydive in the past and I once had a long chat with Ravi about his own skydiving experience. At that time I never thought that I would ever have the guts to jump off a plane like that. But on 18th September, the idea to actually experience it first hand came into my mind. The coming weekend was my last in the US on this trip, so I had very little time to play with. I quickly asked Andy & Vishwa if they would be interested, but unfortunately they had "terrory" and "pricey" issues :) So I posted a thread on the Chicago group of CS to see if anyone there would be interested. A few guys were, but the timings weren't working out for them. I realized that if I had to do it, I'd have to do it by myself. I called up many places around Chicago hoping to find a good deal, but skydiving being an expensive affair, it would cost me $300 at least (including a video of the jump). At this time, I was still unsure if I had it in me to go ahead with such a scary looking adventure.
On Friday, 19th September, Ravi & I went to a Malaysian restaurant called Penang in Arlington Heights (the food is a little expensive but its good. The first item on the list of appetizers - Roti Canai - is just superb!!!). I told Ravi about my skydiving plans, and he asked me to go ahead with it. It was here that I decided I'm going to do it, no matter what the cost. I spent the whole of Saturday mentally preparing myself and waiting to see if someone else would join me.
It seemed like all the mental preparation was a waste because I couldn't sleep a wink on Saturday night. It was a mixture of the adrenaline in my blood and the terror in my heart. I was just rolling on my bed trying to sleep, but all I could think of was whether I would be lying on this bed the next night. I must have drifted off to sleep around 4.30 am just to be rudely woken by the alarm at 6 am. Got ready quickly and left the room around 7. I had chosen Skydive Chicago in Ottawa, IL for the jump because they were the only guys who could accommodate me on such short notice with no reservation. After some difficulty in finding the place, I finally reached there around 11 am.
Once there, they give you a form to fill which in short says that you're jumping of your own volition and nobody can sue them if anything goes wrong. You have to read all those clauses and sign in multiple places. The words "may cause PERMANENT INJURY or DEATH" appear all over the form. This is when another wave of fear caught me and I found myself asking, "Should I do it or not?". I could've just dumped the form and walked away because I hadn't paid the money yet. But I gathered up my courage once again and just went through with the process and paid up. Then we were taken to a classroom where an instructor showed us a video and explained some basic things. After that, they said that I had to wait a long time for my turn to jump, so I walked out to the field to look at some of the other jumpers. Looking at all those people doing their jumps successfully gave me a lot of confidence. There was a small mishap when somebody landed in the middle of a corn field harder than he/she would've liked; but I heard that it was nothing major.
Finally, after what seemed like ages, it was the turn of my 'load group' to take to the skies. I got into a jumpsuit and they fixed the harness to my back. I met my jump master Enzo and my personal paparazzi Kenny. Enzo gave me an altimeter and my diving goggles and explained the basic stuff once again. After that we all got into our small 23 seater plane that would take us to 14000 feet (about 4267 m). I looked out of the window at 2000 feet, and it already looked quite high! I couldn't even begin to imagine how it would feel at 7 times this height. At this point, the needle of your altimeter and the popping of your ears have a very significant effect on the beating of your heart :) In the flight, Enzo buckled his own harness on to mine and explained the procedure once more. After about 15 minutes of boarding the craft, we reached the required altitude and then it was go-time. One of the crew members opened the door and we were hit by a blast of cold air. One-by-one jumpers in front of us started exiting and we were slowly but surely moving towards the door. Once there, we took 3 short breaths with the up-down-up motion that we had practiced, arched our body backwards and jumped.
Almost all first time jumpers experience a 'sensory overload' at this time and I was no exception. Since your body doesn't know what to expect when you jump off like that at 14000 feet, your senses send more messages to your brain than your brain can handle. So I simply cannot remember the first few seconds. Later your brain adjusts and thats when you really feel the biting cold and really enjoy the free fall. The feeling is more like flying through the air than actually falling. Kenny the photographer came and held my hand and spun us around as all the 3 of us continued to fall at around 120 mph (about 192 kmph).
All this while, you just have to keep your back arched and smile for the camera. You should also keep looking at your altimeter, so that you can open the parachute when you reach an altitude of 5500 feet. This is what I didn't do because I was too busy with other things - like posing for the camera, for instance!
Thankfully, Enzo did that part and released the chute at 5500 feet. At this time Kenny continued to free fall, and opened his own chute at about 3000 feet. The free fall is an extremely rapid, bitingly cold and furiously noisy 60 seconds; whereas the chute descent is a very silent, calm and serene 10 minutes. Once the chute opens up, you can talk to your jump master, look around and enjoy the beauty and feel the deafening silence. If neither of you talks, the only sound you'll hear is the wind against your chute. Enzo showed me how one can control the chute with just the 2 straps in your hand. I was amazed to see that we could go fast, go slow or even come to a complete halt as if we were driving a car. These modern day rectangular ram-air parachutes are far superior to the round ones that we are so accustomed to seeing in the movies. If you're skilled at handling one of these, you can control exactly where you land. That's when I realized how the skydivers of the Red Bull Air Force managed to land so perfectly on top of the jump platform on the day of the Flugtag.
After about 10 minutes of floating in the air and maneuvering the parachute, we gently landed on the ground sliding on our butts. The first words that Enzo said to me were, "Welcome back to Earth!". I was more relieved than anything else at that point of time. This was followed by a brief post-jump interview with Kenny and then Enzo signing the jump certificate. So this makes me a CERTIFIED SKYDIVER!!!!
Some snaps from the day:
<- Enzo & I before getting into the planeThe leap of faith -> 
<- The point of no returnFree fall -> 
I have a video of the entire jump but its about 200 MB in size. I haven't been able to upload it to YouTube yet. Once I have it there, I'll embed the video here as well.
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