Jumped out of a perfectly good airplane today!

Vipergrün · 10-21-2013, 07:03 PM

I had bought my oldest son a gift certificate for a tandem jump from Skydiving Perris for his birthday. He is out visiting, so today we made the trek out there to do the jump.

The anticipation of the plane ride to the jump elevation was pretty intense. A bunch of single jumpers bailed out at varying altitudes. We exchanged excited, but reluctant glances...no turning back now..

Our turn was up, went to the back of the plane, counted to three and rolled out.

My body was pretty confused and the first few seconds were a blur. Got into our free fall position and fell nearly 8000 feet before I pulled the rip cord.

After the chute opened, we performed numerous 'S' turns as we descended to the landing spot.

What an adrenaline rush!

Cross another one off the bucket list! Glad I didn't come home in a bucket :--)

Bill Douglas · 10-21-2013, 07:28 PM

Good on you Brad.

Phew, my heart hasn't recovered yet and that was me just reading about it.

DRONE · 10-21-2013, 07:40 PM

Sounds like the next step is with a static line. My wife and I did it a few years ago in California city and they made her go first! so there was no turning back as you say. the first couple of seconds were a blur but with the guy on the ground giving the calls I made it feet first then of course butt second, went back to do it again but they had problems with the plane so we couldn't get our jump in ...haven't been back since

DByers · 10-21-2013, 07:57 PM

Nice work Brad!

livi · 10-21-2013, 11:47 PM

Impressive!

gacook · gacook's Garage

Nothing more exhilerating than jumping out of a plane. I've never gone the commercial route, though; the Army paid me a bit extra each month to toss my body out of their planes

Vipergrün · 10-22-2013, 12:46 PM

There were a bunch of military from Qatar going through a training program at the skydiving facility. Evidently they each receive 100K for doing it. The Prince of Qatar had his Ferrari (should have got pics) shipped over to the tune of 200K and has been pulled over something like 25 times so far....with no ticket...

gtc · gtc's Garage

I went skydiving for the first time last month. What a blast.
They told us to put our feet out front and slide in on our butts, but we came in so easily that I just put my legs down and started walking.

Vipergrün · 10-22-2013, 04:26 PM

GTC, that is a great pic! I can feel it all over again! :--)

masraum · 10-22-2013, 04:34 PM

I did it with my son almost a year ago, I think first or second week of Nov. Very cool.

fast_e_man · 10-23-2013, 08:15 AM

Took 2 of my sons tandem skydiving this summer. 7000' freefall, with instructors that asked how sedate or wild of an experience we wanted. Great family activity, that even got my wife (who is afraid of heights) asking to join in the next time we jump.

highly recommend :-)

tweezers74 · 10-23-2013, 08:35 AM

Oooooooooo!!!!! This is SO on my bucket list. Kind of been procrastinating because I have two young ones. Kind of thinking of doing it for my 40th birthday next year.

PRE-H20 · PRE-H20's Garage

cool thread!

reminds me of my jump!

we were climbing to 15K feet and the instructor and the Video guy were good friends. they were talking about the night before and how much fun they had, totally indifferent to the fact we were about to jump out of the plane. the video guy pulls out his backpack and reaches in to grab a bag from BURGERKING wips out a cheeseburger and starts eating it.... THEN....

he says, im pretty full cant finish my 2nd cheeseburger..... looks me dead in the eyes smiles and starts to hand the cheeseburger to me.... "do you want it?"

what was i gonna say at that point? NO?....... so i took it from him unwrapped it and ate the cheesburger with my best pokerface..... i think i earned his respect as he just smiled nodded and said, "cool"

then we jumped!