Went skydiving today with my son. It was spectacular. If we had arrived 20-30 minutes earlier, we would have done it a second time. A girl from the previous group actually did just that, her second jump was with my group.
We had a cold (well, for Houston anyway) front come through a couple of days ago, so the weather yesterday, today and tomorrow was perfect, clear blue skies, cool air, warm sun. I don't think we could have asked for a better first time experience.
14,000 feet, jump, freefall for 60 secs or so to 7000 feet, pop chute, then 4 minutes to landing. It felt like 3 separate experiences, jumping out of the plane, then once you're stabilized, freefall, then the floating down under the parachute. All three were amazing and slightly different.
My instructor said he's been doing it 22 years and has about 13,000 jumps under his belt. He reminded me of a slightly skinnier version of Woody Harrelson.
The outfit that we used is on the south side of Houston which is perfect for us. It seemed like a very professional outfit.
Here's my instructor, Chad (looks like Woody H, don't you think) walking me to the plane.
Here are a couple of still shots.
It was interesting, I saw a few other videos before and after I jumped and what I noticed is that a lot of people are so captivated by the experience, that they don't realize when the instructor is giving them cues. A lot of folks forget to let go of the harness and put their hands out when the instructor taps their shoulders and my stepson didn't pull the cord, the instructor did, because he just didn't realize what was going on. I think I miss some of the emotional aspects of the experience because I'm spending so much time thinking about what's going on.
If I had gotten to the place 20 or 30 mins earlier, I would have jumped a second time today (they give you a 1 time deal of almost half off if you pay the same day).
Temporarily pulled the video because youtube blocked it for the music that they embedded.