Skydiving Experience

Close your eyes.. and believe skydiving.. What is in your mind?

The airplane, often seen from a distance, but now so up close and personal. The ride up, inside beginning seemed to be that last slow walk down the green mile, but later becomes an unbearable delay from your own sweet release. The open door at altitude, the doorway into one more world. Freefall, where you finally spread your wings and fly. Pull time, when it all gets serious. The canopy, is it there and is it square. The ride down, can this thing do a cart wheel? The landing pattern, downwind, base, final.. then.. wait for it… wait for it… FLARE!

Yeah, thats how a skydive works in my mind. But “skydiving” transcends the “skydive”. After all, every tandem student has done a “skydive”, but do they recognize “skydiving”? So if not just the skydive, what else is there? Well, a lot! Not the least of which is the dropzone’s atmosphere itself!

The friends, the students, the Coaches and Instructors. It’s a beautiful spring day spent waiting from the shade, casual chatter all about. Idle time invested learning about aviation from the pilot and teaching new students concerning the skydive, explaining the difference along the way between fact and and your personal opinion. Enjoying the day at the dropzone, not skydiving, just relaxing.. and waiting for the skydive.

It is not simple. It is took me three years to obtain employed to it and another year to learn to appreciate it. It is difficult to realize, much less appreciate this part of skydiving inside beginning — when it’s all concerning the skydive — but now, a fine spring day, spent outside with good friends.. that’s enough to make me smile any day of the week — of course, obtaining some altitude at the end of that wait is wonderful too!