Beattys Overseas

It takes a certain kind of person to jump from an aircraft at 15,000ft into thin air.  It takes courage.  Harnessed by space-age materials to an experienced qualified Jumpmaster, you step out that aircraft door and for some 60 seconds you plummet towards the ground at 200kph, terminal velocity.  The Jumpmaster will deploy the reinforced tandem canopy controlling your entire skydive.

Expect sensory overload as your mind, body and soul fight against every natural self-preservatory urge. 

The personal challenge is immense. Immense, because the only thing preventing you from enjoying this, one of the most primal life-shaping experiences, is your own mind.

Freefall, baby!

...That's what the brochure says.  They don't mention the awkward 30 minute wait before you suit up.  Nor the bumpy, fume filled cramped 25 minute ride up in a small plane, which seems to take forever to reach the 15,00 foot jump zone.  Nothing is written about attaching yourself to a Cat you met just 10 minutes before, whom you know absolutely nothing about, other than he has supposedly made 10,000 jumps prior to yours.

In fact, you know nothing about anything other than the fact that you are about to push yourself to your limits, if you are very afraid of heights like I am.  Or that life means little if one lets their fears get the best of them.   Safety records and whatnot don't mean much either.

A one-time jump, though, is quite insignificant.   People do it all day every day all around the world.   That said being surrounded by people between the ages twenty and seventy, all preparing to do the same thing as you does little to calm your nerves.    So you cowboy up, joke with the Jumpmasters and the cameramen and prepare to fall.

Except there is no preparation for being first out of the plane.  Or for waiting and waiting untill Albert screams over the sound of the open cargo door just 3 feet away, air whooshing by you, "John, Let's go!  Walk towards the door!" 

You want to know drymouth?  Strap yourself to Albert for 25 minutes and head for 3 miles up.  You make your body move towards the open door, even though EVERY brain cell tells you not to. You laugh, hang your feet out of a moving airplane three miles above the earth, and you rock back and forth once;  you remember what you read on the sign for people who have previously disclocated their arms (to keep them attached to your harness and close to your body) and then just as you smile for a photo at the door you are falling and flipping and spinning and realizing that there is no going back and you have waited your entire adult life to do this and then you reach a freefalling speed of 200 MPH, terminal velocity, you are pumped and screaming and barking at the cameraman then your chute explodes and you are sucked upwards so fast your intestines need a day to recover. 

Albert earns a cap for getting JB back to Earth!Then as you fall your German instructer says "Vould you like to make zum turns?"  and proceeds to make figure eights in the sky, each turn a heaving pull on your crotch, each a tortuous reminder that you are terrified of heights.  Albert tells you to remove your goggles as he releases several of the snaps that hold you and he together..you feel, um, scared as you begin to fall inches from his body.  "That is more comfortable for you, no, John?" says Albert.  One can't help but feel that a conspiracy has taken place, and Albert is about to disengage himself (and the chute) from me, thus  assuring me of a quick and terrifying demise. 

"John, stand on my feet", he says, as a practice for landing. We are turning and swinging over and over one mile above the ground.  The air currents push and pull us till I think I'll pass out but I'm loving it too much and then he's yelling Higher Higher" for me to raise my legs for landing.  I ask if I can wave to Whitney on the ground as we come in superfast and he says "Not a good idea right now!" as I'm already waving, thinking I've doomed us and we clear the last building and we are on the ground and I can check this off my list.  He made 5 jumps that day, some days had done 15, and the video guy was back up in the plane before I could properly thank him.  My jump was insignificant.  Sweet as.

- John