How to jump out of a perfectly good plane for FUN.
Animated!
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Yes I have done it!Thrown myself out of a plane at 2000 ft. It was amazing, the feeling you have when you throw yourself out at such a height is indescribable, you can't imagine what it is like to sit on the edge of the door, your heart pounding, ready to jump when everything below you is so small and far away. Look at the photos to the left. You can I'm the last one to get in, the next photo shows how my feet are hanging out of the door. That was the first scary bit, no door and nothing to hold on to, could have easily fallen out. Then you can see the bloke lining the plane up above the run way and telling me to get into the door. You sit there for a while (This is the scary bit) and he says JUMP! You are supposed to shout 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 then check your parachute, you practice this time and time again but when your actually falling out of a plane you forget it completely and just fall with amazement and fear. Then your chute is open and you are slowly, gently falling down. That's how it seems anyway, you are actually falling at around 10 miles per hour, with a forward speed of 5 mph. The view up their is great, but you don't get much time to take in the scenery, you have two 'steering toggles' one for each side to change your direction. You have to think about wind speed and direction and aim for the target, but facing the wind when you land. Luckily there wasn't much wind this time. The landing was surprisingly GOOD. Apparently last week someone from the university club broke his leg and two people got sprained ankles so I wasn't looking forward to the landing at all. We spent hours learning how to land and how to fall over, they really made a big thing of it, well you are coming down at 10 mph. It's surprising how quick the ground comes up at you, you look down, all ready in the landing position you think you know when your about to hit the ground, but then all of a sudden it comes towards you so much quicker and bang, your down. Then you pick the chute up, and walk back. All over. Big Smile. :�) They say that your up there for about 2 minutes, but the time went so fast, it didn't seem like I was up there for long at all. I've done another jump since then, this time I mangaged to count the 1000... It's just a bit too expensive to keep up a hobby like this! So all in all a brilliant experience, something I've always wanted to do. (Click on any of the photos to see them full size.) |
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