The video is centered on me, so I’m really not a huge fan. I wish they would have let me use my 360 camera. The spectacular part of skydiving is the view and the overall experience, which you really don’t get from the way they put that video together. Don’t get me wrong, they did a really nice job and it’s what most people really want to see anyways.
The experience of jumping out of a plane is something like this:
- The plane ride takes about 10-15 minutes, we departed from the airport and basically climbed up to 11,000 ft. Half of the people jumped at that height. We then continued up to 14,000 ft. That is where the rest of us jumped. We were still over the airport.
- This was a really small turbo jet airplane. We sat on a bench and slid out when it was our turn to jump. When it was time to jump, they open the sliding door then each person slides up to the threshold.
- I was securely fastened to the jump instructor, who was in charge of deploying the parachute and steering our way down.
- The weirdest part was sitting at the threshold, feet dangling out of the airplane at 14,000 feet and moving about 120 mph.
- Then we slide out of the airplane and into the open air.
The free fall is incredibly fast and windy. My eyes were tearing up, even though I was wearing goggles. In the video, you will see the skin on my face rippling from the wind. - You never get the feeling of falling.
- After about 30 seconds, the parachute is deployed, and you ‘suddenly stop’ mid-air and then float down.
- The instructor controls the speed of the descent and rotation by pulling the sides of the parachute.
The landing was different from what I remember – we landed in a field next to the airport and basically slid on our butts to land. I think I bruised my tailbone – for a day it kinda hurt to sit down. It’s fine now.