Watch that first step...

Hello everyone!

As the summer is now fast approaching, I'm anxiously awaiting my first skydiving opportunity of the season. Over the past while, a number of people have asked me a number of questions about skydiving, so I thought I might share a few stories with you all at once here. I'll have to give you a fair bit of information about the sport first though so that you'll understand the context of a few of the funny things that have happened on some of my jumps.

First some definitions. For the purposes of this blog, there are only really three types of jumping from an airplane that I'll discuss at all. The first is called a "Tandem Jump". I have never tried this myself, so I can't tell you too much about what it's like, but the basic idea is that the professionals at your friendly neighborhood drop zone physically attach you to someone who knows what he's doing, and the two of you fall together out of an airplane from say, 11,000 to 14,000 feet up in the air. The beauty of this type of jump (if you're at all nervous about freaking out in the air) is that you don't have to worry about being in control of anything. The pro to whom you're attached does all the work, and has calm, smooth control of the situation from beginning to end. You get all the experience of jumping out of a plane, falling at near terminal velocity for about 50 seconds or so, and then a nice ride under canopy for a few minutes, followed by a nice, soft, experienced landing. As I say, I've never done this myself, but I've seen it done many, many times. In fact, Trevor's tried this himself, so if you have any questions about what the experience is like, you'd have to direct them at him. The real beauty of a tandem jump is that you don't need any experience, almost no training, and you can be in and out of the airport having had a great mind-blowing experience in a fairly short period of time.

The other two types are closely linked. In fact, at the drop zone I attend (Niagara Skydive; you can find the link to it in the side bar on the right of this page) a new student generally does one before attempting the other. This first is called an "IAD" for "Instructor Assisted Deployment". This is a fairly low altitude jump (about 3,000 feet), and it's designed to give you some practice steering your canopy before you go for the full on skydive.


I should mention that before you ever get in the airplane for either an IAD or the other type of jump that I'm going to mention you have to complete an intensive ground training course that typically lasts about four or five hours and concludes with a written test. By the time you get in the plane, you've been so extensively drilled and tested that you at least feel like you're ready for whatever might happen.

Where were we? Ah yes, an IAD. So the way this works is that you and your instructor go up together in the plane to about 3,000 feet. In this jump, you're not attached to anyone. When the pilot gets to the right altitude, and you're flying over the landing zone, your instructor opens the door, and you position yourself to climb out. At this point, your instructor takes hold of the little tiny "drag chute" from within your parachute. This little drag chute is a bit bigger than a dinner plate, and won't be any more helpful in slowing you down than the coyote's umbrella in the cartoons. It is however attached to a strap which in turn is attached to your main canopy. When the drag chute catches the air, it pulls your main canopy out of the whole back-pack contraption you're wearing, your canopy inflates, and you drift gracefully towards the ground. The jump is called an "Instructor Assisted Deployment" because you don't actually take control of deploying your canopy at some untold point during the fall; as you let go and fall away from the plane, your instructor releases his grip on the drag chute, and your canopy is already on its way to opening. You don't really get going very fast before you're already slowing down, so there's no "free fall". Once your canopy is open, a man on the ground instructs you on what turns to make via the little one-way radio you're wearing on your chest, and he guides you in for a nice soft landing in the middle of the grassy landing field.

I should mention (as I just hinted at above) that the type of canopy used these days is a rectangular "ram-air" canopy design, as opposed to the old-fashioned round canopy. These rectangular canopies are quite easy to steer, and offer the advantage of being able to slow your descent dramatically for a couple of seconds at any given time when you execute a maneuver called a "flare". This is how skydivers are able to achieve those nice, soft, bird-like landings that you may have seen. Just as he's about to reach the ground, the skydiver flares his canopy, and his descent slows to nearly a stop. Timed correctly, the skydiver reaches that near stop just as his feet reach the ground, and he lands as easily as you might land if I asked you to jump straight up three inches in the air.

The last type of jump for a student is a full on skydive through an educational series of jumps called "PFF" in Canada, or I think "AFF" in the US. "PFF" stands for "Progressive Free Fall", and refers to the process of gradually taking the reigns off of you if/as you continue to prove yourself capable and in control in the air. This jump is done from 11,000 to 14,000 feet (depending on the plane), and features a little formation of three people: namely you and two ultra-qualified instructors. This time when the door of the plane opens, you and your instructors all position yourselves in a certain fashion in the doorway, and on a count of three (given by you), you all let go together.

Now, the instructors are not physically attached to you, but they're holding on to your parachute by the shoulder and leg straps. To get an idea of what this looks like in the air, imagine lying on your stomach on the floor, with two people perpendicular to the orientation of your body, also on their respective stomachs on the floor, each facing you but on opposite sides. The person on your right has your shoulder strap in his right hand and your leg strap in his left, and the person on the left vice-versa. Not much is required of you on your first jump. Basically, you just have to position yourself in the door properly, give a clear count, arch your back with your arms and legs sort of spread eagle, and maintain that position throughout the free fall. Holding that position puts your body into a belly-to-earth position as you fall, which is about the slowest and most stable way to fall, presenting the most resistance to the wind. As you fall, you demonstrate for the instructors a few "practice pulls", in which you reach for your drag chute (that's the one that deploys your main canopy remember), but don't actually pull it free of its protective sleeve. This shows the instructors that you're relatively calm and in control, and you will be ready to pull at the right time.

Only two more things are expected of you on this jump. The first is to pull your parachute at the right time. For this jump, the right time is 5,500 feet. You wear an altimeter on your wrist that looks like a giant wrist watch, so you always know at a glance exactly how high above the ground you are. When your altimeter reads 5,500 feet, you flash a signal with your hands to your instructors to let them know that you know it's time, and then you reach back and pull your chute. Your instructors drop away below you, your canopy inflates, and you decelerate to a nice, slow, stable feeling glide. It almost feels like flying. The last thing you need to do is to listen and respond to the instructions coming through that chest radio from the guy on the ground who guides you in for a perfect landing. Do all of that right, and you pass jump number one in the PFF course!

Gradually, as you gain proficiency and control over yourself in the air, the reigns come off. You jump with only one instructor holding you. Then you jump with one instructor just falling near and observing you. Then they teach you how to do 360's and barrel rolls and front and back flips/loops. Then they give you less and less instruction on your landings until you don't need the radio anymore. Finally, after you've learned all the little things you're supposed to learn, your final test is to go get an instructor, give him/her a detailed run down of a jump that you've planned out (ie. I'm going to exit in such and such a way, then I'm going to do a right 360, then three back loops, then a left barrel roll, etc etc, and I'm going to pull at such and such an altitude). Your instructor goes out the door just after you, and watches to see that you did what you said you'd do in just the way that you said you'd do it. If you did, you pass, and you get your solo licence, which I'm delighted to now have. A solo licence means that I can jump by myself, or if I choose, with another person of certain qualifications. I can't jump with just anyone. It has to be a qualified "coach" who will be aware of my limitations in terms of control and experience, and will help me to gain more mastery over myself in the air. As I gain proficiency, I'll achieve higher and higher rated licences until eventually I'm qualified to jump with 100 people I just met to make a big formation in the sky.

Now, on to a few [hopefully] amusing anecdotes. The first one doesn't actually have much to do with the jump, but it was a great experience. My very first skydive was with my Dad. Skydiving was something he had wanted to try, and he knew I'd be interested, so we planned bicycle trip around it. I think I was 16 or seventeen at the time. My Dad's a fairly avid cyclist, and I was excited about the idea of a fairly long distance ride, so we loaded up our bikes and rode from Milton to Tilsonberg in Ontario. I think that's a little over 100 km or so, although I can't remember for sure. In any case, it took us about five hours to do the ride. We were taking turns riding one behind the other to minimize wind resistance, but after a couple of hours, I guess my attention wandered. I grazed the back of my Dad's wheel with my front wheel. This of course didn't have much effect on him, but being my front wheel I wobbled into some gravel and went over the handlebars of the bike. My Dad's bikes all have speedometers on them, so I know we were going around 20 to 25 miles an hour when I lost control. Fortunately I was wearing a helmet. We were riding on the edge of a fairly busy, high speed limit road at the time, so even as I hit the pavement my only thought was to GET UP AND GET MYSELF AND THE BIKE OFF THE ROAD!!! To my and my Dad's immense shock, as I found myself back on my feet at the road side, I couldn't find a scratch on myself! Eventually I noticed a very little bit road burn on the back of my left shoulder, but what was really strange was that my wrist watch's clear face had been sanded right down to the plastic. It was as if I had somehow landed all my weight on my watch. To this day I have no idea how I came out of that uninjured.

Anyway, the jump was fantastic. The most memorable part of it was actually just before letting go. We did the jump from 11,000 feet out of a Cessna , which is a single engine plane with the wings situated above the fuselage, and support struts running from mid-way along the wing to low on the fuselage. To get out of the plane, you have to climb carefully out the door and position yourself so that you're dangling from the support strut, and do this in the face of wind more or less equivalent to that of putting your arm out the window of your car at 100km/h (62.5 MPH). It's a wild feeling to step out onto the plane's wheel (which is firmly locked in place with brakes) with 11,000 feet of air beneath you, and then to just dangle there swaying in the breeze so to speak. That alone is worth the price of admission. Then once you check in with both your instructors, you give your count, let go, and arch your back. I'll always remember from that first time seeing the plane fly away in those first few seconds after letting go. The jump went very well, and I knew right away that I was going to be going again some time.

We rode home the next day after a night in a bed and breakfast. The funniest part of it all was the day after getting home. I hadn't done much long distance cycling of any kind, and my bed at my parents house was fairly high off the floor. I have a bad habit of turning off my alarm in my sleep without waking up, so I generally keep my alarm clock across the room from myself. Well anyway, my alarm goes off the next morning, and I leap out of bed to shut it off, and promptly crumple to the floor as my leg muscles decide that after 10+ hours riding in two days, they're taking a day off. So there I am lying on my floor with my hideously annoying alarm clock blasting away unsympathetically. Good morning!

It was years before I had the money to take up skydiving on my own, but Brian and I eventually decided to get into it. Unfortunately, since many years had elapsed since my last jump, my one jump worth of progress didn't count for squat any more, and I had to repeat my first jump. Oh how unfortunate: I had to repeat one of the most exciting experiences of my life! I moved quickly through the levels thanks to the many great instructors at Niagara Skydive in Dunnville Ontario, and had a few interesting experiences along the way.

For example, on my ninth jump (10th if you count my first jump with my Dad) there was a bit of a situation getting out of the plane. This jump was out of a twin engine turbo-prop plane called a "King Air" from 14,000 feet. Unlike the cramped Cessna, this aircraft holds about 14 to 16 sardines ahem I mean people, and it's generally full. The first people out the door on this occasion were a group of four jumpers working together. When the "green light" came up, they opened the sliding plastic door, and began to organize themselves for their group exit. Now, with so many people on board it's actually fairly critical that everyone get out the door in a fairly expedient manner. The plane is after all flying fairly quickly. Take too long and the last people out are getting close to the edge of the drop zone, and will have a harder time making it back to the landing area.

Anyway, on this particular occasion, the first group out took too long, and the winds had changed such that the "green light" should really have been called sooner. I get out with my coach close behind to observe as I practice some front and back loops. I pull at the right time, and then get my bearings. I'm quite a ways from the airport as it turns out. I mean, I can see it right there, and I still have a lot of altitude to work with, but I'm down wind from it, and that slows down my forward velocity. (Side note: canopies move forward as well as the obvious downward. The more high performance the canopy, the faster it moves forward. The student rig I was jumping at the time is about as low performance as canopies come (which basically means that it's slow and smooth and easy to control), and moves forward at only 15 MPH, which means that if you're facing into a 15 MPH wind, you don't move forward at all)! So anyway, I can see the landing area, and at this point in my training I've still got the one-way radio for corrections from the ground instructor in case I mess up. The guy on the ground isn't supposed to tell me anything unless he can see that I'm blowing it, but this time he tells me right away to just head straight in. The only troubling thing is that there's a small forest between me and the landing area. If I don't get clear of that in time, it's going to be a bad scene for me.

I'm watching my altitude, and trying to get a sense of my speed by looking at the ground far below me in the way I was taught. I stick with it for a while, but I'm starting to get low enough that I need to make a decision to go for it and hope I clear the forest or turn around and aim for some farmer's field somewhere. Finally I can see that I'm not going to make it. I turn around and put the wind to my back, dramatically increasing my speed. Now I'm going to get clear of the forest, but I'll be out of sight of the guy on the ground when I land, so I won't have his helpful instructions to tell me when to flare so I land like a pro. The only other thing I have to worry about is the fact that I'm supposed to land into the wind. Remember how I said that my canopy had a forward velocity of 15 MPH? Well, when I'm facing into the wind, the wind might slow my forward velocity down to a pleasant walking speed, or maybe a good jog. With the wind at my back though, I might land going forward at 25 or 30 MPH! Not a good idea. Also, turning spends altitude, so it's a very bad idea to make sharp turns when you're close to the ground. Now I have to worry about getting clear of the forest, and hopefully doing so with enough altitude left that I can turn around to face the wind safely!

As you've no doubt guessed, I didn't survive. Actually, everything worked out just fine. There wasn't that much wind close to the ground that day, so it didn't have much of a bearing on anything I did. I cleared the forest, turned around as much as I dared using a technique called a "flat turn" which is a much slower, but also much safer turn for low altitudes, and got myself more or less facing across the wind. I didn't land like a pro, but the landing was soft enough. After nine jumps I had at least some sort of idea about when to flare. Now I just had to wait for someone from the drop zone to come and pick me up in the truck. As it turned out, I later met the farmer in whose field I had landed. He often came by the drop zone to watch.

I also nearly had a problem on my 10th jump, but this time it was my fault. The free fall went just fine, with me completing a number of maneuvers under the watchful eye of my coach, and pulling at the right time. Now, I mentioned before that at this point, I was supposed to try my best to guide myself in to the landing area, but I still had the radio in case it looked like I was doing the wrong thing. I like to do a bunch of turns and spirals for the first little bit, and gradually work my way towards the landing area. Well, it seemed like I was doing just fine, because I wasn't hearing anything from the radio telling me otherwise. I watched the other more experienced jumpers in the air with me, and I watched the landing runs they set up for themselves. I figured the best thing to do would be the old monkey see, monkey do routine. On this particular occasion, the wind was blowing from the opposite way as the last jump I mentioned, and everyone was lining up by flying over the airport buildings on their way to the landing field. Considering the wind, this seemed to make sense, and I was eager to fly over the buildings, which I had never done before. Again, no correction from the radio. I got myself over the buildings, had a look around, and turned back towards the field, just like I had seen all the pros do. Unfortunately, that little fact I mentioned earlier about the difference in high vs low performance canopies and their respective forward velocities had somehow slipped my mind. When I turned around into the wind, I found that I was not soaring quickly and easily clear of the buildings as my shining example monkeys had, but rather was crawling forward at a speed that suggested to me that I might have some trouble clearing the pavement!

I "put on the brakes", which is another way of saying that I put my canopy into a sort of half flare, which slowed my descent a little and trasferred some of that velocity into the forward direction I so sorely needed at that moment. Even as I was somewhat concerned about my landing, (and it had now become clear to me that I was not getting any instruction on my descent for reasons unknown, but decidedly not because I had been doing the right thing all along), it struck me as hilarious that the spectators (there are often friends and family members of first time jumpers out to watch) were all still standing more or less directly in the path of my landing. They thought I was someone who knew what he was doing, and had lined up this close call landing on purpose! The spectator area is separated from the proper landing area by a low wooden fence, on which I was in slight danger of catching my feet despite my best efforts to elongate the path of my descent. Suffice it to say, I just blew over the heads of a few surprised spectators, lifted my feet, and barely cleared the fence for what was actually a pretty okay landing for me without assistance at that time.

I then learned that I was supposed to have told the instruction guy that I was going to be on that load, and that I would be expecting and needing his guidance. I should have known this, but somehow it hadn't occurred to me. After a number of stern and chiding looks and talking to's from a few of the experienced jumpers (who were under the impression that I was trying to show off), I made it clear to everyone what had happened. No harm done, and it was an exciting ride and a very good lesson.

The last story I'd like to share with you in what is becoming an exceedingly long-winded yak-fest is much shorter and simpler than the other two. Again, my inexperience got me into a mess; literally this time. On my 18th jump, I had become pretty confident that I at least knew what I was doing in the air. I was flying my way in and landing by myself, and had had a couple of really great landings. I was excited to be at the drop zone that day because it had rained pretty consistently for the past couple of days, and I was afraid it would continue through the weekend and rain me out of my jumping intentions. Fortunately, the skies cleared and I went up for my first jump of the day. Like an idiot though, I had fogotten to take stock of the ground wind speed before going up in the plane. My jump went very well in all respects, and I lined myself up for what I felt sure would be another good landing. I had gotten a handle on how to line up my landings (or so I thought), so when my altitude was about right I turned into the wind and set up for my landing run. Sadly, the wind to which I had forgotten to pay attention was barely blowing that day. It was very calm. That sounds good, but as I mentioned above, it's actually nice to have some light wind: it slows you down and makes it easier to land nicely.

Well, on all my previous jumps, there had been more wind than there was that day, and I found myself overshooting the arbitrary landing target I had selected... overshooting it by a fair bit in fact. There's a little bean field adjacent to the primary landing area, and I was heading for it. This wasn't really a problem (although I hate to stomp down someone's beans), but in the last few seconds as I passed into the bean field's air space I noticed that the ground was a little softer than that of the landing field. In fact, there were rather large and muddy puddles left right and center. Miniature lakes, in fact. I did my best with little maneuvers to dodge around some of the bigger ones, but there really wasn't much I could do at that point. Smoooosh. At the speed I was traveling, I slid to my knees instead of staying on my feet, and got a nice mud paint job in return for my ignorance. This was just before we left for our big 50 day tour in October/November 2006, and I rememeber that when we got home from the tour, there were still faint traces of mud on my shoes.

Well that about sums it up. There's a little glimpse into my favourite recreational activity. In the 23 jumps I've had now, I've accumulated 18 minutes and 48 seconds worth of free fall time, and am now allowed to jump by myself and pull as low as 2,500 feet. I still usually pull around 3,500-4,000 feet though to get a bit more of a ride under canopy (which I greatly enjoy) and to take in the view. I've moved up to a different, smaller canopy, which is faster and much more responsive than the one with which I started, and I've never had a landing that so much as bruised me. These days, I'm working on "docking" (linking up with another person during free fall), which is a real rush. Without someone next to you, it can be hard to get a sense of perspective when you're that far away from the ground. It's hard to tell if you're moving forwards, backwards, or sideways. When another jumper's along with you though, and you fly over to them in a controlled manner during free fall using just your arms and legs against the wind for propulsion and gently link up with them; well it's the closest thing to a feeling of flying that I've ever experienced anyway.

Hopefully the weather's nice this weekend so I can get in my first jumps of the year. As the jumpmaster of Niagara Skydive is fond of saying: blue skies!