The first jump!

[hawk16e]

Be careful

My first jump was in 1981. C-182, T-10. In addition to getting hooked on jumping,you may get your resume taken into a chief pilot's office and getting a job. Or more than one. As you can tell from this thread, a lot of pilots jump. Or you may meet your wife there. My wife tells people I kept looking up at the DC-3 that kept flying over our wedding. Anybody remember Lucaya Air?

 

[Waldom]

My first jump was in 1981. C-182, T-10. In addition to getting hooked on jumping,you may get your resume taken into a chief pilot's office and getting a job. Or more than one. As you can tell from this thread, a lot of pilots jump. Or you may meet your wife there. My wife tells people I kept looking up at the DC-3 that kept flying over our wedding. Anybody remember Lucaya Air?

I left the skydiving hobby off my resume. Many pilots have made a jump, but more have not, don't think its a great idea, and would send your resume to the circular file if they saw that reference on it.

 

[freeflyer14]

Well, you've done it now. You will spend the rest of the week contemplating skydiving, and how soon you can get back up there. Your condition will only deteriorate, and the prognosis is not good. Nobody ever went to the DZ for that first jump thinking, "This looks like a suitable hobby, and a way to meet the up and comers of society, let me spend every possible waking moment hanging out here with these fine chaps" or "I desire a hobby that will inexplicably compel me to the miss the weddings of friends and family [why must they marry between May and October?], abandon my girlfriend every weekend (and then permanently), and instead spend 20 minutes 5 or 6 times a day wedged on the floor of a Twin Otter with 20 other like minded individuals and a stranger's rig compressing my crotch, the stench of smelly feet in Tevas permeating the air, and people emiting noxious fumes as the plane climbs through 12K."

Of course, when that lexan door slides up and the cold fresh air, mixed with Jet A fumes fills the plane, nothing else in the world matters. The bad day at the office, that review you have next week, the money you should be saving to get a new car instead of skydiving...all melt away. For the next 60 seconds or so, your obligations, your concerns, your focus, become immediate--and your daily cares/stress have no part of it. There is some intangible, liberating quality, about jumping from a plane at 15K feet, that I've found hard to duplicate [legally]. In a society where you are told what speed to drive at, what line to stand in with 15 items or less, that you must press #1 if you have a question about your current balance, and for your safety to please keep hands inside of the rails while the vehicle is moving you are master of your own destiny when you step out the door of that plane.

Oh yeah, and don't worry about your current friends/girlfriends understanding. You will make many interesting new ones--people that you would likely not run across in your daily life if it weren't for skydiving. These are people who will drive a half hour out of their way to give you a lift to the DZ. People who let you crash on their couch so you can sleep closer to the DZ, and treat you as if you are a member of their family. People who will drive you to the hospital and wait with you for 4 hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon, after you dislocate your shoulder on a funneled exit. Then, some of the courser of these miscreants will make an unannounced "bandit jump" into your wedding reception, stealing the show.

I'm not sure if any of this is really true, it's just what I have heard. So you have been warned.

Cheers.
Blue Skies and Black Death.

Never knew there was so many skydivers on FI, my screename is a giveaway for me... A great summary of what you can go through in this sport/hobby... He is dead on about the friends you can make from skydiving, some of the greatest people you will ever meet, they become an extended family. I couldn't help but laugh out loud reading about the whole crashing on the couch thing, been there, both at friends and the dz hangar floor. Not so sure the only reason was to be closer in the morning... (you'll learn about the beer light, swoop and chug, firsts, etc. later) On a more personal note, over a thousand skydives ago between us and years ago, I happened to graduate the same day off of student status with another student. She's now my wife...imp:

 

[mpflies2]

love hearing all the stories....

makes me wanna do it that much more. Just can't afford it right now. 130 a jump isnt cheap. At least thats what it would be until I was certified. So I prolly won't be getting certified anytime soon. Maybe once i'm a rich pilot hahaha

marc