Skydivers...get in here!

[Bailey Guns]

If I had another guy doing that to me from behind, I'd jump outta the plane, too!

[Bitter Clinger]

I always said when i turned 30 i was gonna skydive. Didnt happen my buddies are pussies and i wasnt gonna do it alone. Still got about 7 weeks to do it before I turn 31. Any one wanna go try it whith me?

[airborneranger]

If I had another guy doing that to me from behind, I'd jump outta the plane, too!

I just about spit out my coffee when I read this.

[Danimal]

I did one jump when I was stationed in South Carolina, and it was cool but having a dude strapped to my back kinda ruined it for me. My buddy ended up getting this hot female instructor that I had dibbs on during the instructional class before the jump. I got a balding middle aged man named Steve. What a bunch of crap.

Honestly it was a blast though, if I had a little more time and money I would love to get qualified for solo jumps.

[zteknik]

Now why would you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?

Lowest bidder

I haven't jumpped since Graff.
Once I got home I never seemed to have time to join a club.

[spleify]

Its the most fun you can have with your pants on.

I love it. In the midwest we get an extra 5000 feet of free fall compared to here

[rondog]

Me and some buddies took it up in July, 1980, most fun I've ever had! We trained with old milsurp T-10 round canopies that had been modified with some slots cut in them to bleed air out so they didn't ocillate back and forth, and to give them some directional control. Had to make 3 static line jumps first, then 3 more doing dummy ripcord pulls, before we could advance to freefalling.

Then we graduated to freefalling, and using Para Commander canopies. These were still round, but heavily slotted and vented for much better speed and control. These we had to learn to pack ourselves, and they were a bitch!

Feb. '81 I bought myself my own rig, a Wonderhog II with a Para-Flite XL Cloud main canopy and a Safety Star reserve. Top shelf "square" canopies of the day! It was awesome. Still have it too.

In April 1981, I took a job working oilfield in Libya, and a freak accident broke the C1 vertebrae in my neck. I think I was only there for 2 weeks, flew home to the States in a body cast from the bottom of my ribs to the top of my head. Good times.

7/26/81, made my first jump after breaking my neck. This was the one and only time that I made perfect stand-up landing. Nice and soft, just like hopping off a bucket! And there wasn't anybody nearby to see it. All my other landings were crash and burns, some not so bad, some worse than others.

5/22/82, jump 45, had a hard landing trying to avoid a ditch and broke my leg. That wasn't much fun.

8/21/82, flared too high on landing and stalled my canopy, dropped onto my ass from about 3 feet up. 25% compression fracture of my L1 vertebrae. THAT one sucked loud and hard! Pretty much ended my jumping days.

Made one more jump after breaking my back, and it was an intentional water landing. The club had set up a weekend camping party just so we could make jumps into Lake Eufala, had boats and everything. Good time! Landing in water was a trip.

That was my final jump, #48, 7/30/83. After the back injury, it was just too risky, and I was unemployed, so I had to retire and concentrate on making a living. Hate it when that happens.

So that's it. I jumped from July, 1980 to July, 1983, total of 48 jumps. I still have my gear, dug out my logbook to get the details for this post. We typically jumped from Cessna 182's, couple times from a 206, and once from a Twin Beech. My first jumps were from a '56 182 that didn't have a jumping step. We had to reach out and grab the wing strut, put left foot on top of the tire while the pilot stood on the brake, then swing out...hanging on the strut with right foot flapping, waiting for the jumpmaster to holler GO!

Even made a few successful formations with other jumpers, hanging onto each other. We did one nice 6-way round once, and the most fun jump I did was one where we jumped at 10,500 feet AGL, immediately opened up and just flew around for 10 minutes or so. That was awesome!

Sorry to blather on, but you stirred up some great memories for me! Thank you! I wish I could still jump, it was the most fun thing I ever did. Except for the injuries, of course. I've got a buttload of great photos from this era, I need to dig 'em out and run 'em through the scanner. I even modified a motorcycle helmet and mounted my 35mm camera to it and got some shots that way. Ended up retiring before I used it much.

This was all before the whole "tandem" thing was dreamed up, I think tandem jumping is for sissies, but at least it exposes a LOT of people to the sport that wouldn't have made the jump on their own.

So, if you've ever wanted to do it, then DO IT! Don't be a pussy, just go for it! Even if it's just a tandem jump, it will be the coolest thing you've ever done, I gar-on-tee. And we all agreed that our first jump wasn't nearly as scary as the second one, because we had no idea what to expect or what it would be like. But the second jump we knew, so it was just a little scarier.

We even took a guy with us that had never flown before. He'd never even been close enough to an airplane to touch one. Yet he eagerly went up and jumped anyway! How many guys can say that? He got big points on his Man Card for that one.

[Irving]

I always said when i turned 30 i was gonna skydive. Didnt happen my buddies are pussies and i wasnt gonna do it alone. Still got about 7 weeks to do it before I turn 31. Any one wanna go try it whith me?

If I had the time and money I'd do it with you, but the wedding comes first. Have you ever bungee jumped?

[trlcavscout]

If it didnt cost so dang much I would. I jumped in vegas out by the hoover, that was cool and the only time I paid my money for it. But I cant afford it anymore.

[sniper7]

If I had another guy doing that to me from behind, I'd jump outta the plane, too!

holy crap I need to post about 60 ROFL ROFL2 ROFL3 and LOL smiles after that one!!!!