AFF Program - Stage 6/Jump 6 - 12,500ft

So I’m really nervous about this one, and pissed that we’re unable to get some tunnel time before. See our first jump was delayed, so we had to reschedule our tunnel time for another day. Remember how on the last jump I said that I may not have what it takes to jump out of the plane. This time I was thinking that this might be my last jump. I was really scared!

This jump will require the same exit as jump 5, only this time the JM will not be holding on at all. If all goes as planned the JM will never touch me during this jump. The rest of the sequence is as follows: Exit, back flip (yes this scares the hell out of me), change heading to the east, do a 360 degree turn in opposite direction that it took to face east, then track forward.

For this jump I will have the same JM as on my 5th jump, James.   

We exit the plane, and for the first time I do this without anyone holding on to me.  It’s funny, after my 5th jump I asked James if he had in fact held on to me because it felt as if he hadn’t, but he assured me that he did.  After this jump I know for sure that he was speaking the truth because you can definately tell when they are no longer holding on to you.

It feels like it takes longer than the usually 5 seconds to get stable (my instructor would later tell me that it still just took about 5 seconds and that I must have been counting too fast). So I’m stable now and I check my altitude, 11,500Ft.  Ok, now is the time to try the back flip.  Here goes. I go through the motions necessary to pull off the back flip.  Only one problem.  I straighten out about 1/4 of the way through and just like that I come right back to my original position. Crap!  I check my altitude again.  10,750Ft.  Ok let’s do this again, we have enough altitude.  I go through the motions again, this time I get about 3/4 of the way through before staightening out, again to early, and the next thing I know I’m falling with my back to the ground.  What was awesome next was that I instinctively when into my arch position and was quickly flipped back over ,falling face down.  I must say that while I was only free-falling for a second or two with my back to the ground it was quite a pleasant experience.  It was much more calm and quite than when facing down, but back to the jump. Crap again! Ok, let’s see what we can do to salvage the rest of the jump.  I check altitude, 9,000Ft.  I find my heading and turn to my right to face east.  All that is required is about 90 degree turn.  Next I begin my 360 degree turn in the opposite direction.  James says that he gave me the signal to turn after I hesitated to initiate it, but I told him afterwards that I didn’t see this signal and that I was merely sorting out in my mind which way I needed to turn. I make it through the 360 degree turn and check my altitude again, 7,500Ft.  I look ahead and see James give the signal for me to begin my track forward.

Up until this point all of our forward tracking exercises had been done by straigtening your legs just a little and moving your arms down just a bit.  This produced a slow track forward.  By contract the one we will do on this jump will require me to straighten my legs entirely and pull my arms all the way down to my sides.  As I adjust my body into this position I can feel my speed rapidly increasing (my free-fall computer in my altimeter would later tell me that I reached a maximum speed of 150MPH). During this rapid decent I make one small mistake, and that is for some reason I turn my head slightly to the right, which results in a turn to the right, but it feels I suppose much like a turn in a car would feel when you are going 150MPH. After a second or two of this it’s time to go back to the neutral body position.  I check my altitude, 6,000Ft.  I signal no more manuevers and pull without issue at 4,500Ft. As my chute deploys I can feel a bit of line twist however by the time I get to this check (#4) on my list it has already corrected itself.

Now it is time for the landing.  I’m anxious to redeem myself after my poor approach on our first landing. The winds are still a bit screwy through and I follow the pattern set by a skydiver below, which ends up being a downwind landing.  See, just like in an airplane, you want to land into the wind.  This allows your canopy to produce the maximum amount of lift at the slowest ground speed.  As I begin my final approach the winds are variable and mostly from the side.  So far so good as I’ve judge the distance just right and will land within the landing area.  Unfortunately, at about 25Ft above the ground the winds shift and are now at my back.  I flare at my usually height, but find with the wind at my back my ground speed is incredibly fast.  At the last moment I decide to lift my legs and come sliding in on my butt.  It was actually pretty fun landing this way.  I also realized that if I had tried to run this one out, I would have definately fallen on my face and sprained an ankle. 

Even though I didn’t complete my back flip, my instructor still cleared me for level 7.  He said the main objective of the back flip at this stage is to get the skydiver unstable and to make sure he/she can get back to a stable position.  when he saw me go on my back and then immediate get back stable and then resume the rest of the skydive he was satified that I had completed the objective.

After this jump I’m definately spent and need to hit the bar for a drink.  I decide to buy a few rounds as this was my “First” back flip.

AFF Program - Stage 5/Jump 5 - 12,500ft

Less than a week later and we are going for jumps 5 and 6 today. For me, these two jumps are the most nerve racking, worse than even my first jump. Besides getting my A certificate my goal now is to complete the AFF program without having to repeat a single stage. My nerves are mostly centered on jump 5 and all that must be done to complete this stage. I had hoped to get a few minutes in the wind tunnel to build my confidence, but they were completely booked except for around 12:00 noon.

We decided we would do our first jump in the morning, and then go get a few minutes in the tunnel prior to our second jump. My thoughts were if I don’t pass stage 5 on the first jump then I can practice in the tunnel and get it on my second attempt. If I pass stage 5 then I would be practicing for stage 6 in the tunnel. Stage 6 requires, among other things, a back flip.

Besides all the maneuvers that are required for this stage (I’ll get to those in a moment), we will also be doing a new type of exit on this jump. On jumps 1-4 the exit sequence is to stand parallel to the door, facing towards the front of the plane. Then you crouch down and face your JM and say “check in”. Then face forward again and rock out, in, arch, and with arch you have left the plane. On this jump we will have to actually climb outside the plane and then basically follow the same procedure as described previously, except you are OUTSIDE THE DAM PLANE. Plus, just before we are about to board the plane my JM (James this time) tells me that if we have enough time he is going to have me kneel at the door, look down and point out the airport. At this point I had never looked down prior to jumping. Instead I always looked out at the horizon or inside the plane. I was so pissed!

In addition to the climbing outside the plane part, this type of exit feels a lot different. With this exit you are in an arch almost from the start, but instead of the horizontal to the ground you are vertical for a few seconds. Just hold that arch and you are good to go though. I get stable and my JM moves in front of me. He gives me a signal to get my hips down a little more, then he lets go. Next we go through the jump sequence, 180 degree turn to the left, check altitude, 180 degree turn to the right, check altitude, then move forward and dock with the JM. The JM then releases and I do a 360 degree turn to the right. Once I get around I’m just about to check my altimeter and see my JM pointing to his altimeter and shaking his head. I check my altimeter and it reads 6,000Ft. I shake my head and lock on, then pull at 4,500Ft. I now have no issues pulling the chute. As Bret would say it gets to a point where it is like wiping you ass.

The winds are crazy today, not that they are strong, but rather are variable in their direction. We approach from the opposite direction this time than from our previous 4 jumps. I see as I turn my final that I’m a little high. I try bleeding off altitude by flaring a little. This starts to work, but then all of a sudden I get a huge updraft and literally gain about 50Ft. I realize that I’m not going to hit my target so I point off towards the open field. I’m still trying to bleed off altitude because I’m trying not to hit the field that was just fertilized. Yummy! I flare a little early so the landing is rough, but one that I can walk away from.

This jump felt great as I felt in control the entire time. I had no issues with the turns. Although we didn’t have enough time for the final docking after the 360 James still passes me on to Level 6. Crap now I have to do a back flip, but so far I’m still on target for one jump per stage.

One last thing. I was so nervous on this jump that I said to myself, for the first time, I might not be able to do this as I’m too scared.

AFF Program - Stage 4/Jump 4 - 13,000ft

The goal for this jump is pretty simple; exit, get stable, stay stable after your JM let’s go. I should mention that the overriding goals on every jump are to 1. Pull, 2. Pull at a safe altitude, 3. Pull stable, and 4. Land safely. Additionally, I will try and land with no radio assistance so that I can be cleared to jump without radios from here on out.

I have very few nerves on this jump even though I will be jumping with only one JM, and I will most likely not having anyone holding onto me for most of the fall.

My jump master for this jump will be Bret again. The jump goes fairly well. After letting go of me I start to turn a bit to the left. I’m able to correct this with a slight turn to the right. This occurs a few more times. The last time it happens I’m unable to correct, but by this time I’m locked on to the altimeter as it is getting close to pull time. I pull at the correct altitude with just a little wobble. Bret later explains that as it got closer to pull time my legs started to get lazy. My landing was awesome. During my decent Bret asked me on the radio to kick my legs if I wanted to do everything myself. Once I heard this I started kicking like crazy. I absolutely hate being on radio. I came in on target and with 25 feet of the center of my target. I flared at about 5-6 ft and touched down very gently.

My previous 3 jumps I was never 100% sure as to whether it was me jumping or the jump masters nudging me out. This time I was 95% sure I jumped out. Bret later told me that yes indeed I was jumping and in fact I was literally pulling him out of the plane.

Cleared for stage 5 and off radios! What a high!

AFF Program - Stage 3/Jump 3 - 13,000ft

So I’ve decided to carry on with the AFF. One of the main reasons I’ve chosen to carry on is because of how pissed I am at myself for screwing up the chute pull on jump two. The plan for the day is to try and carry out jumps # 3 and 4.

My jump masters today are Bret Townley (look here http://www.youtube.com for an interesting video of a tight jump) and Doug (sorry I forgot your last name Doug.). Bret has more than 14,000 jumps and is also a corporate pilot. His motto is its more fun to jump from them [planes], then fly them. Both are accomplished skydivers and were great jump masters.

The goal for this jump is to practice turns. After the exit, and once we are stable, the reserve side JM (Doug) will let go. My job is to then turn 90 degrees and face him, then check altitude. Doug will then give the signal to turn 90 degree again, this time in the opposite direction with Doug staying directly in front of me. Time permitting Doug may give me the signal for another (bonus) turn.

Everything on this jump goes perfect (except the landing). I get all my turns in plus the bonus one. Best of all I had no issues pulling my chute. The landing was a bit rough. Jim (talking to me on the radio) had me flare a bit too early. This causes me to fall from the sky with about 6 feet left to go. When I land I immediately feel my ankle start to twist. Luckily I had studied the PLF and went right in to it. My ankle is a little sore, but it won’t keep me from jumping again.

In the end I passed my stage 3 and was cleared to go onto jump 4!

This means only one jump master, which then means the jumps are $40 cheaper!

And so it begins… again

The phone call was made, the credit card information was given, the time was chosen, date was set, the plans were laid… It’s jump time! Juggling the finances around a little between me and Bryce we’ve managed to wrangle things… Real life problems like mortgages and debt collectors are nothing when it comes to attempted suicide…

The nerves are already starting and it’s still a few days away, this time is going to be a little different however. Although it’s two jumps again, there’s also going to be 5 minutes before hand in the wind tunnel, because, as my jump details show, my body position sucks. So, after Sunday when there’s a new update, I should be able to tell you how my AFF Level 3 & 4 went and what it was like to spend air time in the wind tunnel…

Dodge trucks, the biggest peril to an aspiring Sky Diver?

There’s a post that’s supposed to go between this one and my last one, which I will finish writing soon, and when I do this little bit will be deleted, but for now this little disclaimer is required so that everything makes some form of contextual sense.

Last night whilst me and Bryce were carpooling home, we were speaking about when to schedule our next jump. Now that I’ve been mildly bitten by the bug, I want to go again as soon as possible, however, finances aren’t superb at the moment so I have to be a little bit cautious. After a little bit of calculating expenses and schedules, we decided that Saturday or Sunday at the very beginning of February would be the best time. As we decided this, I have to say that I had a few of the small tremors in my stomach again, the mixture of excitement, fear, apprehension and nerves. We spoke a little more about it, whether we would be able to fit in 2 jumps, if we might be able to complete AFF levels 3 & 4 in the same day (unlikely but definitely worth an attempt), what time we would need to get there to be able to spend some time in the wind tunnel before hand, then we settled into our regular crap talk for the homeward commute.

As we were cutting through L.A., a minor disaster struck. Bryce’s 4 year old, perfectly running truck stalled, dead. We managed to make it to the side of the road where there was a gas station and sat there for a few moments. The truck fired up again and we made it through the rest of LA and back onto the freeway. Unfortunately as we were driving down the freeway, the truck stalled again. With myself hanging out of the passenger side window, waving my arms at the cars in the lanes next to us to show we needed to come over, we made it onto the shoulder. Anyway, to cut a boring storing short, the truck kept stalling and we limped home (the remaining 30 miles) using surface streets and the occasional hard shoulder.

So, what does this have to do with Sky Diving? Unfortunately Bryce now needs to buy a new vehicle, and, factoring in all the expenses, all of his toys and fun budget is likely to be eaten up for the foreseeable future. This leaves me in a bit of a awkward situation. I don’t want to continue on my AFF by myself, there’s a comforting feeling being able to look over at someone who’s doing the exact same thing as me, with the same amount of experience. Also, I would feel bad saying the next week about how much fun I had, knowing he couldn’t do it. I guess over this weekend I’ll have a little think on it and see if I can come up with any possible plans. But for now, Sky Diving is on indefinite hold.

AFF Program - Stage 2/Jump 2 - 13,000ft

It’s time for jump # 2 of the day. As you may have read, all went very well on my first jump and I’m feeling very confident. Besides not “Bouncing”, our main objective for this jump is to track and move forward. This is done by pulling your arms in towards the sides of you body and then straightening your legs.

On this jump most of my nerves are associated with who my new JM is. His name is Jim Wallace. He is the owner of the skydiving center we are training at and something of skydiving zen master. A legend if you will (but a very humble and nice person). So I’m nervous that I will screw up (which I end of doing). I’m a very competitive person you see as well as a perfectionist. Yes one of those.

Pretty much the same drill as the first jump except this time I go first and Seri goes behind me. We jump out and I proceed to count to 5 then breathe and report in my altitude. 11,000Ft! I get the sign to do test pulls (3 this time). Those go off without a hitch. Report my Altitude again. 9,000Ft! Jim gives me the signal to begin a forward movement. I straighten out my legs and count to 5 (actually at first I totally forgot to start counting so I really counted to 3 after what I had figured had already been 2 seconds), then report altitude. 8,000Ft!. I get the signal to begin forward movement again. They had warned us that if we are doing well and have enough altitude they may have us do the maneuver again. I straighten my legs and begin moving forward again. This time I take a moment actually look down. This is going to amaze some people, but during my first two jumps I only looked down at the ground twice and only for a couple of seconds. I count to five again and report altitude. 6,000ft!. I shake my head indicating no more maneuvers and lock on waiting for the altitude at which to pull. This is where things start to go sideways. I seemed to have gotten fixated on the altimeter and when it hit 5,000Ft I had to do a double take. This meant that I also brought my arm in closer, which made me slightly unstable and wobble a bit. I recovered from this, but stumbled when reaching to pull the chute. This meant that my JM had to pull it for me. F%$K!!!!!!!! I scream as the chute deploys.

After my screaming I began going through my checks on the chute. I saw this time that I had a little line twist. It was not too bad so I just reached up, grabbed the risers and pulled apart. This cleared up the line twist. The rest of the jump was uneventful. At my debriefing Jim said up until that point everything was going well and that he would just make a note in my logbook, but that I was cleared for level 3.

At this point I’m not sure if I will ever jump again. I’ll wait until this adrenaline high wares off before deciding.

AFF Program - Stage 1/Jump 1 - 13,000ft

Ground Training

We started the day off early, kicking off our ground training at approximately 8:30am PST. There would be only three of us in today’s class, Seri, myself and Ryan. Ryan works as an instructor at the wind-tunnel, but up until this point had never jumped out of the plane.

I won’t bore you with all the details associated with the training, but rather just give you a quick summary. The entire training took about 4.5 hours. Our instructor, Mary, was great. At this point in her jump career she’d jumped 2000 times and had not yet had to deploy her reserve chute. Needless to say they drill safety into you from the get go, especially how to pull your reserve chute. That was probably the most intimidating thing about this type of first jump. Once you pull your main chute you are on your OWN!.

The Plane Ride

SO we board the plane ad you are literally packed into it like sardines; there are about 20-25 people total on the plane. During the ascent our Jump Masters (JM) have us basically do the jump in reverse telling them at set altitudes what we will be doing. This whole time I’m going over the canopy deployment checks in my head and for some damn reason I keep forgetting one of the checks (float). I ask on of my JM’s to go over them one more time, ok all set now. I look over at my friend Seri and he is sweating like crazy from being nervous. As we get closer to our jump altitude we put on our goggles. Seri is sweating so bad that his goggles keep getting fogged up.

We’re at our jump altitude and everyone starts jumping out. I see Seri and his JMs get into position at the door (Seri and I played a few games of darts to determine who went first. He lost). Then just like that he was gone. I say to myself, holy crap he did it… oh crap now it is my turn!

The Jump

All right then, it my turn now. I move into position, trying not to look out or down mind you. I report into my main side JM (main side refers to the side from which you pull your mail chute Your other JM is called your reserve side JM referring to to the side from which you would pull your reserve chute). Checkin! Ok! she replies. I look forward, then rock Out, In, Arch, and with arch we have now left the plane. Looking back on it I found the hardest part was moving to the door way. You have rehearsed the actual jump so many times by now that it something that you just do and don’t even think about it.

So were out of the plane now and falling fast. I must admit that for about two seconds I totally forgot what the hell I was suppose to be doing. Then I remembered. I count to 5 then take a deep breath (yes, you can breathe while falling to the earth at 120MPH!). I check my altitude and report to my main side JM. 11,000 Ft! (they can’t really hear you, but just want to ensure you are aware of what is going on and where you are at). Next I do a practice pull. Then report altitude again. 10,000Ft!. I continue shouting out the altitude every 1,000Ft (about every 4-5 secs) until we get to 6,000Ft. During the plunge to 6,000Ft my JMs proceed to spin me around in a 360 twice. When they do this it feels incredible fast, however, when I look at the video it is pretty slow. I get down to 6,000Ft and shake my head indicating no more maneuvers (except falling of course!). Once we get to 5,000Ft I wave off and pull the chute. I struggle for just a second to find the pilot chute ball, but was able to grab it and pull without assistance (once on the ground I’m told that while I was pulling the chute I punch my main side JM in the face).

After I’m safely on the ground the next 5 minutes I’m in another world. you fee so many emotions. The one thing I distinctly remember is a overwhelming since of pride for what we had just done. During the debrief, done by my reserve side JM, I’m told that the jump went extremely welland that I had done everything I was suppose to do. He said that it was the first time that he had actually enjoyed a stage 1 AFF jump.

Now on to jump # 2

Oh my god, I’m going to die - Jump 1: AFF Level 1

I find it almost impossible to accurately describe how I felt in the lead up to the first jump. I could say excited, terrified, nervous, hyper or a hundred other adjectives, but non of them would really do it justice. The nerves and the excitement started a few days before, right around the time that I hung up the phone with the sky diving center and told Bryce it was all booked. That was when the reality set in, that in less than a weeks time I was going to voluntarily throw myself out of an airplane with little other than a piece of fabric to save me.

With hindsight, I would probably recommend to people that are thinking of doing their first jump that they get someone else to drive them to the drop zone. With the adrenaline, caffeine and nicotine going through my system, I think I did the whole drive at nearly 120mph, it would have been faster but the cars governor kept kicking in. I was partially in a daze as I drove us both to the sky dive center, although, it was early morning, and as numerous friends, acquaintances and employers will testify, I am not a morning person.

The approach to the Perris Valley airport was a strange one, I don’t know what I expected, but this place was not it. We turned off from the nice regular paved road onto what was effectively one big dirt track leading to what seems to be fields and nothing more. My initial thought was “Holy crap, I’m going to die, I’m trusting my life to a sky dive center that’s probably a tin hut and a jump master called Bubba”. It turned out my initial impression of the place was inaccurate, as out of sight from the road their was a whole nice area with a few sky dive centers, a bar, restaurant, shop, swimming pool and children’s play area, but still, it took a while for my initial thoughts to subside to the voice of reason.

Training:
The AFF Level One instruction was pretty simple, there wasn’t a large amount of ground to cover and most of the focus was simply on covering what limited material there was, again, and again, and again, and again, and again until it became so firmly rooted in our minds that it almost became second instinct. For a little bit more information about what was covered in the AFF Level One training, then I recommend you head over to the Jim Wallace AFF1 Guide here, but in short, the focus was how to pull and how to cut away, or to put it another way, how to not die and what to do if that part goes wrong.

In the class room environment I was fine, I remembered the processes, how to perform the various checks, the sequence of maneuvers when leaving the craft, in short, everything I needed to be able to take my first jump. Unfortunately all of that left my head when I sat down with the exam paper in front of me. But, never less, I passed and was officially allowed to make an attempted suicide attempt, oops, skydiving jump. It was now time to get fitted and kitted ready for big moment, and this is when the nerves started kicking in. Now it was time to kill a little bit of time until our flight ticket was called.

The Jump:
We were fitted into some snazzy jumpsuits, furnished with chest and wrist altimeters, handed some goggles that immediately started steaming up (I was told that was due to how much I was sweating), given a helmet that looked like it would be as much use as a paper pirates hat if something went wrong, and finally strapped into a big heavy parachute. (As a little foot note, for people looking to get into the sport of Skydiving, parachute refers to the entire thing, the harness and rigging, the main canopy and the reserve canopy, what most people call a parachute is actually called a canopy).

At this point I was in a daze, the nerves had fully kicked in and I was fairly oblivious to most things going on around me. We were led to the dummy aircraft to perform a final practice of our exit and dive positions, which we had to do a few times to show we had it locked in, and then it was onto the plane. At this point I am honestly surprised I didn’t soil myself, even writing this I can feel again how terrified I was, I had sweat rushing out of every pore, I was shaking a small amount, I wanted my mummy.

As the plane started rising, I was aware enough to look around and take in how full it was, it was a lot bigger than I expected, accommodating about 30 people in very intimate proximity, certainly no place to be shy and need your own personal space. At 2500ft I was expected to turn to my main jump master and report the altitude and the significance of this altitude (2500ft, the final time to ensure you have a safe, land able, controllable canopy, and if not to cut away), I then had to wait and report in at 5000ft with the altitude and significance (5000ft, the point at which you have finished free fall and perform your pull), lastly my main jump master had me run through my jump procedures and checks (crouch in the door way, perform my hotel checks, exit the aircraft, get the correct body position, count to five, breathe, check and report altitude, perform three practice touches to the pull ‘dongle’, report altitude, smile, keep reporting altitude and breathing until 6000ft, signal no more manouvers, lock onto the altimeter, at 5000ft wave off and pull).

I was starting to calm down a little at this point, but then around 5500ft, they opened the aircraft door for some low altitude jumpers (which I later discovered was called a hop-n-pop), this was an unnerving experience for me, being on an aircraft with an open door, being able to look out of it and see land, not something which my brain was fully prepared to deal with. Anyway, the hop-n-poppers left, the door was closed and once more the aircraft started gaining altitude. Once we reached 13,000ft the remaining skydivers took their positions and exited the aircraft. Showtime!

I’ve already said quite a few times how scared I was during the training and in the run up to jumping, but for all the times I’ve tried to describe how scared or nervous I was, none of that compared for how I felt when I had to stand up and start walking down the aircraft to the open door. I’m actually surprised my legs moved, I felt sure I was frozen in place and wouldn’t be able to get out of the seat, I wanted to hold onto anything I could, but the jump masters wouldn’t allow that. I will say though, at no time on the first jump did I consider not doing it, I think that because I was jumping first with Bryce following after (something decided by a few games of darts the day before), I knew I had to do it.

Once I was in position in the door, the actual process of leaving the aircraft was a lot less stressful than I expected. I bent down with my elbows resting on my nears, turned to my main jump master and shouted “Check in!” (hence why it’s called the hotel procedure), I then lent out of the aircraft, rocked back in and then out again and I was gone. Unfortunately it all went down hill from here, my body position was terrible, I tucked my knees up into my chest, had terrible back arch, everything was wrong. As my instructors wrote in my log book “Body position: Knees up butt down. Notes: Body position needs work, lots of signals + some improvement. 6000 no more, pull a bit high”. Once I pulled the cord and the canopy inflated, the sense of relief was amazing, it took me a few moments to remember that I had to run through my checks. The rest of the jump I went through in a daze, I had trouble locating the holding area before landing, and the landing itself was guided through completely on radio. The only part I really remember clearly is when my feet met the earth and I fell forwards flat on my face, I actually stayed in that position for a few minutes, thankful to have completed it without hurting myself.

I have to say, I was shocked when I discovered I had passed, I wasn’t complaining but I knew my body position was terrible. It turns out the most important things they’re looking for on your first jump is that your are aware of your surroundings and requirements, you maintain awareness of your altitude and that you successfully pull, the body position can be worked on in later jumps.

Now it was time to prepare for jump two.

The beginning

So the whole idea for skydiving started this past holiday season (2007) when my wife was asking me what I would like for Christmas. Being a fairly blessed family with few needs or wants I was unable think of any material items that were of interest to me. I’ve always been into alternative type sports, some would say extreme (not me though), like surfing, snowboarding, wake boarding, motorcycles as well as an on and off hobby of flying, so I decided to try and think of something in these areas that were of interest to me.

First I’d set my eyes on taking an acrobatic flight or taking part in simulated air combat in old Air Force training jets. Unfortunately these items were a bit on the expensive side. Next I thought about bungee jumping and skydiving. I quickly chose skydiving over bungee jumping as it interested me the most and I felt it was the safer of the two. This may sound strange to some, but as you read my future posts I will explain why this is true (in my humble opinion).

Now that I had this set, and my wife had agreed (my wife is incredibly supportive of the crazy things I like to do and seldom worries for my safety) it was time to find someone who would want to do this with me. Right off the bat I went to my good friend Seri. Without hesitation he agreed to accompany me on the journey. From the beginning Seri and I were in complete agreement that we didn’t want to do the tandem jump. We starting researching and decided to do at least stage one of the Accelerated Freefall (AFF) program. Time permitting we would also try and attempt a second jump, hopefully of stage two in the AFF curriculum.

Next we began our search for a good school and dropzone. A good place to start a search in your area would be http://www.uspa.org/. If you are in the Southern California area I highly recommend the Jim Wallace skydiving school (http://www.jimwallace-skydiving.com/). I must admit that our jumps might not have happened had Seri not taken the reins to workout all the details.

Jumps are all scheduled for January 12th, 2008