SkyDive Atlanta!!!

Posted by Blake -

So about 2 months ago, Sara Kate's friend Anna decided that for her 27th birthday she wanted to jump out of a plane at 14,000'. It started with her and 3 others but by the time the big day rolled around, which was yesterday, she managed to talk 9 others into going with her. Among the 10 were Anna, Laura, Tommy, Me, Matt, Eric, Karla, Tom, Katie and Jason.

We drove down to SkyDive Atlanta in Thomaston, GA which is a neighboring community to Nowheresville. The entire process lasted about 4 and a 1/2 hours. When we were signing in, the girl who was witnessing our signatures to the legal disclosure that we were required to sign told me the following which provided the much needed comfort that I was seeking. She said, "Make sure that your emergency contact is not in your skydiving party." I laughed, but after seeing her face, realized she was serious. So we sat around for another hour waiting for our 15 minute training course which was a brief course in "what not to do" while jumping out of a plane. Since we had 10 jumpers and 8 of us paid for a video jumper to follow us on the way down, we were broken up in to 3 groups.

Group 1: Eric, Laura & Matt

This is the plane that we jumped out of.


Group 2: Anna, Karla, Tom, and Me
Group 3: Tommy, Katy Wall, Jason

Here is pretty much how things went. Stood around for a while.


Got into my jumpsuit and harness.

Got on the plane (this is Group 1 getting on)


Got freaked out as we quickly climbed to 14,000. This picture was taken at only 6,000 and they had just opened the door to the plane to give us some A.C.


Get to the door of the plane and jump. We had 4 people jumping in my group. It was only 10 seconds between each person so all the stuff I was supposed to remember when I got up to the edge was not recalled. I had no time to react, just jump.


I was basically looking at this below... (Tom jumping)


It all happens so quick. The instructor told us in the class while still on the ground that they were required to ask if we were ready to SkyDive....but they were not required to wait for an answer. They said that whether you say "Heck yea let's do it or NO NO NO" that it didn't matter. He said that with the wind and engine noise, at 14,000 feet, "NO NO NO" sounds a lot like "GO GO GO". So the answer to how many people chicken out when they get up there is...zero because you have no choice.




The freefall lasted about 50-55 seconds.

Once, the chute was pulled, it was probably another 4-5 minutes and then we were on the ground.




Here is Eric after his jump.





Now that you've read the narrative. Now watch it all in real time. There is no sound because it is a copyrighted soundtrack, but it's still cool to watch.

Click on the link below to see it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzrWLjdgeJM