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| Notice the confidence inspiring crossed fingers of my main side instructor, Moley Stapleton. | We'll be riding the Twin Otter up to about 12,500 feet above the ground for this jump. |
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| The noise, wind and cold are incredible, but there is no sensation of falling after the first second. It's more like floating, except for all of the wind and clouds rushing by. | Paco Perez, our cameraman, is now starting to catch up to us as I begin going through my maneuvers for this jump. There's actually more to it than just riding a Newtonian elevator to Earth. Moley and Vinny are critiqueing my freefall position by giving me commands using hand signals, I'm reporting altitudes to them and doing practice touches of the ripcord. The practice touches become really important in a few seconds. |
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| Big thumbs up as I pass about 7,000 feet. Did I mention the wind? Look at those cheeks! I look like the freakin' Joker. Vinny Palmieri, chief instructor of the school and my reserve side instructor, seems to be having a good time. I think Moley, on the other hand, is a bum looker! | It's about 45 seconds since I left the airplane and at 5,000 feet I start the pull procedure. Several nanoseconds have gone by and the chute is starting it's way out of the rig. You can see the orange handle for the ripcord is still in my right hand. |
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| As soon as the chute begins to open Moley, Vinny and Paco are torn away by gravity. I'm alone about 4,500 feet off the ground hanging by a few small pieces of nylon. At this point there's pretty much nothing the instructor can do for a student. I'm on my own. After a brief check I've decided the main parachute is working well enough to safely land. | Hey, is this going to be a stand up landing?!? You bet! But the only way I can show that to you is on the video. |
