Sky Diving
Hinkley, Illinios

Sunday April 30th marked ATS' first skydiving trip of the new millennium! Nine of us made the sixty mile trek to Hinkley, Illinois where the weather was perfect for a day-well, a few minutes-of skydiving. Except for Michelle who was the most experienced person in our group, we all jumped tandem (Michelle did an AFF jump). There are three basic types of dives: static, tandem, and accelerated freefall (AFF). Static is where your ripcord is automatically pulled as soon as you exit the plane. In a tandem jump, the student is strapped into a double harness with an instructor who has the chute on his/her back. For our tandem jumps, we freefell for about 60 seconds then had a 5-8 minute parachute ride. Accelerated freefall requires more ground training because the student jumps with his/her own parachute. However, one or two instructors jump out with the student to ensure proper technique and safety.
We arrived at Chicagoland Skydiving and spent the first half hour signing a waver book in which we signed our lives away. Then we had about 45 minutes of classroom instruction taught by Sophie, a six-year veteran of the sport and a competitive sky-surfer. She told us what it feels like during freefall, as well as how to position our bodies, watch our altitude, and pull the ripcord.

After our class, we spent most of the afternoon in the sun waiting for our turn to jump. Around 5pm, our names started to appear on the jump board, and over the next hour or so, we all had an opportunity to throw ourselves out of a perfectly good airplane! Needless to say, it was an exhilarating experience for everyone, especially for the six first-time jumpers in our group. The jump was from 13,500 feet and we were responsible for checking our altitude and pulling the ripcord at 5,500 feet. That's a 8,000 foot drop in 60 seconds! At that point, we enjoyed the leisurely parachute ride to the ground. With the help of our instructors, we guided the chutes to the drop zone where most of us performed a tip-toe landing.

The funniest part of the day is when JoEllen was getting ready to go up in the plane. She did not plan to jump because she wanted to work up the nerve first. So instead of jumping, she signed up for an Observation Ride in which she would sit next to the pilot and just watch everyone jump, then she would come back down in the plane. Sounds pretty simple, but when the flight was about to board, they gave her a parachute and told her how to pull the ripcord in case of an emergency! (this is apparently a rule for the skydiving facility). The look on her face when they handed her a chute was priceless!

For those who have never been skydiving, the experience is different than you might expect. The sensation of freefalling that you feel on a roller coaster is virtually absent in a typical skydive. Some say they have that feeling for the first second or two, but then once you hit your terminal velocity (about 120 mph in an arched-position), it is much like standing up in a convertible going 120 mph and looking at a distant point-you don't feel like you're going that fast since the "ground" (the point you are looking at) is not rushing towards you. And the speed of the air hitting you is offset by the speed you are traveling, so it is almost like a "floating" sensation. But the only way to know how it really feels is to actually jump-it is a fantastic rush that everyone should experience at least once!