Trying to get out of the airplane - fighting the wind.
After several flips and spins, my jumpmaster Fred is about
to release the small chute that will slow us down to 120 mph.
Just hanging around.
Back in November of 1986, I decided to try skydiving so I went to the Parachute Center in Lodi, California, took a several hour class and then made a static line jump from 3,000'. On a static line jump, your chute opens automatically (hopefully) when you jump out of the airplane. You're by yourself and you have to know what do (how to open the spare chute if needed, how to steer, how to read your altimeter, etc.) but you don't freefall at all. After that, I wanted to try freefall skydiving but back then they hadn't developed tandem freefall skydiving yet.
In September 2000 I decided to go for it. I went back to the same place in Lodi, paid for the jump and a still photo/video photographer and made a tandem skydive from 10,000'. We jumped out of the same plane I used back in 1986 and it looked old and beat up back them. On the tandem jump, you're basically along for the ride. Here are some photos of the jump...
Trying to get out of the airplane - fighting the wind.
After several flips and spins, my jumpmaster Fred is about
to release the small chute that will slow us down to 120 mph.
Just hanging around.