My first jump with the parachute on my own back! In the student program, this is called level 5a, basically my only responsibility is to pull (at the correct altitude and with stability are, of course, strongly encouraged!). I made my level 5a jump on July 4, 1999.
My instructor’s name was Brian, but he was introduced to me as ‘Treeboy’. Did this worry me? Not so much after I found out he didn’t get his nickname by landing in a tree. Treeboy would also be my instructor for my 5b. I have these jumps on video, and if I ever go drop $100 for some sort of vid-capture device, I’ll post one or two up here. We exited from the Casa, which was a little strange. The door of the Casa is the back of the plane. If you’ve ever seen one of those big cargo planes, you get the idea, the back of the plane just opens up. A student exit is a little un-nerving: you face the front of the plane, and just hop back out of the plane. It was awesome! It was like the first jump all over again! The jump went just as planned: Treeboy held onto me from the side, I had a good exit, stayed stable, waved-off and pulled at 6,000ft. For a few seconds I did a little seesaw action, until I got the "Arch!" hand signal, which straightened me right out.
I looked over my head at a beautiful canopy! Everything was right with the world and I knew I was gonna do this many more times! Hard to imagine, just minutes before, I had started questioning if I wanted to continue with the program. My last tandem hadn’t been all that exciting, I went through the transition class, and everything was starting to seem like work now and not fun. The major contributor to my unsureness was money. This was costing me a lot of money that I didn’t really have to spend. After my 5a though, I didn’t care if I had to sell my car to make more jumps! (Word of warning to potential skydivers: Sure, skydiving is a dangerous activity, and can result in death, what they don’t tell you is, it can also be hazardous to your wallet, bank accounts, and relationships)
The canopy ride down was fun; this was the first time I was totally responsible for myself in the air. If I had screwed up in freefall, Treeboy would have reached in and pulled my chute for me. This is usually frowned upon. So, there I am, floating around, having a good time. The radio on my helmet squawks to life – it’s the truckers from a nearby highway! Soon I hear Treeboy talking to me, but I was already headed where he was telling me to go. I floated over the DZ, and out over a cornfield, and I started thinking "Ya know… I should probably turn back around… but… they’ve been doing this longer than me, I’ll listen to them" a few seconds later, the voice in the radio told me to turn 180 degrees, and head back towards the "X". I realized it was already too late though, I was going to hit the corn. I wasn’t too deep in the corn, Treeboy came out and helped me gather up the chute. I was back on the ground, and unhurt, so all was well.