You owe it to yourself to jump at least once in your life.
(Slogan on a parachuting course advertisement)
I believed that, it had the ring of truth. So I enrolled in the course. This was when I was living in Toronto, and the parachuting club had a small airfield in the middle of farmland about 25 miles north. There they were equipped with two little airplanes, a usually muddy runway, a barn full of parachutes, and lots of enthusiasm.The course was a mixture of practical instruction and war stories about parachuting mishaps.
“Some of you may have heard that we had a death here last year” the instructor said. ” I can assure you it was not an accident, there was nothing wrong with the parachute or with the jump, it was a suicide.
This young woman was an expert jumper, she had been away for a year, then suddenly showed up last August. She went up, the jump master swears that everything was in order, and no one saw anything wrong when her parachute deployed. But she hit the quick release button, candled, and fell 1800 feet straight down. With that distance she reaches terminal velocity, that is 120 mph, and so she died instantly when she hit.”
The details were pretty obviously intended to intimidate us. Well, it worked, for me anyway.
I wanted to know what he meant by “candled”, but the first lesson was just how to strap on our parachute — surprisingly, a big one on the back and a small one in front. There was a sort of buddy system, with some experienced jumpers to help us. My buddy, who was always ready to help or chat, was a ruddy young guy, who told me a lot about different kinds of beer. On all his walls he had parachuting stuff hanging, he told me, any girl he invited in wasn’t going to be left in doubt about his daredevil life.
“You are attached by a static line, which will open your parachute within four seconds. Count: “a thousand and one”, “a thousand and two” … As soon as it opens, make sure that the shrouds are not tangled. If they are, start untangling them at once. If they don’t get loose you have to use the emergency parachute on your chest. Here’s the ring, pull it. The chute will not come out by itself, hit the pack, pull it out, and push it away from you to deploy. The big parachute above you may interfere, so that is when you hit the quick release button to let it go.”
The instructor pointed to his remarkably large belly, telling us that it gave him an advance when jumping, because it shifted the center of gravity forward. “All you skinny guys have better lean in, to compensate”. This was relevant, it was one of the things I would always remember later, but I never remembered it when jumping. I put up my hand and asked why we needed to count.
“Well, there is a small possibility that the static line is stuck and does not release you. Then you are dragged after the plane.
If that happens, the jump master will see you. You put your hands on top of your head, to signal that you are conscious. Then he cuts the line, and you go. You have to use your emergency chute at once in that case.”
No one asked what happened if you weren’t conscious. Better not to know.
So we practiced falling and rolling and undoing the chute, folding it up and carrying it in, and all the other things you could do on the ground. And already in the third session, we went up. A jump master and four jumpers, as much as the little plane could hold. This going up, in fact, was the scariest part. Imagine yourself in an elevator, not moving straight up but in a spiral, with an elevator attendant who loves the feel of accelerating in a curve, to 2400 feet. Maybe jumping was going to be no big deal in comparison, I was praying to be let out.
The jump master, with a pretty obvious knife strapped to his calf, opens the door, to the sound of air rushing by at 60 mph. He motions to you, you get into the door. There are struts under the wing that you step out on, holding on to the top. A bit like standing up on a motorcycle, except that you have all those things to hold on. Well, I shouldn’t say this too blithely. As you stand on that strut, it does feel a lot like standing on the outer parapet of a roof, it’s a feeling that is located somewhere around your stomach. You remember the cartoons, in the barn, of jumpers who refused to let go … . The jump master hits your leg, it’s your signal, you jump off backward.
Oh, I have to count to four. I count “Oh, please let it open, Oh, please let it open, …” On the fourth “Please” there is a jolt, the parachute deploys. I look up and everything is fine. As I float down, I steer a bit by pulling on the shrouds (ominous word, I suddenly realize). I look around, see the fields all around, the barn not far off, it’s wonderful! Peaceful even …
Then the ground is suddenly close, I bend my knees, fall and roll … Oh my God, it was great!
Well, the first was the best. The next four were good too, but. I won’t carry on, complain about times the plane was stuck in the mud, or we had to wait out the low clouds or rain, saying, oh, well, better luck next week, … It was fun, joking around as we repacked chutes, coffee, biscuits … But then, not to be forgotten either, were the wakings up at night, when I’d find myself going repeatedly through the emergency release and reserve chute drill, before I could get to sleep again.
But I’ll tell you about my sixth jump. It was the last, already nearly the end of summer recess, I did not go back for more. Just six jumps. It doesn’t amount to much, and I never got to jump without the static line. Oh, well.
On that day there were quite a few people jumping, and by the time I was in line to get a parachute, there weren’t any left in my size. But the instructor gave me a larger one, for heavier, bigger people. He told me he would instruct the jump master to let me out later, since I would be moving much farther in the horizontal direction. Somebody, not my usual buddy, helped to adjust the straps to fit me.
So, up we went, and I went into the open door, with my usual trepidation, moved out onto the strut below the wing. Did the jump master take into account I should be exiting later?. He hit my leg, I jumped off backward, and as usual began to count “Please, let it …”
On the fourth “Please”, a jolt. Not just a jolt — the straps I guess were not well-adjusted, so the pack shot up. It knocked my helmet over my eyes, instant night. I pushed the helmet back up, looked up, and the shrouds were tangled. No time to think. I began to untangle them, felt myself rotating (some law of nature about action-reaction, … ) but they did come undone. By that time, though, I was much lower. I tugged on the shrouds to let me look around — yes, there was the barn. But it was just sinking below my horizon, far away.
In the war, an old soldier had told me, they parachuted from 800 feet, hardly high enough to slow the fall. I’m sure I wasn’t quite that low before deploying. But still the landing happened a bit too soon, I fell lengthwise, there was a wind that caught the canopy, and I got dragged through the corn stubble in this farm field. Hit quick release button! — yes, sure, but contrary to all theory, it took hitting and pulling, no instant response … Got myself together, gathered up the shrouds and canopy, carried them in my arms through the field, and through the next field, and through the next …
At the barn my faithful ruddy buddy was there. “Where were you, what took so long?” Then he said “You look pretty awful.”
He said it awfully cheerfully. Actually, I realized I was feeling happy after all. Good to have done it. But still, it was my last jump.
Bas van Fraassen's Commonplace Book 