Sky Dive

SKYDIVE

MY FIRST TANDEM SKY DIVE ON 23RD March 2003

I did a tandem sky dive at a place called GANANOQUE, Ontario, Canada. This place is about an hour’s drive from Ottowa, where my son Ravindra was living.
We had an appointment at 11.00 am. We reached the place around 10.30 am. It was a desolate airport with a small hangar and two rooms. No one was in sight. Exactly at 10.45 am three people came in an SUV.
They introduced themselves as a pilot, instructor and Radio operator.
They opened the room and the hangar and I found a small rickety plane. The pilot hooked a wire rope to the nose of the plane and pulled it on to the tarmac. The trainer started giving me instructions about the plane, my harness, the height we will go and the height at which probably the parachute will be opened. He helped me put on the harness. Meanwhile the Radio operator contacted the airports in the neighbour hood to inform them about our flight. All this took hardly 10 minutes.
There was a notice board on which was written:
"HAVE YOU EVER EXPERIENCED ABSOLUTE FEAR?”
I said,”YES” as I had faced a gun of a terrorist in Assam.
He said you will feel the same again.
They took some signatures immunizing them in case of any thing unto wards happening.
We went to the plane. It was absolutely bare, no seats, no doors . I got into it and sat in VAJRASAN pose near the opening.The instructor got in behind me and sat similarly. He then hooked me onto him. The plane started going up steeply. After sometime the pilot said that we were at about 5000 ft. Then he turned back and started back towards the airstrip while still going up. At one point he made a signal that we are at 11000 ft and we should jump. We were vertically above the air strip. I put one leg out, but could not take the other leg out as I got a chill run along my spine.
The instructor shouted at me and practically pushed me out. For the first few seconds I was dazed. Then I opened my eyes to find that I was floating in air. The instructor told me to keep my hands flat out to offer maximum resistance to the up flow. I relaxed and for the next 45 seconds it was absolute ecstasy. No words can explain the feeling. I was even bold enough to ask him some questions.
Then suddenly he asked me to pull the parachute ring. When I pulled there was a jerk taking me up and another a little later which slowed down our descent. The parachute had opened, I asked him is that all?
He said we are at 4000 ft and the parachute has to be opened for safe landing. He then made me carry out some maneuvers for change of direction etc. With some help from the instructor I could land at the exact place.

I was told that while falling from 11000 ft to 4000 ft in 45 seconds, we were falling at more than 200 Kms per hour just before opening the parachute.

You cannot explain the thrill. One has to experience it. Interestingly I was told that the oldest person to sky dive was an 80 year old Canadian woman.

Who ever has done sky diving even once will agree that it is an adventure of a life time. Think how mesmerizing an experience it is when you take free fall out of a plane which is almost at 11000 ft above mean sea level. One need not be a dare devil to do it, but one will end up feeling like one once you complete the experience.