Completed: Sky Dive

Task number: 28.

Sky dive.

Date: 27^th August 2011.

Location: Headcorn aerodrome, Kent, UK.

Attendees: Sophie Pilcher, Rory Creavin.

This has to be it. This has to be One of the biggest experiences on this list for me. An amazing, life changing experience that left me with all kinds of emotions & memories. Funnily enough, it was something I thought I’d never want to try let alone actually do!

It all came about when I was thinking about I would do for my 30^th birthday. Friends & I had discussed various different things, but nothing really seemed to feel like it was big enough to mark such a life milestone. I wanted something spectacular. Something I’d never forget. After all, you’re only 30 Once. I decided to Google “Life experiences”.  Then there it was. Everywhere I looked the word “Skydive” came up.

I started to think about it. I could do it at a place local to my mums. Then it occurred to me. My sister & I have had some great life experiences together already & are very close. What better way to mark such an occasion than to do this with my sister. Well, that’s what I said to myself. I think it was probably more the fact that I never actually expected her to say yes! Unfortunately for me she did say yes & we decided this was it. In a moment of madness, we agreed & I booked it online. The only comfort was that it was 3 months away. That soon came round!

Another early start. We had to be at the airfield for 8.30am. Luckily (well, I say luckily) for us the weather was fairly sunny & the wind was light. We went in for our safety briefing & then waited for our names to be called over the tonoy. We knew that One other group would be going before us, so we could relax for a while until their names were called.

The names were called & we watched as the first group boarded the plane & headed skywards. It seemed to take forever. The plane, circling & circling. It was torture. Had something gone wrong? Was that going to happen to us? There was a gasp on the ground as we could see the first spec of colour pop out of the plane. It was a fantastic sight. One after the other we saw these little dots fluttering in the sky. That was when it hit me. The next little dot to appear in the sky was likely to be us.

We kitted up & headed to this scarily unsafe looking heap of metal that would take us to the point of no return. We were jumping tandem, with an instructor & had decided to get a crew to record our potential last moments on earth, so after doing a couple of interviews & shaking hands with the men who would be taking care of our lives for the next hour or so, we boarded. They don’t hang about. As soon as the last person was in, we were off. Now, I’ve been in a few planes in my time, but never One that climbs at such a fast rate of knots. It felt like we were almost at a right angle! Within minutes, the ground was very far away & that feeling of forever the last group had felt was fast beginning to play a huge part in this trip too. Just when I thought we must be close to the altitude we needed to jump from, my instructor showed me his gauge. We were only half way!

Then we got clearance from ground control & climbed the final 6,500 feet we needed to. This was it. The door opened & the first people prepared to jump. I could see they were experienced & were jumping on their own, but nothing prepared me for this. The first One stood at the door & just went. It was like they diving into a swimming pool. One by One they went, until my instructor shouted in my ear “here we go” & we shuffled forward. My heart still starts to race as I think about it now, but we were ready & after making our way to the edge of the door, I got myself into the position we practiced, hands crossed across my chest & head back.  “1,2,3!”.

Fuuuuuuuuuu! First we tumbled & the first chute went to slow us down & we were in free fall. I’d always wondered how this would feel. You know when you ride a rollercoaster, your stomach turns when you head down a sudden drop. Would this be the case all the way down or would it level out? The answer is yes, it levels out. As soon as you hit terminal velocity, the feeling of falling goes & you feel like you’re floating. The fact that that you’re hurtling towards the ground at 140 miles an hour is the furthest thing from your mind. I was loving it!

After around 15-20 seconds, the parachute opens & you feel the jolt as it pulls you back up into the sky. To be honest, I think this was the most scary moment of the whole experience. You are a few thousand feet after the ground still, with only a harness you keep you from plummeting to your death. Stupid, I know, given that I’d already fallen something like 6,000 feet. Funny how the mind works. Although it didn’t help that the instructor didn’t tell me that he was going to adjust the straps to allow me to control the chute & my heart jumped into my mouth as I dropped slightly.

After another few minutes taking in more of the views over the Kent countryside we finally made it to the ground, swinging in just off target & getting myself tangled in my sisters parachute as I did. It was pure ecstasy. We’d faced the fear & felt the adrenaline & now we were safely back on planet earth. An experience that just won’t let us forget. & we did it together as brother & sister.