The first, and most common, question that people ask is Why would you jump out of a perfectly good aircraft? It is asked almost verbatim every time, and as I was on a national skydiving demonstration team when in college, I was asked it a lot. (The photos on this page are not our team uniforms; they were the uniforms when we were in training.) My answer is It's a lot better ride than landing with the plane. You would be surprised at how many people get sick upon landing in a small 20 passenger jump aircraft (DeHavilland Twin Otter). I am not an adrenaline junkie, and never have been. I started skydiving because I was fascinated that people could do it, and did do it, and grew to love the sport because of its sheer, unadulterated beauty.
There was (and is) nothing, NOTHING better in this world than finishing work (or school), driving down to the drop zone, and catching the last load up into the sky. We would climb above the front range of the mountains, with the door on the side of the plane open and the warm autumn air blowing in, looking out at the city of Colorado Springs to the south, thinking of all the people driving home to their tv dinners and night of sitcoms, watching the rush hour traffic crawl along the interstate, and then jump as the sun was setting behind the hills and it was becoming dusk on the ground below. We would fall alongside the clouds, touching them if we chose, making rings with our bodies, doing flips and loops and somersaulting each other, free like no human has ever been before. We were birds, and we would turn and sit on our backs on the perfect cushion of air and watch the sun set as we fell below the tops of the mountains. Starting our freefall thousands of feet above the top of Pike's Peak, and finishing it thousands of feet below, we would spend nearly a minute seemingly free of the bondage of Earth, yet forever conscious of its prescence. As we fell we would feel the temperature of the air change, as we traveled through air masses invisible to those on the surface. Then, as the ground grew larger, we would make our bodies like missiles, and fly away from each other. Finally, we would deploy our parachutes, and prevent the suicide that we had launched ourselves into. The first half of our travel was complete.
As we then descended under a nice square canopy above our heads, we took on a different form of flying. Spinning and stalling our parachutes, moving up and down, backwards and forwards, we flew around each other, waving and calling. Swooping over buildings, we would approach our target, a one centimeter round disc in the middle of a pea gravel pit. Landing, we would pull down the brakes on our parachute, and our feet would once again touch the earth, with no greater impact than if we had stepped off a sidewalk curb.
This is why I skydived, and I believe is why most of us do. Jumping at dusk, or as the sun is rising, or in the middle of a pitch dark night with only the stars twinkling above your head and a few faint lights on the ground below. I would flip on my back, as if in a chair, and watch the moon as I fell. Jumping in a light rain, which feels like gravel on your face, or out of a hot air balloon. Running and leaping out of the back of a military C-130 cargo plane, or a C-141 4-jet engine transport. And as my position on the team, jumping out of helicopters with smoke cannisters on my ankle, in front of a crowd of 50,000 or more (sometimes a lot more). Teaching students to overcome their fear and gain self-confidence in their lives. Feeling great when little kids ask me for my autograph, or a student thanks me for being so supportive and encouraging them to go on. No, the first jump is not a lot of fun. I had my eyes closed through the whole thing. Neither are the first few after that. But slowly, slowly, you gain more confidence, and begin to enjoy it. Finally, you are competent, and are able to give help to others. And I think this passing on, this giving assistance, and this enjoying nature, is what life is about.
Remember, statistically jumping out of a plane is safer than driving your automobile! Okay, kids, I forget to mention how many times I've flung myself from a moving aircraft: 241, to be exact, or about 2 hours 30 minutes of pure freefall time. Do the math, and that's 400 miles of falling (this doesn't include time or distance under canopy). That's twice as high as what the space shuttle orbits at!!
This page was last updated on: November 25th, 1996. You are the 
Some of the other people on the skydiving team. This was taken 3 years ago.
Here I am leaving the plane in March, 1994 into the sunny skies of Arizona. Yes, that is the ground over 3 miles below (our free fall was 90 seconds, for 17,500 feet).
Another shot at the same altitude. Just gorgeous weather!!
Still under construction...
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marmot to visit since 19 November 1996.