JimCavalier.com

I go temporarily insane…

(more or less)

  There came a time when the things I found exciting just weren’t so exciting anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I still love speeding around on the motorcycle, being on stage, and taking my jeep off-road. I guess I just needed to press my luck a little. It started with something as inane as having lunch…One of my closest friends, who we’ll call “Mitch”, (his real name is Eric) had just broken up with his fiance and we went to have lunch at this fantastic little Italian restaurant that I frequent. We were discussing how extremely bored we were when it hit us, maybe we should jump out of a plane. (Don’t ask, we don’t know why either.) So we agreed that the following weekend, we would drive to Ohio and put our lives in the hands of strangers.

  As the week progressed, Mitch slowly changed his mind, and eventually backed out. At the time I thought he was the ultimate wimp. I figured that sometimes you just have to color outside the lines to have a little fun, and Mitch was going to miss the adventure of a lifetime. (Besides, chicks dig skydivers, right?)

I looked in the yellow pages and found a skydiving school just across the Ohio state line that was “USPA”. I had no idea what that meant, but like most people, I’m impressed by pretentious initials. I called and Rodger. a soft-spoken man with a reassuring voice gave me the rundown on the school. First, there was “ground school” from 9 AM until “around 3”. Then you would get suited up and jump. Rodger assured me that they had an outstanding safety record and had been in business for over fifteen years. I didn’t know what questions to ask, but he was extremely nice and patient on the phone, so I figured “what the hell, I’ll give it a shot”. I did make it a point to ask what would happen if I chickened out. I don’t recall what the policy was, but I do remember liking it. So, I made a reservation to go on Saturday. I figured any “smart” shopper would look around and compare schools, so I called a few more.

  The one thing that struck me was that “ground school” means different things to different people. Some places required one or two hours, to others “a good fifteen minutes” was enough. (There was even one where I swear I could hear the guy’s puzzled look over the phone when I asked about ground school.) I decided to stick with my first choice. Saturday comes around pretty fast when you don’t have a pesky job to bog down your week.

  The drive to Canton, Ohio from Pittsburgh is around 2 and a half hours. Allowing for “getting lost on your way to a new place” time, I figured around three hours would do it. (I’m a guy, we do things like that.) To be on the road at six, I figured I should get up at five-thirty. Needless to say, I hardly slept at all. The thought that the following day could be either 1) the most thrilling, 2) the most painful, or 3) the LAST day of my life was hard to put out of my mind.

  I awoke to the same alarm clock I have for 16 years and started getting dressed. Mom was awake too. The thought of her only son, falling almost a mile was a burden on her mind too. She asked if she could come along to watch, and I naturally said, “Sure”. (Maybe not the most brilliant quote of my life, but in light of all that was happening, not too shabby.) We grabbed the camcorder and got in the car.

  I have been to Ohio quite a few times. I was born there. In 1969, my parents were living in Akron. One day in late April, I showed up. Being a polite child, I gave them nine months warning. This is about all I know about the time I spent in Akron as a child. We moved to Pittsburgh before my first birthday. I had never been back to Akron, I mostly went into Ohio to car shows in Canfield, (I’m a car junkie, more on that later.) and to see the Stones in Cleveland. There are many things I like about Ohio. First of all, there is no helmet law. I take my motorcycle into Ohio for joy rides when I have the extra time. Also, I have a soft spot for Ohio women. I think the most beautiful women in the world are from Ohio. (Followed by Texas, New York City, and a few of the former Soviet republics. Don’t ask.)

As far as skydiving goes, eastern Ohio has a few benefits such as the beautiful countryside, relatively flat terrain, and an outstanding emergency medical system. Mom and I arrived at the school on time. I have to say, I did get us lost, but I STOPPED AND ASKED FOR DIRECTIONS. Mom can verify this. as much of a guy as I am, I asked for directions at a gas station. After I got checked in, Mom went to kill a few hours in Akron, just a few minutes from Canton. I tried to prepare myself for “ground school.”

  Ground School turned out to be an intensive training program that puts you through the paces. My instructor was a man named Bill Bird. (Who better to teach you to fly.) My schoolmates and I watched a couple of instructional videos and went through several practice moves simulating the actions that we would need while “hanging in the straps.” We covered every possible situation you could imagine. Even, and I’m not making this up, what to do in the unlikely event of a water landing. (Really, I’m not kidding!) We practiced jumping off a small wooden box and rolling as we landed and, this is important, KEEPING OUR FEET TOGETHER. Bill made damn sure we knew to do this. If you don’t keep your feet together, you could break your ankle, leg, neck, destroy democracy, be stricken blind, cause the economy to collapse, or even break off peaceful relations with China. (Well, maybe not all of that, but you could get hurt.) He must have told us to “Keep your feet together” 200 times. I will always remember to keep my feet together. (There was also something about pulling a cord of some kind, but it probably wasn’t important.)

 After a few hours, we took a brief lunch break, I decided eating may not have been in my best interest at that time, and just used the time to catch a cigarette. I stood outside the hangar and watched the more experienced jumpers. I must say, I was extremely impressed at the aerial maneuvers they accomplished as well as how low they deployed their chutes. A couple of them landed a few yards in front of me, stepping onto the ground as if they were walking out of their front door. This, more than anything, put me at ease.

  After lunch, we went back to the training room in the rear of the hangar and reviewed what we had learned that morning. Our next drill was moving through a mock-up of the Cessna 182 that we would be using for the jump. This simulator was tiny. I thought for sure that the actual plane would be bigger and easier to move around in. Bill assured us that the actual plane was smaller, noisier, and hotter. As disturbing as this was, his brutal honesty and matter-of-factness put me at ease. We practiced moving into jump positions while wearing harnesses. Once you successfully negotiated the mock-up, there was one last oral exam, (although I failed to see the relevance of dental hygiene) then we were sent out to the flight line to await our turn in the sky.

  About this time, my Mom returned in a rare display of perfect timing. We decided that it was time for me to show her how to use the camcorder. I have a pretty nice camcorder, autofocus, power zoom, one-touch recording, etc. All you had to do was “point and shoot”. Mom is a very intelligent lady with an outstanding sense of humor and an uncanny ability to get completely confused when dealing with anything electronic. Just as I was finishing the basics, they called my flight group. I had to leave Mom to figure out the rest of the camcorder basics for herself. The school required us to wear jump boots, a flight suit, and a helmet, all of which they provided. I’m a fairly big guy, (6’2″, 250 lbs.) so finding clothes that fit me well is hard enough. There was a fairly big selection to choose from and I eventually found a light blue flight suit and helmet to fit me. I found a pair of boots on the first try, and squeezed into my gear, and headed upstairs to be fitted with a parachute. Most of the people in this sport are very fit. They all weigh about as much as one of my legs and have no problems finding a chute to fit their needs. I, on the other hand, am a water buffalo by comparison and need something a little bigger. Again luck stepped in. There was a chute called the “Kahuna”. It had been used for tandem jumps (student and instructor under the same chute) and was decommissioned from active duty due to its amount of use. I was assured that it was still well within safety limits, but the school had purchased a new chute for tandems, and this one was now used for individuals. One thing I had learned from talking to other jumpers and instructors at this school was safety was THE priority. I had complete faith in the “riggers”(Riggers: a bunch of guys who assemble, pack, and inspect the chutes while burping and making other bodily noises for the fun of it.) and if they said it was safe, as far as I’m concerned, it was safe.

I. f you’ve never worn a parachute, it’s quite an experience. They weigh about 3000 pounds and are strapped so tight to your body, you can feel your blood pressure rising. Well, they don’t weigh quite that much, but the straps are very tight. Walking becomes an attempt to not look like you shit your pants. (I don’t like anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that tight around my crotch.)I stood in the hangar in full gear and waited for my turn to come. After all day of ground school, I stood there with one thought racing through my mind…

  This is when I became nervous. I have always had a fear of heights. I didn’t even like going near the railing on the second floor of the mall. As I stood there thinking about it, I thought of Mitch. He was probably sitting at home watching T.V. having a Pepsi, talking to our friends, whatever.

Suddenly, I realized Mitch was right, I was the idiot!

  I calmed down and the jumpmaster came to get us for our flight. I was to go up with two other guys and be second out of the door. We walked out and I got in the number two position on the plane. I was seated facing the rear of the plane with my back to the pilot. I had a nice view out the window and was quite happy to sit there on the airfield for as long as I could. The weather that day was a nice 86 degrees, with low humidity, and a nice breeze, ideal jumping conditions. Inside the plane, it was at least 300 degrees, low humidity, no breeze, ideal pizza baking conditions.

  After sitting in the plane for a few moments, Roger, who was flying us, started the engine and taxied to the far end of the field. It’s funny how you notice some things sooner than others. We turned into the wind for take-off, and that’s when I noticed the grass runway. I had been there all day and never thought to look for a runway. I had even watched the planes take off without ever realizing that the runways weren’t paved. This was hardly the time I would have picked to notice this, but life can be that way. Take-off was quite smooth. It was reminiscent of the old airfields of World War II. Bouncing down the runway is an excellent build-up to the wonder of flight. We climbed nicely into the air flying large circles around the field to avoid any “downwardly mobile” pedestrians. As the plane crawled upward, I could hear an electronic buzzer occasionally sound its warning. I don’t have my pilot’s license, but I convinced myself in my mind that this was the dreaded ” stall warning indicator” that was alerting us to imminent doom. As I was pondering this (read “panicking”), the jumpmaster opened the door to drop a streamer to get a fix on any wind currents that might factor into our ride down. The “door” was a large section of the fuselage, hinged at the top. This made me extremely leery of accidentally falling out, and I looped my pinky through a small steel ring on my side of the plane. Only a finger as strong as a pinky could stop a man as large as myself from accidentally weaving through the occupied cabin and falling to his doom with 2, count ’em 2 parachutes strapped to his back.

  Eventually, we reached 4500 feet, this was where jumper #1 left. I watched his canopy open and he glided to the ground with extreme grace. While he was enjoying the ride of his life, I was maneuvering around the cabin to the “jump seat”. The idea was to wait for the call “Position”, then bravely step out of the door, grab the strut and make a “hand over hand” move to the end of the wing, while stepping off small support over the wheel. This graceful move was to take 11 seconds, then the jumper would look to the jumpmaster and smile as he waited for the “GO!” In a perfect world, maybe. I was holding on to the dash of the plane with a grip usually used by serial stranglers. I looked over at the assortment of gauges in front of the pilots and briefly got a read on our altitude. This was possibly the worst thing I could have done at this moment. Knowing how far off the ground we were was absolutely NO relief whatsoever. I began to worry “What if I fall?” At this point, the jumpmaster had already secured my static line to a steel loop in the center of the plane. As soon as I had cleared the aircraft, it would pull my chute open. Falling was not going to be a problem. Landing, now THERE’S a problem! “Position” the call came. As quickly as I could, I stepped onto the tiny metal square above the wheel and moved my hands to the outside of the wing. The blast of the wind was familiar and reminded me of many great adventures on my motorcycle. The main problem was the impossible distance to the ground. Beneath my feet, there was… air, to my right… air, to my left… the plane and a man I seem to recall being my jumpmaster yelling “GO! GO! GO!” This was my subtle cue to let go of the plane. I thought about this in the seconds of infinity as I clung to the strut of this plane. I began to ponder, “If, when they land, I were to run, REALLY fast…” Believe me, this seems very logical in situations like this.

 Finally, that little voice in my head, or possibly my jumpmaster, said “Let go already!!” I did. the first six seconds after you “let go” of the plane, you are supposed to count to six thousand. (By thousands, we’re not lethal idiots, here!) In ground school, everyone had barked out a brave “one-one thousand, two-one thousand…” etc. My count was a fire breathing “One-one OHDEARGOD !! PLEASE DON’T LET ME DIE LIKE THIS!! I SWEAR, I’LL NEVER LIE, MASTURBATE, MAKE FUN OF YOUR SON, GIVE MEAN LOOKS, OR SPEAK ILL OF MY FELLOW MAN EVER EVER EVER AGAIN, I PROMISE!!!” Although he probably didn’t believe me either, my chute opened.

After six seconds of sheer terror, I was the happiest anyone could be to see that big red, white and blue canopy. All was not perfect, though. The lines had twisted as the chute deployed. This was very common, we had even trained for it in ground school. You were to simply grab the risers, (two large straps at the top of the harness) and pull them out to the sides. You would then spin under the chute until things were straight. In ground school, we even practiced spinning in nice little circles as we unwound our lines. This is not quite how it happens. Those pleasant little circles we slowly turned in the classroom, became a fantastic “James Brown” move in midair. I whipped around about 6 times (actually I lost count after 2), then checked to see if everything was OK. It was and my instructor’s voice came over the radio strapped to my chest to guide me in.

We practiced turns, and even landings as I enjoyed the most spectacular view of the world I had ever seen.

Just when I was relaxing, enjoying the closest thing to the ability to fly I had ever known, the ground decided to make an appearance. The landing was kind of a sticky point. You only get one shot at it. I had practiced everything in ground school, jumped off of the damn box quite a few times, and had even done it at 2000 feet. The Earth is quite big, as anyone who has ever been hit by it can tell you. I pulled my toggles to slow down and angle the chute for landing, but my timing was a little off. Instead of an elegant step onto the ground, I slid, as one would into second base, halfway towards the runway. As the jump truck came to drive me into the hangar, I stood there, looking up at the chute gliding down above me, and thought to myself. “I will NEVER, EVER do anything this stupid again!” (Less than a month later, I was jumping again, and dragging my friends along to try it as well.)

I learned something very important that day. It came to me that night, as I watched the videotape of my inaugural jump. These words may help you in your quest for adventure, or even in your everyday life. Don’t let your Mom hold the camcorder!! The video of my jump was pretty good, there was a certain amount of jumpiness associated with filming aircraft as was to be expected. Then the plane took off. The most wonderful moment in this tape occurs not when I exit the plane. It’s not the safe landing or even the aerial maneuvers. It’s one brief moment where the plane dances out of the shot and clouds whiz around as the lens searches for a very small aircraft lost in a vast sky. It’s a clip of audio perfection where my Mom, in all her glory and infinite wisdom gives the greatest quote of all time… “SHIT!” As far as I’m concerned, it is the funniest moment in history. I watch that tape and laugh for hours at the absolute humanity of the situation. Only my Mom could put the danger out of her mind and want a good tape for her only son, who was at that very moment risking his life for no good reason at all. My Mom is the all-time greatest!

Epilogue: Mitch and his fiance got back together and are now married, living in Pittsburgh, and probably torqued off at me for putting this on the web. As for me, I became addicted to jumping and look forward to returning to the sport. Rodger and Bill are still jumping and I look forward to drinking a cold one with them after a day of “falling for the fun of it” in the near future.

©2002 JimCavalier.com