The Joy of Parachuting

Editor's Weekly Ramblings 119

Friday 21st Oct 2005

The Joy of Parachuting

I went parachuting a couple of times when I was seventeen. At the time, because I was under 18, one of my parents had to sign a legal disclaimer that effectively said that if I landed on my head they couldn't sue. I actually got my dad to sign it, because I knew that my mum would refuse. When he told her I think she said something along the 'I will never forgive you if he snuffs it' lines. Fortunately, I didn't. But I did have an experience that has stayed with me as a reminder of two things:

1/ We are only bounded by our imaginations of what is possible. And in reality we are capable of anything. AND,

2/ It hurts your ankles like hell when you land wrongly after falling out of a plane.

Of the two. I think that 2 has probably been the more powerful lesson.

At the time (over ten years ago - Oh alright 15 years ago!) they used to use those round parachutes as a matter of course. So when you came at the ground it was pretty damn fast. Round parachutes have a constant rate of descent of about 10 feet/second, and so you have to know how to perform a proper parachute-landing fall (PLF) in order to avoid injury (or at least pain). And unfortunately, I never quite mastered it, consistently getting 'ground-rush' and collapsing in a heap.

In fact the first time I landed it was soooo painful that I thought I had broken my ankle. It was sufficiently bad that I actually felt compelled to IMMEDIATELY go and do another jump, because I knew that unless I got my arse back up in the plane and hopped out, I would never do it again. I think I did three jumps in all that day. And each landing was as bad as the previous one. I think I may have done a jump a few weeks later as well. But other then those, I have never done it again.

Errr...Not Me..But you get the idea. And people do this for 'FUN'? ;)

I hobbled home saying to my mum and dad how wonderful it was. And parts of it were. But in the back of my mind I knew that my ankles just couldn't cope with the supremely technical nature of falling to one side at the moment of impact. And that I was forever doomed to crumple in a messy heap with my legs arranged in a R.I.P motif.