He said – “You will never make that face again” (Skydive Las Vegas)
October 22nd, 2008 Greg Corwin
WOW, he was right!!!
By “he” I mean Tim, my dive instructor. He suggested that I get the video of the jump because “you will never make that face again”. By “that face” he meant the look of pure exhilaration as I jumped out of the plane. But that is getting a little ahead of myself…
My brother Mike is getting married and he decided to have his bachelor party in Las Vegas. Now, I am not particularly fond of Las Vegas, I don’t really gamble, but when Mike said we were going skydiving I said “I’m all in”.
We got up on Friday morning and headed off to the Boulder Springs Airport about 30 minutes from downtown. They showed us the “scare the crap out of you, you could die, or get maimed, or be paralyzed” video then showed us how to fall correctly. Then they suited us up and took us out to the plane.
We took off and joked all the way up to 15,000′ (that’s 3 miles!) and then one by one they shoved us out the door. It was a tandem dive meaning that I was strapped tight to an experienced skydiver named Tim.
My brother was the first one out the door. His diver swayed him side to side towards the door and told him “On the count of three. One… Two…,” then he paused and joked “Are you sure you want to do this???” Mike went TOTALLY white and yelled “C’mon man, quit f*&%ing around and let’s DO IT!” and then they were gone!
I was next. Tim asked me on the way up if I get seasick, “not at all” I said, and he replied “great, we’ll have some fun and tumble a bit”. I thought I knew what that meant until we did it, first I saw the ground, then the plane, then the ground, then the plane! Crazy! The freefall lasted 44 seconds and was so intense, it’s hard to describe. Air is forced into your mouth and nose, and the sound of the wind rushing past you is the only thing that indicates you are even moving. We were so high up you can’t tell that the ground is coming at you ~120 mph (195 km/h). We would see all around, Las vegas, Lake Powell, Hoover Dam, the mountains, the desert. It was incredible.
Tim pulled the chute and that was a dichotomous feeling – on the one hand it was very comforting to have it open, on the other hand it wasn’t very comfortable on “the boys” if you know what I mean. LOL. The rest of the ride was very cool too, Tim let me use the controls on the chute and spin around in a circle a few times. We landed on our butts and then it was over. A perfect jump. Of course I bought the t-shirt because it says “Why gamble with your money when you can gamble with your life!”
I am definitely doing it again, mainly because it happens so fast I want to see what I missed!
Oh, and Rob & Andy – you are going with me next time!!!