I pull the toggle on the pilot chute and the whole rig starts shaking violently. This isn’t right. I must have a malfunction. My mind, already racing goes blank and I desperately grab at my chest pulling both the cutaway pad and the reserve ripcord at the same time.
“You’re dead,” says Chris McCann and the shaking stops.
I’m now swinging in the dummy rig from a thick steel bar with my feet about eighteen inches from the ground feeling pretty daft. You don’t die by entangling your reserve in your main parachute at this height; you do if you are a mile up in the air.
“Right, let’s have one more go.”
I’m at the British Parachute School at Langar Airfield in Nottinghamshire doing the Accelerated Freefall Course; which is exactly that. It’s the fastest way to become a qualified skydiver with the first jump being from thirteen and a half thousand feet. It’s whiz bang stuff because after seven more training jumps you’re allowed to fling yourself out of a plane unaccompanied by an instructor.
“One of the biggest factors in learning to sky dive is sensory overload where the brain is overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of the experience,” explains Dave Hickling, Chief Instructor and Managing Director of the school. “The beauty of the AFF course is that it allows 50 seconds of freefall time with your instructors which helps alleviate this phenomenon. Students can concentrate on their technique whilst in freefall.”
I’ve spent the day in ground-school with Chris learning about everything from equipment, body position, canopy control, landing technique and parachute malfunctions. He’s an excellent teacher who has done over 4500 jumps and he lavishes both praise and criticism whilst drilling his message home.
“You’re not jumping out of anything until you get this right,” he says adopting the latter approach as we go through yet another simulation.
“Cutaway,” I shout as he rattles me from side to side whilst I dangle from the dummy harness, “look, grasp, peel, punch.”
That’s the main chute gone in a flurry of mnemonics. “Look, reach, pull, arch.” That’s the reserve deployed.
“Excellent, you’ve just saved your life.” This time he’s grinning broadly.
The Cessna aircraft sits on the runway about 200 yards away. I’m now fully suited with my parachute strapped to my back, Chris is going to be my secondary instructor and my primary will be another of the school’s vastly experienced instructors, Dave Morris.
I climb into the plane and shuffle up so that I’m leaning against the person sitting behind me. We’re three abreast, five deep and the atmosphere in the cramped fuselage is one of seemingly carefree abandon. The engine cranks into life winding to a high shrill as we become airborne and the ground slips away, greenery fading to blue until we pass through some wisps of light cloud.
I check my altimeter and it reads five thousand feet. We climb some more and Dave asks me to go through my drill. I reel out the sequence of events. At thirteen thousand feet the hatch is slid open and I watch for the first time in my life somebody leaping out of a perfectly good aeroplane. My fellow skydivers then pour from the door like lemmings.
Within seconds it’s my turn and my feet are dangling nearly four miles above terra firma with Chris holding onto the outside of the plane. I initiate the much rehearsed exit by staring in at Dave and shouting, “Check in!”
“OK,” he shouts back.
“Check out!”
“OK,” replies Chris.
“Up, down, arch.”
Immediately I’m rushing through space, a cacophony of noise, air and forces buffeting my body. It’s a bizarre barrage but I’m still aware; my senses are not overloaded so I go straight into the freefall position with my instructors either side of me. The next fifty seconds is a 120mph blur. I shout my altitude, do my practise pulls and even manage a thumbs up for the cameraman. Then at six thousand feet I lock onto my altimeter, watch it sweep between the five and six and pull my the pilot chute toggle. The effect is immediate and breathtaking, it’s like being hauled upwards, back into space.
1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000. I stop counting, check my parachute and much to my absolute surprise it’s fully open and perfectly formed. No malfunctions. No need to cutaway. No need to deploy the reserve. Oh joy.
My breath is pumping out of me in deep gasps yet the turbo-charged initial plunge has now been replaced by the infinitely more genteel final descent. The contrast couldn’t be more stark and I quickly regain my bearings over the patchwork of countryside beneath me. The next six minutes are blissful as I navigate back to the airfield aided by the radio strapped to my chest.
“Strong legs, arms up,” it cackles at 200 feet, the ground rushing upwards.
“Flare.”
I pull down on the toggles, skim the ground and tumble over. I lay there motionless, somewhat amazed that I’m down in one piece. Then it hits me in a split second…..I know that I’ve just got to do that again.
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