Free Fallin'

The climb, controlled by the airplane, is a slow and weary march. With sweat dripping down your back coupled with the weight of the equipment on your shoulders, your anxiety builds as you travel upward to 14,500 feet. Looking around the cargo bay, other nervous passengers wait for this leap, seemingly all thinking, "Am I really going to do this?" Arriving at the right elevation, the instructors move through the plane pulling and tugging on the equipment, checking one last time. The door opens and you can see your fate whizzing by before you, while clouds envelope the airplane only to soon reveal the ground so far below. The trip, controlled by gravity, will be a fast and thrilling fall. The anticipation builds as you lean over the edge, with the full weight of the instructor harnessed to your back, you fall.

The ground anticipates your arrival, as you plummet at speeds over 100 miles per hour.  The freefall lifts your previous anxiety of the jump, but a new fear consumes your thinking. You begin to notice how fast the ground is rushing toward you. Just as you finish making your peace with God, your instructor yanks on the rip cord, slowing your meeting with fate.

Millions of people make this same leap every year, but it’s not just jumping out of a plane that gets people’s adrenaline pumping; there’s a whole world of extreme sports to satisfy any adventure lover. Over two million Americans jump out of planes every year, people like Sara Cunningham of Fort Worth. Cunningham, a mid-thirty’s marketing professional, first tried skydiving a few years ago at a site near New Braunfels, Texas. At a turning point in her life, Cunningham decided to make her move to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and the transition was made more memorable by adding skydiving to her ‘to-do’ list, somewhere between packing the kitchen and loading up the moving van.

Compared to many other extreme sports like skateboarding or BMX, skydiving has a much deeper history, dating back over 200 years to French parachute pioneer Andre-Jacques Garnerin. Officially, he performed the first parachute jump in 1797, but not with harnesses that modern jumpers use. Instead, Garnerin utilized a hot-air balloon and enjoyed the canopy ride, which is often the smoothest part of a skydiving experience. Actual freefall wouldn’t be completed for another 100 years, with the help of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk.

Daredevils weren’t the only people interested in taking freefall plunges during the sport's early days. Nations and air force programs around the world took notice of parachuting as the Wright airplane technology became a new weapon in a countries’ war arsenal. However, most pilots didn’t have the option to use their parachutes during World War I.  The first emergency bailout using a parachute didn’t occur until 1922. By the time the world stage was primed for another international brawl, in 1939, airplanes and parachuting were the tools that helped the Allies change the course of World War II, by dropping in behind enemy lines. After the war, many men were interested in doing more recreational jumping, similar to their war-time efforts in Europe. This new form of parachuting, coined as “skydiving” by Raymond Young in the mid-1950s, became well-known across the United States, with the first jump center opening in 1957.

With every leap a jumper takes, a risk is involved. According to the United States Parachute Association (USPA), most accidents are caused by jumper mistakes or problems rather than equipment malfunctions. Cunningham said before her first tandem jump, “they spent about 10-15 minutes explaining everything that we were supposed to do, what they (instructors) were going to do, and especially about back-up parachute, which I was very interested in.” The back-up chutes automatically launch if the jumper hasn’t pulled the rip cord by a certain height. By parachuting in tandem, where an instructor is harnessed to a student skydiver, the risk is significantly less as each instructor has to have completed so many jumps before they can be certified by the USPA. Cunningham said “my instructor was very cool, he was a highway patroller from Waco and my video recorder was a mechanic from Sherman.” She also said that they usually jump about 6 or 7 times a day during the weekends, almost always with first-timers or other tandem jumpers.

On her first jumping flight, Cunningham took a friend with her for moral support. “My friend Jill went with me and she cried a little on the way up, but once we landed loved it. But, she did vow to never do it again.”

As it turns out Jill and Sara weren’t the only first-timers on the plane that day, three other first-time tandem jumpers were also eagerly waiting for their chance to leap, with only one backing out after taking a look at their jump height. “Three other people were on board doing solo jumps too, mostly people going through certification training, like the family of four sitting next to me.”

With all the safety precautions that are taken, what most jumpers have to figure out is if the risk is worth the reward. Is the adrenaline rush worth that 1 in 100,000 chance to take this leap of faith? For two million Americans last year, the answer was yes.

Skydiving today isn’t just a recreational activity for adrenaline junkies; it’s also a sport for countries all over the world. The World Air Sports Federation (FAI) is the founder of international competitions for skydiving events and others including paragliding and ballooning. From its inception in 1905, under special permission of an Olympic committee, FAI has kept the traditions of their first aerobatic competitions and integrated them with new technology according to an article on the program’s website.

According to the FAI, most competitions are single events, like canopy formation, classic freestyle, and skydiver formation. Teams are assembled on a global scale, with many countries like the United States, France, and Australia as key participants with teams ranging from the small four-person, to massive sixteen person formations. Most teams also practice in vertical wind tunnels, to test out formations and strategies to eliminate some of the danger in the skies. In the coming weeks, the USPA will hold the national competition of skydiving specializing in the events determined by the FAI.

Competitions don’t stop at a professional level; the USPA also sponsors a competition among college students. The collegiate competitions aren’t based on what school these skydivers attend, but on building experience and participating in skydiving on a smaller scale than their professional counterparts.  Both the collegiate and the professional USPA competitions are slated to happen later this year.

With so many types of skydiving, it begs the question, what is a typical skydiver like? How could you spot these people walking down a busy street? Cunningham said, “I would think someone younger, in good physical shape, self-motivated, qualities of a leader versus a follower, and a bit more well-rounded culturally.” Cunningham also went on to say that the second time she jumped, several people were well into their 40s and 50s, among the experienced jumpers. Several sites, or drop zones as they’re known, require participants to be at least 18 years old before they can skydive, but other sites have a limit of at least 21 years old. While each site has a minimum age, most sites don’t have any kind of max age limit, so even seniors can take a leap, including former President George H.W. Bush at age 75, a feat he repeated on his 80th birthday just last year. So it’s safe to say that anyone walking past you in the grocery store or someone at the gym could be a skydiver. Without too many cultural restrictions, skydiving seems to be main-stream for the majority of Americans today.

After that daredevil leap and the exhilarating drop, the calming ride provided by canopy allows you to enjoy the rest of your time floating above the Earth. The ground slowly comes up to meet you as your instructor tilts and angles the parachute to land perfectly inside the drop zone. As your feet touch the ground, adrenaline continues to pump through your veins, pulsing from what you just experienced. With a sigh of relief and a slowing heartbeat, you re-live your trip and prepare to go again!