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The new girlfriend (now my ex-wife :-) and I loved our first jump so much we came back a week later for second jump.

I wrote the original version of the story about a year later, along with the story of the first jump.

Tandem Jump #2

So, on August 16, 1997, (our official one-month anniversary of our first meeting) CN and I again made the 90 mile drive to Skydive Hutchinson.

This time the weather was much nicer. On our first jump, clouds had moved in during the day, so we were only able to get up to 7500 feet. This time would get our full 10,000!

And this time, I would be the star of the video!

Last time we'd flipped a coin, and CN won, so she was the focus of the video. We determined that when we returned, it would be my turn.

Little did I know, I was in for more than my money's worth this time!

It turned out that my Tandem Master, Kerry, would have to ditch our main chute and go for the reserve, so I kinda got two skydives in one!

Bye-bye!

[#1] There goes CN with Shawn, again.

Shawn also has become one of our treasured skydiving pals. A font of information and good times.

Little did we know then how much John and Shawn, and all the other skydivers we came to know, would change our lives.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

[#2] And here I come!

This time I'm attached to Kerry. (Who turns out to be a bit of a wildman—my kinda guy! Funny thing, so was a guy, named Kerry, I knew in high school.)

And again, our incredible camera man, John Arsenault, captures the plane leaving us behind.

John is a truly incredible skydiver, and one of our main teachers in the sport.

Over the months, as we've struggled, he's seen us grow and learn and also become one of our favorite skydiving friends.

Hey, Look at ME!

[#3–#6] Falling through the air at about 120 miles per hour is beyond any experience you can imagine. Nothing I've ever experienced comes close.

In the five or six seconds, you go from 0 to 120 miles per hour.

After that, your speed is constant, so you feel no sense of falling at all.

You're just flying with a 120 mile per hour wind coming up from the ground at you.

Which, incidentally, any time you see skydivers in the movies or TV talking during freefall… Forget about it!

That 120 MPH wind makes conversation impossible.

Any communication is done with hand signals (or taps or tugs on your body if in physical contact).

You could maybe pull it off by screaming directly into somebody's ear, but not otherwise.

(An infamously good example of It's Totally Not This Way is the skydive in Point Break.)

Sproing!

[#7] Chute's out, but wait!

Something isn't quite right.

The slider didn't come all the way down the lines. [#8]

The chute was sort of flyable, and Kerry considered taking it down, but being the crazy guy he is, decided a cut-away would be more fun.

All he said to me was, "Are you ready to arch again?" I said, "Sure..."

And then the floor vanished under us!

WHOA!!

TOO COOL!!

Two free falls for the price of one.

When Shawn told CN, "See that yellow chute over there? That's their reserve,"

CN knew at once I was having a GREAT time! (And she was completely right!)

Thumbs Up!

[#9, #10] Here I am back on terra firma with Kerry.

You can see the yellow reserve chute on the ground behind us.

Kerry joked to the camera that I'd asked what all the handles on his rig were for, so he decided he'd show me.

Because of the extra freefall due to cutting away the main chute, we didn't make it back to the drop zone's landing area. (We dropped straight down during that freefall, so we lost our glide path.)

We are, in fact, standing in a farmer's field.

The drop zone, and the airport it abuts, are surrounded by soybean and corn fields.

The farmers are used to the occasional landing.

John followed us down and landed in the same field, so I got my terra firma picture, but CN's off at the drop zone, so it's just me and Kerry.

Amazingly, on the video, you can watch John fly to and grab the tandem reserve's freebag out of the air!

Quite a stunt, and it saved trying to find that small piece of somewhat expensive gear.

© 2009 Chris from MN