Eight and One Half Flights

Going into our trip, we had 8.5 flights planned. The first was from Cleveland to Los Angeles followed by one from Los Angeles to Fiji and finally Fiji to Sydney. After the New Year we flew from Sydney to Cairns. We eventually need to do everything in reverse, which accounts for 8 of the flights. This leaves 1/2 of a flight unaccounted for. Today we took that flight.

So what is half a flight? A full flight comes with both a takeoff and a landing. Our half of a flight only included one of these though. The plane took off with us, but did not land with us on board. Hence the 1/2 of a flight.

Still not making sense? This may help: Today we went skydiving.

• Watch Amy's Skydiving Video on Google Video or on You Tube
• Watch Brian's Skydiving Video on Google Video

Although no one knew about this in advance, we actually made reservations months ago. When we decided to go to Australia we knew that we would be skydiving. Australia is known for extreme sports and this was something we had to try. People who know me have to be shocked that I was agreeable to this. I knew this was a once in a lifetime experience that I just had to do. Both Brian and I have separately written a recount of our experience separately. Each appears below.

Amy’s Description of Her Experience

I have been thinking about our skydiving trip at least everyday for the past month. I was scared, nervous, and anxious. My biggest fear is something going terribly wrong for Brian. Then I would be in Australia by myself and without my husband who I love very much and have an entire lifetime planned out together.

The morning came and I was surprisingly calm. I was a little nervous but I did not feel that this was the worst thing ever. Part of me was even a little excited about it. Once we signed the paperwork, we were off to the airport. Brian and I held hands for most of the morning and were praying that everything would be okay. We knew that it was somewhat dangerous but thought that it was unlikely things would go wrong.

All along, I wanted to jump before Brian. I can’t really explain why but I just did (my weird logical thinking). They allowed that to happen. We were in a group of four and I was the first one out. We were on a small plane going to 14,000 feet to jump. They did not close the plane doors while taking off. I sat next to an open door. I took several deep breathes while taking off (also had my eyes closed at times). This may have been the scariest part.

Once the plane took off, I knew there was no turning back. I had to do this. My instructor was great, he double-checked things. He knew was scared and he reassured me it was going to be a “good day”. My camera guy was the first one out then it was my turn. There was little time to think at that point. I moved to the edge of the plane, sat down with my feet out of the plane and got pushed out.


While falling really fast, the wind was pushing against my face. It was cold and the wind was loud. During the fall, you were to look up and that is exactly what I did. It was amazing feeling. Not really scary anymore.


Then the parachute went off after I had fallen for one minute. It was not as jerky as I was expecting. Then it was time to relax a bit. My instructor allowed me to steer the parachute. I was able to enjoy the scenery. What an experience!

The landing was smooth. I did what I told. DO NOT PUT DOWN YOUR FEET! I did not want any injuries so holding my feet up was not a problem. I landed a few seconds before Brian so I got to watch him land. After he was unhooked from his instructor I ran to him and hugged him yelling, “We survived”! I was so happy and proud of myself for doing it.

Something that has helped me with this experience is the song, “Live like you were dying” by Tim McGraw because it says, “I went skydiving”. I kept playing the song in my head and sometimes singing it to Brian. He was thrilled. One popular question is, “would you do it again”? I would probably have to say “yes”.

Brian’s Description of His Experience

The first time I was nervous about skydiving was right after Amy agreed to do it. When I brought up the idea, I was not sure she would buy into it. After she did without much persuasion, I started to second-guess the events that I had set in motion. We both agreed that it would be a once in a lifetime experience, but wow – we are really going to go skydiving!

The more I looked into skydiving, the more excited I got about it. I was not very nervous in the weeks and days leading up to it. The day before I had a moment of panic on a train ride. It started to hit me that tomorrow I would be jumping out of a plane. This moment of uncertainty quickly passed and I was surprised how well I slept the night before. Of course we had already booked and paid for skydiving, so resistance was futile at this point.

I was surprised how calm I was the day of the event. They picked us up in a van labeled “Australian Gun Sports.” It seemed a little odd, but we got in and away we went (we later realized they have a normal van labeled for skydiving, but it was not available). Once at the office, we read through and signed a series of liability waivers. They literally told us it was time to sign our lives away… and we did! We watched a training video and got into our gear. Before we knew it we were back in the van headed for the airport.


This was the third time we had seen the small plane section of the airport. We noticed it on landing in our flight from Sydney and again in passing on our train ride. Both times Amy and I glanced at each other knowing what awaited us there. We were dropped off at this very spot as we suspected and waited in a small building for our plane to be brought around. We were going to jump with two other guys. Both were visibly nervous. I did not think I was nervous, but became very conscious of how thirsty I was. I got a drink from the drinking fountain multiple times. Nerves were no doubt contributing at some level.


As we approached the plane on foot, a noticeable breeze passed by us that was being produced by the propellers of the plane. We boarded and straddled a bench inside. Everyone was instructed to buckle up. This consisted of attaching a buckle to your harness. Once we were a few thousand feet up, we were told that we could unbuckle. Buckling and unbuckling on a plane is usually insignificant. We do it all the time on commercial flights. This time we were unbuckling so we could prepare to leave the plane mid-flight. I found myself mentally noting this distinction.


The door to the plane rolled up and down like a roll top desk. It remained open and the plane began to taxi down the runway. I looked out the open door as the plane began to take off. As we slowly gained altitude from a few feet to a few hundred feet from the ground, I looked down and was surprised how appealing jumping looked. It did not make sense. Perhaps I knew how much higher we were heading. Superficially, jumping closer to the ground seemed safer. This was despite knowing this was untrue. The parachute would never have enough time to fully open.


I sat facing backwards in the plane. Looking back I could see the horizontal stabilizer (the small wing on the tail of the plane). Instead of being nervous, the engineer in me kicked in and I began to wonder how fast the plane would have to being going to actually strike the horizontal stabilizer when we jumped out. The force of gravity would need to help us descend beneath it before the stabilizer caught up with us. What a great physics problem this would make. Given the acceleration due to gravity, how long would it take to descend the 4 feet necessary to get below the stabilizer? This vertical component could be compared against the horizontal movement. Initially we would be moving at the same speed as the plane, but the wind would quickly slow us down more rapidly and allow the gap between the stabilizer and us to close. It sounded like a fun calculation. Had I seen it in a physics class, I would have been indifferent to it. Now it seemed poignantly relevant though. Despite this internal debate, I felt reassured by simple statistics. Had this been a real risk, it no doubt would have wrecked havoc before and been accounted for. There should be no reason to worry.


The instructors each had an altimeter strapped to their wrist, which displays the current altitude. I occasionally glanced at them to check our progress. Around 10,000 feet my jump instructor promised to tighten all of my straps. He did. By the time we finished, we were already nearing 12,000 feet and getting into position. A little above 14,000 feet the plane leveled off and slowed down noticeable. I felt better about that. A slower speed improved my chances of clearing that horizontal stabilizer!

Amy was in front of me. She would jump first as she had always said she wanted to. Quickly she moved into position. Her feet dangled from the side of the aircraft 14,000 feet above the earth. Her instructor rocked back and forth: one, two, three! She was gone. Just like that suddenly there were three fewer people with us in the plane. In addition to our tandem jump instructor we also each had a cameraman accompanying us.


Before the significance of losing a passenger mid-flight could hit me, it was my turn. Immediately aware that I was next, I became distinctly nervous. My instructor motioned for me to move forward. He had already told me how this would work. I needed to slide off the bench onto the floor of the aircraft and then dangle my feet over the side. I looked down without truly comprehending the significance of 14,000 feet. My pants blew violently in the wind and my legs swayed to the side impacted by the 100+ MPH winds. I looked down to see if I could see Amy. She was long gone.

I felt my instructor rock back and forward once. This is actually going to happen. We rocked a second time. My heart beat apprehensively. Before I could even contemplate my situation further, we fell forward out of the plane.


We spun about and I kept my arms to my chest and my feet bent as instructed. The wind blew extremely intensely. Once tapped on my shoulder, I extended my arms. I looked down at the earth beneath me. Despite the fact that I was plummeting downward at 120 MPH, I had no sensation of falling. The earth did not appear to be growing closer. The view was amazing. In a plane you can only look out a small window and see a small piece of the earth beneath you. Now I could see it fully beneath me and move my head around to see it in its entirety. It was amazing.


Quickly my cameraman, Jacko, caught up with me. It was quite odd to see someone approach you floating in the air from a distance. With expert control, he approached me within a mere couple of feet. I waived for the camera and smiled. I could feel my face blowing in the wind. If my mouth was left open at all, the all-invasive wind got inside and quickly filled my mouth and separated my cheeks from my mouth. Ha ha! This would certainly look funny on the video.


It all happened so quickly. I alternated between looking down and at Jacko’s camera several times. We spun around a few times in midair. I looked down but could not spot Amy anywhere. Before I knew it, I began feeling some upward resistance. The 60-second free fall elapsed so quickly. The parachute was opening. Jacko who had been several feet away was now descending faster than us. I watched him continue to plummet to the earth as our parachute slowed our descent. It was odd to watch his body quickly get smaller and smaller against the landscape below.


I expected the parachute to open quite violently. It was definitely noticeable, but not as bad as I expected. They try to open the parachute around 5,000 feet. It takes about 1,000 feet for it to fully deploy and slow your descent. This is no accident. It is designed this way to make it less abrupt. Tandem jumps also use a drogue parachute during free fall to slow the speed of decent. This is designed to limit the terminal velocity to that of a single skydiver instead of two people jumping in tandem. You may notice this in the video.

I looked down and saw my cameraman’s parachute deploying. Off to the side I saw another parachute. One of the rider’s had a pink shirt on. I recognized this as Amy. Her chute deployed. That made me feel better.


I looked around as we navigated with our parachute. My instructor handed me the controls and allowed me to steer. One strap went in each hand. Pulling on the right strap caused you to turn right and the left strap to turn left. If you pulled very hard on one of them, you could actually start spiraling extremely quickly. You could feel the effects of centrifugal force and see the parachute off to the side instead of fully above you when you did this. It was fun, but made you a little bit nervous at the same time. My instructor told me that I could pull down as hard as I wanted, but I naturally held back once I saw how quickly we began to spin.


Looking down, the earth was getting closer. I could see Amy’s parachute not far beneath us. She would land first. The cameramen were already on the ground. Although we still had quite a distance to cover before landing, I was surprised how quickly we moved. Before I knew it Amy was landing and we were positioning ourselves to land next. My instructor took over the controls. We swung to approach the ground. I lifted my legs and slid across the ground landing in a sitting position with my legs extended in front of me.


I saw Amy on the ground. She shouted, “We lived.” She was very excited. This was truly amazing. It seemed so routine to everyone else. On the surface skydiving sounds so intimating; so dangerous. After doing it, it seemed extremely simple and nowhere near as dangerous as one may think. This is not to suggest that things cannot go terribly wrong. Of course this was largely due to the fact that we were doing tamdem jumps. All of the hard work was being handled by our instructor who was extremely experienced. I would have felt quite differently if I had been responsible for deciding when to deploy my own parachute and responsible for landing myself.

It was an incredible experience! I would highly recommend it and am so glad we did this.