Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2016/06/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Jim, On my first Jump it was, "solo!" Oh I had some brief explanations of what to expect and do. I know I was smiling and partly laughing as I was so happy to have made it to earth without crash diving 6' under! :-) One moment you are safely in the plane the "Jump-Master" facing you and all of a sudden he yells... "GO!" And without thought..... out you go into the wild blue quickly falling toward Planet Earth. You look up to see if the chute opened? What you see is the tiny "looking" plane you just left a few moments ago. And there is the chute canopy in full bloom in it's beautiful colour gently lowering you downward. "THEN YOU LOOK DOWN AND THE WORLD?" appears like it's sort of coming at you very quickly! :-) It isn't, unless your chute didn't open??? We wont talk about that? Unfortunately for me I did come into the landing a tad fast, hit the ground rather hard right shoulder down. (Notice not feet.) Well they did, but I lost my balance as I was coming in a tad fast! OOPS! A year later re-wrecked right shoulder when falling in a graveyard while on assignment in Russia on the Chernobyl children. Oh it hurt, not too bad! But then if you've never been in a Russian hospital? Jeeesh "DON'T GO THERE UNLESS YOU'RE DEAD!" Just grin and bear it until back home. Eventually a few years later had my right shoulder re-placed. Oh well what the heck that's part of being a world travelling photojournalist. Things happen. :-) :-) Would I jump again? No because I promised my dear wife Irene I wouldn't. But that was because she quietly offered after the first jump! Actually she didn't know I was going to jump until our son drove her to the airfield. "if I ever did it again and even though I landed OK?" She would kill me! Smiled eyeball to eyeball then quietly walked away. There you are good Sir. And no I have never jumped again! :-) cheers, Dr. ted --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus