The Life of Bryan and how to enjoy all 3 dimensions.: Sky's The Limit (and for most of us it really is.....)

On March 7th 2010, a week after seeing John Mayer and the day after I killed my blackberry screen, I decided to go skydiving. What the hell it was a beautiful March day and the temperatures had reached the mid 50s. Chilly but comfortable. I got in my car and drove west into PA a couple exits on route 80 past the Water Gap to East Stroudsburg to the airfield there. The drop zone as airports that service sport parachutists was called Sky's The Limit and they seemed to offer the best deals on tandem first time skydives within half hours driving distance from where I was living.

Why I decided one morning to wake up and go skydiving? I guess I'm a little nutz. Actually I wanted find figure out a few things for myself: Would I feel like an astronaught i.e. feel the zero gravity sensation you might experience on a roller coaster? Would I scare the proverbial out of myself? and last but not least would I live to tell of the jump afterwards.

Hey I fly planes, why not learn how to fly your body in case you need to jump out of one?

The skydive went like this:

Sign life away on a bunch of papers acknowledge that there was risk of injury or death.
Watch a short intro video about tandem skydiving.
Pay.
Decided if you want a video and pictures taken.
Go put on a jump suit, snoopy helmet, goggles.
Step into your harness.
Go with tandem instructor and climb into plane waiting on the ramp full of colorful happy/way too energetic lunatics.
Short 10 minute ride up to 13,000ft. (you're sweating bullets although it's getting cold up there.)
Tandem instructor attaches his harness to yours at four attachment points.
Camera man ask you if feel a lump in your stomach. (if you do it's ok, you're just nervous, it's normal.) Then he asks you if you feel a lump in your back (if you're tandem instructor is male and you do, it ok, it just means he's happy too!)
Back door opens.
Group of colorful happy/way too energetic lunatics all jump out before you do. As they exit, you feel the plane get nose heavy as the weight and balance shifts.
Here comes the moment of truth.......you ask will this be my last airplane ride ever and why in the world am I doing this?
Too late, stand up, walk to the edge of the door and before you can count to 3 you're our the door!
You flip around a little trying to arch your body into the relative wind.
It's loud, and all you feel is wind. No falling sensation just an invisible mushy cushion of air.
You're on top of the world. You smile, you scream, you're awed.
Camera man is flying around you, he grabs your arm and spins you around. You give a thumbs up. Everything looks so small.
Before you know it, your instructor deploys the main chute. WHAM!
You went from 120mph on your stomach to 15mph standing up.
It's eerily quiet. Your instructor says hi and asks if you had a good time.
You're hanging there at 4000ft slowly drifting down and turning to fly the chute towards the airport.
I took the toggles (directional controls) and tried steering. Pretty simple, pull left go left, pull right go right, pull both slow down, let go and speed up.
We entered the airport traffic pattern in a series of left turns going parallel to the direction we wanted to land, turned two more times and finally landed in the soft muddy grass butt first.

The camera man walks up and asks me if I would do it again and I said hell yes!

That was it really, they handed me a dvd and I went home.

Here are some photos: