The jumpmaster unlatches the lock and opens the bay door of the Cessna 182. Wind roars through the cabin like a hurricane. Outside, the prop hums like a low pitched buzzer, relentless. There’s two inches of air between us and 10,500 foot descent. It’s the sort of day jumpers dream of: an unlimited ceiling, moderate to light winds, and a crystal clear view spanning more than thirty miles in every direction. The only speck of white below are breakers gnashing into the Jersey shore.<\/p>\n
I pull my goggles over my helmet, covering my glasses securely.<\/p>\n
It’s time.<\/p>\n
“Are you ready to sky dive?” That’s the question the jump master bellows.<\/p>\n
“Yes, sir!” I boom back. With twenty-two years teaching Army Rangers, Spec Ops and other airborne units how to jump, firing back with anything less than an equal intensity will mean push ups after the debriefing. I hate push-ups.<\/p>\n
“Then let’s sky dive!”<\/p>\n
The railing over the wheel of a 182 is wide, yet stout, and maintaining balance is easier than I expect, even into 120 mph winds. I point my toe towards the wing tip. Over my left shoulder comes the all clear from the jump master.<\/p>\n
We break away from the plane and barrel heads down through nothingness.<\/p>\n
“Arch, arch, arch, breathe!” I yell. Instinctively following the vocal prompts, my body thrusts out at the hips, resembling a banana from the side.<\/p>\n
Three seconds later, I’m stable and dropping 1000 feet every 5.5 seconds.<\/p>\n
I have thirty seconds to live the rest of my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The jumpmaster unlatches the lock and opens the bay door of the Cessna 182. Wind roars through the cabin like a hurricane. Outside, the prop hums like a low pitched buzzer, relentless. There’s two inches of air between us and 10,500 foot descent. It’s the sort of day jumpers dream of: an unlimited ceiling, moderate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-skydiving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}