Do it a few more times and you'll get a good jump-story or two. I've only got 9 jumps, all static-line or Instructor-Assisted-Deployment (where they take your pilot-chute out and hold it as you climb out onto the Cessna's wheel-step to do your pivot off into the sky). But I came out with a few good stories, some mine, and some things that happened to friends who were jumping with me.
There's guys and girls out there with thousands of jumps. They probably don't sweat the same small-stuff a beginner like me would sweat. I have never done a tandem jump and would prefer not to.
When I was jumping in Canada, it was usually not a "perfectly good airplane". As I recall, it was a Cessna 182 with a top-opening door and half the instrument panel on the co-pilot's side was broken out and all the stuff that would have been behind it was chopped out or cut-away so the instructor could sit back in that area. So, it was not really a perfectly good airplane, and I was always fine with leaving it. After one of my jumps, I was the last person to exit as the instructor went out beside me, and the pilot put it into a Stuka-type roll over and dive only just "over there" away from me in my open chute and screamed down towards the ground where he pulled out, landed, and took on the next load. I'm glad I saw that from the angle I saw it from.
Sure, it's risky, but so is crossing the street in front of my Ice Cream Store.
You can tell by the shorts that we're in the '80's here. We were in a Military Rifle Club at CFB Shilo at the time, and a lot of our gun-club guys were military, and others were civilian. I like to tease these guys with this photo: civilian instructor showing the proper "arch" position after exit...but it's an awful friendly looking pose, isn't it?
Two of the guys ready to go up. The jump-club aircraft was certainly airworthy, but half of the front control panel was ripped out by, like, a gorilla or something. It wasn't neatly done, but it still flew. It gave more room for the jump instructor to sit back into while assisting students to exit.
There is a (Mexican) jump-club fairly near here, and I would like to jump again although it's 25 years later. I have my original log-book and everything. The Club here insists on all new jumpers doing two tandem-jumps, which I do not want to do. A pilot friend has told me that if I take my log-book to prove I've got 9 solo jumps, they'll let me go Instructor-Assisted-Deployment, which would be just fine. I've put it off, though. Maybe I'm turning into a bit of a chicken? But more likely, it's just been a tough economy the last few years, and I don't have the extra money to blow on it since they'll still insist I pay all the "first-time-jumper" fees either way.
We'll see, though. It's a heck of a thrill. You see stuff you'd never see anywhere else. That's for sure.
