'Pretty Fly for a White Guy'

('The Offspring' - 'Americana')

 

IT was two breaths after I jumped out of the aeroplane two and a half miles above the grass that I thought I could be in serious trouble. By then of course, it was a little too late.

This was a few days into an Accelerated Free Fall course (AFF), skydiving to you and me, and the first practical lesson outside the classroom. Or indeed, outside the single-engined Cessna Caravan floating at 12,500 feet.

On my right was my instructor, Grant, and on my left a chap called Hans who I'd just met in the plane. Underneath me was 12,000 foot of not much, and all around a remarkable demonstration of how efficient gravity could be. But when I thought it could be serious, I meant seriously expensive. Ten seconds into my first freefall I already knew I wanted to do it again.

Every year a group of around 20 people from Jersey travel to Texel, and island off the coast of Holland, under the umbrella of the Association of British Military Parachutists (ABMP), who go to jump static line round and square chutes and to do a little freefall.

Most people stick to the static line courses, partly because most military deployment is on static line, partly due to the course price. For static line you can pay between £300 and £400 depending on the canopy you're flying, while the AFF comes in at a bare minimum of £1200, which doesn't include any retakes or your final consolidation jumps. To most people this seems an awful lot of cash for 50 seconds in freefall.

There are cheaper courses around (Florida and New Zealand especially, with guaranteed good weather but a much longer bus trip) but Paracentrum Texel is one of the largest teaching centres in Europe, and as it trains up a lot of military chaps, has an excellent reputation. The only two variables left uncertain for the AFF were weather and bottle.

The course starts with drills that soon feel like brainwashing. That's not meant to sound like a bad thing. When you first go into freefall you get sensory overload, because your brain is a sensible thing and doesn't know how to cope with the rather unusual sensations you are suddenly piling up. On your first few jumps you might see your instructor's faces and your altimeter but everything else is going to be a bit of a blur until your circle of awareness expands. After a few jumps you notice more and more, and by your first solo (jump ten for most of us) you can watch the curve of the earth, spot other jumpers and even see the earth creeping up on you. Quickly. Up until then, you need to have drills to keep you doing the right thing.

One side effect of this was that for a while I thought it was taking me longer and longer to get stable after the exit, but they just said that it was my brain realising what was happening earlier and earlier. Eventually I started jumping out backwards so I could watch the plane fly off, and once hung on long enough to see the next guy (Steve) leap out.

When they say accelerated free fall, they mean that the course is accelerated, not the free fall. The time from our first jump to our graduation jump was about a week. We'd gone from jumping out and just trying to be stable with an instructor on either side to jumping out more or less solo in a diving exit, doing a back flip, two 360 degree turns each way, and tracking. Ohh, tracking, where you sweep your arms back into a sort of delta wing shape and can actually fly on a particular heading. All the time keeping a regular eye on the altimeter. 'The only thing that can hurt you is the ground,' said Rutger, one of the instructors

We'd also moved from being pretty apprehensive as the door opened and the icy clean wind whistled around the cabin, to feel almost relieved that the boring ride was over and we could get on with the fun bit.

The biggest question I had about the whole course was how quickly or slowly we'd get used to the idea of jumping. I didn't want to spend two weeks in a state of high anxiety, kissing the grass each time I touched down, and regretting the decision to come on this stupid course.

So some of us read the books on the subject, quizzed our instructors, looked up in the sky and wondered about the fear factor. Or maybe it was just me.

On the way up in the plane for the first time I was next to Rudy, the Dutch guy (psychiatric nurse by trade) who was bubbling with excitement. I too was excited, but in a more nauseated way.

Once the door opens and the winds rolled around the Caravan, my heart really started going, but there's no real point where you can say that enough's enough, a joke's a joke, and can you go home now? I sat there thinking just what have you got yourself into, and singing The Trifid's Falling Over You, which calmed me down a treat. You then shuffle on your arse to the door. One instructor then climbs out of the plane, you sit in the door, and one stays inside the plane, and you go straight into the routine that's been drilled into you for the past few days. Check out (okay), check in (okay), head back, up, down, arch . . . at which point you're accelerating. Breathe once, breathe twice, check altimeter, and that's when I knew this was going to be expensive. Five seconds out of the door you're grinning like an idiot.

The most important thing you have to learn at the beginning is stability. Once you know you can get stable quickly, you know that you can pull your chute in ideal conditions. If you're unstable, as Steve was one notable time, you can watch your chute deploy between your legs. Which might not end up being pleasant.

Once your instructors know that you're stable, then they'll release you so you fly down on your own. The first time that happens you feel like shouting: 'What are you doing over there? Get back here you fucker, what do you think I'm paying you for!'

On Level Five Rutger started saying things like 'Now we have fun' because this is when they test your stability with back loops, turns and tracks. It took us a few dives to get stable and happy, and we then spent most of the rest of the time trying to flip ourselves unstable.

The bad habit we did seem to have was leaving the plane without the instructors, with two of us not finishing their counts before launching themselves off the door sill. The instructors are left looking at each other while the rest of the jumpers are saying: 'Excuse me lads, we think you've dropped something.' Amazingly, this is apparently not that rare or that dangerous. One still passed the level even though there had been a little 'confusion in the door'.

The AFF is a seven level course, meaning that if you do everything right on every dive, your eighth will be a solo jump. But if you need to retake a jump, that's an extra couple of hundred guilders to pay, and at first a little self-recrimination. Each of us had to retake at least two levels, and although you do feel like a kicking yourself over it, eventually we realised that we really weren't competing against anyone, and if we were being honest we knew we should retake. There was no pressure from the instructors to keep us on a certain level for a while.

'People come here and some think that this is a seven jump course, but it's not, it's a seven level course,' said Rutger one evening. 'Sometimes people are surprised that they have to retake jumps, but we have to be certain that you are going to be safe on your own. If we pass you on a level where you're shaky, you'll almost certainly fail the next one.'

Which feels true. Both levels I failed on (three and seven) I failed on quite spectacularly, but my retakes were pretty good. Well, my level three was. My level seven stunk.

'If I know you will pull at the right height, and if I know you will be stable, you'll be safe,' he said during my debrief after me second graduation dive. A few minutes after I'd passed I did creep off and do a small victory dance. I then ran through some paperwork, was given a pull-through cord to help pack a chute, a pile of bumph on what rigs to buy and a bottle opener. Which was to prove useful later that evening.

'What are you going to do now?' he asked, as this had been the first jump of the day and it was only 11 am. 'Now I'm manifesting myself for the next lift,' I said, realising that this time I was going out completely on my own without the safety net of an instructor.

He smiled at that, I think because they seem to have a high drop-out rate once people have completed the AFF. 'For a lot of people it's just a ticket they want to get,' said Grant.

Most of us got in four jumps that day, the best was the last when the pilot was bribed up to 13,500 feet, and the setting sun made the view even more beautiful.

On the ground, all four of those who'd passed AFF went to buy a case of beer (standard bribery procedure) and a whole crowd hung around the hanger after putting the planes inside, watching the sun fade everything golden and enjoying that post-adrenaline rush. That is some of the best-tasting beer in the world.

After that, it was on to the Kievit Bar and Hotel, the skydiver's central recreation area. It was here that you learned a lot of good stuff about skydiving. One night Rutger explained the track and dip, the barrel roll, hugging the beach ball and other little tricks, and here we ended up at a huge party eating and drinking on a large subsidy from a chap who'd just celebrated 25 years as a skydiver.

The track and dip is when you go into a full powered delta track, speeding up to 180 mph, and then begin to bend your upper body slightly. You slowly start to point at the earth until you push the bend too far and suddenly flip head over toes. When I told Grant that's what I'd be trying when we got to the field the next day he laughed briefly and said: 'Whoa. Do it high.' About 20 minutes later I found that this manoeuver can cost you over 2000 feet of altitude.

But by then we were so relaxed that we just laughed and tried it again. We had found out that it's true. There's only one thing that's going to hurt you.

 

Richard Pedley.

 

Richard is a founder member of the cupid stunt skydivers.

Well, he's been called a member anyway..

Rumour has it that he's a barrister, but then, who'd believe an ex-journalist...

Richard is also a keen rock climber, ex-scuba diver and used to own iguanas...

(need I say more..?)

The title of this article is from a song by The Offspring from their album Americana, which was played to death the entire week we were in Texel and of which we all became inordinately fond...

 

Oh, yeah. Photos to illustrate this story are Here.. Sorry about the quality (and content).

Link to Paracentrum Texel

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