Blog

Flying

• September 2007
• Uncategorized

Usually I jump out of the Twin Otter or the King Air at 12,500 feet and freefall for about 50 seconds, maybe 60 or 70, depending on how well I’m tracking. In a wingsuit on Sunday, I was flying for almost two minutes!

As with climbing, skydiving (and basejumping) has multiple disciplines and styles of free falling techniques. The most popular/trendy thing among most skydivers right now is freeflying—a style all about maintaining unique body positions, which actually makes you fall faster and spend less time in freefall. Tracking and wingsuit flying are the closest thing to flying like a bird, staying in the sky as long as possible—to me, that seems like where it’s at. The normal fall rate of a human body is about 120 miles per hour. A free flier going head down can go 240 miles per hour. Right now in my wingsuit, I am falling as slow as 55 miles per hour—which means I am staying up in the air, flying forward like a bird. With a bigger suit, and better body position, I have heard of some wingsuit pilots lowering their fall rate into the 30 mph range. Wow!!

Last week, my friend Alan brought me his wingsuit to the drop zone. There were a lot of raised eyebrows—although I’ve been skydiving nonstop for the last three months, people usually prescribe many hundreds of skydives before a person gets into a wingsuit. The arm wings make it so you can’t raise your arms above elbow height, until you get under your parachute and have the time to unzip them. And if you lose stability as you are flying (which can be pretty strenuous on the shoulders, back and core tension) or have an uneven body position, you can go into uncontrollable spins or tumbles. Also there’s just generally a lot more going on with the gear, and less maneuverability to deal with it. So apparently people can really get into trouble and/or die if they try to rush into wingsuit flying, and so skydivers are pretty aggressive about not wanting inexperienced jumpers to just thoughtlessly put on a wingsuit.

Ever since my 25th jump, I’ve done almost nothing but tracking jumps—knowing all the time that I wanted to fly a wingsuit, and that tracking was what I needed to practice. So I felt ready, and Alan knew I would probably manage okay. Luckily he is also a certified wingsuit instructor, so we were being compliant with the rules in starting me despite my relatively low jump numbers (less than 200).

Alan showed me how to rig his Phantom to my skydiving container, and walked me through all the procedures of exiting the plane in a stable position, practicing touching my pilot chute while in flight, what pattern to fly (you can go pretty far, and don’t want to find yourself way far away from the airport when it’s time to land), how to deploy my parachute in a stable position, and how to unzip everything to come in for a landing without being all confined in the wings. After so many stories about “all that can go wrong!” from the more concerned/conservative friends, I was actually pretty nervous on the first jump, which I hadn’t felt in skydiving since my AFF course.

I kind of had the impression that I was going to burst into flames the minute I left the airplane.

I also knew that if I blew it, Alan was going to catch a lot of flack from people at the drop zone, so I made sure to put all my focus into a good stable exit, and to doing everything perfectly.

Alan’s wingsuit was really big on me, and I had to struggle pretty hard to not go head-down as I flew, but was able to maintain a pretty stable flight. I pulled really high, at about 5500 feet (rather than 3000), and followed the exact procedures Alan had shown me about maintaining stability in deployment. I didn’t burst into flames!

I did a bunch of jumps, one with my brother (who has Dean’s hand-me-down wingsuit), and with Chris, Jacob and Travis. Thanks to all the tracking practice, I was able to fly with them, but definitely needed to make jumps alone in order to work on the body position to start getting more efficient.

The next day, Brendan gave me his old grey wingsuit—one he’s been flying for years. It’s a great suit, called a “Birdman Classic” and is actually one of the original small wingsuits. It fits me perfectly, and he says I can use it as long as I need to, which is wonderful because my new Phoenix Fly suit is going to take almost two months to get made, and is also a much bigger and more advanced wingsuit. I call this little suit “the grey sparrow.”

What a difference, wearing a suit that fits! Immediately my head-down problem was gone, and I could start to really feel the body position. I did 12 jumps on my own, and felt like I was starting to get it. It’s spectacular, flying through the air. Ever since I was first introduced to the sports of base jumping and then skydiving years ago, the wingsuit has been the thing that most captured my imagination, although I never thought I’d actually be flying one someday. I’m up in the sky so much longer, able to go in any direction I want. I can see all my friends deploying their canopies, while I am still flying. Being up in the air twice as long feels like so much more time, and really suits my climber’s sense of speed, which is innately slower than a skydiver’s. I have time to look around, think, decide where to fly, refine my body position, feeling like a bird up there. It’s amazing.

Tomorrow morning, I leave Boulder and move back to Moab. After three months here, I’m leaving feeling totally satisfied. I accomplished my goals on the Diamond, soloing the Casual Route twice, and Pervertical Sanctuary twice.

And I feel like I learned the things I came here to learn in skydiving–I wanted to do at least 100 skydives, and I did 135. I also learned to fly a wingsuit and pack a base rig. So it’s been a really productive summer, exciting and full of growth and time here with friends. I am headed back to Moab for the big skydiving boogie, and then up to Idaho to take Jimmy and Marta’s base course on October 4, which is very exciting! But I do feel a little sad. I loved living in the little cabin in Eldorado Canyon, and I got very close to my friends here in Boulder. I had no idea I would be actually living here, and for three months, when I first impulsively showed up for my AFF course. It’s been an amazing, wonderful time. Transitions are always bittersweet.

But I’m also filled with excitement for the fall and winter, in the desert. I know I’ll be back at the Mile Hi dropzone, to jump and see my skydiving friends. And I know the base jumpers will be visiting Moab even more now, which will make the desert even better this season. So although it’s hard to leave this good place, and this good time, I know it’s time to go.