I had a rather interesting and eventful Saturday. I spend the weekends at the Drop Zone jumping Tandems. This weekend however kinda crapped out for tandems due to the weather. They all got cancelled on Saturday when the cloud cover was too low, tandems norrmally exit at 10,000' AGL (Above Ground Level). The clouds were at about 1,500' most of the day. Now, the USPA states that an experienced "D" licensed jumper (Licenses go: A, B, C, D, with D being the most advanced) must deploy his/her main canopy by or before 2,000' AGL and make the decision to cutaway a malfunctioning main canopy and deploy the reserve canopy no lower than 1,600'.
So, what did we do you ask?
Well, we went up and made a jump from the 1,500' ceiling of course! Yea, it was a little low but you got a fantastic ground rush out of it.
Now, we've got a campsite site up at the edge of the trees alongside one of the runways where we cookout, camp, bonfire, and just generally act stupid in the evening. At the end of the day (after not being able to jump) the clouds lifted and the weather cleared so we put another load of jumpers up. We were going to go up to 5,000' and jump a sunset load because it's beautiful to watch the setting sun over Lake Michigan from the air. On the way up though I suggested that instead of landing and Swooping the pond, we should land over at the campsite and swoop the people that were there and mad at us because we snuck a plane load up to jump.
Everybody said sure.
Then, I suggested that not only should we swoop the people over at the campsite, but that we should do it naked.
Everybody said sure.
So now we have four grown men crammed into a tiny Cessna 182 airlplane all getting out of their skydive rigs, getting naked, and getting back into their rigs, all at 3000'. The plane suddenly took on the scent of a funky high school locker room and the pilot suddenly had an inordinate amount of interest on what was going on outside of the airplane. We all jumped out and suddenly there were penises falling from the sky!. One of the guys lost his clothes on the way down and had to wrap his canopy around him on the ground to walk back to the hanger (and his car in the parking lot).
After that, we went back out to the camp and I made up corn on the cob over the grill. We couldn't start drinking yet though because with the moon full, we were going to go back up and do some night jumps. Night jumps are very cool and very nerveracking all at the same time. They're cool because the world is very beautiful from altitude at night, there are an unimagineable amount of lights everywhere and all the cities are lit up like sparkling jewels spread out everywhere. It's nerveracking because you can't see shit! You can't see each other in freefall or under canopy, you can't see the ground, your depth perception is fucked, if you land off of the airport it can be very tough because you can't see trees, power lines, or any other obsticals in your way.
After making a couple of night jumps we broke out the beers and in celebration of a friends girlfriend moving to Ireland we all put on kilts and togas (don't really know what togas have to do with Ireland, but fuck it). Now, I didn't have anything on under my kilt and most of the guys followed suit. As the evening wore on and the beer took effect the "cockandballs" sightings increased dramtically. There were just as many women there as there were men but for some reason THEY didn't feel the need to walk around lifting their kilts/togas up at every one.
Go figure.
So, what did we do you ask?
Well, we went up and made a jump from the 1,500' ceiling of course! Yea, it was a little low but you got a fantastic ground rush out of it.
Now, we've got a campsite site up at the edge of the trees alongside one of the runways where we cookout, camp, bonfire, and just generally act stupid in the evening. At the end of the day (after not being able to jump) the clouds lifted and the weather cleared so we put another load of jumpers up. We were going to go up to 5,000' and jump a sunset load because it's beautiful to watch the setting sun over Lake Michigan from the air. On the way up though I suggested that instead of landing and Swooping the pond, we should land over at the campsite and swoop the people that were there and mad at us because we snuck a plane load up to jump.
Everybody said sure.
Then, I suggested that not only should we swoop the people over at the campsite, but that we should do it naked.
Everybody said sure.
So now we have four grown men crammed into a tiny Cessna 182 airlplane all getting out of their skydive rigs, getting naked, and getting back into their rigs, all at 3000'. The plane suddenly took on the scent of a funky high school locker room and the pilot suddenly had an inordinate amount of interest on what was going on outside of the airplane. We all jumped out and suddenly there were penises falling from the sky!. One of the guys lost his clothes on the way down and had to wrap his canopy around him on the ground to walk back to the hanger (and his car in the parking lot).
After that, we went back out to the camp and I made up corn on the cob over the grill. We couldn't start drinking yet though because with the moon full, we were going to go back up and do some night jumps. Night jumps are very cool and very nerveracking all at the same time. They're cool because the world is very beautiful from altitude at night, there are an unimagineable amount of lights everywhere and all the cities are lit up like sparkling jewels spread out everywhere. It's nerveracking because you can't see shit! You can't see each other in freefall or under canopy, you can't see the ground, your depth perception is fucked, if you land off of the airport it can be very tough because you can't see trees, power lines, or any other obsticals in your way.
After making a couple of night jumps we broke out the beers and in celebration of a friends girlfriend moving to Ireland we all put on kilts and togas (don't really know what togas have to do with Ireland, but fuck it). Now, I didn't have anything on under my kilt and most of the guys followed suit. As the evening wore on and the beer took effect the "cockandballs" sightings increased dramtically. There were just as many women there as there were men but for some reason THEY didn't feel the need to walk around lifting their kilts/togas up at every one.
Go figure.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
tiffanyjewel:
I knew they was a reason I like you!
niobe:
