After a mere year of planning, a couple of friends and I finally accomplished a tandem skydive!! Back in November of 2004, my friend wanted to do it for his birthday in April. We did some researching, but never got around to planning it until around June because we're that lazy. We found the company 1-800-SKYRIDE and called them and got our tickets for $180. I also sacrifice another $85 for a video of our jump.
So we scheduled our jump for August 3rd at 11:00am. On August 2nd, I called them to get more detailed directions, and they told me that the jump was cancelled because of "wind conditions." Bastards.
A couple of weeks later, I called them again. They made me call their help-desk line. They made me call the drop-zone in Missouri. After all this phone crap, I was able to make an appointment on October 1st! Our drop zone was to be in Lexington, Missouri at the "Lexington Memorial Airport." What a joke.
So the time came on this past October 1st. We all live in Lawrence, Kansas since we're all attending KU. It was about an hour and a half drive from there to Lexington. When we got there, we had to sign about 3 or 4 forms saying that if we died, it wasn't their fault. We also had to watch a roughly 45min video on what-to-do what-not-to-do stuff.
We waited around for about 30 more minutes, until they paged me into the hangar and I was to go first. We couldn't all go up at once because their POS plane could only hold 4 and the pilot, and since I had a video they had to fit the camera man in there too.
I got all suited up, which just included the harness and goggles.
We walked to the little plane out front, and went through a little play of what's goin down when we get up there. We all climb in, and take off.
It was about a 15 minute ride to our jump altitude of 10,000ft, the scariest 15 minutes of my life (it doesn't help being afraid of heights AND flying). My instructor, who beared a lot of resemblence to Chuck Norris, showed me his altimeter when it got closer and closer. When we got close, he hooked the 4 hooks on my harness to his since he's the one with the parachute. When we got all hooked up, the camera guy popped open the plane door, and simply walked out onto the step over the plane wheel, and held onto the wing. You have no idea how loud it is! With the plane moving so fast, the plane being so loud (propeller), and the wind outside, it was deafening! My instructor told me to put my left foot out onto the step, then my right, then to kneel down like a catcher and cross my arms over my chest. He gave me a ready, then we just rolled off the step and did 2 rolls out into the sky!
Since we were falling at 120mph, you can imagine how windy it was! It seriously feels like you're flying, none of that falling sensation like you'd get on a rollercoaster or drop ride. We free-falled for 40 seconds. In just that 40 seconds we fell 5500ft. He pulled the parachute open and there was a light yank upward. Just then all the wind stopped and it was deathly silent and peaceful! So we just floated around for about 10 minutes before we had to come around for a landing. We came towards the airport, and the instructor flared up the chute and we simply just touched down on the ground as simple as standing up when you get out of bed. I was speechless for the next 2 1/2 hours.
This was probably the most amazing experience I've ever had. If you've been thinking about doing this, which i'm sure everyone on these forums has, get up and do it. It's well worth the money and you'll never forget it! If you do go through with it, make sure you get the video of it. Mine was great! The camera man taped us getting ready, the plane ride up, and our entire jump while he was falling about 3 ft away from my face! I still get cold chills when I watch the video! If you ever want to conquer you fears of heights/flying like I did, this is the only way to do it! Jump out of a plane!
Skydiving 10/1 
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