Point Break: A Closer Look at Jumping Out of a Perfectly Good Airplane
"Johnny, you're about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, how do you feel about that?" -Surfer Bank Robber Number 3
As a former skydiver, I often heard people tell me some sort of rendition of this clever quote before a jump or when I'd suggest to a friend that they accompany me to the drop zone. I always found this quote funny because its generally soooo untrue. Have you seen the state of the airplanes that they use to shuttle skydivers to 13,500 feet? I assure you, they are not perfectly good airplanes. Talk about a 1955 Russian Bumble Bee with wood crate seats and bungee cords holding the back ramp up...uh, yeah, must be a peach of a hand. Before you even take off you're running through the mental checklist in your head about what you'd do to get the hell out of there should something happen. When the pilot's got his parachute on you know you're in a real gem. Back when I was in that rap game the regulations used to state that we'd have to loop a seatbelt of some sort into our rig until about 500ft...or 1000ft...who can remember? As soon as we were air born for 5-10 seconds all seat belts were off. Perfectly good airplane...yeah, so long as you've got you're rig on.
J said:
wut?
May 02, 2014