On Saturday, I joined some others raising money for the Lullaby Trust for their "Jump in June": a skydive from Salisbury airfield. As someone that is super-terrified of heights and having my feet off the ground, I was dreading this challenge. I had also had to tactically not tell my Mum about this one...
Looking forward to my newly gained afternoon in the sun, and dreading my early morning alarm, I was driving out of the airfield when I received another call - letting me know they had one space on the last flight of the day! What a rollercoaster! I said yes immediately, and did a quick turnaround.
After an hour or so sat in the sun, I went to get my jumpsuit on (I managed to squeeze my Lullaby trust t-shirt on over the top!) and got ready to get in the plane.
I say plane, but it was a tiny little thing! I was unsure that I was even going to make it high enough to jump out of...
The flight up was nerve-racking: at 6000ft our harnesses were tightened and there was no option but to lean back against the instructor. 4000 more feet up and then there was the noise of the engine changing pitch as it got ready to throw us out! I was near the back of the queue to leave the plane so saw a few others go first: the cameramen hung themselves out of the plane, while the instructor and jumper sat on the edge ready to fall. Then it was my turn. It all went pretty quickly, but the immediate freefall was just terrifying. To be honest, it was probably was the worst 30 seconds of my life...
When the parachute took hold, I just felt an overwhelming sense of relief and started shaking. Which kept going until about 30 minutes after I landed! The cruising down to the ground was weird - like looking out of a plane window, but with nothing in between you and the ground! The weather was great though, so the views were fantastic.
After a practice getting into the landing position at 3000ft, my instructor gave me a great tour of the countryside - pointing out all of the sights in view. Then came the landing, which was quick and simple. I was definitely in shock afterwards, and was very grateful to my boyfriend for being there to drive me home!
So I was due to arrive at the airfield on Saturday at 4pm. Where we were in Bournemouth, it was gloriously sunny, with a small amount of wind. I received a text from GoSkydive at 2 ish, telling me that they had stopped sending people up to jump because of the wind, and that their was a chance that I was not going to be able to jump: did I want to reschedule? No!! I had built myself up so much to do the jump that day that I couldn't deal with delaying. So I headed to the airfield with my fingers crossed.
On arrival I saw that they had started sending people up, as the wind had died down. However, when I had my training, they told me that there was not going to be enough time to jump, and that we should book another time: as we would have already done our training, we would be able to get a priority jump at 8am on another day. So we finished our training, I re booked for next weekend and headed back to the car. After a small breakdown, I realised I hadn't asked if they would be able to the next morning! I gave them a call from the car park and booked in for the next morning.
Looking forward to my newly gained afternoon in the sun, and dreading my early morning alarm, I was driving out of the airfield when I received another call - letting me know they had one space on the last flight of the day! What a rollercoaster! I said yes immediately, and did a quick turnaround.
After an hour or so sat in the sun, I went to get my jumpsuit on (I managed to squeeze my Lullaby trust t-shirt on over the top!) and got ready to get in the plane.
The flight up was nerve-racking: at 6000ft our harnesses were tightened and there was no option but to lean back against the instructor. 4000 more feet up and then there was the noise of the engine changing pitch as it got ready to throw us out! I was near the back of the queue to leave the plane so saw a few others go first: the cameramen hung themselves out of the plane, while the instructor and jumper sat on the edge ready to fall. Then it was my turn. It all went pretty quickly, but the immediate freefall was just terrifying. To be honest, it was probably was the worst 30 seconds of my life...
When the parachute took hold, I just felt an overwhelming sense of relief and started shaking. Which kept going until about 30 minutes after I landed! The cruising down to the ground was weird - like looking out of a plane window, but with nothing in between you and the ground! The weather was great though, so the views were fantastic.
After a practice getting into the landing position at 3000ft, my instructor gave me a great tour of the countryside - pointing out all of the sights in view. Then came the landing, which was quick and simple. I was definitely in shock afterwards, and was very grateful to my boyfriend for being there to drive me home!
It was an epic day, but I survived!!
www.justgiving.com/RADCC2015
