I discovered skydiving in 1998, happen to be driving down the expressway and saw a billboard for Skydive Chicago, I had always wanted to do it, so I started checking out the different drop zones in the area by their web sites. After looking though three different drop zones, I found Skydive Chicago to be what I thought was the safest. I called and asked for a brochure on their drop zone, and prices.  Two weeks later I signed up for the static line class, and a week after that I drove the one and half hours to get there.

    First thing I had to do was sign my life away, literally. Next pay my $100 for the class and the first jump.  Class started at 8:00 in the morning, lasted all morning into afternoon, and ended about 3:00pm. Then about 4:00pm it happen!  I jumped from a perfectly running airplane! I wanted to get a picture that they offered but they only offered that on the Cessna, and we were in the Otter that day. Got into the door way, and made the mistake of looking down. :-)  This both scared me and got me more excited!  Got all set in the door:  Check in! I get the nod from Billy Bob (the JM), ready, set, go! ARCH!!   Wow!!  It was oh so very cool... only like 3 seconds if that till I was under canopy, but it felt like a long time. Nice huge canopy over my head with about 7 line twist. So I did everything they said in class, kick out of it, use the risers and pull them apart, didn't take long to fix that. Now I'm floating all alone up there, never experienced anything so quiet, there was not a sound up there, it was awesome! Now the hard part was coming up, how am I going to land my self on that little square piece of grass?  Another JM was on the radio telling how to steer this thing, so I get into the straight forward landing pattern, and get to about 10ft and try to flair this thing, came straight down on my two feet with a lot of force and it felt like a sprained my ankle but all was ok, I ended up falling on my butt, but I was ok. I made it to the ground all in one piece!  All I could say when I got back into the hanger was how so I sign up to do it again?! Billy Bob said before we took off, I bet your going to be addicted to this, of course I said I don't know about that. Now when I see him on the ground after the first dive, he asked how was it? What words could I use to describe this?  All I could say was how do I do it again? All he said was I told you so. I laughed, and found manifest! Turned out that it was to late for students to jump any more that day. I was back a few weeks later and did two more. Then I took some time off because I started college, but only two months later I was back and finished Static Line!  Then in the next few weeks, I started AFP (Advanced Freefall Program - similar to AFF only much better!), this class also was a whole day long. Jumped about the same time of day after this class, 3pm.  This jump was setup to be pretty easy, jump from 13500' with the JM holding on to me, turns out I'm glad he did!  I never pulled on my first free fall, he ended up pulling for me at 3500' I was supposed to pull at 5500' so he gave me an extra 2000' and I never pulled. For some reason I expected it to be a lot longer of a freefall, I don't think I ever looked at my altimeter once on this jump!  Newcomers: TAKE NOTE!  Always look at your altimeter as often as you can!

I currently jump here:

Chicagoland Skydiving

If riding in a plane is flying, then riding in a boat is swimming. To experience the element, get out of the vehicle.
                                                                                                                       - Anonymous