60 Seconds – Skydive Doco

October 3, 2017 skydive
Category: Skydiving Documentary

“60 SECONDS” profiles the lives of skydivers in Dubai.

Their lives are built around the love of the sky while experiencing the greatest adrenaline rush.

Transcript

Andy Ford:                              What do I love about skydiving? Skydiving is the most complete sport in the world. It doesn’t matter how many jumps you do, there’s always something new to do. It’s an amazing experience. Every time you go up is different, so it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Rene Logan:                           Skydiving means, yeah, it’s actually all my life. I wake up with it, go to bed with it. I don’t have something else in my life. It’s only skydiving. Almost a addiction.

Richard  S.:                             Skydiving is, I guess having fun. Freedom. Basically just having fun, having as much fun as you can, with the people that you enjoy sharing time with, and yeah, just going crazy, going wild, jumping out of planes.

Piri Rewa:                                I got into skydiving to do wind-suiting specifically. It’s where you wear the squirrel suits. I love that, it’s just like flying. The skydiving, I like it but the wind-suiting doesn’t compare.

Lynette Ward:                      It doesn’t matter who we’re taking up, whether it’s a male or a female, we’re here to strap people onto our front, they were a harness. We jump from an aircraft, whether it be a helicopter, a fixed wing from around 13,000 feet, and introduce them to skydiving.

Accidents, incidents. Ohh, let me think. Yep, I suppose there could. We have a big competition here in November, and the guys are doing lots of swooping, where they drag their foot across the pond, and land on the land. Yeah, there’ve been a few trip ups. Yeah, I think some guy hurt his knee when he swooped his foot across the water, landed a bit funky, and rolled, hurt his ankle, or hurt his knee something. Yeah, it happens.

Billy Sharman:                      It’s actually, for us it’s actually safer for us, skydiving or jumping out of an airplane, than it is actually driving to and from work. You know the numbers are in your favor when you’re jumping out of an airplane. You know, you have a main parachute, if that has malfunctioned you get rid of it, and have a reserve parachute. Reserve parachute is packed by a professional. A guy that’s gone to school, he’s gone and he’s learnt how to pack a parachute so well that it minimizes the risk of that parachute malfunctioning.

Brad Cole:                               So like this particular person has not used their reserve in the last 180 days, and it came due for a pack job, and here we are.

I’m more or less right now just prepping it. I’m going to lay it on the ground, and do a very detailed folding process with it. Right now I’m just kind of getting everything orientated in the right position, just very quickly. This is more or less what a main pack job would consist of. A main parachute, I’d be done with it. I’d be ready to move on and put it inside the deployment bag, and go jump it again. This one however, I’m gonna lay it on the ground and work on it for about half an hour.

Billy Sharman:                      You know when you start, very first start going through your skydiving career, or skydiving as a hobby, you get taught these safety procedures on how to save your life. Every time I jump out of the airplane I touch all my safety handles. You know, I’ve got three at one, it’s gonna open my main parachute. Two, the other one’s gonna get rid of my main parachute, if that malfunctions. Three, I use this reserve, and that’s gonna open my reserve. I think everybody gets nervous, and some there’s definitely things that can go wrong. You know it’s definitely something that you look at and be like, “Well, this could happen and that could happen.”

But the more you do it, the more understanding that there is, certain things in skydiving that protect you against the things that can go wrong.

Voiceover:                              Oh shit. Oh fuck. What the fuck is that man? Oh dude, that scared the shit out of me.

Billy Sharman:                      You know I think if you have the right mindset, the right knowledge, and you’re taught the right way to go about it, I don’t think there’s that much danger in it, you know. It’s a pretty safe sport. Probably more safe than say, you know, Formula One racing, but at the end of the day anything that you do’s gonna have some danger in it.

Brad Cole:                               I think most skydivers, and most tandems view this sport as their therapy, you know. It’s probably more expensive than going to a therapist, but a lot more fun.

Billy Sharman:                      People ask “How much money does it take to start skydiving?” My response is always, “All the money that you have in your banking account,” ’cause that’s what you end up spending. ‘Cause this sport just sucks you right in. The people, the camaraderie, the friends that you make here, are life and death situations you know. You tend to bond very closely with people.

Brad Cole:                               I think the situations, the trust scenarios that you put yourself into when you jump out of an airplane with people, the friends that you make are lifelong. You know like I said, there’s other sports out there, for sure, that you live and die with your friends, but you know if you skydive long enough you lose friends. You have friends that die, and if you skydive longer you have more friends. It’s just the nature of the sport. Most people that are dying these days in this sport are people who are pushing the edge. It’s a relatively safe sport but on a daily basis people that you meet, in and out, or people that you start jumping with, the friendships you build. I think that would be my favorite thing about it.

Piri Rewa:                                What do I get out of skydiving? For 60 seconds I don’t have to worry about anything. For 60 seconds I live 60 seconds. Like I’m not worried about what’s happening later on tonight, or I don’t have any dish washing liquid, or what’s for dinner. Like for 60 seconds, as that clock ticks down you fully get 60 seconds of your life, from 13,000 feet to five and a half, or if you choose to go higher or lower. You know, like I feel you truly live because you’re not worried about anything.

Definitely, I mean, like I said I wouldn’t be here if it didn’t make me happy, and at the moment, for what I’m doing in my life it makes me happy. Very much so, and I try to remind myself that every day.

Lynette Ward:                      What do I love about skydiving? A couple of things, I suppose the chance to travel the world. You can pick up wherever you go, and see the world from a different angle. You know, how many people actually see the palm from above. That’s pretty amazing. The adrenalin in itself, and again I really love introducing people to the sport. I love to see their buzz. I love to see them get what I get out of it, and that’s the excitement of it all.

Benjamin Forde:                 I mean it’s my passion. It’s the feeling of freedom. It allows me to get out of what I’m doing and have a moment by myself. Even though you might be jumping with 100 or 200 other people at the same time, and holding hands or whatever, you’re still by yourself. You’re still, your mind is completely by itself, and that’s a rare feeling. It’s hard to get anywhere else.

Speaker 10:                            People they think it’s a very selfish pursuit. They think it’s all about you know, just the rush, or the thrill, or the adrenalin, and I won’t lie, it is about those things, but there’s also something about what we do that’s very sort of meditative, and very peaceful, and is also about the science of doing this. It’s about the achievement, the competition, the pushing of the boundaries of what humans can physically do.

Rene Logan:                           What I want to know, let people know is that skydiving is really relaxing, and not extreme, and going for the rush. It’s the most beautiful sport there is I think. It’s so nice to see the view and to jump out of a plane in the morning. I think it’s the best feeling there is.

Johnathan Tacle:                Probably that it’s one of the most misunderstood sports and I think people think of skydiving as one of the things to do on your checklist before you die, but I think it’s actually a way to celebrate life on a regular basis.

Voiceover:                              Meanwhile …

Skydiving in 1982

skydive
Category: Skydiving Documentary

What was skydiving like in 1982?

It’s 1982 and a group of Australian’s are frothing over the sport of skydiving. What a blast from the past this is. The Chief Instructor and Co-Owner of Skydive Jurien Bay, Pete Lonnon, had just began learning to skydive in 1982! Enjoy this classic video.

Transcript

Voiceover:            When I first started, I had this terror. It was more than a fear, and I thought “I can’t last in this sport, I know it’s gonna kill me.” I’d just say to myself “One more. Just one more.” And sometimes you look down from the airplane and you see your car.

And I said “If I make this jump, I’m gonna get in that car, and I’m going home, and I’m never coming back to this place.” I just kept that up, and finally the terror dropped down to a nice quiet little fear. And then you start to enjoy it. You really enjoy it.

(Singing)

Speaker 2:             Three! Two! Go!

Voiceover:            The ram-air parachute is designed the same as an airplane’s wing. It’s got forward drive that was unheard of, in round canopies. And it made the sport just so much more fun. And now, instead of just descending, we can fly.

You become virtually a pilot, you’ve got to land this thing, and land it as softly as possible.

Speaker 3:             We got out about 10,000 feet then, and that gave us approximately I’d say about 45 seconds of free fall, before we had to put a parachute out. And you can do a hell of a lot of things in 45 seconds. After a jump I’m usually full of adrenaline, and I shake like this. Well I am cold, but the shake comes from … I just had a big rush. And it’ll take me a little while to calm down.

Voiceover:            The drop zone is more than just a place where you jump out of airplanes. It’s somewhere where you mix with people with a common interest. Nothing else seems to exist for two days of your life.

Speaker 3:             That was top dollar, real good. But I’m bloody cold!

Voiceover:            I think it’s the friendliest thing I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve been in a lot of other sporting clubs, and they really didn’t care what happened. But in jumping, people care, they really care.

Speaker 3:             Yeah, a screamer.

Voiceover:            Jumping is such an incredible experience, and for as little as $100, anyone can do it. It doesn’t matter how big or how small you are, if you want to do it, you can do it. It just involves one weekend of your time. You’re up there on the Saturday, you do your ground training, and on the Sunday you’re a skydiver.

Speaker 4:             That feels nice, solid grip on the step, put that hand out. There’s a lot of wind out there, something like 60 miles an hour, so you’ve gotta make sure you get a good grip there. [inaudible 00:06:23] with that hand, and this leads out here.

Don’t be frightened of the wind, it’s not gonna hurt you. It’s just blowing nice and hard. Like I said, like on a motorbike. And from there, it’s just a gentle hop. Okay? Nothing difficult. You let go, bam. You fall away, and as you do your count, this tightens up.

As that tightens up, that happens. So, as you’re falling away, and this stays inflated, all the line’s coming out. You can actually see that they’re full of elastic bands there. And as you pull away, all those lines come undone. Just like that.

Now that’s what you call line stretch. Locking flap opens, then the actual parachute starts to come out of the bag. And the whole thing opens from the top down. See how big it is? See all the gores, all the panels that make it up? You got the apex, you’ve got the bag and the pilot chute there. And you’ve got all these big panels here, called modifications.

Voiceover:            Packing parachutes isn’t such a great big of a deal, it’s really just like folding a handkerchief. When you’ve packed your own, you really know what you’ve got on your back.

Speaker 3:             I always pack my own parachute. It’s something you’ve got in this sport, otherwise you wouldn’t jump. Jumpers are basically a lazy lot, and they hate packing. I really don’t think you’d get anyone to pack it for you.

This particular parachute cost me $900, 18 months ago. And you’re looking at about $500 for the container, and anything up to $700 you can pay, for a reserve parachute. So they’re expensive, but they do last a long time, if you look after them.

Speaker 5:             I went into a fence not too long ago, and I’ve got a few good tears in here. So I’m just putting this rip stop on it, sort of gives it a bit of strength, stops the tear from becoming any bigger. Personally, if I get a hole in this thing, I like to make sure it’s patched up, you know?

It won’t really cause any trouble with the flying features of the canopy. But you tend to forget about them after a while. There’s so much area here, and if I find one hole and leave it, and sort of think “I’ll fix that next week,” well the next week I might have to spend an hour or two trying to find the one hole in amongst all this material.

Speaker 4:             Okay. Power. Out you get. Go! One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand, six thousand. Okay, you’ve got to be aggressive, you’ve got to put a lot into it, okay? There’s no use going up and going one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, it’s very wishy-washy.

You go out, just go “One thousand! Two thousand! Three thousand!” It’s going to be that much harder, isn’t it? Because you put a lot into it, and that’s what we want to see. Really military like.

Speaker 6:             Five four three two one, three thousand! Okay on the rear risers, watch your height, watch your alts. On your toggles, give it a pump. Approaching two thousand feet, you’d like to cut away.

Speaker 7:             If you have an accidental deployment in the aircraft, remember, try and smother it as quick as you can. If it does get out one of the holes, make sure you go out the same hole with it. If at any stage you’re sitting beside someone who has this, make sure to get out of his way and give the wearer every opportunity to get out.

Voiceover:            Jumping as we know it now, as sport parachuting, was really started in the army. They really pioneered the whole thing. They have contributed a lot of jumping. Sports clubs started with army surplus gear.

Army jumpers today are a hell of a lot different band of people than they were, say 20, 30 years ago, when they were doing it for obvious reasons. Not only are they doing it for a sport, they’re doing it for a job. And jumping is their whole life, not just their weekend thing.

Speaker 8:             Determined to have its airborne operations and para-drops top-ten perfection, the Department of Defense stages continuing tests at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And here an advanced party hits the ground, to prepare the way for the main body being disgorged on transport planes of the 18th air force.

2,000 paratroopers of the famed 82nd Airborne Division are engaged in the maneuver. The most spectacular mass jump since World War II. A sky full of fighting men, ready, willing, and able, for any emergency.

Speaker 9:             Parachuting has come a long way since the Chinese first started jumping off towers, way back in the 12th century. Even Leonardo Da Vinci had a go at designing them. Fortunately for us, he never tried. Since the Second World War, the sport of parachuting has caught the public eye, with aerial barnstormers performing spectacular stunts like this.

Voiceover:            Parachuting in the early 70s was a real gung-ho sport. I think this is where people got the idea that parachuters are daredevils, and they’re crazy and I think, from some of the films I’ve seen, I agree with them.

Speaker 9:             Geronimo! And now, to mark the beginning of the 70s, last weekend, a group of skydivers got together in the sky over a New South Wales drop zone, or DZ as they call it, south of Sydney, Australia. To prove that men can indeed fly.

Photographed in free fall by daredevil cameraman Brian Quinn. And this is the Australian record. 14 skydivers linked together. Truly, a space age sport.

Voiceover:            Prometheus. I really wondered where they got the name. It didn’t seem much of a name for a team that was gonna represent Australia, and I thought “A guy sitting on a rock with an eagle eating his liver?” That’s just not on.

And then you check it out in the dictionary, and it says “A Promethean, one creative, boldly original. One who dares to exceed the bounds which others accept.”

Speaker 10:          Ready! Set! Go!

Voiceover:            I think, in the amount of time that I’ve been in the sport, and the people that I’ve jumped with, they’re really really brilliant. I’ve never seen anything in the sky like it. They’re just poetry, they’re beautiful to watch.

Speaker 11:          Eight Way Sequential is really a fantastic picture of eight symbols, moving around together, doing the same thing together, connections from back to front. To do it well, as well as Prometheus does, it’s really flying, there’s no others to describe it. They have a lot of different ideas of how to go about it. But everybody on that team knows exactly which end is which.

Voiceover:            The average skydiver couldn’t reach that degree of excellence just jumping weekends, with different people. They are very good skydivers anyway, to start with, and they just do so many training jumps together. They all learn, they sit on the ground and talk after every jump.

They improve on their last performance. If they can see a mistake in one of their team members, they tell them. It just grows. And over a few hundred practice jump, this thing just becomes a team.

Well the world meet is what it’s all about. All the practice, all the money, you’re finally there. And you’ve gotta do it. It’s not a fun jump anymore, this is serious. And this is why you’re there, this is why you spend years and years of training.

Speaker 10:          Ready! Set! Go!

Voiceover:            In one dive, they scored nine formations. And that would have been enough to win the world meet. But there was a missed grip on the third formation. So they didn’t score, after the third formation. There was only three people in Prometheus actually knew that that grip wasn’t taken.

The other five people thought they won. It was only on the replay, with the video, that it was picked up. It’s not just up to a judge’s eye anymore. They have cameras, and they can play them and play them. And they don’t lie.

Speaker 12:          After the jump, everybody’s under the canopy going “Yahoo!” And we’re all landing really close together, everybody’s going “Yo!” You know how we can get this vibe which is that you’ve just done it, the one that you need, pulled it out of the hat.

And the girls are running over and knocking us down, saying “Yeah, you go boys!”

Speaker 13:          Ladies and Gentlemen, the results in the Eight Way Sequential event are as follows. In third place, Prometheus Australia with 79 points. In second place, [phonetic 00:18:36] Auspex Canada with 81 points, and in first place, eight golds to Mirror Image, United States of America, with 83 points.

Speaker 12:          It was nice to receive a medal. Not as good as what we wanted. We felt really good. We all looked at each other and said “Ah, we’ll see you around next year, probably.”

Voiceover:            When it was all over, and the guy said “Third place,” of course they were disappointed. They never went over there for any red ribbons, these guys wanted to win. But I suppose there’s hard luck stories in every team. I suppose if we spoke to the Americans and the Canadians, they had made mistakes too. You always say “If…”

To get a team like this together, it’s gotta be a total commitment. They’ve gotta say “Well right, we’re gonna spend a great deal of dollars.” And their life’s just not gonna be their own for the period of time that they’re training, anyway, for a meet as important as this.

None of them got any money today. They’re broke. They’ve spent everything to go to the world meet. You go to training camp and you’re paying something like $12 a jump. And these guys have done hundreds of jumps, to train.

I think they’d do it again. They really loved it. They were dedicated skydivers, and they had a purpose. They wanted to do something, and they bloody near did it.

Dido, I think everything that she could do, she won the New Zealand national, she’s a really good style and accuracy jumper. She’s been to world meets. But she’s a very friendly person, she’s a good person to jump with, always got a smile. She’s a great girl.

Di:                              Go when we’re ready?

Speaker 14:          Yeah.

Di:                              20 seconds.

Speaker 14:          Yeah, pull away for 20 seconds, and then just go into your style.

Di:                              Done?

Speaker 14:          Yeah.

Di:                              Your practice is basically learning to do exactly a 360 degree turn, stop it, do another one, stop it. Do it backward, stop it. And still end up facing the same direction. It’s hard work. It’s not fun. But if I do a good jump, I just love it.

If I do nine jumps in a weekend, and the ninth is the only good one, I go home feeling so happy.

Voiceover:            The sunset land, on any drop zone, has gotta be the greatest jump of the day. It’s just got so much atmosphere. There is a certain feeling of unwinding. You’ve been tense all day, you’ve been packing, jumping. And the sunset land just tells you that it’s all over for the day, and you just feel so totally relaxed.

Speaker 17:          Go! One thousand! Two thousand! Three thousand! Four thousand! Five thousand! Six thousand!

Speaker 4:             [inaudible 00:22:26] function turn to the right.

Speaker 17:          Legs together, hold.

Speaker 18:          You want me to throw it?

Speaker 4:             Yes.

Speaker 18:          Throw!

Voiceover:            Drop zones tend to be one big happy family. Everybody knows everyone else. The amazing thing about jumpers is that they’re people first, and jumpers second. They definitely don’t have suicidal tendencies, despite what a lot of people think.

They’re no different to anybody else. All they want to do is jump out of airplanes, mix with people with a common interest.

Speaker 19:          We had a beautiful little eleven-man going.

Di:                              Athol’s always there, he’s just really good to have around. Everyone likes to see him here, and jump with him. And he loves jumping, just loves it.

Speaker 19:          And when I come in under reserve, it was all twisted and I couldn’t get my head up. No!

Di:                              Athol’s always encouraging, he always goes out and helps people if they’re getting a bit down. He’s the one who goes and cheers them up. At the nationals, he’d come to you and he’d say “Go Di, you can beat them, come on you can do it!”

And I’d say “Oh Athol I can’t! I’m doing quite well but I can’t keep it up.” And he’d say “Yes you can, you go out and you do it.” And so I did, I went out and did it.

Voiceover:            After a day’s jumping, you sit around a fire with a can of beer. People just talk, they talk about the sport, they talk about themselves. And you learn so much about people. And jumpers really are a unique bunch of people.

Jumpers will rage all night. And they really enjoy one another’s company, and feel really upset when its over. This party should go on forever.

Speaker 19:          Look down here, this nice big paddock, this is cool, this is great. Fence there, fence there, great open country. And this tree went “Woo!” Whack, straight into this tree. I couldn’t believe it.

Speaker 4:             Okay you know what you’re gonna do on your first jump don’t you? Okay, power off, climb out on the strut, out you get, you’ll be out there. Set yourself up, what do you do when you’re ready? Ready to go?

Speaker 20:          Look at you.

Speaker 4:             Look at me, that’s right. And I will yell out “Go!” Then what are you gonna do?

Speaker 20:          Jump and spread eagle.

Speaker 4:             How does that feel?

Speaker 22:          How do you feel? Alright, happy?

Speaker 20:          Nervous, yeah. Apprehensive, uh-huh. But overwhelmed, excited.

Speaker 4:             Feel happy? Know what you’re gonna do? You’ll be right.

After somebody goes through the training program, and they realize how the equipment works, how to handle malfunctions, generally their fears tend to disappear. Because they know the gear’s gonna work. They’re confident with their instructions, what they know.

The only thing they’re a little bit worried about maybe is if they stuff up. And there’s no way of them knowing that until they’re actually out of the airplane, and doing it.

Happy? Turn around and back in. Slowly, take your time. Okay, watch that reserve handle back there please.

Voiceover:            I always remember my first jump. I think most people who jump do. It’s something that really sticks in your mind. I remember on mine, I was very very frightened. And the instructor was giving a few corrections, a left here and a right there, to bring us in over the spot.

And I remember him looking over my shoulder, giving all his corrections to the pilot, and I was thinking “It’s gotta be soon” and “It’s gotta be soon,” and I was very agitated. Then you just hear this very loud voice: “Power off!” And it’s “Well, this is it, here I go.”

Speaker 4:             Power off! Out you get.

Voiceover:            I had this feeling that I really didn’t want to do it. And I remember moving, but very very slowly. I really don’t think I was in any hurry at all to get out of that airplane.

Speaker 4:             Go!

Voiceover:            It was just so much tremendous drama. The noise of the airplane, the wind, and then total silence. From one world into another in a split second. It’s a feeling that I’ll never ever forget.

Speaker 20:          It ain’t gonna stop. Incredible. That was amazing. While I was up there [inaudible 00:28:16] he said “Now make sure you watch me. Just keep watching, no matter what you do. Get a good arch, and look at me.”

So when I went, I was just … the instruction come through, but I was just looking at the guy, and he just had one big smile on his face. I saw the plane go away, it was just amazing. Coming down it was incredible. Ahh. It’s got me hooked. Got me hooked.

Speaker 23:          Ready! Set! Go!

Voiceover:            Demonstration jumps are really our link with the public, where people do get their first glimpse of parachuting. If you have a demonstration jump, you’re going into a sports ground, or whatever, a football field, and you getting out over a town, and it’s just so different.

All the houses down there, and the roofs. It just looks a lot closer than it is. It’s not as free as a normal jump. People expect you to land on this cross. And they expect you to get in. They don’t want you landing two miles away from the football field, when you’re supposed to get in there and entertain the public.

But if you’re good enough to go on a demonstration jump, well you’re good enough to land on that cross. And if you’re gonna stuff it up, well you’re just not gonna go on any more.

Speaker 24:          [inaudible 00:29:52] the red white and blue canopy, she’s the former New Zealand champ and represented at the world championships. Who said chivalry’s dead? Look at Di, she’s getting a very cushy landing as the fellas catch her, landing right on target.

And finally it’s Tony’s turn, and as the rest of the team pull him in for another successful accuracy jump.

Voiceover:            I know there’s not a lot of things in my life that I really look forward to. I know from Monday to Friday now it’s just sort of an existence until the weekend comes, and then you feel happy again, there’s no pressure.

When we’ve got a DC-3, everyone’s really got an adrenaline rush when they walk on to the place. It’s different than normal jumping, like say out of five-place aircraft or whatever. You’re going in to do really big jumps.

Personally, I start to feel excited around about the Wednesday. Yeah, the butterflies are really big. The public look at you and they say “Well this guy does that, this guy does this, he’s some kind of superman, he’s so very very brave.”

I think I’ve met some of the most delicate people I’ve ever met in my life that jump out of airplanes. They’re just normal people from all walks of life. I don’t think you can put it into any category. I mean, I know people, doctors, lawyers, tradesmen, truck drivers, whatever.

There’s just nothing that says “Right, now this guy’s gonna be a skydiver,” on his background. It’s something that the individual’s got.

Speaker 25:          I’ve tried this before, it doesn’t work.

Voiceover:            A dirt dive is really essential to any skydive. It’s like a little dance. What you want to do in the air, you’ve gotta do on the ground first. And you practice it, and practice it, and practice it.

Speaker 25:          Why don’t we go from that principle 14-handed four-man cat, and then opposing, then like suddenly go to a donut, spread out to a donut. [inaudible 00:32:18] and do that one hand, just turn on one hand. Don’t take your other grip up until we get it straight.

Voiceover:            You can work out something real elaborate on the ground and it works really good in the dirt dive. And you get in the air, and you only need one person just out of position, or high or low on the formation, and it just doesn’t work.

But I think in fun jumping, more than competition, the dirt dives are like that anyway. You always have a plan B, and say “Well, if this doesn’t work, we’ll do this.”

Speaker 26:          We’ve got a cameraman on this load just in case.

Voiceover:            I’ve been in countless funnels. Things just go out of control in the sky, someone takes your air, and everyone seems to get a big laugh about this. I’ve been taken out so many times.

And you get on the ground and nobody’s ever done. You’ll say “Who blew that? Who bombed the stack?” Nobody. So there’s a phantom jumper up there somewhere. And he’s just blowing formations out everywhere.

Speaker 2:             How’s everything in Central Queensland, Skip? [inaudible 00:33:44]

Voiceover:            You really really get to know people when you’ve jumped with them. You can drink beer with a guy, and you don’t really know that guy. But when you jump with him, you know him. He’s himself, he’s not acting anymore. There’s no pretense. It’s real, it’s happening, you really know what that guy’s all about in the air.

When you’re sitting in the plane, you just watch the different reactions of different people. You see some people asleep, other people looking out the window. You see other people that are really agitated, and they’re checking their gear.

Of course, that sets off a chain reaction. Anybody that’s watching hims tarts to check their own gear. Some people show fear more than others. Some people try to act super cool but it’s there. It’s there with everybody.

Speaker 19:          But it’s all over when you get out. Don’t follow it all out the door, you’d have a big problem. I think everybody’s mostly feeling the same. A little bit apprehensive in the airplane. I think basically these people love to be scared. And that’s why they do it. I don’t think you’d do it if you didn’t get a rush.

Speaker 27:          If you worry about it, it tends to sort of accumulate, and you blow it for the rest of the people. You want to make it a good jump for everybody else as well.

Speaker 18:          Every time you go through the door, you wonder how is the jump gonna go, what’s gonna happen. No matter what you plan, they never really work out according to plan.

Voiceover:            When you get out of the door of an airplane, you’re committed to what’s on your back. And all the yelling and screaming in the world is just not gonna make it any different. That’s there, you’re committed with that.

And I think once you get this idea in your head, stop worrying about the gear, it’s gonna work, you feel confident with it. You do a hell of a lot more in the sky.

Speaker 28:          The feeling you get is a bit like riding a motorbike at high speed. You’re right there, you’re living yesterday, you’re not living tomorrow, you’re not living outside it, you’re all right there. And it’s all happening very fast.

Speaker 10:          Ten seconds! Ready! Set! Go!

Voiceover:            A guy once said to me “Whenever you get doubts in jumping, and you say “Why do you do it?”, always answer yourself in free fall. Never answer in the airplane or on the ground. In free fall, that’s where you answer all your questions. And you get a true answer.”

Free fall. That’s total happiness. I feel happier doing that than I think anything I’ve ever done. But there’s no sensation of speed, I don’t get a sensation of speed. I don’t get a sensation of falling. It’s just a freedom thing. You actually feel like a bird.

If you want to be in a certain place, you can be there. You can fly there. And you do it with people you like, it’s just so much better.

The free fall part of the jump is the most relaxed part of the jump. But when you gotta put that parachute out, that’s – I’ve spoken to a lot of jumpers about this – this is when it happens. You’re watching every move it makes, and you just want a little bit of a start on it.

If anything does happen to go wrong, you’re on the ball. Malfunctions are something that the jumpers don’t really want. I know a few jumpers who’ve gone through 1000, 1200 jumps, never had a mal. And they become a little bit paranoid about this.

It happened to me on my 81st jump, and it really surprised me. “What the hell have I got here?” I was jumping old gear. But on the old gear it was cables, and you’ve got to pull these covers down, pull rings, to cut away the main parachute.

And the gear I had was pretty antiquated. And I put out this 24-foot float. And it opened beautiful, you know. And it was worth a million bucks that parachute. At the time, you’re glad it’s happened, because it’s “Now I can do that.” And that’s great, and I feel happy. But then again, 19 jumps later, I had another one. And yeah I screamed like a girl.

Like everything these days, I guess you reach a point where you feel you can do something well. Then you want to do something different. For skydivers, it’s what they call canopy relative work.

Canopy relative work hasn’t been around for a long time. It’s only the last few years. I think that people believe that they can do more in jumping than what they’ve been doing previously. And so they started putting one and two parachutes together. And then said “Well why can’t we do three? And four?” And now the sky’s just the limit with canopy relative work.

Speaker 29:          Controls. [inaudble 00:47:56]

Power.

Voiceover:            If you want to go snow skiing or you want to ride a motorcycle, or whatever, it’s no good saying “I wish I could do that.” You go and do it. And you mightn’t be very good, but at least you do it. And I think that’s what life’s all about, is doing what you really want to do in life.

Saying “I’d love to do that but I’m too scared,” how do you know you’re too scared if you don’t try?

Speaker 28:          Every time you get on a plane, you know why you do it. There’s just nothing like it. There’s no feeling on Earth like it. That I know of.

Speaker 30:          You’re flying. You’re flying with these guys, just floating around. It’s amazing.

Speaker 10:          One minute. Clip in. Clip in.

Voiceover:            If I ever do live to be an old man, I want to sit in a rocking chair with a smile on my face, and say “Well, I’ve done that.” Instead of saying “I wish I’d’ve done that.” And I think that sums it up in a nutshell.

Speaker 10:          Ten seconds!

Ready! Set! Go!

Extreme Sports Documentary

skydive
Category: Skydiving Documentary

An Extreme sports doco!

Enjoy this brand new BASE web series from GoWorld Project and Rob Pelon. Ever been curious about the life of a free-faller? Well here’s your chance to get to meet one and learn the real reasons that motivate someone to participate in the dangerous and often times misunderstood sports of skydiving & BASE jumping.

Transcript

Rob Pelon:            I don’t know what really spurred my interest in jumping out of an airplane. I just made one jump, and then I made another one, and it just … the pieces fell into place. It’s just one more incredible excuse to play outside and fly.

My name is Rob Pelon. I was born in North Carolina, right around Raleigh. Growing up, I had a pretty normal childhood, normal youth, nothing crazy and wild, and someway somehow I got in my mind that I wanted to jump out of a plane when I turned 16. Thankfully, I convinced my parents that that was okay, and found the place, and I went. Three days after I turned 16, I made my very first skydive with Raeford Parachute Center, which is where I ended up spending pretty much the next five years of my life.

This is a formative years of my youth, were actually being around skydiving. By the end of that five years, I had over a thousand jumps that I’d already transitioned into BASE jumping. I had tandem ratings, AFF ratings, and a really good group of people that I’d learn to love being around and being around the air communities, whether it’s got anything, BASE jumping or paragliding.

That entry with skydiving is what introduced me to a whole new world and a whole new realm of human flight, human aviation. I mean, it still just absolutely blows my mind what we are capable in terms of unpowered or even powered flight as humans. It really just inspires me to always push harder and go further and explore more. My life’s passion at this point is that human’s flight element. It’s forced me to a whole new world of just a complete love of being in the outdoors, being outside.

[inaudible 00:03:33].

As a large part, there’s a pretty huge misconception about what kind of people we really are. It’s funny when I think back about the people I’ve learned to BASE jump from and with, they’re fantastic people. Multiple of them had master’s degrees. A couple of them had former military service. The people that I found myself surrounded in with BASE jumping are often very accomplished, very intellectual, but they just don’t quite fit mold of everyday life. They want to ask questions. They want to push harder. They want to take what we know as it exists and make it into something new or better and look beautiful.

It’s unfortunate that popular culture loves to only focus on the negativity, only focus on the unfortunate deaths and the risk side of BASE jumping and less so on the actual beauty of what it is. The activity and the people have taken me literally around the world sitting on cliff edges that I never would have known existed and few other people have ever been to either only to experience some of the most challenging hikes and the most rewarding flights and an experience in life that I have yet to come across anything that even comes close to matching it.

I don’t know what really spurred my interest in jumping out of an airplane and learning to skydive. In fact, I often find myself telling people I didn’t have any grand plan of ending up where I am today in terms of skydiving, BASE jumping. I just made one jump, and then I made another one, and it just … the pieces fell into place. I found out that it was something I liked to do and I was able to spend my time, my free time, hanging out with some of the coolest people I’d ever known and jumping out of airplanes at the time. It totally opened up a world that I didn’t even know existed, and then it became a path incidental, the fact I was already on it.

One of the frequent questions that I find myself getting asked is, “Well, what do your parents think about this?” In my case, I’m blessed with the fact that they’re totally supportive. My dad was the one who drove me to the airport when I was 16 to drop me off to go skydiving. My mom was fully onboard. Been very fortunate having a family that was not closed off to something that they were unfamiliar with.

When I started BASE jumping, in there, I think they understood that the risk factor goes up quite a bit over skydiving. There was still the supportiveness. There was still the conversations that revolved around assuring them with the risk management side of it. None of my aviations, activities, sports, any of them, have been in any hunt for the edge.

Scott:                       Oh, there he goes.

Rob Pelon:            What’s up?

This past weekend was spent in Mexico, enjoying a wonderful, some wonderful weather on the beach. Myself and my buddy, Scott, we did what, to the best of our knowledge, as a world’s first of two ultralights flying in formation, myself in one and Scott in the other, and basically flying right next to each other, wingtip to wingtip. We actually jumped out together, made a quick dock, and then tracked away right over the beach, right over the bar.

The first attempt, we just played it a little safer. In the second attempt, the airplanes flew just a little bit closer and we exited just a little bit tighter on each other, and add just tiny bit more altitude and we were able to, and just that split-second, get together, say hi, give each other a high five, and check off, and that was the last jump we did over the beach.

Yeah, baby.

Scott:                       Thank you, Lord. So freaking awesome.

Rob Pelon:            From the outside looking in on BASE jumping, it’s got to be a common question. People want to know how we can proceed, how we can go on when we have our friends get hurt, or even killed. Although I’ve never personally really found solace in saying, “They died doing what they love,” because, ultimately, you still have a friend who’s gone.

On the other hand, I don’t lose much time being affected by it because although the consequences are our final and it can be heartbreaking, these people lives the most genuine and vibrant life of the most people that I’ve met. Well no, it’s not acceptable. No, it’s not okay. There is that comfort knowing what they’ve experienced, the highs and lows. We’ve all been there. To be able to move on and continue to explore this passion of flight, I find it’s almost as natural as any grieving process.

A couple years ago, a good friend of mine back in North Carolina, we were having a drink and having a good conversation and talking about my BASE jumping at the time. I think I was really jazzed up on wingsuit BASE jumping, I think I just gotten into it at the time. He got quiet for a minute and looked at me and was like, “So, what’s the end game?” I had to ask him. I was like, “So, what?”

He’s like, “What’s the end game?” In the recent time, that’s sat with me a little bit more than it did that day. It’s a tough question. Is there ever going to be a point where the risk versus reward of BASE jumping doesn’t equate? Who’s to say? That’s possible. Life changes, things changes. I am open to that change in my life happening.

On the other hand, right now, do I see myself ever stopping BASE jumping? No. It provides so much to me and I get so much enjoyment sharing these adventures with other people and getting to … It’s just one more incredible excuse to play outside and fly.

FREEWAY

skydive
Category: Skydiving Documentary

FREEWAY – A skydiving story

This video follows a group of elite Australian skydivers as they attempt to create an Australian vertical formation record.

Transcript

Male: Jumping from 18,000 feet with oxygen is a whole different ballgame.

Mickey Nuttal:  It has to be built exactly like we stamped it.

Scatty: We’re trying to set an Australian record here. [inaudible 00:00:32]

Female: Yeah. The visuals I get, what I can smell off the door, what I can taste.

Male:  It’d be hard to get me to stop jumping. I guess I’d have to die. I don’t know.

Will Pesek: Skydiving to me means a lifestyle. It’s my life.

Male: Now, it starts off as a tandem which is just something you do for fun and then it can take you all around the world.

Male: Big way skydiving is about a group of people getting together to build a formation.

Scotty: It’s like a team. You know you got to rely on everyone else to their job as well. If you’re going 300 kilometers an hour and people aren’t doing their job, people can collide and things go wrong.

Will Pesek: The mental preparation for me on a big way is just trying to get calm, trying to understand that even though you’re doing something that’s a record or something that hasn’t been done, that it’s just like any other jump. You just have to do it at the same time with everybody else.

Scatty: The most important thing about big way formations is the base. It is critical that that base is rock solid because everybody else is relying on it. The base is the center of the formation. It’s the heart and if that’s not flying right, then the whole sky dive is.

Male: We hold training camps around Australia to find the country’s best free fliers.

Male:  It’s not just about being a good skydiver. The same as any sport, having that technique of being able to clearly explain what to do and how to brief and debrief people, it’s a skill and he … Mickey is at the top of his game when it comes to that.

Mickey Nuttal: If you’ve never been a part of her record such as the 69-way, when it’s flying, the sound seems to stop. It gets very quiet.

Male: As a full-time skydiving instructor, I spend most of my life at 14,000 feet but jumping from 18,000 feet with oxygen is a whole different ballgame.

Scatty: We’re the first people in Australia to jump with oxygen so it’s been really stressful that I feel like I’ve had the lives of 40 other people in my hands, being a head fuck basically. I guess the climax of that was yesterday.

Male: Everything was going really good until the end of day three and then, shit just started going wrong.

Adrian: I’m there on the lead plane and I looked out the left window and I couldn’t see him.

Scatty: We’re all on oxygen. We’ve got limited supplies.

Adrian: I hear over the radio that one of the planes had stalled. Too many people had climbed out and the plane couldn’t keep that speed through a turn, so it actually dropped out of the sky 2,000 feet and we watched it drop away.

Male: Can anyone see that? It’s falling out of the sky.

Male: No one really knew what was going on. The planes were circling around trying to get back in formation and people were starting to freak out a little bit.

Male:  Once you’ve been in that frame of mind where you’re scared, you’re not sure what’s going on, your mind isn’t focused on the task at hand and so the jump didn’t go perfectly.

Tyler Baird: As soon as we left the door, I don’t know what happened. I just forgot about everything and anything. I’m just … All of a sudden, I was on the ground. I don’t know what was going on up there. It was heavy. It was heavy. I’m so glad to be on the ground. Yeah.

Scatty: This morning was like a fresh start. It’s been four days and it’s tiring. Even though we’re only doing a few jumps a day, being this sort of … having this sort of organization is tiring but after a good night’s sleep, you’d wake up and there was the feeling that I think everyone felt like it was going to happen.

Scotty: All right, we’re going to get it on this plan and it’s looking good. Everyone’s feeling good. A couple of changes.

Male: Last day, man. I’m super pumped, super keen. The vibe is good. We want to go and run hard today. I can feel this record happening.

Male: We got the green light. Everyone started stacking up.

Male:  I was feeling better off from the exit.

Male: Okay, ready. Set. Go.

Male:  By the time I flew into the base, it was already building quite well. I could see on the other side of the base, there was a few people flying around and I started getting worried thinking, “Oh, shit. It’s going to be another one of those jumps.” It started building really smoothly and I realized that we had a lot of time left and then finally, it got built and then it was like everything just lied down. Everything went quiet.

Scatty: I looked over at Mickey and I was like, “Yes, we’ve got it,” and he was looking back at me and then we were just like, “Yes.” You could just see people’s heads start nodding and it was just a golden moment that we’ve been waiting for we.

Female: We all had a unanimous decision that you guys are successful.

Male: All the hard work, all the organizing lit up.

Male: You do it because you love it and that’s it. For me, this is what I love. It’s my passion and the same as everybody else on that record. This is what we do. It’s what we love and that’s the end of the story.

Will Pesek: The adrenaline rush goes away. Maybe try bowling or something. I don’t know.

Just Jump

skydive
Category: Skydiving Documentary

How do you deal with fear?

In this short but sweet documentary, the author discusses fear and how we as humans relate to it. Enjoy.

Transcript

Confronting fear has always been a big part of my life and fear is something we all experience. On the most basic level, we fear death. We know that we can’t live forever and so we’re terrified of our death. We tend to assume our fears are logical indicators of what we should avoid in life and so we just avoid these parts of life. We label our fears, categorize them, and they grow in power. Just like mold grows in dark, stagnant places, our fears grow inside us.

True fearlessness isn’t the absence of fear. It’s moving beyond it. To move beyond it, you have to confront it, snuggle up to it, really make an effort to feel it, hold it. Behind the beating heart, the sweaty palms and nervousness of fear, you might find sadness, a sadness at the basic vulnerability of your life, the fragility of it. This is where every skydive starts for me. You got to just hold the fear close to you, recognize that you have it, and just jump. You’ll notice that when you do this, it’s impossible to think about anything else, doing your taxes, that bad relationship you had or whether you’re living up to your family’s expectations. You simply will experience the richness of life. I still feel fear before a skydive but it never follows me out the door. Sometimes, you got to just jump.