Too Scared To Jump

by Jan Meyer

We all loaded up on the DC-3. It was nearly an entire "student" load. That is there were only a few "experienced" jumpers on board, the rest were student jumpers, such as myself, and our jumpmasters. There were 3 or 4 static line passes at 3000 feet. Passes were at higher altitudes for the students doing 10, 15 and 20 second delays before pulling. My assigned exit order was first out, on the second pass. Each pass had 5 or 6 people that followed each other out the door with a second or two between exits as the plane flew over the drop zone. After one pass was completed the pilot flew a rectangular pattern around the airport for the next pass.

The pilot taxied the plane to the tree end of the runway, turned around, powered up the engines and took off to the south. We climbed out of the sweltering 100 degree heat into cooler air at 3000 feet. It was noisy from the engines and wind and it was a bumpy ride from the thermals.

After the plane reached 1000 feet, the jumpmasters got up and prepared the first pass of static line jumpers. They got each student to stand up, closer to the door and then had to hook the student's static line onto the overhead cable. The static line is what actually pulls open the parachute. The jumpmasters checked the rest of each student's equipment. The equipment was military surplus. It was the same equipment used by paratroopers. They checked the snaps and connectors to make sure they were securely and properly fastened. They also checked the reserve parachute's ripcord pin to make sure it would work properly. They gave about a foot of the static line to the student to hold. It added a bit of slack in the line so that the static line didn't unstow in the aircraft. By the time the jumpmasters got all of this done, the plane turned onto jumprun.

The jumpmaster yelled "Cut" to the pilot and made a motion of slashing his own throat. The pilot powered back. The jumpmaster yelled "In the Door!". The first student set himself in the doorway. The jumpmaster then yelled "Go!". The student jumped out into the air, arched very hard to maintain stability while the parachute was opened by the static line. Then this was repeated 5 more times for each student.

"In the Door!--Go!"

"In the Door!--Go!"

"In the Door!--Go!"

"In the Door!--Go!"

"In the Door!--Go!"

All the students cleared the door in an amazingly short time.

The jumpmasters were busy again. They pulled the static lines back inside of the plane and unhooked them from the overhead cable as the plane started its trip back around for the next pass. One jumpmaster, who kneeled by the door, observed all of the students and wrote a short critique of each exit. Another jumpmaster started getting the next pass of students up on their feet and hooked up their static lines. I was the first one hooked up for the second pass.

There I was, staring out the door of the DC-3 at the dusty desert ground, 3000 feet below. I held tightly onto my static line attached to the wire across the top of the cabin. I trembled with fear. I had never been first out on a pass before, so I never got to see so much of the ground. This was the first jump after my first malfunction, but that's another story. The pilot banked the plane around for the down wind leg of the pattern. The horizon made a sharp angle with respect to the plane's door. My stomach was pushed to the floor. I was scared. I didn't want to be first out. I got scared if I looked at the ground. I knew that I was too scared to jump. I knew if I jumped that I'd panic, and panic kills. So I decided not to jump. I told my jumpmaster that I didn't want to jump. He said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Yeah I'm sure, unhook me and let me sit down before we turn onto jumprun." He kept asking me if I wanted to jump. I kept saying "No, I do NOT want to jump. Unhook me." Geez, I thought, why was is this guy so dense. Can't he see I'm not having fun and I'm not in control of my fear. Just unhook my static line so I can go sit down in the plane. Finally, I had to cower in the corner of the plane where the bathroom used to be, still hooked up as first out on the pass, to convince this guy to unhook me and let me sit down and NOT jump.

So the jumpmaster unhooked me in time to get the rest of the pass out ok. The plane went around for another static line pass. He asked me again if I wanted to jump. I still said no. Then we flew up for the freefall passes. The jumpmaster let me watch the exits by opening the wing window and letting me stick my head out and watch. It was exciting to watch. I remember one guy who was one of the few "experienced" jumpers leave the plane and tumble head over heels until I lost sight of him. Some other guy told me he was doing that "on purpose". "Yeah right", I thought.

On the way down, we passed through 3000 feet again, the exit altitude for static liners. The jumpmaster asked me again if I wanted jump, I still said no. We landed in the plane. I got out of the plane and returned my gear to the equipment area. My jumpmaster said to stick around for the debrief. He said, "You know skydiving is not for everyone. Maybe you should quit." What made me mad at this comment was that he didn't know me. How could he possibly know whether or not I had the mental and emotional control to be a jumper??

I went home and seriously asked myself if I wanted to be a jumper. I read Dan Poynter's book Parachuting the Skydiver's Handbook from cover to cover during the week. I read and re-read the parts on malfunctions. I wanted to make sure I could handle any emergency. I convinced myself I had the courage to be a jumper. I decided to go to a different drop zone to do my next jump, jump number 8.

The next weekend I went to a nearby drop zone and did a static line jump there. I did balk at the first pass around, then I went after another student had jumped. (Years later I found out that jumpmasters tended to put the "girls" out first because the "men" were less likely to balk if a "girl" had jumped just before them.) The following weekend I went back to the other drop zone. I did more static line jumps and was eventually cleared for freefall jumps. Within a month I had graduated from "student" status and bought my celebratory case of beer.

I kept pumping out the jumps. After one year of jumping, I had over 200 jumps, placed 42nd out of 46 in a Paraski meet and placed 2nd in a 6-way meet. I was hooked on jumping. After nearly 15 years, I have over 3000 jumps and have National Championship titles in 4-way and 8-way Intermediate competition.

Ironically, Dan Poynter asked me to help with the revision of Parachuting the Skydiver's Handbook in 1989. Para Publishing, Dan's company, also published my book: Parachuting Manual with Log for Accelerated Freefall.

So much for being to scared to jump.

Update March 2003

More so much for being too scared.

In 2002 I was part of two World Records in skydiving. The Women's Record of 131 and the 300-way.

Early in 2003, the USPA election results came in. I'm a member of the USPA Board of Directors for 2003-2004.

So much for being to scared to jump.