Throwback Thursday: when was your first time skydiving? #TBT
January 16, 2025 edited
It's Thursday!
New year; new heights to reach and new things to do! One of which I think I will probably never do is skydiving. I am just too much of a chicken! But I will try something new this year, I'm just not sure what it will be...
Sooooo, when did you skydive for the first time? Or have you thought about going skydiving?
Many years ago, as a leaving present when I left Australia, friends bought me a static-line parachute jump, and they came along too. On the day we drove out to the Blue Mountains the weather was dreadful. and at the time there had been a number of deaths in previous weeks in parachuting across Australia, so we were all nervous. We did the training in a cold hanger, and they kept insisting that the plane would be able to take off from Sydney to take us up despite the incessant rain and winds outside.
As it happened, it couldn't, and I left Australian never having jumped. My friends returned a week later and jumped, but one suffered from sensory overload and had literally no recollection of what happened from the moment he left the plane, so was banned from every jumping again. The other friend loved it, and went on to do many jumps, progressing to skydiving and getting a large number of jumps under his belt.
I never tried again, but there are many experiences in life, and I've never regretted not being able to do it.
I once got as far as going to the airfield ready to try out skydiving, unfortunately the weather changed and it wasn't safe to sky dive, so I did a bungee jump instead. That was in 2000, I've never once desired to do either one since then!
Last year with most of my family. I'm not fond of heights so this was going to test my courage. Wasn't a big fan of the rid up and actually stepping out on the wing to jump out (tandem jump). I wish my plane was like the one pictured above. It was a lot smaller.
After getting out on the wing it was go time. We jumped and I have to say it was one of the best experiences I have had. It is hard to explain, but before the chute opens, it feels like you are floating, no roller coaster stomach feelings, just floating, even though you are falling fast.
Once the shoot opened then it was time to relax and do some maneuvering, which was fun, but floating down at this point was fun.
I would highly recommend it if you are on the fence.
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
I'm in the never column. When I was adventurous enough to try it, I didn't have the money. Now I can afford it, I tell myself that my cardiologist would advise against it, but I really just have no desire to do it now. 🪂
I'm with you...don't think my new thing for 2025 will be skydiving. 🤪 I do have a motto I've been somewhat living by the last 5 years since jumping into a new career, but I'm afraid that sucking at skydiving could end poorly. LOL!
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
On both sides of my family, we have many USAF aviators and civvy engineers of which fall into two categories when asked this question.
Many of you share the first type of feelings to this question; "A 100 years of refining flight and airfoil characteristics did not occur to enable mankind to built the most perfect, working flying machine for me to jump OUT of it."
Second type: Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
I am the second. I have to start churning steady work first. But, when I do, I already have my sights set on tandem jumps o utof Santa Barbara. If I enjoy myself, I would even consider working towards solo jumping licensing.
As I'm afraid of heights, jumping out of an airplane is not an option 😨
I'm also not a fan of flying but I did fly a couple of times here, within Europe. HOWEVER, this years goal is to get on a transatlantic flight and attend Team in LA, so we'll see how that will go (although I haven't yet bought the ticket 😅)
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
Yeah, this is an experience I had last year and it was simply "incredible", and I'm looking forward to repeating it, it was wonderful, and it was a fantastic day, not too windy, but sunny and the temperature was perfect.
I highly recommend it, because I've had the idea of doing it in my head for a long time and I will definitely do it again, because it was one of the best moments of my life
What a question, almost like, "When did you drink your first beer?" like it's perfectly normal to jump from a plane. You are a star @Kristján Geir Mathiesen 😆
I've always had zero interest in skydiving, and I don't think it would be an enjoyable experience for me. Thinking of it doesn't give me fear or anxiety; it just sounds like something far away from my desires.
My mom did it a few years ago, and while I was watching the little plane go up, I just thought, "poor mom, this looks like a very unnecessary adventure." 🤭
Oh my gosh! Do I have a story to tell you about skydiving! I just started at this brand new job, and I you know, it takes a little while to get the vibe of the office. So I was just chilling out and minding my own business for awhile. That went on for about two weeks, and then my new boss, after some small talk, asked if the President of the company came by yet to introduce himself. It was a real small company, so the president wanted to get to know everyone in the company, so I figured that wasn't a big deal. I told my manger he didn't, but got a big snicker in return.
Little did I know that the president was a real big skydiver, and part of his onboarding ritual was to take the newbies skydiving. What the heck, not something that came up in any of the interviews, HR never said anything about it, what was I gonna say?
So now I'm waiting for the president to come by with the big news.
Finally, about a week later, the president came by, introduced himself, and we chatted for a bit. Here I'm waiting for "The Question" to come up. But it never did...
If you got this far, I'm quite impressed. I haven't had any coffee this morning, and that literally just came to me. Yes, I made the whole thing up, Just thought I'd provide a little fun to our Atlassian Community with this post. Happy January! I did say I had a story to tell! :)
Great experiences with jumping on this post! I wanted to skydive so badly when I was younger but, like @Barbara Szczesniak, I didn't have the money at the time. Now that I'm older and wiser, I think not.
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
28 comments