The course was much more then I had ever expected. There were about 24 kids, we were all split up into groups of 8 and given an instructor. We had to learn all about how the parachutes work, how to fly them, what to do if something went wrong and we had all of the practical learning. I can't count how many times I had to put on a bright orange and red jumpsuit and a harness and actually practice jumping out of a plane. They had an old plane that was raised up off the ground so we actually had to jump out and as soon as you jumped you had to arch your entire body (wasn't easy) and shout "archthousand, twothousand, threethousand, fourthousand, check canopy!" and I mean shout. We had to do this because the parachute would open about 4 seconds after we jumped out of the plane, so we had to stay in the arch position until the parachute was open so that it would open correctly. Then we had to check to make sure that the parachute was working, that there were no twists in the wire and that we could control the parachute. I had no idea how much stuff there was to think about when you skydive.
When learning what to do if our parachute was not working we were harnessed up in harnesses that hung down from the ceiling. If you parachute is "malfunctioning" you needed to cut it away and pull out the reserve parachute. Sitting in the harness we each had to practice "cutting away" the parachute because there would be a jolt when you did this, which sometimes threw people off. That was pretty cool, there really was a big jolt.
When we were finally done we got a certificate that was also a jump card, that signified that we could jump. We were in lessons from 9 in the morning until 7 at night! by the end of the night I was completely exhausted, but of course the club had set up a bonfire and a BBQ so I hardly got any sleep.
I was told that the next morning I would be able to jump on my own, given that the weather was ok. Unfortunately, the weather today was awful for skydiving. It was way too windy and the clouds were too low. So I didn't get to jump, even after all that hard work. The good thing is that I can go back any weekend and do my first jump. So hopefully I'll get to do that soon.
The jump base that we were at was called Strathallan. The Scottish Skydiving Club, which has been around since 1960, uses this place as their jump site and they were the trained professionals teaching us how to jump. The jump base was basically this huge field and places where the planes were stored and a house where people could sleep and eat.
Even though I didn't get to jump today I still really enjoyed all of the training (even though it wore me out). I really look forward to the next time I get to jump!
Me and one of the girls from the course, standing in front of one of the planes we jump out of.
The main building
The air field
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