Into thin air: a skydiver’s first jump

The trees turned into clusters of broccoliFrom an elevation of 3,000 feet, the landscape looks like a page from an “I SPY” book.  and silver roads twisted and turned like knotted shoelaces. Houses were scattered above the ground like small toy blocks on a wrinkled piece of brown cloth. Reality strikes when a person is falling to the earth and they cannot turn the page.

Ben Schimka is a member of the SCSU Skydiving Club, and on a cool autumn afternoon, he made his first jump.

“I became involved with the skydiving club because I’ve always had an interest in extreme sports, so when I saw that St. Cloud had a skydiving club I jumped at the chance to join.” Schimka, a freshmen majoring in network information security systems, said.

While flying at three thousand feet in a Cessna 182 airplane, Schimka anxiously waited for the jump master, an experienced skydive instructor, to swing open the small door on the plane.

“The part that almost made me pee my pants was when the jump master opened the door,” Schimka said. “The door flew open way faster than I had expected, and when it did, I was sitting inches from a fourfoot opening in the plane.”

He looked at the jump master and received his first signal to jump: “stand by.”

“The fact that I was going to jump out of the plane voluntarily moments after that didn’t cross my mind, I was just worried about falling out at that moment,” Schimka said.

Schimka threw his left arm outside the plane and grabbed the strut, the part of the plane beneath the wing.

He followed by swinging his legs out onto the step above the plane’s wheel. He looked back at the instructor for his last signal: “climb out.”

Schimka gripped the strut with both hands and challenged the ripping winds as he climbed to the end of the airplane’s wing. He spread his arms and legs apart, arched his back and let go.

While remaining in an arched formation, he counted to five, and by that time his parachute began to deploy.

The ballooning canopy abruptly swung him into a position where he could grab the toggles, the steering lines.

He reached up to pull the toggles, but he noticed a problem with the parachute canopy. However, he knew the solution and he quickly resolved the problem.

“I had some minor issues with my canopy once it was deployed, but the training I received made correcting those issues easy,” Schimka said.

Waiting for a radio command from the skydive instructor on the ground, Schimka glided above the trees and sprawling fields.

A voice came on the radio directing him to the target, the area where he would
land.

Pulling the toggles, he swooped left and right until he needed to prepare a landing.

Schimka listened to the command from the radio, “ready… ready… flare.” He then locked his legs, pulled the toggles to his knees and landed on his feet.

Schimka’s minor mishap in the air did not prevent him from jumping two more times that same day.

“My friends would probably describe me as a person that likes to have fun and do crazy things,” Schimka said. “I don’t think they would necessarily call me an adrenaline junkie, but they know I will at least try anything once.”

Prior to his jump, Schimka took a six-hour training course on static line skydiving at Skydive Wissota, in Chippewa Falls, Wis.

The instructors that teach the course are licensed by the United States Parachute Association.

Static line is a form of skydiving where the responsibility of controlling a parachute is in the skydiver’s hands—literally.

Unlike tandem skydiving, static line skydivers jump alone and control their own landing. From static line it is possible to advance to free fall, another form of the sport.

“I think most people who become involved with skydiving, in terms of actually becoming a skydiver, have a similar adventurous personality. Some people do it to step outside of their comfort zone, but those people wouldn’t normally continue with the sport,” Schimka said.

With 164 jumps under his belt, Chadwick Major, the president of the SCSU Skydiving Club, is an experienced skydiver.

Major, a senior mechanical engineering student, was introduced to the sport of skydiving at the Drop Zone in Hutchinson.

He still remembers the first time he skydived.

“I was excited and a little scared. The plane ride seemed like it took forever and I just looked out the window,” Major said. “Looking down it’s cool to see all the colors, but at that time you’re in panic mode.”

When he found out about the skydiving club at SCSU he quickly joined.

With his previous experience, he became president of the club. He coaches club members on what to expect when they make their first jump.

“When you land it’s a great relief to be on the ground, but your adrenaline is still pumping,” Major said.

The SCSU Skydiving Club has 33 members. They have monthly meetings to plan skydiving trips, and they go to the Drop Zone about two times per month.

“After you jump, all you can think about is going back up and doing it all again,” Major said.