Скачать или смотреть First skydiving jump, 7/30/16: Freefall

Here we go! I felt like we sat in the door forever, and I'm surprised it's such a short time.

Leaving the plane was really disorienting for a moment; I had no sense of where the plane, the ground, the horizon, or anything were. Luckily that passed very soon. My instructor told me that a tandem jump from a sitting position like this is probably the worst way to exit the plane in this regard, and in e.g. a solo jump where you stand up outside, then rotate to face forward as you release, it's a lot easier.

You don't get the "stomach drops out" roller-coaster feeling on leaving the plane. You leave with the same initial velocity as the plane, so you're already moving quickly, and it's more a matter of the air resistance redirecting that motion. And while the wind blast is noisy, it doesn't feel like it's shoving you, because the forces on you are balanced. So you feel like you're floating. I didn't even know my cheeks were doing that flappy thing. Felt nothing like sticking your face outside a moving car, though it looked similar.

I then did several turns. A turn is easy when you're spread-eagled: you push one elbow downwards a bit. Basically, if I were a plane and my arms were wings, I would be doing a slight roll. Roll right, you turn right; roll left, you stop yourself and then turn back left.

The last thing I did was "forward motion": tuck your arms back to your sides, and your body will pivot so the head is downward. When solo jumping, this will cause you to shoot forwards through the sky. Basically, if you want to feel like you're Superman, do this. My favorite feeling of all freefall!

Finally Eli pulled the chute. That led to the most uncomfortable bit, where the straps in my groin were taking my whole weight. After the end of this video, he loosened things a bit for me a few times, which helped some. Next time I'm wearing jeans!