This trip report was written by one of my closest friends who jumped with me...

YFH Trip Report: Sky Death May 16, 1992
by Cherry Zinger


The weather was questionable, with a low cloud cover threatening to foil our plans. All we could do was to wait at the airport, hoping that the ceiling would lift. Our crowd consisted of Dave Juitt, Mike Travis, Kathy Gallup, Paul Wisner, Ron Collier, Sue Desmarais and me. After what seemed like ages, we were given the ready sign.

The staff picked Paul and me as the first victims. We donned our Speed Racer jumpsuits and canvas harnesses and waited for our doom. Jim, my instructor, explained how the process would work up to the exit point. I still had no idea how to land.

Jim and I, Paul and his teacher Dave crawled into the tiny plane, sat on the floor and rolled down the canvas door. You don't need much runway for such a small aircraft, so we were soon in the air. There was a strong sense of anticipation, but I still didn't feel scared. I was unusually aware of my surroundings as I concentrated on the tasks ahead of me and took in Jim's bird's eye tour of Northampton. In no time, we'd climbed to 6,000 feet and Jim clicked our harnesses together.

"Ready?" Jim asked. I nodded and helped him to roll up the canvas door. At that moment, it became real for me and I felt a deep foreboding. We inched towards the opening and soon my feet were being whipped by the cold, moist air. I was sitting right on the edge, but still we moved forward. I was outside the plane, hanging only by the harness connecting me to Jim, we leaned forward and fell.

It felt out of control at first and my first thought was "I don't think I like this". Once we gained control, I forgot entirely that we were plummeting headlong towards the earth. It was wonderful and felt like I would imagine a bird feels in the air. We did our first barrel roll to see the bottom of the plane. When we turned back over, the landscape seemed to stretch on forever. There was no concept of up and down, just a feeling of being part of infinite space surrounded by bright colors. On our second roll and I saw Paul and Dave jump from the plane. The free fall lasted under 20 seconds...

Suddenly we seemed to shoot upwards and the loud roar of the air stopped. It was silent and we were drifting slowly down under a large rectangular canopy. I realized then that I was grinning from ear to ear and that I hadn't stopped laughing from the moment I started enjoying the fall. The countryside was beautiful, newly planted farmland surrounding the buildings of Northampton. Jim pointed out several landmarks and we chatted a bit, but mostly we just enjoyed the view. We did a few tight spirals (Jim likes tricks), then spotted our landing site. I listened carefully as Jim explained how to land. Once that was taken care of, we still had lots of time to watch and enjoy, and I tried to spot the others on the ground. The landing was surprisingly soft.

Once on the ground, I felt happy and thrilled and couldn't think of  anything to say to everyone's questions. I was still beaming. I relived every moment that I could remember and just couldn't stop grinning.

It was a nice day, despite the clouds, and we were having a great time watching the others jump. I was starting to feel disappointed that my jump was over, but when Sue said that she was going to jump again it took a while for me to decide to do the same.

The second jump was from much higher (7,600 feet) and from a different plane. This one had a narrow step under the wing which I had to stand on before the jump. I was strapped to Dave this time, and he explained how to exit the plane and what I could hold onto once outside. The wind was so strong, that it was all I could do to put my feet on that step and my hand on the wing strut. Dave crawled out behind me and we jumped.

Since it was my second time, I was able to guide the free fall. We did one 360 degree turn in each direction, then we did 'tracking', which is a streamlined dive straight towards the ground. It was the most thrilling part of the day and we fell incredibly fast. After Dave pulled the chute, I steered it for a while and we talked about all sorts of unrelated things. The fall was much longer than the first and felt more intense to me. The free fall was 20 seconds and the whole fall was over 5 minutes.

A truly exceptional day.