This was "Chapter 2" in what I'm sure will be a long list of flying adventures!
Chapter 1 was only two weeks before, and I loved that experience so much that I just had to do it again! This time, I also took a couple of friends from work with me (Shankar and Matt) -- it was their first time taking flight! Also, my other buddy Nitin and his wife flew as well, so there were 5 of us in our group!
Shankar and I got our rides up in the plane first... and we flew down together from 14,500 feet! Since we criss-crossed each other on the way down on several occasions, I thought I would put all photographs from both of our jumps together on this page. The pictures below tell the story of our flights:
The "Before" Pictures, right up to the point when we jumped off the plane and REALLY started flying!
And now our flights: I was the first to jump (first picture), followed immediately by Shankar (next 3 pictures):
The next 50-55 seconds or so were pure exhileration!!!
Without any warning, we suddenly felt a strong pull upward as the canopy opened, which was immediately followed by total silence, as we decelerated from 120 miles per hour to a gentle 10 miles per hour! The first row of pictures below is Shankar (under the multi-color canopy); the second row of pictures is me (under the blue canopy)
We crossed each other quite a few times while descending, at one point even getting within shouting distance of each other!
"Flying is the second-greatest thrill known to mankind.... Landing is the first":
This is Shankar's landing: He reached the ground before I did. |
And my landing (much better than the last time): |
And now for some "After" pictures: The guy in the blue-and-pink jumpsuit is Shankar's Tandem Instructor, Vic.
Last, but certainly not least, these are the folks who made my flight FANTASTIC: Connie, my Tandem Instructor for the second time in a row, and Jim, my photographer:
Matt's homepage with photographs of his jump!!!
Chapter 3 in my story of flight.............