Category: Friends’ Stories

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20th Anniversary of Parachutisme Atmosphair!

Bonjour tout le monde!

 

Nos amis à Parachutisme Atmosphair célèbrent leur 20e anniversaire cet année.

Pour fêter ceci, ils font un concours mensuel ou ils donnent soit un saut Tandem, un rabais de 15% sur un cours de parachutisme ou des sauts gratuits dépendant de votre statut comme parachutiste.

Je vous suggère fortement de mettre vos noms!

Bonne chance!

Hey Everyone!

So our friends at Parachutisme Atmosphair are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year.

To highlight this momentous occasion, they are having a monthly draw giving away either a tandem skydive, a 15% discount on skydive lessons or some free jump tickets depending on your status as a skydiver.

I strongly suggest that you all sign up!

Being that it’s in Quebec City, it’s all in French, but just to sum it up:
You fill in the details, (Last name, first name, e-mail) then the same for a friend you’d like to refer.

Good luck and Blue Skies!

Adam


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Ever heard of Parabatics? Neither did we!

So once again, Nick in Florida has surprized us with a new video.

At first peek, it doesn’t look like anything special, but once you realize what’s actually going on…
Just check it out:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxKKWmxVWMk[/youtube]

I asked Nick to do a quick write up about his experience, here it is:

One of my more recent ventures in skydiving has been learning parabatics or acrobatic flying of 2-4 canopies and pilots linked together either via leg lock or straps. My friend Bob told me that only about 3% of Skydivers actually get into CReW as a primary discipline within our sport and that only about 1% of those 3% every consider or get into parabatics. For me parabatics are a total release. It requires focus, the ability to stay calm and think quickly, and absolute trust of the other person or people connected to the straps with you. Something as simple as turning the canopies left or right is now a combined effort once attached via the straps making coordination between the pilots paramount. My overall learning curve has been quite steep and in 5 jumps I’m told that I’m doing better than most with far more jumps than I have. To be quite honest it almost feels natural to me like its something I am supposed to be doing. For me parabatics has brought me closer to recapturing the feeling of that first skydive many moons ago. Most of our jumps end with a final downplane that we ride to about 1000 feet before severing the strap connection. If there are any other canopies still in the air it forces us to end sooner and if conditions are right the downplane can be ridden conceivably as low as 100 feet giving both pilots ample time to safely land their canopies (something I’m looking forward to doing when the time and place is right). Hope you enjoyed a view into what I like to do under canopy!

Cheers
Nick

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New records for the books!!!

Andrew Toman of the Hired Guns just let me know that there were two more record breaks for freeflying done at Parachute Montreal the 20th of July.

The first, a 30 way head down jump:

 

And an 18 way head up:

Congrats to everyone who participated, this has been quite the month for Canadian records!!!

 

Below, a picture of all of the skydivers who participated:

Blue skies everyone!

 

Adam

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Whuffo’s first jump

Until recently, Kalpesh S. was a Whuffo. (For those of you who don’t know what a whuffo is, it’s a person who asks “What for?”  As in: “What do you jump off a perfectly good airplane for?).
I came across his post on Twitter asking if he should try it out. As all of you know, the first thing I’d tell anyone contemplating their first jump: “DO IT!”. And guess what? He did!

I asked him to write up an article about his experience and I’d like to welcome him to the group of people who will not look to the skies longing to return =).

Untitled
By Kalpesh S.

“I am going to be your best friend for the next few minutes”, said my skydiving instructor, Adrian. He could not have spoken truer words as my life dependent on him doing his job.

As we were gearing up, Adrian continued to give me instructions on the steps to follow during the dive. Surprisingly for a person who is/was afraid of heights, I was not feeling nervous yet. The credit for this goes to Adrian and his precise instructions. After a final check of the gear, we were ready to board the plane.

There were three other divers in the plane. I was hoping to be the first one to jump off, but ended up at the very end of the plane. “Are you comfortable jumping off a plane that is put together with a duct tape?” Adrian asked. “Better to jump off than stay in such a plane”, I replied. I would feel the air getting colder as we started climbing. “We are at one mile, but that is not enough for us, is it?” Adrian said. “No sir, we will get up to 2 ½ miles”. No signs of nerve yet. After a short while, we arrived at the desired altitude and the plane’s door opened up. The other divers jumped off one by one. I was thinking I might get nervous once we get to the edge of the plane. However, we didn’t stay at the edge  long enough for the nervousness to kick in. We took the plunge almost as soon as we were at the edge.

Fear was not the first thing I felt; it was surprise. Surprise because I did not get a feeling of plummeting to Mother Earth. It felt more like floating even though we were falling at an incredible speed. Since the weather was clear the view was awesome. I did look down to the ground once and realized how far up we were. It was an amazing feeling. The parachute opened up after about one minute and our descent slowed down considerably. This gave me more time to look around and take in more of the views. Adrian and I were still talking as he continued to walk me through the process. We manipulated the parachute towards the landing area. I could see my family way down on the ground. They still looked so tiny. I knew they were looking for me so I tried to get their attention by waving at them. But they were looking in the directions of the other divers trying to identify me. Finally, it was time to land. Adrian had prepared me for this as well. We had a smooth and uneventful landing followed by hugs all-around.

This was a fantastic experience made possible by the very skillful team at Skydive Snohomish. Thank you for doing a great job. I WILL do this again.

You can watch the video of skydive below – comments welcome.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JnhrEnR1q0[/youtube]

 

 

I want to thank Kalpesh for sharing, and if ever any of you decide to try out a tandem or take your AFF or PFF, please let me know, I want to hear about it!

Blue skies!
Adam

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My 100th Jump – By Normande

Another great piece by a friend of mine that she had written but never published:

My 100th skydive

Written by Normande M. C.

Translated by Adam A.

July 21st 2009.

For the past 2 days I had been working at my front flips, back flips and barrel rolls with nothing in sight but my 100th jump.

15 minutes before the jump, I was told that we were going to do something special for my 100th…. a Four-Way.

“Uhhh.. I’ve never done anything more than a 2…”
“I’ve been training for my RW”
“I have things that I need to work on…”
“A four?”
“Screw it, I’m confident! I’m gonna take full advantage of this opportunity!”

Above, were the things that ran through my head soon after being told what we were about to do.

Next came the briefing, ah, not as bad as I though, I can do this.

I just need to perform a smooth exit,
keep my heading and speeds in check,
keep an eye on my altitude and open at 4500 as planned.
And the most important: Have fun, smile and savor the beautiful moment I’m being offered.

Back on the ground, I find my friends from the sky.

An unforgettable moment.

This was my 100th jump.

This was my moment.

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An inspiring story.

So my friend Manon is a great writer. Her boyfriend Luc is a skydiver and he introduced her to the sport a short while ago.

This is her story:

Homage to my man

Written by: Manon Corbeil
Translated by: Adam A

Well, well! Those of you who know me know quite well that sometimes I need to write to clear my mind…

My new friends however, don’t know this about me… Tonight, It’s to them that I dedicate this as I feel like I’m about to explode and it just has to come out!!

And who’s responsible this time?

Yep… Again him… I already owe him so much from the last three years…

How did it start you ask?

The birds… That passion developed itself very early during my adolescence when I lived in the beautiful town of Dorval. A classmate pointed out that in Dorval we could easily identify over 200 different species of birds… I figured he was lying until one day I actually started paying attention to those same birds! To their singing, their silhouettes, the way they fly… Their actions.. With time I managed to recognize and even identify them with ease and also, as incredible as it may seem. I managed to feel exactly what those birds feel during flight!

I hear you all saying: “She’s fucked in the head!”  Uhhh yeah, I admit it, I must be and I won’t hide it. I do however remain convinced that I was a bird in another life – Most probably an eagle – I’m very happy to believe this.
I was always comfortable with the idea that I was a bird in my past life and I never had any difficulty accepting the fact that my present life was to be that of a human and that flight was impossible…Therefore, the desire to find myself as free as the wind between the earth and the sky was always quite present deep down inside of me and I must admit that I was extremely pulled towards hang gliding at a certain point in my life.
Circumstances and obligations of day to day life often have the unwanted effect of pushing our dreams aside, until one day we finally convince ourselves that these dreams are to remain dreams and that desire ends up becoming nothing but fantasy… An unfulfilled fantasy. With the years that pass we finally tell ourselves that these dreams or fantasies are simply “not for us” and we find all the good reasons to finally reject the idea and simply scrapping all those dreams that never became a reality…
 WRONG!
It’s crazy how our perspectives can change from that moment when we decide that things are “accessible”!In my case, I only needed one person to convince me so!! That everything is possible!!! That as long as the desire is there, anything is possible!!!
This same person convinced me, more often than I’ve had to convince him and for multiple reasons, that we can. That if we simply want it enough, we can accomplish all of our desires!!
How can I even begin to show how much I appreciate this person? I pump all the love that I am able to find inside of my heart out and give it entirely to this person, because he is mine and I love him deeply with a love in it’s realest and purest form.

Where was I? Oh yeah… Flying… Like a bird…

My man… He’s a skydiver. He’s been one for a long time, and for reasons that differ from my own but have just as deep an effect, he found himself obligated at a certain point in his life to put this passion of his aside…
It was only in August 2010 that he had the initiative to give me a thank you gift – for helping him with some difficult renovations – that gift was the gift of a tandem skydive at Voltige.

A dream, that dream, the one that I had pushed away deep down inside me and closed beneath a bunch of different experiences finally came back to surface! I was given the chance to FLY!!! Me? I couldn’t believe it!
But… That day… I felt… I savored… I flew.. The sky!!! It was…. magical! Extraordinary!! A sensation that I can’t even begin to describe… You have to live it to understand it!
But then the days passed… Then the months… Winter arrived… I finally came back to earth..
Come spring 2011, he’s in need. His vital urge to “jump”… I can’t comprehend it…
I decided to accompany him during one of his days at the drop zone… And then… That was it! A mechanism went off inside of me… I want to “understand” I want to “live it”!
But, I remained silent for weeks because deep down inside of me “it’s just not for me”… Then one day, it just turned off… And I repeated to myself:It’s crazy how our perspectives can change from that moment when we decide that things are “accessible”!I want to become a skydiver! It’s finally clear! I’m 43 years old and I don’t care!
August 18th: I started my wind tunnel training with Philippe.August 20th: I was doing my theory school with the marvelous Gina. I had the intention of doing my first jumps the same day… Unfortunately, it was too windy and I had to wait until August 27th for that to happen.

4 jumps in the same day! All accompanied by my mentor Gina!
Those 4 jumps were incredibly meaningful to me… I accomplished a dream… I felt like I had achieved a step towards being myself, way farther then I had ever thought. Never would I have believed that I could do 4 jumps in the same day! I succeeded at them all on top of that!

Gina knew how to take care of me regardless of how fearful she knew I was. She knew how to convince me that I could do it, she knew just the right words to say.. I owe her enormously! Surely I was a huge challenge for her! Bravo and thank you Gina!

Then came Richard’s turn to accompany me in the sky for a jump. It was cloudy, but we decided to go anyway. It was a beautiful jump… Beautiful until the moment I was to open my parachute…. A little moment of panic in my eyes, I couldn’t find the pilot chute handle…. Richard saw it in my eyes and quickly came to my rescue. Thankfully, I managed to find the handle… Phew!

Next came my first solo jump… I absolutely needed to do it the same day as my last accompanied jump because the last one didn’t go too well (stupid pilot chute!) I couldn’t permit myself to make things worse.. Once again, this jump was into the clouds… And regardless of all that happened, I had the joy of experiencing this all alone for the first time in the magnificent sky above Joliette..

A week past between this jump and the next…. Just enough time for that famous fear to ingrain itself inside me again. In my opinion, it will always be present and I will now have to learn to “deal with it”. This time, it was Annie who “kicked my butt” because truthfully, as soon as I got to the drop zone, I didn’t want to jump at all. Just like Gina did, she knew exactly the right words to convince me to jump!

All these solo jumps… What more can I say but: WOW! Pure happiness!

This super long text to finally thank a bunch of great people…

Everyone at Voltige truly is perfect!

Thank you Richard for my Tandem… Thank you Philippe for the wind tunnel… Thank you Gina for… For everything! (You know what I mean) Thank you Mario, Olivier and Daniel for the radio assistance (And the hugs)… Thank you Annie for the kick in the butt and for your inspiration (Your pictures and videos) thank you Dino for being my cameraman during my exam… Thank you Manifest girls for your patience (My millions of calls and all)

Thank you everyone at Voltige! You are amazing! Thank you to all my new skydiver friends!!!

But most of all… Thank you Luc, my man… All this is thanks to you! I love you!

Manon