Logbook
Pages from a student’s logbook as he goes through AFF and his coach jumps.
Below are some general questions and his answers, click on the tabs to read his logbook entry for each jump.
COMMON QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS:
1) “Aren’t you scared?”
Ummmmm, yes, but I recall being scared when I first learned to ride a bike, when I first became a parent, and when my daughter asked me about birth-control. Everybody has to judge how much they let fear dictate their lives. Me, I try not to let fear guide too many of my decisions. Plus, fear is a normal freaking response to jumping out of an airplane……but like anything else, it lessons the more you do it.
2) “Do you have a death wish?”
No. I actually like my life and I’ve found that skydiving makes me appreciate everything I do have a little bit more. It lifts my spirits and makes me feel alive instead of walking through life feeling like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. I do not wish to die any sooner than my time, but I also wish to live as much as I can while I’m on the earth. This is just one way to do that. And if I crater doing this, then my death will have been, at a minimum, on my terms. Of course, a number of folks who ask me these questions do so when they are smoking.
3) “Are you an adrenaline junkie?”
I must be. I’ve been married twice and have four daughters.
4) “Does it cost an arm and a leg to jump?”
Well, you can get by with just an arm but why not go all the way? Seriously, all the costs are up-front. Yes, it is a bit pricey initially, but how much do you value living your life? At what cost will you sacrifice your experiences in life? Again, these are individual choices and I’ve usually elected to go with gaining the experience. I’ll add that I spent many years in bars across this great land of ours spending time and money on beer. Since I quit drinking 3 years ago, I have saved a fair amount of cash. Now I get the excitement without the hangover.
5) “What happens if your chute doesn’t open?”
You hit the ground! No, seriously, you have a reserve and you are trained on how to deal with malfunctions. There is also an automatic opening device that will fire your reserve if you cannot. If your main malfunctions and your reserve malfunctions you have a serious problem on your hands…..but it will only be a problem for a few seconds. How many of your other problems last that long?
6) “Is skydiving safe?”
Safer than my motorcycle ride up to the drop-zone, and probably safer than the ride in the car you take each day. It is also clearly safer than marriage and won’t cost you nearly as much as the divorce. Look, if hundreds of people were dying each year the sport wouldn’t have much of a future!! Plus, drop-zones really like repeat customers!
7) “But you have kids! What happens if……..”
This is what insurance is for and I have a lot of it. And no, I don’t let my wife around when I pack a chute. For that matter, she has to stay outside of the hangar, away from the pilot, nowhere near the plane, and I check our bank account for unknown withdraws just in case she knows an instructor or two.
8 ) “I’m afraid of heights.”
So am I, and snakes too. I cannot stand on the roof of my house or any other tall structure, but I am a rated pilot and I’m learning to skydive. I also like roller-coasters, a good book, and Rage-Against-the-Machine. The point is, one doesn’t always follow the other. While I would never climb to the top of the DZ’s hangar, I will jump out of a plane 2 miles above the earth. Oh, I bungeed once off of a crane. Now that was scary.
9) “John, you are too old for stuff like this.”
*UCK YOU.
10) “I could never do it.”
Well, don’t. But please don’t use the “I could never…..” excuse too often. It will cut you off from opportunities for personal growth, from meeting really interesting people, from a passion you didn’t know you have, and more importantly, from failure. If you say you cannot do something, you are more than likely saying that you will not do something. One involves choice, the other passive subjugation. It is your call.
