Jumping out of a plane - Something I could get used to

My Saturday experience was jumping out of a plane, but not just any, an old soviet military plane.

I woke up on Saturday morning slightly tired, but in good spirits. I brushed my teeth, splashed some water on my face, and headed to Vefa Center, one of the big malls in town, not far from my apartment. A large part of our jumping group was meeting up there. I don’t think our entrances could have been better if we’d planned them. A few of us got on the marshrootka (mini-bus) at Vefa and started riding to our destination, the end of the line. Every few stops several people would get off and one of our crew would hop on. Eventually there were seven of us on the marshrootka and no one else besides the driver.

When we arrived we met up with the coordinator for the parachutists and hopped into another car. We drove onto the Kyrgyz military base where the planes took off from and were deposited in front of a building with two parachutes on either side of the door. We filled out the “If you die, it’s not our fault” paperwork and a small Russian man had everyone, about 20 people, form a line. He went over how to properly land when you hit the ground. The most important thing he stressed was keeping your feet and knees together. He made it very clear that bones would be broken if this rule was not held to.



Eventually they lined us up in order by height and started strapping parachutes on us. They were military standard issue static line parachutes. It was a lot different and a lot less comfortable than the tandem free-fall I did earlier this year.

After we were all strapped in he yelled the Russian equivalent of “Right Face” and all of us turned right and started moving forward towards the incredibly old soviet planes that were waiting for us. Someone made the observation “At least if the plane goes down, we can jump out!”



When it was finally time to go I was second. The instructor shouted to the guy in front of me to stand up and get ready. Then he screamed “POSHYOL” and my friend looked almost as if he wanted to say “you mean me?” Then the instructor shouted, in a thick Russian accent “GO!” and my buddy dove out the door without hesitating.

Immediately after that I was told to stand ready. When I heard him shout “POSHYOL” I bolted out the door. There was only a short lurch and then I felt the static line tug my ‘chute. Later, on the ground, most of us realized we had forgotten to count to five as we had been told. The ride down was beautiful and calm. The landing was a lot softer than I had expected as well.



Now, all I need is two more static jumps before I can go take the class on how to jump alone without a static line.




Pictures courtesy of Dennis Keen and Aaro Ylitalo.