Tandem freefall
What is a really cool thing to do when you turn thirty? Jumping out of an airplane, of course! The most accessible way to experience the thrill of freefall is a tandem skydive. At Hilversum Airport (EHHV), about 27 km or 15 NM southeast from Schiphol, this is only possible for four days every year. Two of those days were last week. Thursday was too cloudy for flying, but luckily I booked Friday. Skies were clear, it was a warm 25 degrees Celcius, with some 20 kts of wind from the south. Perfect conditions, in other words.
Tandem jumps require more elevation than solo or static line jumps. This is because the parachute is bigger, taking more time to open. The 6000 ft (1800 m) that Skydive Hilversum normally jumps at is simply not high enough for this. 6500 ft above the aerodrome is where Amsterdam CTA East 1 begins, and it is busy class A airspace. Last Friday was one of the few days where parachuting was allowed in a column of air up to 13000 ft (3900 m) above the aerodrome.
Skydive Hilversum is an association with some 160 members. The chairman was busy checking in all the skydivers and arranging liability waivers for the tandem jumpers. I would go up with three other tandem students, all of which were first-timers. I had the opportunity to speak with two of them in and around the hangar: a guy who just turned 50, and a kid who just graduated high school. They had us fit olive green overalls in the hangar and clear out our pockets, and this is where I met my tandem instructor, Marijn.
Marijn is not just an experienced skydiving instructor. He is also an air combat controller, stationed at Air Operations Control Station Nieuw-Milligen, and is a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver, just like me. Obviously I had to talk about his work surveilling Dutch airspace, routing aircraft for training missions and deploying F-35 figher jets to intercept Russian bombers in NATO airspace. And I wanted to know all about his digital wrist altimeter, which kind of resembles a dive computer with a built-in logbook and GPS capabilities.
There was less preparation needed than I expected. It was just getting to know Marijn, who fitted, tightened and carefully checked the harness I would be wearing, as well as his tandem parachute set. He clipped a pair of goggles for me on as well. I think having a chat and witnessing this professionalism is quite important for building trust, which is nice if you're depending on someone else for your safety.
I got to the airfield quite early, which allowed me to witness multiple plane departures and parachute landings. The colorful canopies were a nice sight on this beautiful day. I said goodbye to my family and stepped inside the van that would take us to the airplane, which was being topped up with avgas at the fuel station.
The airplane, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan with registration PH-JMP, was rented from Skydive Teuge for this occasion. It has a massive propeller on the front, systems for supplemental oxygen inside and a big sliding door on the left behind the wings. The passenger seats have been replaced with two benches positioned along the longitudinal axis of the plane. I stepped on a beer crate, climbed inside and was instructed to sit near the cockpit on the right hand side, in front of Marijn. He attached my harness to the airframe using some kind of safety cord and explained how I could take off this "seatbelt" in an emergency. The plane quickly filled up with skydivers. This is also when I met the fourth tandem first-timer, who was looking a bit pale and didn't speak much. He and his instructor would be the last to leave the airplane, Marijn and I second-to-last.
Climbing up to 13000 ft took about ten minutes. The plane flew towards the southeast until reaching about 7500 ft, then turned around. We could see the Loosdrechtse Plassen nature reserve, Utrecht with the beautiful central train station and Dom tower, Amersfoort, Almere and of course Amsterdam with the IJ river. Marijn used this time to attach my harness to his tandem kit, double-check everything, explain the exit procedure ("hold the shoulder straps, push your chest forward, keep your legs together and lay your head on my shoulder") and point out things on the ground. He could see on his altimeter how much further we would have to climb. I noticed one of the solo jumpers had a small LCD display on his parachute that read "STUDENT" with a small button next to it. Marijn explained that this is an Automatic Activation Device, a dead man's switch that automatically activates the main or reserve parachute deployment sequence when it senses that the skydiver is descending too fast through low altitude. It has different modes depending on the experience level of the skydiver. I find these safety-enhancing systems fascinating, and I never expected to find this kind of high-tech, pyrotechnic stuff on a parachute. Another surprise came in the form of an audio altimeter that was built in to the helmet of the tandem instructor in front of me. He explained that it would tell him when it came time to break off and open the chute, which could be useful for instructors or formation jumpers who are too occupied with other things to look at their wrist altimeters.
The plane made a final turn just north of the airfield towards the southwest, then reached 13000 ft. The door was slid open and the solo jumpers disappeared beneath the airframe. Each exit made the plane pitch up a little, prompting the (auto)pilot to pitch down in response. I cracked a final, slightly nervous joke about not having seen any catering on board this flight and needing to get down quickly for some snacks. It was time to jump!
I had anticipated a slight feeling of panic when the door opened and we would have to make our way towards the exit, but there was none of that. I mostly felt excitement. And a bit of awkwardness, since seat-shuffling all the way through the airplane looked very silly in my mind. I was just happy that the woman with the helmet camera had already jumped out. Then, at the door, Marijn had me dangle my legs over the edge, straight into the windstream. I assumed the exit position, and then we just tilted forward and fell down.
The first two seconds or so were probably the scariest. You get that stomach drop feeling as if you're in a rollercoaster, except you're looking at nothing but the ground some four kilometers below you, no track in sight. It's all very unnatural. Air rushes past, and this rushing sound grows more intense by the second. It takes skydivers ten to twelve seconds to reach terminal velocity. Once it was safe to do so, Marijn tapped my shoulder to indicate that I could tilt my head forward and extend my arms, and a 50-seconds freefall ensued. I was wearing my goggles, but the air molecules smashing against my face had me think that maybe I had lost it during the exit. The fact that I could still "normally" see the ground speeding towards me reassured me in that regard. The freefall was an amazing, adrenaline-fueled experience. I could clearly see the city of Amersfoort and pointed my finger at it, since hearing each other was impossible with all that air rushing past us.
Marijn brought his left hand in my field of view, counted down from three, waved his hand and triggered the main canopy opening sequence. The parachute cells filled with air and the parachute opened as designed. Parachute cord stretches a bit, but the rapid deceleration still caused us to experience quite a jolt. I equalized my ears. We could speak again, and boy, was I eager to declare that freefall is way better than I expected it to be! Nothing beats this kind of thrill. Marijn mentioned that skydiving can be quite addictive, then promptly handed me the brake loops.
My first two turns were, as can be expected, careful. But I had earlier been watching skydivers performing all kinds of stunts with their parachute, so I wanted to try that as well. I pulled hard on the left loop. We swung up, going from vertical to almost horizontal. Then, I tried the right loop, pulling even harder this time. This was lots of fun, but we were still quite high and we had a 20 kts wind to deal with. If not compensated, we would overshoot the airfield and land in a forest area. Not ideal. Marijn instructed me to turn towards the south, towards Utrecht. Looking straight down, I could see that our ground speed was exactly 0 kts. We were essentially hovering over a point below, slowly descending. I turned again to follow the tandem before us, and handed the brake loops back to Marijn for the landing.
The target was an orange flag, which was useful because it could be used to judge the wind speed and direction as well. We flew a little left-hand traffic pattern (downwind, base, final) and Marijn instructed me to lift up my legs for a bum-landing. My family was nearby and managed to capture the landing on camera. I thanked Marijn for the amazing experience and we took the van back to the hangar. I had a drink with family in the airport cafe afterwards, and they surprised me with a dinner in a restaurant in Amsterdam to celebrate my first skydive, my new job, my sisters engagement, and my father figure's 70th birthday. A very special day indeed.
My next skydiving goal: doing backflips and falling through a fluffy cumulus cloud, just like this guy.
Download
posing for the camera
olive green is the new black, 563 kB JPEG
putting on the harness
gearing up in the hangar, 2.8 MB JPEG
chatting with Marijn
"So you're MilATCC, that's pretty cool", 497 kB JPEG
a butt-ery smooth landing
"Rico! I said kiss it!", 37 MB WebM video
beer after skydiving
I think I managed to light my sister's curiosity for parachuting, 495 kB JPEG
