Many people consider jumping out of airplanes a terrifying concept. However, for a few Auburn students, skydiving is the relaxing part of the week.
Chris Harris, senior in international business, started jumping while he was in the Marines. He said he usually jumps with others, and performs many safety checks before going up in the air.
“We just get on the bird and go up to altitude and touch some sky,” Harris said.
Harris said he prefers freefall to static line jumping, which is jumping out of a plane while attached to a line that deploys the parachute. He said it was more stressful for him, because static line jumps are from a lower altitude, so there is less time to adjust.
“I hated it,” Harris said. “I was always so nervous doing static line jumps.”
Harris said his first freefall went quickly, and it was fun for him.
“But now, it’s like you have all day up there,” Harris said. “Like you jump out of the plane, and it’s just really relaxing.”
Harris said he doesn’t consider himself the typical “adrenaline junkie,” because skydiving is calming for him, although he said he likes the danger element.
“You can wear your iPod or whatever so you can listen to some music or whatever you want to listen to,” Harris said.
Harris said he goes skydiving at least one Saturday per month, and tries to have at least four jumps per trip.
Harris said he wishes Auburn had a skydiving club, but he only knows two other students who jump.
Justin Lovell, skydiving instructor at Skydive the South in Tuskegee and senior in software engineering, began skydiving in the Army. He began doing free fall jumping for fun in 2009.
He said he goes skydiving almost every weekend, and the most jumps he has made in a day is seven. He said he usually jumps with a group of friends. They plan the jump they want to do before going up in the air.
“It’s all kind of like this synchronized flying, if you will,” Lovell said. “When everything goes to plan, that really is the best part of the day right there. And you can see the looks on everybody’s faces in the sky when they finally hit that last point, it’s just smiles all around. It literally gives me chills just thinking about it."
Lovell said his first free fall was “exhilarating.”
“It’s kind of a feeling you can’t associate with anything else,” Lovell said. “People ask me what it’s like and at times you really feel like you’re flying.”
Lovell said skydivers can do different tricks in the air as they gain more skydiving experience. He said it takes years to master different techniques.
Though they enjoy skydiving, there have been some scary moments for Lovell and Harris.
Harris said his most memorable moment was the time he landed on the roof of a hangar. He said he earned the nickname Rooftop that day. He said the winds picked up while he was landing and he couldn’t move. He said he left a dent in the hangar roof.
“I had a pretty good landing, I stood it up,” Harris said. “But it could have been pretty bad. You’re not supposed to hit things like 50 feet off the ground.”
Harris said he also had to cut away from his main parachute once while he was in the Marines. He said the time between cutting the chute away and the reserve deploying was his scariest moment in the air.
“It was like the worst roller coaster ride ever,” Harris said.
Lovell said he once fractured his femur while doing a high-speed maneuver called swooping. He said he was cut off in the air and crash-landed, breaking his femur into three pieces.
“I was not at the experience level at that time to do that kind of stuff,” Lovell said. “And, of course, not having that experience, you make a mistake. It’s kind of like trying to drive when you’re 13.”
Lovell said the injury gave him perspective.
“Before I got hurt, I kind of felt invincible, like, ‘Oh I can do this, I got this, I can do this no problem,’” Lovell said. “After I got hurt, I kind of realized that I can definitely get hurt doing this, and I don’t want to do that again.”
Lovell said skydiving is “outrageously safe.”
“If one person wants to go up and do a tandem skydive, there’s almost a zero percent chance anything’s going to happen to them,” Lovell said.
Joe Ozbolt, graduate student in mathematics, earns extra money at drop zones by packing peoples’ parachutes for them. He said he wishes he could skydive more, but would rather save money.
Ozbolt said skydiving is “a lot safer of a sport than people give it credit for.”
“I’ve seen tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people come down and land safely from the sky,” Ozbolt said.
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