Me on Cloud Nine

Skydiving can’t actually be called as a trip; however if one wants to make an experience of the lifetime in just one day, skydiving is probably the best way to do.

What is skydiving and how it is different from paragliding: I have often heard people referring skydiving as paragliding or parachute jumping; some people even consider both are the same sort of sports. However, to clear that, no, skydiving is not at all same as paragliding and it's an advanced version of parachute jumping or Parachuting or sky jumping.
The main difference between skydiving and paragliding is, Skydiving is performed as an assortment of aerial maneuvers and stunts like the acrobatics before deploying from a parachute. People having different levels of physical fitness participating in skydiving. Paragliding is a sport in which a wide canopy resembling a parachute is attached to a person's body by a harness in order to allow them to glide through the air after jumping from or being lifted to a height.
Skydiving is considered as a terrifying and exhilarating type of sport because the participants jump or fall from the aircraft at the desired high altitudes. The parachute, used in skydiving slows the descent and allows the skydiver to land gently on Earth. So people, never call skydiving is same as paragliding, as I know many takes an offense for the same. ;)
Tandem Skydiving is skydiving for beginners where a professional skydiver will be tied through harness with you.

Booking, Cost, and Transportation: Upon doing my bit of research about best tandem skydiving places, we finally settled with Adrenaline. We booked the weekday package of Skydiving Chicago – 9000ft jump which ideally cost $169 but they also give a flat $15 discount on booking online. So it cost us around $159.
The skydiving center is at Rochelle, IL which is around 90 miles from Chicago downtown. The only option to reach there is a personal vehicle or rented cabs as there is no option for any public transport. If in case one doesn’t have any personal vehicle, can avail the free round trip shuttle from Chicago downtown but it's available only during the weekend only for 14000ft which costs $219.
We drove to Rochelle from Chicago downtown and it took approximately 2 hrs. It is advisable to reach there at least 1 hour before your scheduled time.
Three different type of photography packages are available there for skydiving, $99 – Any one of Still or Video, $129 – Both still and video photography, $149 – Still, video and One camera will be attached to the instructor and will shoot the entire jump but it will be more of a selfie sort of video. I opted for $129 package under the assumption the photographer will cover entire jump, starting from getting on the plane, jump, freefall, parachute trip and landing. However, they don’t cover the parachute part. But still the outcome was good enough.

Dressing: You can wear absolutely anything you want to wear but it’s advisable to wear something comfortable. If needed, they provide a jumpsuit free of cost. Sports shoe is a must.

D-Day: Our booking was for 2 pm slot on the Memorial Day. We wanted not to have any sort of surprises and not late at all, so we started from Chicago downtown by 11 am and reach Chicagoland Skydiving Center, Rochelle by 1 pm. After reaching there, we had to go through the quick checking process. Actually, during the checking process, one has to go through a big form and sign that but as it was much crowded because of Memorial Day, CSC had sent us the form in an email a day advance and we had to fill that before reaching there.
After reaching, we had to go through a quick procedure of showing our id proof, signing up for the photography package (optional), checking the weight, they showed us a video to make us aware of the risks involved in skydiving. All these took a max of 15 minutes.
We then roamed around for a bit and saw people jumping from the plane until our names were announced. I met my instructor, Chris Rea, and photographer, Beau Riebe in the meeting lobby. They gave me a jumpsuit to get dressed up and once I was dressed up in a jumpsuit, he set the harness around me for jumping and gave me the required instruction to follow during jump and landing.
In tandem skydiving, the parachute is tied to the instructor, not with the person who is attempting the jump to avoid any short of the unwanted situation and as I told earlier the instructor was tied to jumper using the harness. So it’s a very important thing to make sure that harness is tied perfectly. He also attached an altimeter to my wrist which will show us the altitude we are at.

Our Flight

Me and Chris boarding Flight

I was literally counting every moment as we boarded the plane. I was about to achieve my longtime dream. It was the first time in my life when I was in a plane without any air hostess, and almost no do’s and don’ts. Also, it was the first time ever I could literally feel the temperature change with height. My eyes were constantly glued to the altimeter, with lots of mixed emotions, the joy of doing something very different than my regular routine, a bit of worry if I will be okay after doing this and a lot of excitements; I was continuously grinning like a fool.

Inside the plane

When we were at the altitude of 8000ft and was getting prepared to jump, our pilot announced due to some restrictions from O’Hare Airport, we have to make the jump from 14000ft instead of 9000ft and the upgrade is free. Now, what can be better than that! As an Indian, I always love free stuff and this free thing, was like 'Sone pe suhaga'
Once we are at the height of around 13500ft, we were signaled to get ready for the jump. Chris double checked all the attachments before jumping. There were a couple of professional skydivers in our flight, they jumped before us. Their jumps were so effortless, it never felt like they were jumping from a height of 14000ft but looking like they were jumping just from a small stool to ground.

Professional Skydiving jumping alone

Finally, it was my turn to jump, the moment before to jump, I was little skeptical about my ability, especially seeing those professionals. But trust me, I never realized when I jumped and once I realized that I am actually out of place and under the open sky, it was an out of the world feeling.
Due to the extra height of 14000ft, we got extra free-fall of 60 seconds. Many people asked me if I was feeling the hollowness what we feel while getting down in a lift or during the landing of an airplane. But it was nothing like that; in fact, it was a feeling of floating in the air. I was literary on cloud nine.

During Freefall

During Freefall

During Freefall

Once Chris deployed a parachute, I felt all of the sudden someone hold me tightly from the top. Though the feeling of floating was gone but it was also awesome as it felt more secure.

Deploying the parachute

With the parachute, we flew in the air for some more time and Chris showed me different tricks of flying and then slowly we started to come down to the ground. Though I couldn’t manage a perfect landing, but the experience was more than perfect.

Landing

Once I landed, Chris helped me removing the harness. We had to wait for another half an hour for collecting the photographs and video.

Celebrating Success

Yaay :) !!

By around 3:30, we left the place with lots of memories (physical memory as pen drive which contains the photos and videos of the dive and my own memory which will be the proudest possession of mine for rest of my life). I was too ecstatic about the entire thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about the same entire day.


Disclaimer : We went on this trip in May’ 2016. There are chances that price and timing have got changed. Please check with Adrenaline about current timing and rates. I have tried to provide as much as details are possible for the skydiving. For any further clarification, feel free to post comments on the blog or contact me @ dutshilpi@gmail.com.