YEAH, YEAH - GOT IT

I drive The Old Girl nuts by not listening to instructions given on everything from setting up appliances to asking for directions.

"You'll come a cropper one day Matey" she says.

This afternoon I was listening on National Radio to a skydiver instructor talking about training people for parachute jumps and the different behaviour from students. Nerves factor a lot as you would expect.

I did my first parachute jump at Otaki in 1980. These were solo jumps as the tandem thing hadn't started yet. We assembled in a hangar for instructions and were shown the correct way to put the chute on, what handles and toggles to hold and operate and how to fall and roll. Of course I said yes, yes when asked if I had got the instructions as I was impatient to just get on with it.

The instructor on the radio described things pretty much as I remember.

When finally I was up in the plane and stepped out of the door, holding onto the strut before launching myself off I was thinking "what do I do again?".

Luckily the main chute worked and I didn't have to remember how to engage the emergency chute and everything went fine. I remember an incredible sense of relief when the chute opened (noisily) and the calm, stillness and silence afterwards.

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The Old Girl did her first parachute jump in the mid 1980s. Her friends made a video of it and she can be seen laughing all the time before and afterwards. Nerves I guess.