Indiana skydiving article

[SKYWHUFFO 1]

this was in the Indystar newspaper. It is rare our sport gets positive publicity so I thought i would post this. Pretty good basic article.

Blues!
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By George McLaren
george.mclaren@indystar.com
October 4, 2004


Elise Mollman works in human resources. Typical workday? Sitting at her desk, going to meetings, talking on the phone.

"I'm not a risk-taker," explains the 36-year-old Brownsburg mother of two boys.

So what's she doing jumping out of an airplane? Why are thousands of Hoosiers jumping out of airplanes every year?

This is fear factor -- for real -- with an adrenaline rush and the thrill of a lifetime.

Indiana's five skydiving schools affiliated with the U.S. Parachute Association combine for an estimated 70,000 jumps each year, with at least 4,000 involving newcomers making their first jumps. Nationally, the association had 33,664 members in 2002, and they combined for 2.1 million skydives.

Some say leaping out of a plane is something they've thought about all their lives.

For Mollman, it was just plain luck. She won a free tandem jump in an office raffle when a veteran skydiving instructor came to give a motivational talk at her company, T2 Systems, where she is HR manager.

"I probably would have never done it," she says, but she was impressed by the charisma of David Hart, a beefy guy with an iron grip, a jutting jaw and a salesman's confidence.

"I would only do it with David. He's good," said Mollman.

Meeting at Skydive Greensburg, at the local municipal airport, Mollman pulled on a skydiving suit, strapped into a tandem harness and climbed into the jump plane. Secured to Hart behind her, she waited several minutes through a noisy airplane ride, saying she wasn't scared until the skydiver in front of her bailed out.

"When she jumped out, she just disappeared. I thought, 'Oh my God . . . I can't back out now.' That was the only thing that made my heart stop. I didn't see her again until we were on the ground."

But she was surprised to discover it wasn't a terror-filled trip back to Earth.

"I was actually able to smile and enjoy what I was doing. I was afraid I'd close my eyes and panic. I didn't. I enjoyed it all the way down."

A few weeks later, she came back for a second jump, this time with co-worker Joe Gromosky, 39. He was already a veteran of extreme sports, including scuba diving and mountain biking, but had never jumped out of a plane.

"I'm excited to do it, and Elise has given me the courage," said Gromosky, vice president of operations for T2 Systems, a parking management consulting company.

"If I can do it, anyone can do it," said Elise.

In fact, virtually anyone over 18 can do it. Indiana's five skydiving schools take newbies by the thousands each year, many leaping in tandem harnesses while strapped to an instructor.

Tandem jumps, which cost as little as $159, have become a common way to skydive, requiring only a half-hour of instruction and no technical skills. Get in the airplane, jump out, enjoy the trip down, while someone else takes care of the details.

"It's more like a skydiving ride," explains Richard Money, owner of Jerry's Skydiving Circus in Franklin.

Some newcomers take a longer training course and leap out on their own, with instructors nearby, and deploy their own chute after free-falling at 120 mph or so from 13,000 feet. Money, who's been taking people up in airplanes for 25 years, says new rectangular canopies are much easier to control.

Each year, about 6,000 jumps are made through his operation, which operates at the Franklin airport. About 150 of those jumps are made by newcomers, with the remainder made by veterans.

Money, a retired Cummins employee, has made about 2,800 jumps himself since first pitching out of a plane back in 1967.

Why?

Money laughs.

"I've been doing it my whole life. I don't know anything else. It's fun, how's that? I never really thought about it, to be honest with you. It's just something you do. Some people play golf, some people jump out of airplanes."

And while a few golfers develop a sore wrist or throw their back out, no one thinks much about safety issues in that sport. But a newbie skydiver would have to be oblivious not to wonder about the danger involved. Nationally, about 30 people are killed in skydiving accidents each year, according to the U.S. Parachute Association. Since 1997, at least five Hoosiers have been killed in skydiving-related accidents.

Skydiving operators don't like to talk about that much -- but will if asked by customers.

"I say, 'Yeah, people do die. You're jumping out of a perfectly good airplane,' " said Jaime Praeter, owner of Skydive Wayne County in Richmond.

But she says it's still safe, considering.

"For throwing yourself out of an airplane, yes, there are many advancements that have allowed us to make it safe. But there's an element of risk that belongs to skydiving that doesn't belong to golf, and that needs to be understood."

Among the recent Hoosier fatalities, only one involved an inexperienced jumper, who was on her second trip when she asphyxiated after choking on chewing gum on the way down. Two other deaths included veterans killed in a plane crash; two others died due to equipment malfunctions.

U.S. Army Sgt. Talmadge Hunter has actually seen three people get killed while skydiving. But the veteran parachutist and skydiving competitor estimates he's watched more than 150,000 jumps in various skydiving events and has made roughly 4,700 himself, mostly as a member of the Army's Golden Knights team.

"I can't say I've done anything as much fun as jumping, bar none. It's the most fun you can have with your clothes on," joked Hunter, a member of a Golden Knights squad that has placed second in world skydiving competitions in France and Spain in recent years. Now, his main task is diving with teammates and videotaping their maneuvers.

Flying in the face of danger, so to speak, isn't the main attraction to skydiving, said Hunter, who was with the Knights team for a recent appearance at the U.S. hot rod nationals in Indy.

"It's not the risk so much as the rush you get from jumping," he explained. "It's a really big rush. It's a lot of fun, it's like flying in an airplane -- without the airplane."

If Gromosky was worrying about danger before his recent jump, he sure wasn't showing it.

But any thoughts about a gentle ride back to Earth vanished as soon as he left the aircraft.

"Those first 2 to 3 seconds, I thought, 'Get me back on the plane!' " he said. "I was dropping like a rock. But after that, after I knew I wasn't going to die, it was unbelievable, it was incredible. . . . Would I do it again? Absolutely."

Mollman's second jump left her gushing, too.

"It was awesome," she said after peeling off her blue jumpsuit. "This time I kept my eyes open, even when we jumped out of the plane."

One of her sons thought it was cool that Mom leaped out of a plane into the wild blue yonder; the other was a little unsure.

"My parents think I'm crazy. My husband's OK with it. The work crowd? I think they're impressed," Mollman said.

Will she take a third leap?

"Oh, I might. You never know."

George McLaren can be reached at (317) 444-6232.
Blues
D

[justaflygirl 0]

awesome article...Thanks for sharing!

[Cacophony 0]

Hey. I shot her video! Kewl.