I was working on a project in Rocky Mount, North Carolina and was off for the weekend. One of the technicians heard about a skydiving school and asked me if I wanted to go along with him. I really wasn't interested in going skydiving, after all who would want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, but since there wasn't much else to do, I said, "Sounds good, let's go."

Once we got there, he got his hour or so of lessons while I walked around the site. When it was time to load up, the pilot asked me if I want to go along for the ride. I said, "Sounds good, let's go."

So the pilot, myself, and six jumpers loaded onto the very, very small single-engine plane. Three of the jumpers sat behind the pilot, tightly squeezed together and straddling one another — as did the other three jumpers which sat behind me. Since it was set up for seven jumpers, I was in the front being straddled by the three behind me. I didn't have a seat.

We set off down the runway and began to corkscrew in a wide circle up to several hundred, maybe several thousand feet. Then the pilot announced that he was going over the drop zone and that to skydivers would get out onto the wing struts and let go on his command. The door opened, two got out, and on his command, they jumped.

Then he swung the plane around and approached the zone on the second time and two more jumped. This he repeated for a third time.

The pilot told me to close the door — which is a bit tricky since I wasn't in the seat and I didn't have much to hold onto, and the wind was blowing hard and the view down below was awesome scary. And that was the good news.

.

Then the pilot went and shut off the engine. "What the hell you doing?" I said

"That's what I always do to save gas," replied the pilot.

So we began how a corkscrew dissent going at free-fall speed plus the turning acceleration. It felt like 3G's. I wanted to hold on for dear life — but there was nothing to hold on to. It was like falling through space without a parachute.

As I saw us approaching the runway, he finally turned on the engine — and with maybe 100 feet to go, the propeller started to crank and we came in for a smooth landing. At least the plane came in for a smooth landing. My stomach was someplace still up in space.

I got out of the plane and just try to steady myself. The next thing I was wondering what happened to the technician – I fully expected him to be back at the center, but that was not to be for another two hours.

He finally made it back and told us that he missed the landing zone, fortunately missed some overhead wires, and even more fortunately got picked up by a passing truck.

In looking back if I had to do it over again, I think the safer thing would've been to have jumped out of the plane.

~ Al Zagofsky