swapping trains for planes

The last couple of days have been a bit of a blur. From leaving London to arriving at Scunthorpe, and then training up at Hibalstow Airfield – it has all been absolutely crazy. At the moment, I'm currently sitting at the Drop Zone waiting for the low cloud to clear. Other people are still doing tandems, but as I'm a doing a student solo dive, the sky needs to be reasonably clear so I can see my landing area...

Just one more week to go (ground training and weather permitting) until the main event that will result in me jumping out of a perfectly good plane, all in the name of Cancer Research UK. If you haven't done so already, please donate (and make the risk of my untimely death worth it!)

Remembering my lovely colleague Dave Hopkins, who passed away just over a year ago after losing is long battle with cancer. He made working in East London somewhat bearable. ❤

Not long to go now until the big leap into the unknown.

In all honesty, I'd completely forgotten about the fact that the jump was only around the corner. It only hit me when Sally, my proposed skydiving instructor (from Skydive Hibaldstow), sent an email to me and the two other people who will be with me at the ground school for training. It was just a brief hello to remind us to bring our medical forms with us and telling us what to wear, along with telling us what to expect on the training day.

At the bottom of the email was an attachment of the AFF1 course notes, which the instructor added were the same ones that we would use in the classroom, and that we should read up beforehand.

There's a lot of stuff to take in.

The AFF1 is the first level of the accelerated freefall course. Anybody who wants to qualify as a skydiver for kicks has do go through eight levels of this madness. Even at the first level, you're still expected to know everything about your chute and what looks normal, how to deploy the bastard and the drill to initiate if something goes wrong. That's before you even get on the plane. At the end of the day, when you jump at the first level, you're expected to deploy your own chute.

I'll say again that I've never done a jump in my life. And that includes a tandem, which I'm assuming 99% of people do before they decide to do the AFF1. It's not a prerequisite however. I've always been one to push myself. I've had people go on at me before about doing a tandem jump, and I'm not putting them down or anything, but they have had no responsibility whatsoever during the entire jump besides listening to instructions and just enjoying the plummet down to earth. It takes real guts for somebody to even think about doing the AFF1. Going through the rest of the course notes, towards the end it starts going on about what to look out for in terms of chute malfunctions and annoyances; I'm expected to sort any of those out myself if those things happen. On my first jump. If it happens.

Signing my life away

As I've paid my deposit for the AFF 1, the people at Hibaldstow have sent me lots of forms to fill out. There's one for to sign membership (as you need to be a member of most Drop Zones in order to be able to jump their anyway); another one from the British Parachute Association, a 'Solo' Student Parachutist Declaration of Fitness to Parachute, which is fairly self explanatory, though it appears I may have to have it signed off by my doctor just in case (I have a history of asthma, though it has been under control for the most part). My weight is in my favour for once, in that my low BMI means my risk of injury is reduced. To quote part of the notes in the Declaration of Fitness:

Any person whose weight-for-height exceeds that in the chart overleaf stands a higher risk of injury on a solo first jump than the average person making a first jump (approximately double for a male and even greater for a female).

I'm effectively being asked to sign my life away. In all honesty, it doesn't bother me that much, because I'd say that I signed my life away the moment I decided to join the railways. It's no lie that skydiving and parachuting pose various risks and dangers to my person, but I pretty much accept that. I have had a few friends and acquaintances however express their concerns over the risk and whether or not it is absolutely necessary; whilst I have considered shaving all my hair off as an alternative, the hassle that's involved in having to grow it all back, not to mention the social repercussions, are an equal risk to me. At the end of the day, going skydiving was not a decision I'd taken lightly, and deciding to go 'solo' as opposed to doing a tandem dive was certainly not a choice I'd made in haste, something I'll go on to explain in another post.

As it happens, I'm planning to jump at some point in the first two weeks in July, all being well at the DZ. The weather will be nicer (and it's no surprise that we will need favourable conditions), plus I've got some annual leave due then, which means I'll be well-rested and whatnot rather than worrying about work or whatever.

It had to happen someday. There's only so much a mad person can do before they find they have to top their current madness with something else. I toyed with the idea for ages of raising money for various charities, but always questioned whether the blood, sweat and tears would really be worth it. I'm no marathon runner or distance cyclist, and though I enjoy polo, I'm certainly no high goal season player.

Most of you would've made it here because you may vaguely know who I am, whether through my employers or otherwise. Some of you might not know me and may have stumbled across here by accident, perhaps expecting pictures of various diesel locomotives and the odd Boeing 747-600 dotted here and there. Some of you may know that I have always wanted to experience the feeling of what they call freefall, but I often pushed the idea to the back of my mind, not really having the motivation. After all, it's all very well jumping out of a plane.

I'll try most things once, but I have to have the motivation or some sort of reason to do it.

The other day I was thinking about the people I work with at the moment (sad, I know), but in particular, one individual I met just before I got my licence to drive a train on the London Underground: Just after I passed my final assessments, this particular chap was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Now, I didn't know the guy that well, though I'd had a sat down and a chat with him a few times and was probably one of the first of the guys at my new workplace to actually acknowledge my presence. He has been working for London Underground since 1971 and (according to a board in one of the hallways) is the third most senior man at my depot. He was also very close to retiring, and one of the things I overheard somebody say was, "How is he supposed to enjoy his retirement now?"

That goes for a lot of people. The more I thought about it, the more I thought of other people I have worked with. When I first joined London Underground on the stations, a colleague who was very well liked at my first post passed away, very shortly after being told he had cancer. I soon learnt that one of the colleagues I worked with on a daily basis was one of the luckier guys; he'd managed to overcome cancer, but his mother didn't. About three or four years into my job on the stations, another fellow Station Assistant was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was off for a while, but then came back for a few hours a week. He looked half dead, though he did in fact still have part of the tumour inside of him, which couldn't be removed until he was feeling stronger, so he was making up the hours on the stations just to get around and do something. His words. He passed away though too.

Cancer, quite frankly, is shit. People always say that it happens to the nicest of people, but in reality, it doesn't pick and choose, and I'm sure any doctor would say the same.

I guess hearing about people getting cancer at work always depresses me; we don't always work in the most forgiving environments, and if we're not breathing in various metals that have been ground to dust, there's the asbestos and other unknowns. I think though that the first guy I mentioned though was the kick for me: How many more people have to go through with it? It's bad enough when you read it in the papers, but when it's somebody you work with, or a friend, or a relative, or a friend or relative of somebody you know? How many more times can you hear that and not do something?

So, remember that idea I had? Experiencing freefall? Well, it's not something many people do lightheartedly (unless you're an adrenaline junkie), and it turns out most people use that as an activity to raise money. "So how about raising money for charity by going on a skydive?" I thought. And so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get on a plane, only to jump out of it at 15,000 feet. I'll be experiencing freefall for something like sixty seconds. Then I have to go through the rigmarole of deploying my parachute and landing. But I bet you're thinking, "But surely there's somebody to do that for you because you'll be strapped to somebody who knows what to do?"

Ha. Think again.

The large majority of people who go skydiving do what's known as a tandem dive, where you're securly strapped to somebody else who knows what they're doing and all you have to do is enjoy the experience and try not to flail your limbs too much. There's also a static line dive, where you're sort of attached to the actual plane at a distance and your parachute is launched remotely by an instructor. That's all very well, but you'll be glad (or perhaps slightly concerned) to know that I won't be doing either of those: This is because I'll be jumping out of a plane, securely attached to nothing but my own parachute.

I will be doing what's known as an Accelerated Freefall. This means I spend one day in a classroom learning all the basic skills I need in order to experience freefall on my first jump at an altitude of 15,000 feet. There will be two instructors jumping out of the plane with me, but I will be expected to not only deploy my parachute all by myself, but land all by myself too. Also known as AFF 1, this is the first stage of the actual course that people take in order to become fully qualified skydivers. I'm not sure whether I've got it in me to go completely solo and complete the course, but the thought having to throw myself out of a plane and get back to terra firma by myself without breaking any bones, sustaining major trauma, or having a coronor render me deceased is both scary and exciting. And totally worth you donating lots of money. So get your wallets and purses out right now if you haven't already. Hit the 'Donate' link in the sidebar to go to my fundraising page. Every little helps.

When I can, I will be posting updates here on progress and such like related to the event. I'm hoping to jump in the first two weeks of July, just before the London 2012 Olympic Games. Nearer the time, I'll hopefully have the date, time and place published here and there will be pictures and (hopefully) video to accompany the whole thing. It'll be a blast, and more so if I don't sustain any injuries.

Anyway, I'll sign off for now.

Until next time,