Several years ago, my wife, Lyn and our oldest grandson, Trevor made a plan to sky dive. They learned how it was done for beginners and learned quite a bit. When they were ready, a date was set and everyone planned to be present.
They completed their jumps while strapped to instructors and it was exciting to watch those very small dots gradually turn into people we know as they descended to the ground. They both really enjoyed their experience.
Several other family members had been invited to join them in this experience. I explained that I had no desire to abandon a perfectly good operating airplane while it was in the air. It did look exciting.
A few months ago, a good friend of mine told me about doing a sky dive and he did it with his dog. I listened as he explained the training and the excitement of the day. He also gave me the instructor’s name and telephone number.
I thought about it for a few days. I then called him and left a message. After a couple of days, he returned my call. I asked several questions, and he inquired as to my age, weight, health and also about Simon.
We still had some interest and we set up a meeting. I was to bring Simon also. At the meeting, he explained that I would be strapped to him and Simon would be strapped to me as we descended. He even loaned us the equipment Simon would wear. We took it home and I placed it on him several times and then he would sit on my lap or I would carry him around outside.
I was also issued some reading material so that I totally understood how our drop through the air would work and how to behave. I read it several times and even read it to Simon. We even jumped off of our picnic table a few times with Simon in his jumping gear.
When we felt we were quite ready, we contacted our guy and set up a time to make our first skydive. Our schedule got changed several times. I think that him working with a large group paid more than a guy and a dog on a single jump.
As I remember, he also was sick a couple of times and the plane was out of service a time or two. All of a sudden winter was upon us. He explained that he was going to take his family to Florida for the winter and he could do skydiving with customers while he was there.
I got a call from him a few weeks ago and he told me when they would be back here. He wanted to know if Simon and I were still interested. I told him that we were waiting for him, and we were excited. As soon as he was back, we met him and he again loaned us the harness for Simon. We took it home and practiced putting it on him and we even jumped off of our picnic table a few times with him in his harness and in my arms.
Scheduling our flight and jumping time got changed a few times again. Equipment problems and then the plane was out of service again a couple of times. We were finally scheduled to go up last Friday afternoon. I didn’t think it was going to happen because of the bad weather and windy conditions that morning.
He called and told us to come on down to the airport and be ready, just in case. About 20 minutes before we were to walk out to the plane, something changed and the flight was a go. We all got into our suits and equipment and did our last-minute checklists.
We took off from Greenwood Airport at 4:27 p.m. and first flew over some of the terrible damage from the tornado. It was terrible to see.
We then flew over our jumping area and just as we were pushing ourselves out of the plane, the wind took off strongly again. It was terrible. We ended up landing in the Greenwood Walmart parking lot. The police received several 911 calls about people and animals falling from the sky.
(Continued ... SCROLL DOWN)
Saturday was April 1st. April Fools Day!! I do not jump out of perfectly wonderful operating aircraft...
Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. He can be reached through email at fdshonk@aol.com.