LOL Furious; think nothing of it. You're not the first to fall for the 'Pavlovian reflex ploy'.
The instructors are pretty smart. They make use of 'muscle memory' combined with some behavioral psychology.
I gather you went to the mockup more than a few times to practise the exit, eh? 'So you get out in a stable way' they say. What they're really is doing is conditioning you.
Once you were in that plane, you had no chance. You may think 'no WAY I am going out that door. No way they can get me to hang by the wing strut and then let go.'
Then comes 'READY'. Without thinking you suddenly find yourself in the door. As you're thinking 'this is a bad...' you get 'SET' command, and as if by magic your hands swing out and your feet leave the plane. Hanging by the wingstrut ya look at the instructor to tell'im you wanna go back in, but then the bastard say 'GO' and, as on the ground, you let go. And there you are
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Gotta respect you for doing it though. Initially I was ****e scared too, and I know what it takes to get it done. Lots of thoughts about not surviving, lots of apprehension, nerves build and build and when the door is opened it gets really intense. Thing is one hasn't got enough experience to a) know what'll happen, b) know enough to trust one's equipment and c) doesn't know how one will react, if one will remember the emercency procedure etc.
My experience has been that it gets better and better. Do lots of jumps in one day and the apprehension is diminished a lot. A positive mindset is also key to minimizing the apprehension. After a while I didn't fear fopr my life as much as I had performance anxiety - 'need to get out,s table, then lefty 360 then righty 360....what if I deviate more than 45 degrees? How far to bend that elbow?' - stuff like that.
Still, my first 4000 meter jump (I got sick of waiting and went for Accelerated Free Fall after 16 jumps) left me breathless. No way it was 50 seconds - at least not to my warped mind. I was literally hanging there for 15 seconds just catching my breath, canopy on half-brake, trying to clear my ears scuba-diving style.
Cannot recommend this sport enough. It's a bit tough in the start due to the fear factor but the sky dives themselves are sooooo much fun. Then you live and sleep at the club and get to know some *really* weird people. I've exchanged most of my social circle by now and there's been a major priority shift in my life.
It WILL drain you, economically. Once you got gear, you can still spend €150-200 per weekend ($170-4225). What this means is my newest pair of pants have holes in 'em and are 8 months old and my normal diet is Spaghetti, sometimes even with some kinda sauce. But the rest in life is sort of...colourless. So it's money well spent. Of course I am in the 'golden period' of my skydiving career where I am learning a lot every dive and it just gets better and better, but then again one of my instructors has 6100 sky dives and is still smiling every time he lands. Add to that that my club is the cheapest in Denmark, and although the Cessna-182 only takes 5 people to 4000 meters, it has a big 300hp engine and nice turnaround time
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Oooh yeah, almost forgot; the dear instructor was on his way down with the plane (back to back flying with students) and the pilot made a very steep approach - another skydiver had his second rig - and both CYPRES's shot the reserve
. That's 1600*2 DKK to reload them LOL
. That pilot is a true cowboy.
Above the clouds the sky is always blue
