← All articles · United Kingdom · 24 September 2015

Old Sarum Skydive

A 15,000 foot tandem skydive at Old Sarum with GoSkydive, booked as Inga's birthday present: the nerves, the freefall and the instructor with jokes.

It started as a birthday present for Inga. On 24 September 2015 we drove to Old Sarum airfield near Salisbury and handed ourselves over to GoSkydive, whose entire business is helping people like us fall out of aeroplanes on purpose. We went for the highest jump they offered at the time: 15,000 feet.

We were, to put it kindly, nervous. The kind of nervous where you laugh at things that are not funny and check the straps you have already checked.

Inga and Dileep in blue GoSkydive jumpsuits and soft helmets standing in the kit tent beside a poster of tandem skydivers — Suited, booted and roughly 60 per cent sure. The poster behind shows how it is supposed to look.

Dileep in a blue GoSkydive jumpsuit waving beside a white gate on the green airfield with a light aircraft and instructors behind — A final wave at ground level, aircraft waiting in the background.

Somewhere in the kit tent, Inga's instructor asked whether this was her first time. She said yes. He said, "Mine too." Instructor humour: extremely funny in hindsight, less so while you are being clipped to the man.

Inga in freefall strapped to her tandem instructor with arms raised, the drogue chute trailing above against a swirl of cloud — Freefall with the drogue out and both arms up. The wind restyles your face for free.

Inga grinning in freefall with her tandem instructor above a floor of broken cloud and distant fields — Somewhere over Wiltshire, travelling straight down, grinning anyway.

Dileep in a blue GoSkydive jumpsuit in freefall with his tandem instructor, thumbs up above a floor of cloud — Dileep's turn: thumbs up above the cloud floor, glasses somehow still aboard.

Dileep went first, then spent a long few seconds under canopy watching the aircraft and waiting for Inga to follow close behind.

The strange thing about freefall is that you do not really feel the speed. There is nothing close enough to measure yourself against, so it just feels like very loud, very cold weather. The moment it becomes real is when your parachute opens and the camerawoman's does not, because she opens hers later. One second she is floating a few metres away filming your face, the next she drops out of the frame like a stone.

Dileep and his tandem instructor in freefall with hands spread wide, the white drogue chute deployed above them — Hands out, drogue out, ground politely keeping its distance for a few more seconds.

Inga kneeling on the grass giving a thumbs up after landing, parachutes and hay bales scattered across the field, Dileep laughing at the edge of the frame — Down and intact, thumbs up. The hay bales witnessed everything.

Inga hugging her tandem instructor on the landing field with a blue parachute bundled on the grass behind — The post-landing instructor hug: traditional, and thoroughly earned.

Inga and Dileep hugging on the airfield grass, still wearing helmets and harnesses — Both of us back on the ground with one piece each. Reunion approved.

And then the ground, the hugs, and the odd chemistry of the whole thing: the moment you are down, the adrenaline has already decided you want to go straight back up and do it again.