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From 10,000 feet above the ground looks unreachable.
When you're told you have to jump out of the K-620 military plane along with 4 of your comrades and an officer as part of your Airborne unit training the ground looks perilous.
Kitted out in standard-issue navy-blue jumpsuits with insurmountably large ripcord-operated backpacks straining our shoulders we queued up.
I knew the procedure.
It's in the fundamentals of training.
Freefall for two-thirds of the journey and then pull the primary ripcord, dangling by your left thigh.
You will initially shoot up as air fills the parachute, then begin a gradual decent which you can direct using the holes in the top of the parachute which act as a rudder to steer yourself.
30 feet from the ground you should bend your knees so your joints don’t take the impact and you should begin moving as you land so A) you don't fall over, and B) so the parachute falls behind you, not on top of you.
In training operations the 'landing patch' was shown by a red diamond, made from padded crash-mats, in an empty field somewhere.
The officer opened the hatch-door on the K-620 and a gust of icy air filled the hollow cabin.
Second in line I shivered.
Jones, first in line.
The reason you don't need to take a run-up to jump out of a plane is because the air-pressure outside is much lower than the air-pressure inside the plane, so as soon as you jump your feet leave the floor you are quite literally sucked out of the place.
Jones pulled his goggles down over his face and dived out of the plane. Hanging for a short eternity before vanishing between the clouds.
Second in line becomes first in line.
The chill now burning my cheeks I pulled the goggles over my eyes and blindly jumped into nothingness.
Clouds threw themselves at me left, right and centre as my stomach did somersaults
My traceometer, linked to a transmission device at the landing patch, told me I was 5,000 feet up.
My goggles frosted over with ice didn’t offer much help here.
4,000 feet
I pulled my primary ripcord.
Nothing.
I tugged again.
No up-shoot.
3,000 feet and I began to worry.
I'd reached my terminal velocity. The cold air began to burn my face.
My secondary ripcord hung near my neck to deploy the backup parachute.
Salvation.
I tugged it.
Nothing.
2,000 feet.
Parachutes where neither the primary or secondary parachutes worked were called 'dud chutes'.
The airforce sold these faulty parachutes to foreign forces or gave them to the training corps to show how
to work a parachute, not necessarily how they worked.
1,000 feet.
I remembered my physics lessons at school. The smaller the surface area the lesser the impact.
At 700 feet I was a ball of limbs and fear.
I shed my dud backpack to reduce my mass.
500 feet.
Terror set in.
One instance of terror can rupture a person's mind enough to make them insane. This sharp impact resulting in terror is called the Illinium Effect. The frontal lobes of the brain shrink as the person tries to block on the terror so a quarter of their usual size. This results in them being unable to express rational thoughts again.
300 feet
The red diamond loomed beneath me. My oblivion and fate.
200 feet
Acceptance overwhelmed me. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth on my face.
100 feet
Relaxation was paramount. The red diamond was both my goal and my escape clause.
Nothing became everything and then turned itself inside out.
Impact
The last sense that shuts down before you die is your sense of hearing.
As I drifted away with a severed spinal column, two punctured lungs, ruptured liver, windpipe and sternum, shattered tibias and fibulas and internal bleeding I heard the soft bird-song in the trees around the diamond and slowly smiled.
When you're told you have to jump out of the K-620 military plane along with 4 of your comrades and an officer as part of your Airborne unit training the ground looks perilous.
Kitted out in standard-issue navy-blue jumpsuits with insurmountably large ripcord-operated backpacks straining our shoulders we queued up.
I knew the procedure.
It's in the fundamentals of training.
Freefall for two-thirds of the journey and then pull the primary ripcord, dangling by your left thigh.
You will initially shoot up as air fills the parachute, then begin a gradual decent which you can direct using the holes in the top of the parachute which act as a rudder to steer yourself.
30 feet from the ground you should bend your knees so your joints don’t take the impact and you should begin moving as you land so A) you don't fall over, and B) so the parachute falls behind you, not on top of you.
In training operations the 'landing patch' was shown by a red diamond, made from padded crash-mats, in an empty field somewhere.
The officer opened the hatch-door on the K-620 and a gust of icy air filled the hollow cabin.
Second in line I shivered.
Jones, first in line.
The reason you don't need to take a run-up to jump out of a plane is because the air-pressure outside is much lower than the air-pressure inside the plane, so as soon as you jump your feet leave the floor you are quite literally sucked out of the place.
Jones pulled his goggles down over his face and dived out of the plane. Hanging for a short eternity before vanishing between the clouds.
Second in line becomes first in line.
The chill now burning my cheeks I pulled the goggles over my eyes and blindly jumped into nothingness.
Clouds threw themselves at me left, right and centre as my stomach did somersaults
My traceometer, linked to a transmission device at the landing patch, told me I was 5,000 feet up.
My goggles frosted over with ice didn’t offer much help here.
4,000 feet
I pulled my primary ripcord.
Nothing.
I tugged again.
No up-shoot.
3,000 feet and I began to worry.
I'd reached my terminal velocity. The cold air began to burn my face.
My secondary ripcord hung near my neck to deploy the backup parachute.
Salvation.
I tugged it.
Nothing.
2,000 feet.
Parachutes where neither the primary or secondary parachutes worked were called 'dud chutes'.
The airforce sold these faulty parachutes to foreign forces or gave them to the training corps to show how
to work a parachute, not necessarily how they worked.
1,000 feet.
I remembered my physics lessons at school. The smaller the surface area the lesser the impact.
At 700 feet I was a ball of limbs and fear.
I shed my dud backpack to reduce my mass.
500 feet.
Terror set in.
One instance of terror can rupture a person's mind enough to make them insane. This sharp impact resulting in terror is called the Illinium Effect. The frontal lobes of the brain shrink as the person tries to block on the terror so a quarter of their usual size. This results in them being unable to express rational thoughts again.
300 feet
The red diamond loomed beneath me. My oblivion and fate.
200 feet
Acceptance overwhelmed me. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth on my face.
100 feet
Relaxation was paramount. The red diamond was both my goal and my escape clause.
Nothing became everything and then turned itself inside out.
Impact
The last sense that shuts down before you die is your sense of hearing.
As I drifted away with a severed spinal column, two punctured lungs, ruptured liver, windpipe and sternum, shattered tibias and fibulas and internal bleeding I heard the soft bird-song in the trees around the diamond and slowly smiled.
The words fell down the page like the voice of the doomed parachutist. Bits and pieces of ‘technical’ information added to the enjoyment. The diamond loomed throughout. I suppose I could say ‘how did he write it, he’s dead?’ - but that would just be nitpicking. So yeah, good.
Oh I seeeeee.
I was gonna say ... guy falls 5000 feet ... that's not going to be a near-death experience ... nor a very pretty experience at all.
I was gonna say ... guy falls 5000 feet ... that's not going to be a near-death experience ... nor a very pretty experience at all.
FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> It wasn't a near-death story, Meka
Just because he died doesn't mean it wasn't a near-death story. What I meant was the reaction on the way down - he knew he was close to death, rather than in the context of a typical 'near-death' experience in which one would live.
So yeah, I knew what I was on about...
> It wasn't a near-death story, Meka
Just because he died doesn't mean it wasn't a near-death story. What I meant was the reaction on the way down - he knew he was close to death, rather than in the context of a typical 'near-death' experience in which one would live.
So yeah, I knew what I was on about...
I liked it, different to the usual types of story on here. Only slight fault I could see is when his first chord fails the main character seems a little calm.
I, for instance, would be crapping myself. :)
I, for instance, would be crapping myself. :)
It wasn't a near-death story, Meka
Well I liked it. I thought the technical bits added to the story. Interesting that he went into survival mode, making himself small, rather than blind panic and memories as you so often read in this type of near-death story.
I made up most of the science-sounding stuff.
It's fiction, see. I'm allowed to.
It's fiction, see. I'm allowed to.
You don't actually shoot upwards when you open a parachute, just slow down a lot. When you see that on TV it's just that the camera man is still free-falling when whoever he's filming has slowed right down.
Just so you know.
Just so you know.
Too much boring descriptions as opposed to an actual story in here for me and I would have thought that, even in a ball, a fall like that would cause instant death.
From 10,000 feet above the ground looks unreachable.
When you're told you have to jump out of the K-620 military plane along with 4 of your comrades and an officer as part of your Airborne unit training the ground looks perilous.
Kitted out in standard-issue navy-blue jumpsuits with insurmountably large ripcord-operated backpacks straining our shoulders we queued up.
I knew the procedure.
It's in the fundamentals of training.
Freefall for two-thirds of the journey and then pull the primary ripcord, dangling by your left thigh.
You will initially shoot up as air fills the parachute, then begin a gradual decent which you can direct using the holes in the top of the parachute which act as a rudder to steer yourself.
30 feet from the ground you should bend your knees so your joints don’t take the impact and you should begin moving as you land so A) you don't fall over, and B) so the parachute falls behind you, not on top of you.
In training operations the 'landing patch' was shown by a red diamond, made from padded crash-mats, in an empty field somewhere.
The officer opened the hatch-door on the K-620 and a gust of icy air filled the hollow cabin.
Second in line I shivered.
Jones, first in line.
The reason you don't need to take a run-up to jump out of a plane is because the air-pressure outside is much lower than the air-pressure inside the plane, so as soon as you jump your feet leave the floor you are quite literally sucked out of the place.
Jones pulled his goggles down over his face and dived out of the plane. Hanging for a short eternity before vanishing between the clouds.
Second in line becomes first in line.
The chill now burning my cheeks I pulled the goggles over my eyes and blindly jumped into nothingness.
Clouds threw themselves at me left, right and centre as my stomach did somersaults
My traceometer, linked to a transmission device at the landing patch, told me I was 5,000 feet up.
My goggles frosted over with ice didn’t offer much help here.
4,000 feet
I pulled my primary ripcord.
Nothing.
I tugged again.
No up-shoot.
3,000 feet and I began to worry.
I'd reached my terminal velocity. The cold air began to burn my face.
My secondary ripcord hung near my neck to deploy the backup parachute.
Salvation.
I tugged it.
Nothing.
2,000 feet.
Parachutes where neither the primary or secondary parachutes worked were called 'dud chutes'.
The airforce sold these faulty parachutes to foreign forces or gave them to the training corps to show how
to work a parachute, not necessarily how they worked.
1,000 feet.
I remembered my physics lessons at school. The smaller the surface area the lesser the impact.
At 700 feet I was a ball of limbs and fear.
I shed my dud backpack to reduce my mass.
500 feet.
Terror set in.
One instance of terror can rupture a person's mind enough to make them insane. This sharp impact resulting in terror is called the Illinium Effect. The frontal lobes of the brain shrink as the person tries to block on the terror so a quarter of their usual size. This results in them being unable to express rational thoughts again.
300 feet
The red diamond loomed beneath me. My oblivion and fate.
200 feet
Acceptance overwhelmed me. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth on my face.
100 feet
Relaxation was paramount. The red diamond was both my goal and my escape clause.
Nothing became everything and then turned itself inside out.
Impact
The last sense that shuts down before you die is your sense of hearing.
As I drifted away with a severed spinal column, two punctured lungs, ruptured liver, windpipe and sternum, shattered tibias and fibulas and internal bleeding I heard the soft bird-song in the trees around the diamond and slowly smiled.
When you're told you have to jump out of the K-620 military plane along with 4 of your comrades and an officer as part of your Airborne unit training the ground looks perilous.
Kitted out in standard-issue navy-blue jumpsuits with insurmountably large ripcord-operated backpacks straining our shoulders we queued up.
I knew the procedure.
It's in the fundamentals of training.
Freefall for two-thirds of the journey and then pull the primary ripcord, dangling by your left thigh.
You will initially shoot up as air fills the parachute, then begin a gradual decent which you can direct using the holes in the top of the parachute which act as a rudder to steer yourself.
30 feet from the ground you should bend your knees so your joints don’t take the impact and you should begin moving as you land so A) you don't fall over, and B) so the parachute falls behind you, not on top of you.
In training operations the 'landing patch' was shown by a red diamond, made from padded crash-mats, in an empty field somewhere.
The officer opened the hatch-door on the K-620 and a gust of icy air filled the hollow cabin.
Second in line I shivered.
Jones, first in line.
The reason you don't need to take a run-up to jump out of a plane is because the air-pressure outside is much lower than the air-pressure inside the plane, so as soon as you jump your feet leave the floor you are quite literally sucked out of the place.
Jones pulled his goggles down over his face and dived out of the plane. Hanging for a short eternity before vanishing between the clouds.
Second in line becomes first in line.
The chill now burning my cheeks I pulled the goggles over my eyes and blindly jumped into nothingness.
Clouds threw themselves at me left, right and centre as my stomach did somersaults
My traceometer, linked to a transmission device at the landing patch, told me I was 5,000 feet up.
My goggles frosted over with ice didn’t offer much help here.
4,000 feet
I pulled my primary ripcord.
Nothing.
I tugged again.
No up-shoot.
3,000 feet and I began to worry.
I'd reached my terminal velocity. The cold air began to burn my face.
My secondary ripcord hung near my neck to deploy the backup parachute.
Salvation.
I tugged it.
Nothing.
2,000 feet.
Parachutes where neither the primary or secondary parachutes worked were called 'dud chutes'.
The airforce sold these faulty parachutes to foreign forces or gave them to the training corps to show how
to work a parachute, not necessarily how they worked.
1,000 feet.
I remembered my physics lessons at school. The smaller the surface area the lesser the impact.
At 700 feet I was a ball of limbs and fear.
I shed my dud backpack to reduce my mass.
500 feet.
Terror set in.
One instance of terror can rupture a person's mind enough to make them insane. This sharp impact resulting in terror is called the Illinium Effect. The frontal lobes of the brain shrink as the person tries to block on the terror so a quarter of their usual size. This results in them being unable to express rational thoughts again.
300 feet
The red diamond loomed beneath me. My oblivion and fate.
200 feet
Acceptance overwhelmed me. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth on my face.
100 feet
Relaxation was paramount. The red diamond was both my goal and my escape clause.
Nothing became everything and then turned itself inside out.
Impact
The last sense that shuts down before you die is your sense of hearing.
As I drifted away with a severed spinal column, two punctured lungs, ruptured liver, windpipe and sternum, shattered tibias and fibulas and internal bleeding I heard the soft bird-song in the trees around the diamond and slowly smiled.