The Mad Sport Of Skydiving

In the interest of the development of skydiving as a major sport at the Summer School, the Summer News is pleased to reprint the following article, published earlier this year in the Harvard Crimson Review. James R. Ullyot is a former sports editor for the Crimson.)

For me, and, I think, for most beginners, sport parachuting isn't actually a sport.

It's a mad test of courage during which you often find yourself considering, "What am I doing?" But tremendous curiosity wins out over tremendous fear, and the result is an adventure so intense that you become, for a while afterward either romantic or philosophical. As for the curiosity, just ask someone who hasn't jumped, "Skydiving must be a real thrill, don't you think?" Then ask him, "Would you like to try it this weekend?" And so you see the fear. For before he answers, he'll think of violent death--as do most people when they're asked to go parachuting, when they imagine themselves-not others-falling through space from out of a plane.

That's the beginning of the experience, when you imagine the anger, and make the decision. It isn't easy. Most people say no; some say yes. Others respond as I did: "No, I don't think so... Where do you do it?...What's it like?...is it really safe?...When are you going?"

Thus, if you do as I did, you enter one of the most difficult parts of the parachuting experience, the period of mental preparation. It's frustrating because reason fights with emotion. You are convinced of the safety, but you can't avoid the fears.

This period of soul-searching may be difficult, but it is essential to the experience. As one parachuting enthusiast from the Harvard community points out. "The adventure is especially unique because it is 'internalized."

"This is a most intellectual sport," he asserts in a vivid description of the internal conflict that he experienced during his first jump. "On the one hand is the fact of its safety: you grasp this easily and firmly with the mind. But on the other hand is the emotion of fear. It is so strong that you might want to call it an instinct. It is not, of course. This fear is very useful, and you have learned it from your earliest days of falling out of your high-chair.

"This fear in us is deep and indispensable--indispensable when we are climbing mountains or looking out windows, and so deep that we react to its promptings instantaneously and without thought.

"The problem and excitement of jumping is to follow mind rather than emotion. Will reason win, or ancient fear? This is the beauty of the sport: it strips off everything incidental and lays bare this one great question."

And when reason wins out, you go through the Moment of Truth. For four frightening seconds, you lose every last bit of control over yourself. And, as you speed toward the earth, you stop introspecting.

As my more imaginative friend describes it, "Some famous wit--was it Dr. Johnson?--said of a sentence of hanging that 'it concentrates the mind wonderfully'. So also jumping--in particular that delirious moment of exit--concentrates consciousness in a blindingly bright, diamond hard point. Mind has triumphed; this is the moment of pure reason.

"All the other concerns of daily life--your job, your sweetheart, your bank-account, your social standing--fall away and are 'put in their place'. I can guarantee this: if you have any troubles--and I mean any troubles--you will totally forget them, at least for four seconds."

You won't think of your troubles when the canopy opens, wither. I can guarantee that. You'll be too overjoyed, as I was when I heard the soft "pop" and felt the firm tug of the chute.

A feeling of glorious relief overtakes you, and then you relax. You are alone in the sky, and all is quiet.

You look up, and you feel like shouting. And then you look down. You kick your feet. You steer the chute, and head toward the target, but you don't really care about hitting the spot. Not on your first jump, anyway.

And then, with your feet together and your eyes on the horizon, you hit the ground. Upon impact, you collapse and roll.

The blissful descent is over. You get up exhilarated and proud, and it all seems worth the worry. The amount of your happiness equals--at least--the amount of your fear beforehand. And, as my friend declares, you feel that "Your perspective is restored. You just don't exaggerate petty things after you've parachuted."

It is my conclusion, then, after looking back on my one and only jump, that the experience of parachuting can get through to you pretty deeply. It can force you in on yourself as never before, and it can take you away from yourself--for four seconds--as never before. It isn't all terror, nor is it all thrill. Nor does the adventure last for only the few minutes of decent from exit to landing.

It begins with your decision to go and, certainly it continues as a sharp memory for the rest of your life. Each man can treat the adventure in retrospect as he wishes, whether that be by philosophizing boasting, or remaining sober about it, for it is, ultimately an extremely individual experience.

Beyond the basic curiosity, motives vary. Some jump because they think that the good life must have frequent bouts with danger; others do it for therapeutic reasons in times of despair. A few do it to prove to themselves--and, perhaps, to others--that they are men. And, of course, there are those who just seek the thrill.

The experienced jumpers seem to be the only bunch of guys who assume the by-products of the "crisis", and concentrate on the various skills such as free-fall position (before the parachute opens) and landing on target. For this reason, they seem to be the only people who see it as a sport.

That they concentrate on technique rather than trauma does not mean of hazard, however. They, like the nervous beginners, know that accidents can happen.

What about the danger? How safe is sport parachuting? Like riding in airplanes or even in cars, it's not 100 per cent foolproof, though the statistics are overwhelmingly in favor of your coming out alive.

The man who convinced me of the statistical advantage and therefore talked me into jumping is Nick Soutter, a junior from Dedham who lives in Adams House. He has done more to promote sport parachuting at Harvard than all other skydivers at the College have done since 1957, when the Crimson won this country's first intercollegiate parachute tournament.

(Sport parachuting was brought to this country from France in 1956 by Jacques Istel.)

Here are some of the things that Soutter pointed out to me: You jump with an emergency parachute on your chest which you deploy in case of a malfunction in the main canopy. On your first five jumps, in accordance with Parachuts Club of America regulations, you use a static line, which means that your rip cord is pulled for you as soon as you leave the plane.

There have been over 5,000 sport parachute jumps made at Mansfield--and at least that many at Orange--resulting in no fatalities whatsoever. Last year there were 60,000 jumps made in this country, resulting in six fatalities--none of which attributable to parachute malfunction (a suicide two drownings, two "freezes" on non-static-line jumps, and one electrocution resulting from a landing in high wires.)

In the seven years of jumping in Massachusetts, one of this country's leading parachute centers, there has been only one death--the birthday cake drowning of last September off Plum Island.

Soutter, a New England safety officer licensed by the P.C.A., told me that he had taken 489 students through static-line jumps--in none of which did the main canopy fail. And he showed me how a parachute works, how the several tough, elastic bands throw the pack open when the rip cord is pulled, and how, at the same instant, the pilot chute (a miniature parachute that pulls the main canopy out) hurtles almost 20 feet into the air by the force of its own compressed spring system.

It was all very convincing. So I jumped from a Cessna 182 at 2500 feet with a 28-foot "skydiver" parachute over the Mansfield airport grounds. Mansfield is the headquarters for the Cambridge Parachute Club, the oldest club of its type in the country, having been formed in 1957.

Soutter is the only Harvard undergraduate serving as an executive member of the C.P.C., which includes many students from other New England colleges. He heads up a group of about ten Harvard students who jump regularly as members of the C.P.C at Mansfield, the traditional headquarters for Crimson teams. Presently, this group is preparing to represent Harvard in the national intercollegiates, to be held in Orange in May.

Sport parachuting in this country has boomed over the past few years, as it has throughout the world. Jumping centers are specially popular in California and Arizona, as well as in Massachusetts.

But like most modern sports such as sports car racing, motor-cycling, or skindiving, parachuting is not inexpensive. At Mansfield, for example, a first jump costs $25 the following two $15 and the next two $10--a total of $75 for the five static-line student jumps and membership in the C.P.C. The cost of each subsequent free-fall jump averages only about $3, however.

That sport parachuting has caught on at Harvard can be seen by the fact that an increasing number of students are jumping to enhance their "variety of experience", and by the fact that at least one member of the faculty has started to jump.

Take, for example, Samuel H. Beer, professor of government, who began parachuting last July at the age of 50. With six static-line jumps to his record--plus one broken ankle--Beer has got the bug.

But he, like every other person who has jumped, warns, "By all means, don't try it unless you are absolutely convinced that you'll make it.