Compare and Contrast - Sky-diving to Bungee Jumping

                In Greek mythology, the son of a master craftsman named Icarus attempted to fly by the means of wings constructed of feathers held together by wax.   In his excitement of flight he flew too close to the sun and the wax holding his wings together melted.  He fell from the sky to his death.  When I think of this fable I imagine what the free-fall from the sky felt like for him; I am significantly less interested in his landing.  For all human history many have had the desire of being able to fly.  This high flying ambition has led to numerous methods of extreme adventure.  I will compare two methods I have personally tried; sky-diving and bungee jumping.  The following material is offered, based on personal experience.

When my father was alive he was a very well-known professional sky-diver.  He had completed thousands of successful jumps in his lifetime.  Watching home movies and reading newspaper clippings of his exhibition jumps instilled a burning desire inside of me to feel what he felt.  I discovered an adrenaline based, possibly genetic obsession with flying through the sky at an intense speed.  I needed to know if I was exactly like my father.

 My sky-diving jump took place in Illinois at Skydive Chicago which at the time was known as one of the best skydiving centers in the Midwest.  The first jump is done either with a tandem instructor or static line.  My jump was with a tandem instructor.  Tandem sky-diving is when the student sky-diver is connected to a harness attached to a tandem instructor. The instructor guides the student through the entire jump from exiting the aircraft through free-fall, piloting the canopy, and landing.  This type of jump requires what the experts consider minimal instruction before making the jump.  I specifically recall the instruction being very informative and lasting approximately two and a half hours.  The name of my instructor was Goat.  I am not sure why that is relevant but I distinctly remember an overwhelming sense of concern for my safety when I met him for the first time.  I was not sure I could take a “goat” seriously as an instructor.  When he saw my name on the sign-up sheet he asked if I was related to a man named Richard Stevenson.  He knew my father personally and told me about a few of the most outstanding jumps they did together.  At that point any concern I may have been feeling for my safety at that point was immediately distinguished. 

When you jump from an airplane, it is difficult to tell visually that you are descending and for the majority of jumps, you leave an airplane that is moving something close to terminal velocity which is around one hundred and ten miles per hour to one hundred and twenty miles per hour, there is absolutely no feeling of falling; your direction changes gradually from "forward" to "down" there is no distinct sensation of dropping.  The free-fall feels more like flying than falling.

My first Bungee jump was done in the Wisconsin Dells at a place called Extreme World.  This location has been closed since then due to operator error and lack of safety that resulted in critically injuring a 12 year old girl while her family watched in horror.   I felt that the people who worked there seemed to lack concern for my fears and concerns for safety.  They appeared overly confident in what they were doing when strapping me into the harness. There was absolutely no training or instruction offered whatsoever.  The rate of speed they rushed me through the process was as if they wanted to prevent me from changing my mind.  I had no choice but to assume they knew what they were doing.  I recall standing on the edge and looking down.  I could see the ground and the faces of my friends watching me in complete fear; I could almost read their lips.  I remembered the day I jumped out of the airplane. I could not see the ground through the clouds; it felt peaceful in comparison to what I was feeling with this huge heavy cord dangling in the wind beneath my feet.  I remember thinking it would catch the wind a pull me off of the platform as I stood there trembling in fear.  The operator told me to put my arms out in front of me and he grabbed my fist and pulled me off of the platform.  It was a very quick experience for me.   I remember wanting desperately to scream and not being able to.  My perception was that I really felt like I was falling; I had that feeling you get in your stomach as well as the visual cues of the ground screaming towards me at a high rate of speed.  As the bungee cord slowed me down I was hanging upside down, it felt like the contents of my stomach continued moving downward at a somewhat faster pace.  After the elastic took effect and the fall was no longer a free fall, I felt, surprisingly secure in the fact that the equipment my life was hanging on was actually trustworthy.  This feeling continued until my bungee cord was motionless.   I was in shock and wanted nothing more than to be safely on the ground.  The operator then lowered me to the ground as I uncomfortably hung upside down with the blood rushing to my head. 

Bungee jumping was a completely different experience for me.  It is significantly scarier, despite the fact that the jump is 34 times shorter in length. The bungee jump was about 230 feet. The sky-dive was an 8,000-foot plunge.  Although the jumps themselves lasted about 60 seconds each, the sky-dive had an overwhelming calming factor after the speed of flying through the sky.  As soon as the parachute opens, everything becomes silent as you approach the Earth.  I felt like an astronaut landing on this planet for the first time. There was green and blue everywhere and I could see the outlines of the fields and roads below me as if I were looking down at a topographical map.

As I mentioned before, sky-diving involves quite a bit more preparation and participation by the jumpers.  The more informed you are, the calmer you become.  It helps alleviate the stress you go through when you know you are venturing into an unfamiliar environment.  Bungee jumping is much more like an amusement park ride in the sense that you just get strapped in and off you go and then it is over before you know it.

There is no doubt in my mind that I would sky-dive again.  It gave me a peaceful feeling I have found difficult to match as well as an adventurous respect for my father.  It defined an addiction to adrenaline and understanding for my personal need for adventure.  I plan to sky-dive least one more time before I die of old age.   Although I am glad I have done both, I am not entirely sure whether or not I would ever bungee jump again. 

Tandem Sky-diving

Bungee jumping