Jumping out of a perfectly good plane

I force myself to be uncomfortable. It keeps me on edge, on my toes, and agile and ready to go. Just recently, I checked off skydiving off my life bucket list. It was a perfectly clear day, with 360 views. With the weather so nice, we were able to go up to 13,000 feet. We put on our jump suites, harness and met our instructor. They prepped us on what was going to happen and then we boarded the plane.

The 15 minute flight up was incredibly scary. The anticipation was probably the hardest part of the jump. When we reached 13,000 feet, the green light went off and the doors opened. A certified jumped went head first out. Next came my friend Cassie. She was fearless and just flopped out the door. Her husband Steven came next. His face turned white as he scooted toward the door and out. At that point, I wanted to stop.

I looked out the door and down to the earth. Two seconds later, all I felt was falling. I held tightly to the harness and screamed. After about five seconds, air resistance caught up and it felt like floating. That didn’t stop me from screaming the entire way down.

Not sure if I’ll do this again, but I’m proud I got it checked off my bucket list.

Here’s the edited version from Snohomish Skydive.

I also got the raw footage of the jump itself. It’s higher quality and captures most of my screaming the entire way down.

Published by Daniel Hoang

Daniel Hoang is a visual leader, storyteller, and creative thinker. As an experienced management consultant, he believes in a big picture approach that includes strong project leadership, creative methods, change management, and strategic visioning. He uses a range of visual tools to communicate business challenges, solutions, and goals. His change strategy is to build "tribes" of supporters and evangelists to drive change in culture and organization. Daniel is an avid technologist and futurist and early adopter.