Lane straps on a Brazilian

BY LANE NICHOLS

Call me crazy, but I've always had a phobia about jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane.

Maybe it was my primal instinct of survival or perhaps I'm nothing more than a bloody Shirley, but I have (until now) managed to avoid fastening a parachute to my body and jumping from the heavens to my messy and probable death.

But there I was - strapped to the front of a burly Brazilian guy called Mac and hanging precariously out the open door of a stripped-down six-seater plane.

"Oh my God," I thought to myself. "I'm going to die."

The wind howled through the fuselage like a force five hurricane and the earth glittered five kilometres below me like a miniature paper mache model, or long-range satellite photograph viewed from space via Google Earth.

Ten minutes earlier me and two buddies, a New York Frenchman and a young Italian guy from the Alps, were bundled into our Cresco 750 turbine aircraft at Wanaka airport then ferried up to the 15,000-feet-high drop zone.

Snug as a bug in my billowy red and blue skydiving overalls, spongy helmet and clear plastic goggles, Mac strapped me to the front of his body and went through his safety checks as I marvelled at the view.

A snow-capped Mt Cook hovered in the distance, its majestic peak dancing upon countless others in the jagged clutter of the Southern Alps. Mt Aspiring was there too, as was the Clutha River and the glacier-ice-blue Wanaka, Hawera, Pukaki and Tekapo lakes.

My heart pounded and I thought of my mum. "If I survive the 60-second freefall, she's going to kill me," I voice of reason said in my head.

But it was too late to turn back now. As the plane levelled out my tandem skydive master shuffled me to the open door and prepared to fling the pair of us out.

My feet hung out the door and my body was seconds away from dropping into a terrifying rush of the unknown. I took a last look down - a long, long way down - then pulled my head back into the jump position and braced.

Suddenly I was rolling and falling. The earth spun and the aircraft disappeared like a tumbling, vanishing spec. Everything was terrible noise and hurtling motion. I lost my stomach and all my major organs went into spasm. I was like a stone dropped from a bridge - a missile screaming towards the earth at 200kmh.

A falling angel. (Whatever, you knob - Ed.)

As the initial gut-wrenching sensation of extreme, g-force shock subsided slightly, something about the free fall changed. I was floating above the magnificent earth - my arms stretched out like a bird and my body hovering surreally yet hurtling forth in an indescribable rush of adrenalin.

My mouth opened and filled with rushing air. My ears burned with pressure. A stream of unrepeatable expletives exploded from my mouth which then warped into a huge smile.

Time stood still and for a moment there was nothing but me and the mountainous landscape - rushing towards me and growing bigger and more pronounced with every passing second.

A massive jerk and the view disappeared. My body was snatched from its free fall and suddenly there was beautiful silence.

The chute had opened and we were now sailing above farmland and rivers. I could make out houses and roads, the airport runway and what I assumed was our destined landing strip.

Mac pulled a chord and we were spinning in a massive arc, like a bird learning to fly and savouring the impossible weightless thrill of its first journey.

We tumbled down - down, down. One last rush of speed, we swooped down onto a green field and it was over.

I stood up and a wave of euphoria flooded over me. I had jumped from a plane and survived.

Okay Pierre, what's next brother?

- © Fairfax NZ News