Senior skydiving

I had to laugh when I saw this article in the local newspaper about a 97-year-old man who made his first skydive at Skydive Snohomish where Smart Guy and I jump regularly. This picture shows me under my Stiletto 135 in the front, and him under his Stiletto 170 behind me. (A Stiletto is a style of parachute manufactured by Performance Designs; click to enlarge any picture.)

If you read that article, you'll see that the Drop Zone owner requires all customers older than 65 to get clearance from their doctor. Yesterday while we were at the DZ, I asked Tyson if he wanted one from our doctors; he smiled and said it wasn't necessary. Then I realized that we are indeed the oldest active skydivers out there.

We each made three jumps yesterday and had a great day. We both would have made another one, but the plane was temporarily suspended from operations while they checked out a possible oil leak. Even though the oil pressure and all systems looked good, the pilot and Tyson took precautions so there wouldn't be any problems with the plane. Instead of staying around (it was already 4:00 pm), we took ourselves off the load and headed home. It's always a satisfying feeling to have had those jumps and a good day playing in the sky with friends. I'm sure Linny and Christine stayed to make as many jumps as they could before the sun went down yesterday.

We have more than an hour's drive home in pretty heavy traffic, so it's not much fun to stay until the very last minute. With so many skydives under my belt, I'm no longer hungry for every last jump. Yesterday, Jennifer Kemp borrowed one of my many jumpsuits so she can make her 100th jump today using it. I would say she looks quite fetching in it, don't you think?

She still doesn't have her own jumpsuit, as they tend to cost a fair amount (around $300-$400), and I haven't used this one for years. But I still carry it around with me because it provides me with more range when I wear it; I fall more slowly in it. I am gradually populating the DZ with my jumpsuits, since my old instructor suit is being worn by Christine until hers arrives. I've got five jumpsuits and these days I only use two of them. Here's Christine:

One of the reasons I don't use this one much any more is because it's black and quite hot to wear in the heat of summer. It also has all those advertisements on it which I used to think were really cool, but these days not so much. When you're almost 68 years old, the only thing you want to advertise at the DZ is that you're still there! And active! BTW, if you're interested, I wrote a post about how I became a skydiver over on my other blog back in January. I seem to have some followers who don't know the story.
:-)