Skydiving Club takes risks 'to prevent life from escaping us'

At a certain point, there's no turning back. College sophomore Jason Collison didn't realize what he'd gotten himself into until after the plane doors opened and he could hear the swish of expanding parachutes below. He had already joined the Outing Club with mountain biking and climbing expeditions in mind. But the Skydiving Club's dangerously enticing slogan, "We take these risks not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us," seemed too good to pass up, so he signed on eagerly with 10 other students for the inaugural jump to be made October 17. With the wind blowing in his face at 13,500 feet, however, Collison questioned the sanity of his decision. And then he jumped. "It's like the whole world is moving, and you're still," Collison said. "It feels like floating." That exact feeling motivated Wharton freshman Bill Redecker to establish the University of Pennsylvania Skydiving Club this fall. Redecker remembers his own first jump well. "As soon as I landed, I had the answers to the questions that were with me before," he said. "I had found what I was looking for." Soon after that jump, which took place in 1995, Redecker left Penn to move to Southern California. There, he bought a tent at the end of a runway for planes flying skydivers to their appointed altitude. "It was so hot out there," he remembers of the desert heat. "I used to wake up in the morning to sounds of plane engines warming up. After two years of working odd jobs and making about 140 jumps, Redecker is back on campus and ready to pass on his experience. "There's a certain something that people have to have to jump, and it's just knowing together that did it," he said. "I'll pass people on the Walk, and we'll smile, and sometimes they even look up at the sky." If students feel they have the "right stuff," the cost of the trip ranges from $180 to $285 based on the type of instruction desired. The less expensive jump, called a tandem jump,Erequires only an hour of ground training, but necessitates that the student be connected to a professional skydiver during the jump. The more expensive dive, called an accelerated free fall, requires five hours of training, but allows the student to jump unattached with instructors on either side. "We'll give you the material you need in order to make a decision on what's best for you," said Redecker, adding that safety is a major concerns of most prospective jumpers. "There's always a risk, and you're always a little afraid," he said. But Redecker added that relatively new technology has made it possible for jumpers to land comfortably on their feet, and three different safety measures exist for chutes that don't open. Parents' opinions are an additional concern, Collison said. "Some guys who went didn't tell theirs until afterward, but I let mine know a week in advance to give them time to learn about it and become calm," he said.