I believe I can fly...

Once its done its hard to explain how it was. Words fail me even now as I try to get my mind back to the state it was for those 3 amazing minutes. I still find it hard to believe… I flew.

One cloudy Sunday afternoon in the outskirts of Bangalore, 9 people walked up and braced themselves to a parachute. Not knowing what to expect, each one took turns getting hurled up 300 feet in the air dragged by a jeep.

By the time we reached Jakkur Aerodrome we had seen it all heavy rain, tons of clouds and even parts with the sun beating down. When we arrived at the airfield we were thrilled to see people in parachutes in the sky. The wind was good and no sign of rain :).

It took us a few mins to get registered and we had to wait almost 45 min before getting our turn. There were 3 starting points, we were on the right most one.

Satish was the first one up and he took Vikram’s cam with him to get pics from the air(will upload those pics as soon as I can lay a hand on them :P ). He got braced into a harness, thigh pads and a oversized helmet. He was strapped to the parchute and then hooked to the jeep. The jeep moved ahead and a second or two later he was up in the air… (Pics at the end of the page)

Getting dragged by a jeep is not my idea of a hobby but put a parachute in the frame and it just becomes cool. Once you move ahead you can feel teh ground slowly slipping away from your feet and in one moment there is no more ground to run on… Then you are in the air… the only thing you can control after that is how high pitched your scream can get.

You can hardly hear a sound up there and the view is simply breathtaking. Trust me all fears just dissappear once ur up there and the brain just gets in a super alert mode. Its hard to explain how extraordinary the feeling is to be up there… all i can say for sure is… “Its worth it :)”

Things can go a little wrong as Reshma found out… I did not get a good view of how it happened but the first thing I saw was her being dragged on the ground. For a sec I thought she must have tripped while running… Im still uncertian of how it happened but the awesome thing was she gave it another try and she did it. (She sure sounded thrilled once she was back down.)

Swetha was the last one to go. Btw it was her birthday too. She did not have to do much to get in the air and seemed to stay up longer than anyone else.

All in all the experience was spectacular and I recommend it to anyone and everyone.

I want to thank Swe for inviting me and CARE for organizing it. In case anyone is intrested in doing this drop in a comment.

The Pics…..

Satish: