Letting Go: Flying with SEMO Skydiving

It’s a sunny Saturday morning, and I am at Cairo Regional Airport in Cairo, Ill., strapping on a skydiving rig, which contains a main canopy, a reserve canopy and pilot chute. Each of my legs goes through padded loops I tighten uncomfortably around my upper thighs by pulling a belt on each side. I pull the rig up around my shoulders so the weighted pack sits on my back. For a moment, I panic — putting this on doesn’t mean I’m jumping, right? They know I’m only along for the ride, to watch their process of how they jump out of an airplane? The gear makes it difficult to walk and feels heavy on my shoulders. I feel silly, gingerly stepping forward toward the small, yellow aircraft that will take us up. It is a beautiful machine, a yellow and white Cessna 205 with a skydiver depicted on the wing. Ralph Bailey, co-owner of the SEMO Skydiving Club, asks me if I wear contacts. I say yes, and he says to watch out when they open the door while we’re in the air — they might blow out. I laugh, but I’m not sure if he’s joking.

The other skydivers are all suited up: there will be three of them in the plane, along with me, photographer Jeganaath Giri and the pilot. Doris Walker, D-27,000, I, Coach, Pro, is jumping with her student Dale Burger, who will jump today for the seventeenth time as he works toward his A license. Craig Dumey of Scott City has been skydiving for 22 years and is also jumping with us. I get in first, crawling clumsily into the very back of the plane, sitting on the floor since there aren’t any seats. I sit sideways with my back against the side wall, and Walker straps me in with a belt attached to the floor. Giri climbs in next, followed by Dumey and then Walker and then Burger. We all sit so closely together that we touch, and I love it, this intimacy of limbs in jumpsuits all tangled up amongst each other, a reassurance of physical presence to people who are about to jump out of an airplane together. Yes, I am here, as leg touches leg. Yes, we are about to do this, as hand touches knee. Yes, we don’t know the outcome, as legs encircle bodies sitting on the floor in this small space that has become a sanctuary. I have missed touching strangers. As we take off, Dumey asks me if I’ve ever been in a small plane before, like I might be worried. I have not, and although I’ve heard horror stories, I don’t understand why. It is smooth and while others’ trepidation causes me to wonder if I should be worried, I can’t suppress the delight spreading through my chest as we rise in the sky. Dumey shows me a pull on one side of my rig. “If the plane is going down and the pilot tells you to pull this, pull it when he says,” he tells me. “It means something has gone really wrong. After we jump, the pilot will tilt the plane so he can close the door. Don’t worry; that’s supposed to happen.”

Dale Burger sits in the airplane on the ascent to 8,000 feet before skydiving out of the plane. Burger is a skydiving student who on this day made his 17th jump as he works toward his A license.Photo by Jeganaath Giri

Other than that, we don’t talk much. I am unsure if I should look at the others; it seems somehow disrespectful to watch how people prepare to confront their own mortality by jumping out of an airplane. Is it polite to invite myself in to others’ prayer or doubt or fear through observing without being observed? But then, maybe that’s not what they’re thinking; they have done this hundreds of times. When I do glance over, Dumey has his eyes calmly closed, Walker is smiling. We look out the windows.

I love flying, and with the pandemic, I haven’t gotten to be above the earth for months. I realize while I am there: this is the year I forgot things like airplanes and other places existed. It was refreshing for so many months to be grounded, present; it is refreshing now, with the world opening up 8,000 feet below me, to remember.

Walker, who resides in Grand Rivers, Ky., has been skydiving since 2001 and instructing since 2003. She uses an audible altimeter in her helmet to track her jumps, averaging free fall between 107 to 110 miles per hour. From 8,000 feet, she says she usually gets approximately 40 seconds of free fall, and it takes around four to seven minutes to reach the ground after jumping. To her, it feels like flying.

She first got into skydiving after watching the movie “Drop Zone” and “thought it would be cool if real people could do that,” she says. She asked around, and one of her coworkers said he could connect her with a club. That’s how she discovered SEMO Skydiving.

“I was just going to do it the one time. I was like, ‘I’ll do it once, say I did it, bucket list thing,” she recalls. After she jumped, though, one thing was clear. She remembers thinking, “I have to do that over and over again.”

Doris Walker packs her rig before skydiving at the Cairo Regional Airport in Cairo, Ill. Walker began skydiving in 2001 and became a skydiving instructor in 2003.Photo by Jeganaath Giri

That was in 2001. Now, she has made more than 1,500 jumps. She decided to become an instructor to bring others into the sport and grow it.

The fastest she’s ever fallen was 166 miles per hour, when she did a two-way, head down, “just something crazy to have fun with,” she says. The slowest she’s ever fallen is 90 miles per hour, which she says is more difficult than falling fast.

“The free fall is more exciting adrenaline; the canopy is more quiet. When you’re free falling, it’s like windows down in your car going 70 miles per hour.”

As we’re ascending, she spots, telling the pilot where to fly so when they jump, they’ll be able to land back at the airport. It’s a detailed process that entails learning about wind direction and speed; when skydiving with others, it’s also important to have a basic understanding of terminal velocity and body schematics. With Burger, she also goes over the skydiving process and where they are going to break off.

And then, it’s time. The divers open the door and then stand, preparing themselves. Walker and Burger go first, standing out on the wing. Right after they jump, Dumey pushes off from the doorway.

Walker steps into the airplane before skydiving with the SEMO Skydiving Club. She was first inspired to skydive after watching the movie "Drop Zone."Photo by Jeganaath Giri

It is very undramatic. One second, they’re there; the next, they’re gone. It looks more like falling than jumping, or maybe, rather, a letting go. If you blink, you miss it.

After the skydivers have jumped, it is just me, Giri, and Pilot Vellos Purputidis in the plane, looking at the curves in the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers from 8,000 feet up.

“You know what’s crazy?” Purputidis says as he looks out the pilot-side window. “I’m afraid of heights. This is just a different mindset than if I was on a building.”

“I don’t even feel that I’m working. … Every jump is like a new adventure,” he says. At this point in time, he’s been a commercial pilot for six months, working with SEMO Skydiving for three of those. “You don’t get that routine feeling that you would get in an office job or something. Every Saturday I come out here is like going to have fun. You get this excitement inside of you. From pre-flying the plane to the moment you allow the jumpers out, all the points of it are fun. There’s not a part that I dislike with this occupation.”

Purpuditis watches out the window to see when the skydivers have returned to the airport. He says he could beat them down, but that would be dangerous, so he enjoys the time in the air while they’re getting to the ground. It takes approximately a half an hour in all. After the skydivers have touched down, Purpuditis lands the plane.

A Cessna 205 sits outside the Cairo Regional Airport in Cairo, Ill., before the skydivers pile in to make their jump. On this day, Pilot Vellos Purputidis has been flying with the SEMO Skydiving Club for three months.Photo by Jeganaath Giri

Once our feet are back on the concrete, we find Walker, Burger and Dumey all made it back down safely. They’re alive and joking with the other divers and instructors who are getting suited up to make the next jump. I take off the parachute I didn’t need to pass it along to the next person. Before this, I would have told you hands down I would never skydive. Now, it doesn’t seem so bad.

It is, fundamentally, a sport about trust. Trust in a small plane to get you into the air. Trust in a pilot to fly you skillfully where you need to go. Trust in the air to hold you. Trust in yourself to pack your parachute. Trust in your ability to deploy it.

And when it comes down to it, that moment when it’s time, it’s a sport about letting go.

While we have woefully conceded to the pandemic teaching us how to let go by wresting so much from our grips because we have no choice, some people practice it for sport.

“As far as a hobby goes, nothing else compares. I don’t know what else I would do [if I didn’t skydive],” Dumey says. “You just have to overcome the fear up here [in your mind] and do it. It’s going to work. Chances are, it’ll be alright.”

Craig Dumey, Doris Walker and Dale Burger stand in front of the airplane with their parachutes after skydiving. From 8,000 feet in the air, Walker says she has approximately 40 seconds of freefall and that it takes an average of four to seven minutes to land on the ground.Photo by Jeganaath Giri