Taking a Dive : Skydivers Are Jumping for Joy at an Increasing Rate at Perris Valley

Birds were born to fly, fish to swim and humans to walk the earth. The first two know their places.

The other’s inclination to tempt the order of nature has led 40 apparently stable and intelligent men and women to Perris Valley Airport south of Riverside, where they have climbed aboard an ancient plane and sit on the floor toboggan style, backs toward a wide-open door. All wear grins, goggles, jump suits and parachutes, but the ‘chutes are only for the last few thousand feet. These folks are about to try to fly.

“Remember when sex was safe and skydiving was dangerous?”

--Bumper sticker pasted inside a skydivers’ DC-3

For an experienced skydiver, stepping out of an airplane is as natural as falling off a log--a log 2 1/2 miles up.

“It’s so natural, it takes very little training,” says Tim Domenico, who has jumped about 600 times.

It’s an everyday occurrence at Perris Valley, 365 days a year.

“We’re aerodynamic,” Domenico says. “We leave the airplane when it’s going 85 or 90, which is more than enough air to control your body with little (effort) . . . tilt, tuck a shoulder in, stick your legs out, turn with your hands.”

It’s not cheap--$18 apiece for the airplane, every time up. The sport costs from $2,000 to $10,000 a year, depending on the level of activity.

“But how much would you pay to feel like Superman for 60 seconds?” Domenico asks.

In free-falling at a terminal velocity of 120 m.p.h., or 175 feet a second, skydivers say they feel more like they’re flying than falling. Since it’s advisable not to land at that speed, they still have to pull the rip cord--except these days they call it the hand deploy pilot chute, a tiny parachute that leads the main chute out of the pack.

There’s still a big handle for the rip cord on the reserve chute but, hey, they hardly ever need that.

Skydiving has come a long way since the 1960s, when white, round, umbrella-like military surplus chutes were standard and people broke legs landing at 17 m.p.h., the equivalent of an eight-foot drop. Now, everybody uses a rectangular canopy in his favorite colors, and it is so controllable that, with a little practice, a person can turn into the wind and stall just before settling softly onto the ground, like stepping off a bus.

“The sport has changed dramatically in the 15 years I’ve been in it,” said Domenico, who publishes Paraglider magazine for a later discipline that takes skydiving a step farther into inflated canopies for longer flights.

“It used to be a bunch of people would drive a mile out of town to a little airfield. Half were drunk. There were very few women. There was a time when a third of the jumpers in the sport were Hells Angels. But they wouldn’t fit in here now. They’d feel terribly out of place.”

Nobody seems to have a death wish.

“If they did, they wouldn’t do this sport, because this sport is not that deadly,” Domenico said. “We’re not daredevils.”

Skydivers say there is a rate of only one chute malfunction every 1,000 jumps--and there’s always a mandatory reserve chute, which must be inspected and repacked by a rigger certified by the Federal Aviation Administration every four months.

Perris Valley leads the world with about 100,000 jumps a year. The only fatality there in recent memory occurred in September, and it was listed as a suicide by the Riverside County coroner because the diver was believed to be depressed over personal problems and apparently made no attempt to deploy either of his chutes.

He was not typical. Instead, the typical skydiver now “is 26 to 35 years old (and) the average educational level is probably two years of college,” Domenico said. “Fifty percent are probably independent business people. A lot of these people are professionals, college educated, drive nice cars with telephones.”

Domenico has described the modern young upscale professional: a yuppie. They have found their recreational niche.

Tom Falzone, 30, is a product marketing agent from La Canada with 1,300 jumps. Two years ago he was part of the 144-way (person) world-record link-up formation at Quincy, Ill.

“My first time I was very scared, but I had a great desire to try,” he said. “Before my parachute landed me on the ground I was hooked.”

About 15% of the 23,000 skydivers registered by the United States Parachute Assn. are women. Diana Ransome, 32, a schoolteacher from Moreno Valley, with 450 jumps, said: “It’s a stress release, an escape from reality after getting from Monday through Friday. (The other teachers) think I’m crazy. They’re all happy to see me walk into the lounge on Monday morning.”

Linda Scalfano, 25, an engineer at McDonnell Douglas, with 57 jumps, said: “I relaxed once I finally got it into my head that this was a fun thing. When I finished my student jumps I was really proud of myself--more than when I graduated from college. But I don’t bring it up at work because I get tired of people asking, ‘Why would you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?’ ”

Why, indeed?

Domenico said: “The great misconception about this sport is that we jump out of airplanes for the thrill of seeing if our parachutes will open. Equipment has evolved to where we don’t even think about it. We think about the free-fall.”

There are notices posted that anyone reported consuming alcohol--even a beer--or drugs on the day of a jump will be grounded for 60 days.

“We don’t see that twice a year,” Domenico said. “But he will be reported, because he’s not just risking his life.”

One of the older skydivers, who has about 5,300 jumps in 31 years, gave his age as 52 and his name only as Mongo.

“I don’t drink, don’t do drugs,” he said. “All the rush in the world is here.”

“We’re adrenaline junkies,” said Kate Cooper, who runs the pro shop at the skydiving center. “You don’t need anything else. It’s the best drug there is. Your body creates it, and it’s free.”

“Skydivers are good to the last drop.”

--Skydiver dark humor

Veteran skydivers claim their sport is safer than driving to the airport to do it--not that it’s so safe it’s boring, but after several hundred jumps some of the skydivers look for greater challenges.

The 40 in the DC-3 this day are trying out for the 110-way team that will try to set a state record at Perris Valley Dec. 7-9. They must link up for three seconds to make it official.

They’ll start to break up at 4,500 feet, and “we want to be open by 2,000 feet,” says Mark Pharr, who with Cooper and instructor Jeff Jones is organizing the attempt. “That allows us time (11 1/2 seconds) to use the reserve parachute if we need to.”

Linking up the formation, or “blot,” involves six phases--exit, dive, track, flare (slow), lurk (wait) and dock--during which each diver must find his assigned slot. A skilled diver can vary his speed from 60 to 200 m.p.h.

A photographer and reporter go along for the ride to 12,500 feet--and the ride back down in the DC-3.

“They’ve told me if I keep you guys from falling out of the airplane I’ll get a free jump,” Domenico says.

Nevertheless, the non-jumpers are required to wear chutes, and Pharr offers some brief instruction.

The most important thing he says is: “If the pilot goes out, you follow him.”

After a 25-minute climb, the DC-3 levels off. Cooper announces “jump run” and holds up three fingers--meaning, three minutes. At “one minute,” three “floaters” step out the door and hang onto a handhold. They’ll let go when the first divers exit, the purpose being to get everybody free-falling as close together as possible.

The divers inside are standing in a tightly bunched conga line, and at the commands “ready . . . set . . . go!” they charge out the door in lock step, like a centipede. They’re all gone in 10 seconds, leaving the plane’s passengers to study the skydiving slogans on the wall.

“If at first you don’t succeed . . . “