RECREATION / IRENE GARCIA : Taking the Plunge : Adrenaline Runs Sky-High When You’re Airborne at 3,500 Feet and It’s Your First Time Out the Chute

Heather Hathaway reluctantly looked down 3,500 feet from her seat on the edge of a Cessna 206. Her eyes wide with terror, she swallowed hard and held on for dear life to the edge of the plane’s cargo door.

It was her turn to jump.

Hathaway looked horrified as her feet dangled in the wind.

“Go! . . . Go! . . . Now! . . . Go!” said Bill Reed, the sky-diving instructor on board. With each command, Hathaway held tighter to the rim of the doorway, her knuckles white from squeezing so hard.

Reed did what he often does to first-time sky-divers: he pushed her gently. He, however, prefers to call it “an assist.”

“I wasn’t going to jump so I’m glad he did that,” Hathaway, from West Los Angeles, said shortly after landing safely on the floor of the Mojave Desert. “I was terrified. But now I’m glad I did it. It was great. What a great feeling!”

Hathaway never imagined jumping from a speeding plane. In fact, shortly before she took the plunge she said: “I have absolutely no desire to do this.”

She did it to support her friend and West Los Angeles neighbor, Tiffany Shuttle, who wanted to be adventurous on her 25th birthday. Shuttle celebrated by purchasing sky-diving lessons and dragging her pal along.

Both women had a wonderful time.

“After that initial second I wasn’t scared,” Shuttle said. “At that time I was thinking, ‘I’m insane! Is this parachute really going to open?’ Once it opens, it’s really fun.”

Reed, 55, owns and runs the Sport Parachuting School in Van Nuys. He has supervised 42,000 jumpers in his 27-year career as an instructor without a fatality or major injury.

Those statistics support Reed’s favorite line--”There’s nothing to be afraid of, believe me.” But neither safety records nor a reassuring voice is comforting to someone sitting on the edge of a moving plane and looking at desert shrubbery that resembles a bunch of fleas.

“It’s a risk sport, no doubt,” said Reed, who began sky-diving as a Marine in 1960. “It also builds a great sense of confidence.”

Reed teaches three kinds of sky-diving--free fall, static line and tandem.

Training includes a three-hour course at his Van Nuys shop and a two-hour, hands-on session at the diving site in California City, located in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles north of Van Nuys.

The California City Sky Diving Club is among five parachuting centers in Southern California. Reed is the only instructor to offer training courses in the Valley.

He conducts classes in Van Nuys on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Jumpers pay a $50 deposit, which is refundable if they back out. The static line package is $149. Tandem and free falls range from $199 to $299. After the first jump, the price drops considerably.

“I’d say at least 90% of the people who go through the class actually make the jump,” Reed said.

Each class begins with a brief history of sky-diving and thoroughly covers jumping, flying and landing. After showing a series of videos, Reed talks about what to expect from the different kinds of jumps.

Reed, a Lancaster resident, recommends first-timers try static line, a 3,500-foot dive in which the parachute is pulled open by a line hooked to the plane.

Once the rectangular 288-square-foot nylon parachute opens, it’s about a seven-minute ride down. Divers land on a large, round sand target. A certificate is awarded to all who complete the jump.

“It was so cool,” Victor Carreon of Sun Valley said last week after his first static line jump. “I’m definitely going to do it again. I loved it!”

Free-fall divers drop for 50 seconds before pulling the rip cord that opens their parachute. Tandem jumping requires only a 30-minute training session because divers have no parachute but instead are harnessed to an expert.

“I’ll try anything once,” Todd Skinner of Canyon Country said last week after one of Reed’s classes. “I’m a thrill-seeker.”

Skinner’s wife, Tammy, bought him sky-diving lessons for his birthday. She took the plunge with him.

“I wasn’t absolutely sure before the class, but now I know for sure that I’m doing it,” Tammy said. “We’ve been talking about doing it for years.”

Reed said half of his students are women. He recently trained an 81-year-old whom he says had a blast.

Most first-time jumpers, Reed said, are apprehensive when the time comes to take the leap. But they find the rest of the ride exhilarating and somewhat soothing.

“That’s why many of them come back,” Reed said.

Even Hathaway said she would consider jumping again. That is, if her friend does it too.