Everybody Beat Off Constantly

Off Constantly was the name of one of the teams entered in the 10 Way Speed competition that ran on Saturday at Skydive Perris. I didn't get the joke until I realized at the end of the day that everybody was snickering about "Beating Off Constantly."

10 Way speed is like roller derby in the sky. The cameraman climbs out, and after a few seconds the 10 team members who had been waiting behind a line on the floor inside the plane pile out as quickly as they can to build their formation. The first formation must be held for 5 seconds, and your time is recorded as the moment you first had the formation built. Then you can break to the next formation on the dive, with every subsequent formation built subtracting 3 seconds off your score. In theory you could have a zero score if you build the first formation quickly enough and then turn enough points after that to reduce your score. The rules in this competition called for "old school" exits which meant everybody went out in a line, leaving bodies strung out across hundreds of yard of sky.

Beth had been invited to help fill out a long established and highly experienced eight way team to the required number, and I tagged along in hopes off getting onto a pick up team. Celine had done some scouting the day before and it looked like there would be plenty of people to join up with.

As soon as we arrived at the DZ, Dan BC ran over to shake my hand and tell me repeatedly how happy he was to see me jumping again, which he continued to do all day long every time he saw me. He had been through the same injury I had suffered back in the summer and had provided a lot of encouragement during my convalescence. Celine and I quickly found ourselves on a team captained by Darylld Light, with team mates whose experience levels ranged from one guy having only 130 jumps over 30 years to people who had competed at the international level.

All in all, this just would have been your average fun competition with the usual amount of stupidity and mayhem, not normally something I may have even mentioned in passing in this blog, except for one incident that will be spoken of around bonfires and beer kegs for years to come.

My team was sharing a plane with Beth's team, and the day for her teams cameraman, which had taken a bad turn on jump number 2 when he had a malfunction and cutaway, got a lot worse.

The ceiling had been coming coming down and we had been warned we might not get full altitude, so it wasn't a big surprise when the door got hauled up at 11,000 feet, the cameraman climbed out, and a moment later, Beth's team went charging out the door. Our cameraman stuck his head out, looked around, shook his head, and reached up to start closing the door just as the red light signalling us to not jump went on at the back of the plane. The guy in front of me flipped his visor up, turned towards back towards the pilot and shouted "Were we supposed to leave too?" I turned to see the pilot looking back from the cockpit, goggle eyed and slack jawed, completely aghast.

"No!" He practically screamed. "And neither were they! We're miles from the airport!" They had exited over downtown Perris. He went on, shouting about idiot skydivers claiming they can spot better than a pilot with 5 years experience using a GPS accurate to within 25 feet and how nobody's supposed to open the door until he starts turning on lights, but we weren't listening. We were all laughing too hard.

Turned out the cameraman saw somebody's hand reach towards the door, and assuming it was time to leave, hauled it up, climbed out, and the rest of them just followed him, not noticing that there was no green light.

Beth and her team captain landed in a trailer park to applause and shouts of "Do it again!" They got a ride back with a very nice Mexican lady named Alejandra. They were the lucky ones. Some people landed in parking lots and sports fields, one guy landed at his hotel, and while most managed to get rides back one girl had to walk all the way and was missing for an hour. Only one person barely made it onto the furthest reach of the airport property.

On top of paying for a reserve repack for his cutaway and rental of replacement gear the cameraman was on the hook for all the beer everybody on that team could hold from now until eternity. He was a good sport about it, absorbing all the insults and cracks with a smile as he bought round after round in the bar at the end of the day.

That night the cameraman for our team posted one of the photo's he'd taken of downtown Perris before he closed the door on Facebook. Instead of tagging their faces, the entire team tagged the places they landed.

Beth's team won, my team dropped to 3rd in the final round, and we all beat Off Constantly.